Yanis Varoufakis's Blog, page 132

DiEM25-UK: Organisational launch meeting at Conway Hall, London

 

by Andrew J. Brown

On Saturday morning, January 28, 2017, at Conway Hall in Central London, long an important place for radical religious, philosophical, social and political thinking in the UK, DiEM25 held its UK organisational launch.

Like all DiEM25 gatherings, more than half of the meeting was made up of conversations involving those attending. To set the scene and introduce some important initial ideas, the morning began with brief contributions from Brian Eno, Elif Şafak, Agnieszka Wiśniewska, Igor Stokfiszewski and, finally, Yanis Varoufakis.

The first speaker, the British musician and composer Brian Eno, began by noting that the venue, Conway Hall in London, was a place he knew personally because in the late 1960s he used to come here to hear avant-garde music concerts. This memory, in turn, reminded him of another time, like the present one, when everything was changing and when a great deal of radical rethinking was going on. He noted, however, that in the 1970s much of this kind of thinking was reversed by an Ayn Rand-inspired selfishness that developed into simplistic ideas of how societies should run themselves and which even begun to question, as Thatcher famously did, whether there was, in fact, any such thing as society. Eno pointed out that although the 70s were followed by a few decades of prosperity and a huge amount of wealth creation, this wealth was eventually concentrated in only the hands of a few and we simultaneously saw the stagnation of the wages of everybody else. For Eno this dangerous gulf finally became clear to everyone last year and marked the end of a forty year period of decline. Suddenly the idea of doing politics, which people of his generation often thought was “akin to masturbating in public and to be avoided at all costs”, was something once again worth engaging in.

Eno, a key figure in the development of electronic music, was also keen to note an important phenomenon concerning the interrelation of technology and democracy. He told the meeting that many of his high-tech friends in places like Silicone Valley had carefully avoided politics for a very long time because they expected that technology would “be the de facto solution to our problems”; for them politics unnecessarily “complicated the plot.” But recent events had helped us all understand that merely going along with “the drift of things” is not enough because “the technologies won’t make the choices for us, they need our guidance and our input as well.” The need to make conscious political choices was memorably summed up by Eno when he said that after the election of a serial liar in the form of Trump and, in England, of [Boris] Johnson, people had finally begun “to realise that that the laissez-faire doesn’t work — while we’re laissez-ing they’re still faire-ing — so suddenly we’re starting to think that politics might be worth doing again.” Ultimately, Eno felt that this was what DiEM25 is about: it is a movement to revive and reinvigorate this thinking that we must make choices.

The next speaker was Elif Şafak, the Turkish author, columnist and academic who brought to the meeting an important set of perspectives from the current Turkish context. She began by noting that if you come from a country where democracy is obviously and openly being seriously challenged “you simply did not have the luxury of being apolitical.” But, she reminded us, one of the important, wonderful things we could learn from feminism is a recognition that politics is not only about what goes on in parties and parliaments but also about “what goes on in our private spaces, in our bedrooms, in our kitchens, in our daily lives; politics is where ever there is power.” Şafak felt that the important thing to see here was that when approached in this broader sense it was, in fact, now impossible truly to be apolitical.

Şafak also noted that it was vital to ensure that politics ceases being merely a matter of “Left verses Right”. These old binaries led only to catastrophes and, for her, the question today is whether we are “pro tribalism and isolationism or in favour of a progressive constructive humanism?” She pointed strongly to the need to develop a real, deep sense that we are genuinely all in this together. She observed that we need more people who are acquainted with different cultures to become involved in the public space and to speak up — and we also certainly need more women’s voices and stories to be told and heard.

Şafak then raised a question about “popularism” and noted that one of its strategies is to undermine knowledge by speaking to gut feelings. This requires us to do two things. The first is to acknowledge that those on the liberal, left and progressive end of the political spectrum have not been at all good at connecting with people’s emotions . She reminded the meeting of the need to allow people to talk about their anxieties, angsts and angers, since this is “an age of anxiety.” The question is how do we create a language for those people (not in the room), who have been attracted by the kinds of “popularism” which have so successfully already picked up on these emotions? For Şafak, to address this properly it is vitally important that we develop our own emotional intelligence and find ways to make it possible for people to talk about immigrants, refugees, about losing one’s identity and culture but in a way that channels those feelings into better, more democratic and inclusive ways of being together. The second thing that the rise of popularism requires us to do is never to forget the vital importance of knowledge and facts but always to ensure that they are spoken about with emotional intelligence. A key overall point from Şafak was that writers have an important role to play because they are in positions to bring about this mix by adding good story telling to facts and knowledge.

The next two speakers were Agnieszka Wiśniewska and Igor Stokfiszewski from Krytyka Polityczna(krytykapolityczna.pl) and DiEM25’s Co-ordinating Committee.

Wiśniewska saw her work as chief editor of a political magazine as a matchmaker between grass roots movements, activists and academics so that, together, they can begin to fight for progressive change and real democracy. She told the meeting that her passion for DiEM25 was because it provides an ideal context to meet people from different backgrounds and skills but who still share the same ambitions.

Both Wiśniewska and Stokfiszewski noted that they were in the UK because they had many friends now working here and they remind us that theirs was a community that had been seriously shaken by the Brexit vote, the rise of anti-immigrant rhetoric and also the increase in violence which has, as we all know, included at least one horrific murder. Wiśniewska and Stokfiszewski were aiming, in the first instance, to work with DiEM25 in the UK to build a progressive force so that there is a chance for a fair and sustainable transition out of the EU for everyone— including the Polish community. But this UK-centred concern allowed Stokfiszewski to offer the meeting an additional wider, pan-European point. He did this by raising the rhetorical question of why the leftist project in Poland has, up until this point anyway, failed so badly? For him the answer was that in Poland they had been selfish, they had not understood that “it is not enough to work in one country alone to achieve progressive goals — it has to be wider project” and that they now knew they needed “to work pan-Europeanly and globally.”  For them, DiEM25 is the project which can help achieve this; DiEM25 is “a new choice and an opportunity to be seized.”

Wiśniewska concluded that soon Poland will be a major battleground for progress and liberty and she expressed a hope that they will be able to learn what do in order to “reverse the course of authoritarianism that Poland is currently taking.”

The first part of the meeting was then concluded by some remarks by Yanis Varoufakis.

Varoufakis reminded us that, in 2016, passion came back to politics, but in the wrong way for it was now fuelling not progressive polices but regressive ones. He rehearsed DiEM25’s “radical remain” position of being “in the EU against the EU” but reminded the meeting that we failed to convey to those sympathetic to DIEM25’s position of “constructive disobedience” that we could, in fact, change anything; our inability as a progressive movement to impress upon people that we could win government was why we lost the referendum.

Key to understanding the current situation is the need to see that the clash between the so-called “liberal establishment and the popularist xenophobic insurgency” is not what it seems. He admitted that to some extent can be seen as a clash but, in truth, it is more accurate to see the two blocs as accomplices, to realise that they need and empower each other as much as, in France, Marine Le Pen helps empower François Fillon and vice versa. This fake opposition is, Varoufakis notes, “the cause of great suffering” and the only the genuine opposition or antidote to this is a group like DiEM25 — a progressive internationalist movement.

But, as Varoufakis observed, it is vitally important to realise that we are very far away from being efficient, we need to be honest and “look ourselves in the mirror as progressives and realise that we are dismal failures. The Labour Party, the Scottish National Party, the Green Party, Independent Progressives, are all in disarray. Corbynite Labour is too scared to talk to Caroline Lucas of the Green Party in case the Blairites attack them even more harshly. Nobody talks to the SNP in case Scottish Labour gets upset and the net result is that the Tories have complete and utter dominance of the political scene. This is why DiEM is here.”

At this point, Varoufakis offered his view on what he hoped this meeting will be able to begin to bring about:

“At the moment, we have this image of being a nice collection of people who have interesting things to say about Europe. But who cares about Europe we’re now out of Europe and we have serious problems now to consider in this country!? So DiEM is irrelevant. And they are right! And they are also right to think that we’re useless and irrelevant as long as we fail to convince them that we have something pertinent to say about daily life in this country. And [this is also true] as long as we fail to project the essential respect that we must have for people’s emotions, as Elif said, for the genuine spirit of discontent amongst those who voted for Brexit. Now DiEM came out of resistance, throughout Europe, to the scapegoating of the weakest citizens for the failures of the establishment. I think that it is essential to understand that the majority of those who voted for Brexit are our people. If we don’t see that, we might as well just go home and watch television. It is essential that poor whites in Leeds, in Wales, in the suburbs of London, in the inner city, get a feeling from us that we understand their plight and that we respect their concerns, their worries, their fears, their angst, just as much as we do that of the Polish immigrants, of LGBT people, of the minorities, of the Greeks, the Turks and so on and so forth. If we fail to do that in a British context we’re irrelevant. We’re just another irrelevance that speaks good prose.

Remember what we’re trying to do today. We’re going to transform DiEM25 into a British organisation. Maybe we should have a different name for it — to signify that it is now addressing British concerns and it is putting  forward proposals for dealing with the real sources of discontent. And there are two of them:

Involuntary under-employment, which is the bitter fruit of austerity and involuntary immigration, which is the bitter price we have to pay for an economic model which concentrates all decent jobs in very small areas forcing people from the north of this country to migrate to London, from Poland and Bulgaria to migrate to Britain, to Germany or to France.

If we don’t manage to put forward, as a British organisation, a proposal for a New Deal for the United Kingdom and then, once we do that, to explain and to convince the people in the north of England in particular, that this must go hand in hand with a New Deal for Europe, we will have failed. Thank you.”

Srećko Horvat then opened the meeting to the floor and the following questions and points were raised. In what follows, the individual points of the discussion are summarized in short paragraphs.

Responses from the panel:

Elif Şafak noted that Turkey experienced how politics could all too easily divide family and friends and the biggest mistake would be to go back to identity politics. Dualities are unhelpful and we repeat them at our peril because the only the popularists will benefit from such a politics. She added that we shouldn’t leave patriotism to the nationalists or faith to the religious. In the end this is all about solidarity; it’s about the knowledge that history can go backwards and that it’s OK to love one’s country but only insofar as we always remember we are more than that. She also emphasised that popularists have a big problem with pluralism. Therefore, it is important to emphasise multiplicity and to refrain from binary oppositions and polarisations etc., to remember we live in a liquid world and need to reach out to people outside our own echo chambers.

Şafak responded to the earlier question about the role of literature from the floor and noted that this is a question which has been asked throughout history. Her feeling was that we must continue to write our poetry etc. and that it’s not just a luxury to continue to write. Popularists aim to dehumanise the other but, she reminded us, story tellers can re-humanise the other and combat this. As such, engaging in literature is a vitally important thing to be doing.

Brian Eno pointed out that societies cohere either around hope — the idea that we can build a better future together — or around fear — the idea that the future is dangerous so we must stick together to fight it off. He felt that over the past twenty years fear had dominated. He observed that governments like fearful populations because they’re easier to control. On the other hand, populations that aren’t fearful but hopeful are creative and chaotic; it’s not easy to keep creative populations in line. He remarked that what we need is a creative population and that all of us were in one way or another present for that reason.

Eno also thought it was important to address precarity in general and for us to move beyond the idea that human beings are merely units to be plugged into any job that happens to be going. He thought we were being turned into third-world sweat shop workers (or at least he felt that this was what working people feel) — people no longer respected as humans. His hope was that in DiEM25 we could begin to build a future that is hopeful and that revolves around the idea that we could make something, not just as good as the old days, but something better than has existed before.

Yanis Varoufakis concluded by picking up on this point of Eno’s that for hope to flourish it needs a vision of a creative population that is not kept in line by fear. Indeed, he thought that this should also be our vision. However, he was insistent that none of this is going to happen if we have these meetings, feel fantastic and then do nothing afterwards. Therefore, he said, it is important that this meeting produces teams of people that make it their business, not only to spread the word, but to create a narrative that speaks to people’s needs out there and which doesn’t just speak to great universal principles. For Varoufakis the three basic needs to which we must speak are as follows:

1) The need for job creation — without investment he noted there is no job creation. Investment in physical, wealth producing stuff (machines and people) is the lowest in Britain today since 1945.

2) The need for basic social housing to reverse the Thatcherite malaise of council house sales. There has to be a programme to restore to people the ability to live in a decent home in their own communities without the need to leave to live and work elsewhere. he observed that if we don’t do this all our emotional intelligence and poetry will be wasted.

3) The need for a Universal Basic Dividend. Varoufakis pointed out that one of the greatest fallacies of capitalism and of free market ideology is that wealth is created individually and then appropriated through the tax system by the state. The reality is, he noted, exactly the opposite — wealth is created collectively and then privatised. Since capital is produced socially it should be enjoyed socially. In the light of this Varoufakis told the meeting that DiEM25 has been developing a policy, not of a Universal Basic Income, but of a Universal Basic Dividend. This would not be funded by taxation but through a Trust Fund into which a percentage of the shares of every corporation is to go, where the dividends amass, and which are then distributed to all as a Universal Basic Dividend. In Varoufakis’ opinion this is the only way to share the returns of automation across society.

Varoufakis was concerned to point out that these ideas were just some of that need to be taken out into the real world where real people discuss their real needs. What’s needed, in his mind, is a New Deal. He asked the meeting to remember that Roosevelt’s New Deal was designed to address fear and the fear of fear. Consequently, he felt we must come out of this meeting with a determination to get together to put forward very realistic, moderate proposals for what can be done tomorrow to fund a Universal Basic Dividend, social housing and a jobs programme.

Varoufakis offered this as a small example of what could be done now. He reminded us that the Bank of England has been printing money now for many years in order to refloat the financial sector, buying, in other words the debt of the financiers. Now, if instead of that, he asked us to imagine what would happen if we had a Public Investment Bank, like the Post Office used to have (the Post Office Savings Bank) issuing bonds? The Bank of England could buy them and then that money could go directly into research and development into, for example, green energy. This he said was one simple practical proposal that could be part of a New Deal for Britain which could address the syndrome of TINA (There Is No Alternative). He pointed out that we don’t need a socialist revolution before we can offer an alternative, in fact, the Bank of England could do it almost immediately in conjunction with a Public Investment Bank that could be created within six months. So, he asked, “Why are we not doing it?” In his mind the rage of people must be directed at the question of “why are we not doing that which we could do today within the capitalism we have? Not to create socialism but in order to stabilise the society we have and address basic human needs.”

Varoufakis felt that if the discussion is about what can be done in Britain today — forget Brexit, forget what we want the European Union to be — in order to address these basic needs then he trusts that it will be very, very simple to bring Europe back into the conversation. Because, when you start thinking about the three basic needs in Britain suddenly it becomes automatic to link this to the importance of a similar deal for France, for Germany and for Europe. It becomes clear — as the Greens realise in connection with climate change — that you cannot properly deal with important matters on your own; there has to be an alliance between all these countries implementing similar policies.

Varoukais said that the proposal he is putting on the table of this meeting is for a New Deal for the UK based on four or five areas where we can develop simple, moderate common-sense policies that will appeal to all people, without any mention of Brexit, the EU, Europe or even DiEM25. He felt that once we start such a conversation then we will create the political infrastructure for people from Labour, for people who are progressive Conservatives, for people from the Greens, for independents who are disillusioned, for those who are not currently politically involved. His hope is that when we are no longer just in Conway Hall but everywhere, then the discussion about Europe will return in a civilised way which allows people to avoid the false binary opposition that exists between official remain and Brexit.

Varoufakis began to conclude with a point about popularism. He did not believe it was possible to be both a democrat and a popularist; democratic popularism is for him a contradiction in terms. In his definition “popularism is the tactic of promising all things to all people without meaning any of them in order to usurp popular consent and then turn it against the people.” Varoukakis emphasised that this was why he was a democrat and insisted that we in DiEM25 should be in the business of putting the demos back into democracy. He acknowledged that to do this we needed to become popular but not at the expense of embracing popularism. He added that the UK manifesto must, therefore, include very simple ideas about how to put the demos back into British democracy.

Lastly, he reminded the meeting that Burkean Tories talk about restoring sovereignty to the British Parliamentary system and he thought “we needed to adopt that, to steal it from them because it’s a fantastic idea. But they will not do it, only we can do it because they don’t want to do it. They are really popularists, using the language of democracy in order to deny it to anyone except themselves. They want democracy for the rich, for those who are in surplus, and deny democracy to those they considered discarded, morally defective and therefore poor. It is essential that we restore that and we introduce constitutional proposals in the UK Manifesto of DiEM.”

The meeting then broke up into four small working groups with the following themes:

The drafting of the UK Manifesto and to consider a name for DiEM25 in the UK.


Media/Communications


Barebones organisation including fundraising


DiEM25 Voice — the artistic core.

Reports of progress from these groups will be forthcoming in the coming weeks.

Yanis Varoufakis began to draw the meeting to a close by announcing that there were to be two more groups which people could join and sign-up to at the close of the meeting. The first was one to discuss a UK economic policy that would parallel the Green New Deal for Europe which will be formally launched in Rome on 25th March (the sixtieth anniversary of the EU).

The second group was one which would focus on the alliance building that DiEM25 in the UK needs to develop.

Varoufakis finished by making it clear to the meeting that

“DiEM25 wants to be as inclusive and anti-sectarian as possible. The intention is not to create a party that goes against Labour, the Greens, the SNP. Rather the objective is to become the movement that energises them at long last to get their act together. So we need alliances, with Labour with the SNP, with progressive Conservatives, with anyone with sense and sensibility who is willing to participate in the attempt to create a progressive international insurgency against the insurgency of the neoliberals and against the insurgency of UKIP.”

The meeting concluded with a few further points from the floor.

The movement’s Volunteers Coordinator, Judith Meyer, reminded people that they could be in touch with DiEM25 by emailing info@uk.diem25.org

A question was asked about the Labour Party’s decision to force MPs to vote for the triggering of article 50. Varoufakis replied by outlining the current DiEM25 position that was recently decided by referendum within DiEM25’s membership. This can be found on the DiEM25 website.

The final comment came from a woman who came to the meeting with her daughter because both her children had felt so hopeless about their future after the Brexit vote. She wanted to thank the meeting for giving her, and her daughter, things to do and hope for the future.

There can have been no one present who didn’t agree with Yanis Varoufakis when he said he could think of no better way to end this meeting.

Do you want to be informed of DiEM25’s actions? Sign up here.

Ireland may end up as collateral damage in Brexit talks – in The Journal

Click here or…

FORMER GREEK MINISTER for Finance Yanis Varoufakis has said that fears that Ireland may end up as “collateral damage” in negotiations between London and Brussels are “well-founded”.

Speaking to RTÉ’s This Week, the economist said if Britain chooses to leave the capital union, Ireland would not be negotiating with London over the status of the border: ”there will be negotiations between London and Brussels on this”.

This comes as Gerry Adams said that Brexit could destroy the Good Friday Agreement, and that Brexit was a ”hostile act against this island”, because it could mean taking the North out of the European Union.

Other concerns

The main challenges that Brexit poses for Ireland include higher taxes on imported and exported products, and the future for the border between the Republic of Ireland and the North.

When Britain leave the European Union, higher taxes on goods exported from Ireland are likely; but how much higher they are will signify just how tough Brexit will be for small Irish businesses here.

Because the UK voted to leave the EU on a mandate of limiting the free movement of people, the worry is that a physical border of some sorts will return, seriously impacting relations in the North – especially at a time of political uncertainty.

“I think that it’s imperative for the Irish government to ensure that it’s not sidelined,” Varoufakis said today.

You have to use your special geographical place and the historical links between the Republic and the United Kingdom to knock some sense into both London and Brussels.

Varoufakis was made Greek Finance minister after his far-left party Syriza rose to power in the 2014 general elections.

He and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras promised to get a better – or less austere – deal from the European Union, but failed in negotiations to achieve that.

Varoufakis then resigned, he says because Tsipras was told he would get a better deal for the Greek people if Varoufakis stepped aside. Since his resignation in 2015, Varoufakis has been a vocal critic of the EU – often expressing his disillusionment with the way the European Union functions.

“My great fear having experienced negotiations [like these] is that negotiations are not rational – indeed they are often fake negotiations. Often there is a power-play that leaves behind the common interest for both sides,” he said today.

The PM’s Speech

Earlier this week Theresa May outlined her ‘wish-list’ for Brexit negotiations. Included on that list was her desire to acknowledge the unique relationship they have in the North.

She also said that if they didn’t get a good deal, that they would get competitive on trade by lowering corporate tax rates.

Various opposition politicians, including Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin, expressed concern about Theresa May’s speech, saying that it doesn’t include much detail about how negotiations will proceed.

Trump, Turkey & Labour’s Brexit policy – Press review, BBC1, 29 January 2017

Press review on the Andrew Marr show, BBC1 tv 29th January 2017

Brian Eno’s message for this Saturday’s Conway Hall DiEM25 UK launch meeting. Join us!

This Saturday (28/1, 10am), Conway Hall, London, Brian Eno, myself and others will launch DiEM25 UK.
Join us in a three hour event to discuss taking our countries back on the basis of a progressive agenda. Here is a teaser of what Brian wants to talk about.
2016-2017
by Brian Eno

The consensus among most of my friends seems to be that 2016 was a terrible year, and the beginning of a long decline into something we don’t even want to imagine.

2016 was indeed a pretty rough year, but I wonder if it’s the end – not the beginning – of a long decline. Or at least the beginning of the end….for I think we’ve been in decline for about 40 years, enduring a slow process of de-civilisation, but not really quite

noticing it until now. I’m reminded of that thing about the frog placed in a pan of slowly heating water…

This decline includes the transition from secure employment to precarious employment, the destruction of unions and the shrinkage of workers’ rights, zero hour contracts, the dismantling of local government, a health service falling apart, an underfunded education system ruled by meaningless exam results and league tables, the increasingly acceptable stigmatisation of immigrants, knee-jerk nationalism, and the concentration of prejudice enabled by social media and the internet.

This process of de-civilisation grew out of an ideology which sneered at  social generosity and championed a sort of righteous selfishness. (Thatcher: “Poverty is a personality defect”. Ayn Rand: “Altruism is evil”). The emphasis on unrestrained individualism has had two effects: the creation of a huge amount of wealth, and the funnelling

of it into fewer and fewer hands. Right now the 62 richest people in the world are as wealthy as the bottom half of its population combined. The Thatcher/Reagan fantasy that all this wealth would ‘trickle down’ and enrich everybody else simply hasn’t transpired. In

fact the reverse has happened: the real wages of most people have been in decline for at least two decades, while at the same time their prospects – and the prospects for their children – look dimmer and dimmer. No wonder people are angry, and turning away from

business-as-usual government for solutions. When governments pay most attention to whoever has most money, the huge wealth inequalities we now see make a mockery of the idea of democracy. As George Monbiot said: “The pen may be mightier than the sword, but the purse is mightier than the pen”.

Last year people started waking up to this. A lot of them, in their anger, grabbed the nearest Trump-like object and hit the Establishment over the head with it. But those were just the most conspicuous, media-tasty awakenings. Meanwhile there’s been a quieter but equally powerful stirring: people are rethinking what democracy means, what society means and what we need to do to make them work again. People are thinking hard, and, most importantly, thinking out loud, together. I think we underwent a mass disillusionment in 2016, and finally realised it’s time to jump out of the saucepan.

This is the start of something big. It will involve engagement: not just tweets and likes and swipes, but thoughtful and creative social and political action too. It will involve realising that some things we’ve taken for granted – some semblance of truth in reporting, for

example – can no longer be expected for free. If we want good reporting and good analysis, we’ll have to pay for it. That means MONEY: direct financial support for the publications and websites struggling to tell the non-corporate, non-establishment side of the story. In the same way if we want happy and creative children we need to take charge of education, not leave it to ideologues and bottom-liners. If we want social generosity, then we must pay our taxes and get rid of our tax havens. And if we want thoughtful politicians, we should stop supporting merely charismatic ones.

Inequality eats away at the heart of a society, breeding disdain, resentment, envy, suspicion, bullying, arrogance and callousness. If we want any decent kind of future we have to push away from that, and I think we’re starting to.

There’s so much to do, so many possibilities. 2017 should be a surprising year.

Trump, Brexit & the European New Deal – with Phillip Adams on ABC Radio National Live

      

 

https://varoufakis.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/lnl_20170125_2205-european-new-deal.mp3

The Establishment is in denial – interviewed by der Freitag (English text)

For der Freitag’s site click here. To read my original English answers…

Mr Varoufakis, the current unemployment rate in the Eurozone is at 9,8%, the lowest since July 2009. One could get the impression things are getting better…

It is, I grant you, still perfectly possible for those who wish to remain in denial to read the data in a manner that allows them to remain in denial – to their own detriment and to the detriment of Europe. But for those who want the unembellished truth, the Eurozone’s state can only be characterised in two words: stagnation and disintegration.

Let us begin by looking at the Eurozone as a single economy. There are 6 million fewer people in full employment today than when the euro crisis began and around 3.5 million more people claiming unemployment benefit. Total income (GDP) is today at the level it was in 2007, to be shared amongst more citizens (thus pushing GDP per capita well below the 2007 level). Investment in the real economy is running 11.7% lower than it was at the beginning of the crisis.

Far worse is the picture that emerges when you look at the Eurozone’s constituent parts: A savage depression in countries like Greece and Portugal, an unsustainable Italy, a Spain that is boosted only by new private debt, a French national budget out of control, banking systems that are effectively insolvent, and capital flows that continue to create a desert in the periphery as they rush into the banks of surplus countries like Germany and the Netherlands.

Mario Draghi has lately extended the ECB’s quantitative easing and announced to slow it down a tiny bit. How do you read that?

Mr Draghi is in dire straits. His recent decision demonstrates that he is caught between a rock and a hard place. The reason is that his quantitative easing program has reached its limits, and is facing considerable opposition from Germany, well before it has achieved its aims. So, on the one hand, he began ‘tapering’ his quantitative easing program while, on the other hand, he is stretching it into the future. This is an act of desperation due to the competing demands upon him: Germany demands that its pension funds be protected through ending quantitative easing. And the rest of the Eurozone demands that quantitative easing is continued in order to keep Italy, Spain etc. in the Eurozone.

In more detail, three are Mr Draghi’s great problems: First, to buy more Italian, Spanish and Portuguese bonds (in order to fight deflation there and keep these countries in the euro) he is forced (by political and legal constraints) to buy a lot more German bunds, thus crushing German pension funds and Germany’s smaller banks. Secondly, he is not allowed to channel the money the ECB prints every month into sufficient quantities of bonds that feed directly into productive investments (e.g. that European Investment Bank bond issues to fund large scale green energy or infrastructural projects). Thirdly, he is facing rising interest rates from the United States, due to the Trump-effect, at a time when investment in Europe is at its lowest level when compared to the level of savings.

When it comes to the European governments actually being responsible for doing the job the ECB is somehow doing: Mr Schaeuble and some media in Germany consider the country’s temporary policy as shaped by growing public investment.

Europe’s political class has created a trap, the austerity trap, and fallen in it, subsequently blaming it on the ECB. The level of public investment, especially in Germany, is the lowest since 1950. For years now German infrastructure was abandoned by a government that could borrow at zero cost. The fact that a few more billions are now being spent is too little too late. This is a scandal that the German people have a duty to hold their government accountable for. Dr Schäuble should be censured for dereliction of his duty to Germany’s future.

How much of your time you spend in Greece these days?

Greece has been home to us ever since we moved from the United States to contest the January 2015 General Election. Danae and I do not plan to leave again. However, as our Democracy in Europe Movement, DiEM25, places great demands on all those who have committed to make it grow, I do spend a lot of time in airplanes.

What can you say about the current situation in Greece which is out of the European spotlight nowadays – compared to your time as Minister of Finance?

Tragically, Greece is today worse off than it was in early 2015. It could not be otherwise given what the 3rd ‘bailout’ agreement imposed: higher sales and corporate tax rates, new cuts in the lowest pensions, 50% non-performing loans in the banking sector (that are now sold to vulture funds) and next to no investment, as investors are deterred by the imposed primary surplus targets which mean one thing: even higher taxes and lower demand in the following years.

I am often asked why, given that things are now worse, Greece is not in the news today as it was in 2015. The answer is clear: In 2015 we staged a rebellion in the debtors’ prison called Greece. Prison rebellions, as you know, are newsworthy. But once the rebellion was crushed by the Eurogroup-troika coup d’ etat in June-July 2015, and the Greek people returned to quiet suffering, we lost our newsworthiness.

You’ve, e.g. in the interview with the New Statesman, described the setting at Eurozone meetings in detail. How have you perceived other members of the group describing the six-months-showdown when it was over?

They had participated in a violation of basic rules of economics and basic principles of European democracy, to their own detriment also as subsequent events show (e.g. Brexit, the Italian referendum). After that they indulged fully in ex-post rationalisation, which involved my demonisation. It was not without cause that, in my resignation letter, I stated that I shall wear the creditors’ loathing with pride.

There is a quantitative study, done by researchers of the University of Wuerzburg, about German media coverage of the “Greek crisis”: For example, they looked at TV news clips with political valuations in the two main German news programs (Tagesschau/ARD and heute/ZDF – page 67). According to that, at least at Tagesschau you had less negative valuations then Mr Schaeuble (3,9% – 4,8% of all clips in 2015). Does that fit your memory of the experience with German media?

The question is whether it fits your memory of how the German media behaved toward their own audience during my ministry. Being harshly critical of what I was saying would be not only fine but also the German media’s duty. But distorting massively what I said, or not reporting my proposals while claiming I had none, was a sign of a degenerate media wounding German democracy.

How do you remember the “treatment” you experienced by Guenther Jauchas the moderator of the talk show you were party of as a guest?

At the time I agreed to participate in that program I was literally run off my feet and had initially turned the invitation down. But then Mr Jauch’s producer reached me on the telephone with a plea: Minister, because much animosity is being cultivated between the German and the Greek people, I beg you to come to the program. For we know that you are a friend of Germany and that you have been warning for years that the Greek bailout would turn the Greeks against the Germans and vice versa. Will you please come to the program? We want it to work as a friendship bridge between the two peoples.

It was on that basis that I accepted. Anyone who watches the recording of that program can see that I had been set up: The promise of a bridge building exercise was just a cynical ploy to cultivate more hatred between the Greeks and the Germans, while boosting ratings. It was utterly disgraceful.

Coming back to “within” the Eurogroup: You described the attitude towards you there as one of silence and ignorance. So, did wrong figures, false theses etc. not even play a role?

They could not have played a role because all my figures were entirely accurate, the macroeconomic analysis was correct and, most importantly, the other Eurogroup members never even read or considered any of my proposals, facts, figures or analyses. I challenge them, or anyone else, to present one figure or piece of analysis which I presented that the Eurogroup considered factually or analytically wrong. And this is what you and your readers should be very concerned about: Whether you agreed with my analysis, politics or policy proposals or not, you should be angered that, first, the proposals of the finance minister of a desperately bankrupt nation were never read and, secondly, that you were told naked lies (e.g. that I had presented false figures or poor analysis). Even more worrying should be the cause of their lack of interest: they were only interested in dismissing our proposals so as to demonstrate to the people of Spain, Portugal, Italy, France etc. that if they dare elect people that Berlin and Brussels do not want to see elected, they will get crushed. When Europe resorts to this type of postmodern gunboat diplomacy, it loses its integrity and begins to collapse.

Mr Schaeuble described you as a professor trying to teach the other ministers as if they were your students. Was it naive to think you could have macroeconomic debates in such a body?

I confess. Yes, I used the language of macroeconomics to address macroeconomic questions on whose correct answer my people’s lives hinged. It happened when Wolfgang asked me: “If you think that 4.5% primary surplus is too much, what number do you counter-propose?” Tow which I answered: “To come up with a credible primary surplus target, we need to, first, agree on the investment policy in export oriented firms since the primary budget balance by definition equals the sum of the country’s excess savings (savings minus investment) and excess exports (exports minus savings). So, I think I can deliver a higher surplus as long as we have a sound policy for investment in our exporters.”

At this point, allow me to ask you a question: Are you not worried that your economic circumstances are determined in a Eurogroup in which macroeconomic decisions are made by ministers who are considered rude if they use sound macroeconomic analysis? Might this not be the explanation of the Eurozone’s never ending crisis?

How do you see your own role within the development towards the media treatment of your person as a marketable character more than a content-related and political coverage? (Our edition with you on the cover for example was the best-sold of that year, whereby we also focused on the content and the politics very much…)

I dislike it and never had anything to do with it. Every time I became the centre of the ‘story’ I knew the result was that the issues that mattered to Europeans were shoved under the carpet.

When it comes to the Brexit vote or Trump, many blame the power of social networks and fake news for the outcomes. True? Overrated?

First the establishment practised denial. Then when its inept handling of the crisis bred monsters (e.g. Brexit, Trump, the AfD) it blamed technology. Anything to avoid taking a good look at the mirror. Of course this is not to deny that the social media amplify the toxicity of today’s nationalist revival. But to think of them as the cause would be laughable if it were not so dangerous.

Why seem nationalist, racist, sexist outsiders to gain so much more ground these days compared to critics of the status quo coming from the left?

Go back to 1930. Now you have your answer!

Whenever a financial crisis leads to the fragmentation of capitalism’s monetary circuits and then the establishment forces the economic costs on the weakest of citizens, two things happen: xenophobia and the rise of authoritarianism. This translates into quasi-fascism, patriarchy and, ultimately, the celebration of misanthropy.

In Germany, a gap of ideas, the missing of a promising narrative were considered as constitutive for the “loss” of the fight over the interpretation of Euro crisis, debt, fiscal policy. True? How to fill it?

There was never a gap of ideas. What there was, just as in the 1930s, was a social democratic party too keen to ingratiate itself with the establishment and a deep division between good, decent people – between liberals, Marxists, feminists, greens etc. Whereas the bigots unite behind toxically simplistic stories, progressives tend to fight against one another and thus fall prey to the Nationalist International.

Can a movement like DiEM25 really fill it? How are you trying to fill it?

If it cannot Europe is finished. For what we are trying to do is both modest and essential: to reach out across national borders, political party division lines and even ideological boundaries to put together a coalition of democrats (of the left, the centre, liberals, greens, independent thinkers, progressive conservatives even) who agree on basic humanist principles and forge a common internationalist, progressive agenda for Europe. Our first major challenge is the compilation of our European Green New Deal Policy Paper, which DiEM25 will be presenting in Paris on 23rd, 24th and 25th February 2017. This is meant as a first step toward a comprehensive progressive agenda for Europe that acts as the magnet for Europeans fed up with the incompetent establishment but also determined to end the rise of the Nationalist International that is today undermining European civilisation and unity everywhere.

So far, I perceive DiEM25 as having some affinity and reception with places like Berlin – urban, progressive, international. But so far totally out of reach of the majority of places and people, on the country-side, in the periphery etc. Do I only have that impression because there’s going on so much, sorry, shit out there in the world now, so that I lack the time so far to focus on what I’d been planning for long as a journalist: taking a cole look at the movement you people are trying to create?

All progressive movements begin in cities. Politics was born in the… polis – the city. But, you are right, it is also true that unless DiEM25 can get its message out of the polis and into the countryside we shall not succeed. It is early days yet. We have much to do.

Sorry to ask with reference to your book Time for Change, but tell me: what does your daughter say today about Europe, politics, economics and the defeat-for-the-moment in July 2015?

My daughter is determined to deny me the pleasure of thinking that my writings are important enough for her to care! It is the price I must pay for having a daughter with a personality mightier than mine…

Why Benoit Hamon’s primaries victory is good news for European progressives

A few years ago, in a televised chat with other French progressives, Benoît Hamon succinctly exposed the essence of our troubles in Europe: “[EU] governments may change,” he said, “but not the policies”.

Since then, the Socialist former Education minister has been developing policy proposals to help steer both the EU’s second-largest economy and the European project away from its current destructive socioeconomic spiral.

From his calls for universal income and proposals for humanitarian visas for refugees to his ideas on how to make France’s parliament more representative, Benoît’s candidacy embodies the progressive, democratic values we hold at DiEM25. Like an increasing number of European progressives, Benoît embraced DiEM25’s concept of “Constructive Disobedience” as the vehicle to trigger positive change in Paris and Brussels. We should all be excited about Benoît’s victory in the French Socialist Party’s primaries. Moreover, his determination to enter into talks with other progressive candidates for the French Presidency augurs well in a Europe where progressives are divided.

A few weeks ago, I had an open and frank dialogue with Benoît in Paris. As DiEM25 we’d like to continue exploring some of his progressive proposals in more detail (for example, I think that Benoît’s universal income plan could benefit from DiEM25’s own universal right to capital income proposal). But I was delighted with our conversation and Benoît’s willingness to join forces and becoming a leading part of our effort to build the Progressive International that will save the EU from itself.

The media often refers to Benoît’s admiration for Muhammad Ali – he has a poster of the legendary boxer and activist in his office. And I find this quite fitting in terms of the current political landscape and the commentary around Benoît’s chance to become France’s next president.

Bon courage, Benoît! As Ali said: “Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.”

The West needs a New Deal – BBC2 Newsnight

 

This video, prepared by and for BBC Newsnight, foreshadows DiEM25’s European New Deal – which will be made available in full during February. The script follows:

Having dismissed their poverty as a personality defect and their zero hour contracts as efficiency improvements, the Deep Establishment now looks on in despair as a Nationalist International triumphs. Two are its handmaidens:

Involuntary under-employment – the bitter price of austerity
And involuntary migration – the bitter fruit of concentrating decent jobs in small areas. People do not move to London for the theatre scene or to Britain for the climate; they move because they must!

Neither globalisation nor electrified border fences will fix this. It’s delusional to think that Britain or America can prosper sustainably when neighbouring nations are in crisis.

The cure is decent jobs, the right to a living wage, health care, education and social housing in people’s own communities.

This is why we need a New Deal on both sides of the Atlantic – a New Bretton Woods that conceives of investment into people’s communities like the Green movement conceives of climate change: a joint responsibility of a species whose fortunes are intertwined. Additionally, we need to establish a right to universal basic income.

Fear of machines that can liberate us from drudgery is a symptom of a timid and divided society.

The Luddites are among the most misunderstood historical actors. Their vandalism of machinery wasn’t a protest against automation. It was against social arrangements that deprived them of life prospects in the face of technological innovation.

Our societies must embrace the rise of the machines, but also ensure that they contribute to shared prosperity. Every citizen should enjoy property rights over part of the wealth the machines produce. We need to establish a universal basic income funded by the returns of capital, not tax. What I call a universal basic dividend. This will allow us to spread the returns from automation to the whole of society.

Brian Eno & Yanis Varoufakis: The meaning of ‘Value’ – King’s College, London 30/1/2017

 

 

Brian Eno’s talk

https://varoufakis.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/eno-speech-value.mp3

Yanis Varoufakis talk

https://varoufakis.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/varoufakis-speech-value.mp3

Discussion

https://varoufakis.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/discussion.mp3

NEW: A 3 minute edit of Varoufakis’ talk with a Brian Eno soundtrack (Thursday afternoon) – thanks Jason Ghionis!

https://varoufakis.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/3-min-edit-jason-ghionis.mp3

 

DiEM25-UK: Organisational launch meeting at Conway Hall, London

by Andrew J. Brown On Saturday morning, January 28, 2017, at Conway Hall in Central London, long an important place for radical religious, philosophical, social and political thinking in the UK, DiEM25 held its UK organisational launch. Like all DiEM25 … Continue reading →