Yanis Varoufakis's Blog, page 15

The big idea: has the digital economy killed capitalism? – The Guardian

Enter Amazon and you have exited capitalism. Despite all the buying and the selling that goes on there, you have entered a realm that can’t be thought of as a market, not even a digital one.” When I say this to people, which I frequently do in lectures and debates, they look at me as they would a madman. But once I start explaining what I mean, their fear for my sanity soon turns into fear for us all.

Imagine the following scene, straight out of the science-fiction storybook. You are beamed into a town full of people going about their business, trading in gadgets, clothes, shoes, books, songs, games and movies. At first, everything looks normal. Then you begin to notice something odd. It turns out that all the shops, indeed every building, belong to a chap called Jeff. He may not own the factories that produce the stuff sold in his shops, but he owns an algorithm that takes a cut for each sale and he gets to decide what can be sold and what cannot.If that were all, the scene would evoke an old western in which a lonesome cowboy rides into town to discover that a podgy strongman is in charge of the saloon bar, the grocery store, the post office, the railway, the bank and, naturally, the sheriff. Except that isn’t all. Jeff owns more than the shops and the public buildings. He also owns the dirt you walk on, the bench you sit on, even the air you breathe. In fact, in this weird town everything you see (and don’t see) is regulated by Jeff’s algorithm: you and I may be walking next to each other, our eyes trained in the same direction, but the view provided to us by the algorithm is entirely bespoke, carefully curated according to Jeff’s priorities. Everyone navigating their way around Amazon – except Jeff – is wandering in algorithmically constructed isolation.

Jeff grants vendors digital fiefs, for a fee, then leaves his algo-sheriff to police and collect

This is no market town. It is not even some form of hypercapitalist digital market. Even the ugliest of markets are meeting places where people can interact and exchange information reasonably freely. In fact, it’s even worse than a totally monopolised market – there, at least, the buyers can talk to each other, form associations, perhaps organise a consumer boycott to force the monopolist to reduce prices or improve quality. Not so in Jeff’s realm, where everything and everyone is subject not to the disinterested invisible hand of the market but to an algorithm that works for Jeff’s bottom line and dances exclusively to his tune.If this isn’t scary enough, recall that it is the same algorithm that, via Alexa, has trained us to train it to manufacture our desires. The mind rebels at the extent of the hubris. The same algorithm that we help train in real time to know us inside out, both modifies our preferences and administers the selection and delivery of commodities that will satisfy these preferences. It is as if a subliminal advertising guru could not only implant in us desires for specific products, but had attained the superpower instantly to deliver said products to our doorstep, bypassing any potential competitor, all in the interest of bolstering the wealth and power of a chap called Jeff.Such concentrated power should scare the living daylights out of the liberally minded. Anyone committed to the idea of the market (not to mention the autonomous self) should recognise that what we’re witnessing is its death knell. It should also shake market sceptics, socialists in particular, out of the complacent assumption that Amazon is bad because it is a capitalist market gone berserk. Actually, it’s something worse than that.“If it ain’t a capitalist market, what in the sweet Lord’s name are we stepping into when we enter Amazon.com?” a student at the University of Texas once asked me. “A type of digital fief,” I replied. “A post‑capitalist one, whose historical roots remain in feudal Europe.”Under feudalism, the overlord would grant so-called fiefs to subordinates called vassals. These fiefs gave the vassals the formal right to exploit economically a part of the overlord’s realm – to plant crops on it, for example, or graze cattle – in exchange for a portion of the produce. The overlord would then unleash his sheriff to police the fief’s operation and collect what he was owed. Jeff’s relationship with the vendors on Amazon is not too dissimilar. He grants them digital fiefs, for a fee, and then leaves his algo-sheriff to police and collect.Amazon was just the start. Alibaba has applied the same techniques to create a similar digital fief in China. Copycat e-commerce platforms, offering variations on the Amazon theme, are springing up everywhere, in the global south as well as the global north. More significantly, other industrial sectors are turning into digital fiefs too. Take for example Tesla, Elon Musk’s electric car company. One reason financiers value it so much more highly than Ford or Toyota is that its cars’ every circuit is wired into the cloud. Besides giving Tesla the power to switch off one of its cars remotely, if for instance the driver fails to service it as the company wishes, merely by driving around Tesla owners are uploading real-time information (including what music they are listening to) that enriches the company’s cloud-based capital. They may not think of themselves as serfs but, alas, that’s precisely what the proud owners of new, wonderfully aerodynamically gleaming Teslas are.It took mind-bending scientific breakthroughs, fantastical-sounding neural networks and imagination-defying AI programs to accomplish what? To turn workers toiling in warehouses, driving cabs and delivering food into digital proles. To create a world where markets are increasingly replaced by digital fiefs. To force businesses into the role of vassals. And to turn all of us into digital serfs, glued to our smartphones and tablets, eagerly producing the capital that keeps our new overlords on cloud nine.Technofeudalism erects great barriers to mobilisation against it. But it also bestows new power on those who dare dream of a way to topple it – a capacity to build coalitions, organise and take action via the cloud: what I call cloud mobilisation. None of this is either easy or inevitable, but is it harder or less likely than what the miners, the seamstresses and the dockworkers envisioned and sacrificed their lives to achieve in the 19th century? The cloud takes – but the cloud also gives to those who want to reclaim freedom and democracy. It is up to us to prove which is greater. Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism by Yanis Varoufakis is published by Bodley Head (£22). To support the Guardian and the Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.

For the Guardian’s site, where this article was published originally, click here.

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On Israel-Palestine, Ukraine and the Hypocrisy of the West – acTVism Munich

In this episode of The Source, we talk to world-renowned economist and intellectual Yanis Varoufakis about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the international developments taking place in the European Union and the United Nations around it. We also explore the question of whether Israel’s 56-year occupation of Palestine and its settlement policy have contributed to the violence in the region. We inquire about concrete steps the Israeli government can take to end the Hamas hostage crisis. Finally, we discuss the war in Ukraine and how to end it, and whether Germany can once again become an economic power while continuing to sanction Russia and import American liquefied natural gas (LNG).

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Ψηφιακό €, επενδυτική βαθμίδα & οικονομία, Παλαιστινιακό, ΣΥΡΙΖΑ και, βέβαια, η Επιστροφή του ΜέΡΑ25 – με τον Πάρι Καρβουνόπουλο στο Militaire

Συζήτηση στο militaire.gr, με τον Πάρι Καρβουνόπουλο, για το ψηφιακό ευρώ και την επενδυτική βαθμίδα. Επίσης για όσα τραγικά συμβαίνουν στη λωρίδα της Γάζας και τη στάση της ελληνικής κυβέρνησης, τον ΣΥΡΙΖΑ και την ανάγκη ύπαρξης μιας αγωνιστικής Αριστεράς δηλώνοντας πως το ΜέΡΑ25 “Είμαστε εδώ! Μαζί, για την Αριστερά”.

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«Κυρία φον ντερ Λάιεν, ώρα να παραιτηθείτε!» Υπογράψτε εδώ το ψήφισμα του DiEM25-ΜέΡΑ25

Το DiEM-ΜέΡΑ25 ξεκίνησε συλλογή υπογραφών για την απομάκρυνση της κας Ursula von der Leyen από την Προεδρία της Ευρωπαϊκής Επιτροπής. Υπόγραψε εδώ. Ακολουθεί το βίντεο-μήνυμα του Γιάνη Βαρουφάκη προς την κα von der Leyen.Κυρία von der Leyen, τη στιγμή που προσγειωθήκατε στο Τελ Αβίβόχι ως υπέρμαχος του άμεσου τερματισμού των εγκλημάτων πολέμου από όλες τις πλευρές…όχι ως πρέσβειρα της Ειρήνης και της Συμφιλίωσηςόχι ως συνήγορος του Διεθνούς Δικαίουόχι ως άνθρωπος που πιστεύει στην απλή ιδέα ότι η Συνθήκη της Γενεύης είναι η τελευταία ελπίδα της ανθρωπότητας στις πιο σκοτεινές της στιγμές.ΑΛΛΑως αρωγός του εγκλήματος πολέμου της στέρησης από δύο εκατομμύρια άμαχους νερού και τροφίμωνως εμψυχωτής μιας πολεμικής αεροπορίας που στοχεύει επίτηδες τα σπίτια των αμάχωνως πλασιέ του εγκλήματος πολέμου της βίαιης μεταφοράς ενός εκατομμυρίου ανθρώπων σε ένα άλλο τμήμα της Γάζας – όπου επίσης βομβαρδίζονται.Εκείνη τη στιγμή, γίνατε το μεγαλύτερο βαρίδι της Ευρώπης.Πάντα γνωρίζαμε για την ανικανότητά σας.Προφανώς νομίζατε ότι ξεχάσαμε πως ο μόνος λόγος που η Άνγκελα Μέρκελ σας έκανε Πρόεδρο της Ευρωπαϊκής Επιτροπής ήταν επειδή ήθελε να ξεφορτωθεί μια ανίκανη και ημι-διαφθαρμένη Γερμανίδα Υπουργό Άμυνας. Όχι, δεν το ξεχάσαμε.Προφανώς νομίζατε ότι ξεχάσαμε τη διαχειριστική σας ανικανότητα κατά τη διάρκεια της πανδημίας, ένα καλά καταγεγραμμένο φιάσκο τεραστίων διαστάσεων. Όχι, δεν το ξεχάσαμε.Λοιπόν, την ανικανότητα μπορούμε να την ανεχτούμε. Το να πηγαίνετε όμως σε εμπόλεμη ζώνη για να επικροτήσετε εγκλήματα πολέμου εκ μέρους των Ευρωπαίων, όχι, αυτό δεν το ανεχόμαστε.Είστε ένα όνειδος κι ένα βαρίδι.Είναι καιρός να παραιτηθείτε.Και αφού δεν έχετε την αξιοπρέπεια να παραιτηθείτε, εμείς – το DiEM25-ΜέΡΑ25 – δηλώνουμε ότι, στις επερχόμενες εκλογές για το Ευρωπαϊκό Κοινοβούλιο, μαζί με εκατομμύρια προοδευτικούς Ευρωπαίους, θα σας στείλουμε στον σκουπιδοτενεκέ της ευρωπαϊκής ιστορίας – όπως σας αξίζει.Καληνύχτα κυρία von der Leyen.Συνυπόγραψε εδώ.

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Sign here DiEM25’s petition: Time for Europe’s greatest liability, Mrs Ursula von der Leyen, to go!

DiEM25-MERA25 has launched a petition for the removal of Mrs Ursula von der Leyen from the Presidency of the European Commission. Below is the text of Yanis Varoufakis’ video message to Ms. von der Leyen. To sign the petition please click here.Mrs von der Leyen, the moment you landed in Tel Aviv, not as a campaigner for an immediate end to war crimes on all sides, not as an ambassador of Peace & Reconciliation, not as an advocate of International Law, not as a believer in the simple idea that the Geneva convention is humanity’s last hope in the darkest of hours BUT INSTEAD as an enabler of the War Crime of denying 2 million non-combatants water and food, as a cheerleader of an air force intentionally targeting people’ σ homes, as a facilitator of the War Crime of transferring a million people to another part of Gaza where they were also bombed – at that moment, you became Europe’s greatest liability.We have always known about your incompetence.You obviously thought that we forgot that the only reason Angela Merkel made you President of the EC was because she wanted to rid herself of an incompetent and semi-corrupt German Defence Minister. We have not forgotten.You obviously thought that we forgot your managerial incompetence during the pandemic, a well-publicised fiasco of enormous proportions. We have not forgotten,Well, incompetence we can tolerate. Flying into a war zone to cheerlead War Crimes on behalf of Europeans we shall not tolerate.You are a disgrace and a liability. It is time for you to resign!And since you do not have the common decency to resign, we – DiEM25 – the Democracy in Europe Movement – state it for the record that, in the forthcoming European Parliament Elections, alongside millions of progressive Europeans, will confine you to the dustbin of Europe’s history – as you so richly deserve.Goodnight Mrs von der Leyen.

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Συνέντευξη εφ’ όλης της ύλης με τους φοιτητές της ΜΕΘΕΞΗΣ – video

Συζήτηση με τους φοιτητές της ομάδας «Μέθεξη» εφ’ όλης της ύλης. Ακολουθώντας χρονολογική σειρά συζητήσαμε για τα αίτια της οικονομικής κρίσης στην Ελλάδα και φτάνουν στο 2015, στις «διαπραγματεύσεις», στο δημοψήφισμα, στα Capital Controls και στη ρήξη με τον Τσίπρα. Μιλήσαμε για το μέλλον του ΜέΡΑ 25 δεδομένης της αποτυχίας εισόδου του στην Βουλή στις τελευταίες εκλογές, αλλά και για την εκλογική ηγεμονία της ΝΔ. Επιπλέον, αναφέρθηκα στις εξελίξεις στη Μέση Ανατολή αλλά και στην πρόσφατη επίσκεψή μου στον φίλο του, Julian Assange, ιδρυτή του WikiLeaks, στις φυλακές όπου κρατείται.00:00 – Εισαγωγή
00:56 – Τα αίτια της οικονομικής κρίσης
08:37 – Η διαπραγμάτευση του 2015
26:24 – Η κατάσταση της οικονομίας σήμερα
31:58 – Εκτίμηση για το μέλλον της Ελλάδας
33:39 – ΜέΡΑ 25 & εθνικές εκλογές 2023
40:42 – Το μέλλον του ΜέΡΑ 25
43:15 – Η εκλογική ηγεμονία της ΝΔ
46:44 – Ο νέος ΣΥΡΙΖΑ μετά την εκλογή Κασσελάκη
52:31 – Ισραήλ – Παλαιστίνη
1:04:55 – Η επίσκεψη στον Julian AssangeΤι είναι η ΜΕΘΕΞΗ:Αποτελεί μια πρωτοβουλία φοιτητών με στόχο τον υγιή πολιτικό και κοινωνικό διάλογο. Ξεκίνησε από δύο συμφοιτητές Νομικής και γρήγορα εξελίχθηκε σε προσπάθεια μιας μεγάλης παρέας. Το σλόγκαν της “Η κοινωνία των ιδεών” συμβολίζει τη συζήτηση με προσωπικότητες από διάφορες πτυχές της κοινωνίας, οι οποίες, συνεισφέρουν το δικό τους λιθαράκι στο δημόσιο διάλογο.Η ομάδα:Πρόδρομος Αβραμίδης
Γεράσιμος Αδαμόπουλος
Γιώργος Γιόβας
Πάνος Γιόβας
Γιάννης Ελευθερίου
Δημήτρης Λιάκης
Λουκάς Μητσάτσος

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Στο Al Jazzera: Κανένα έγκλημα πολέμου δεν δικαιολογείται. Όπως δεν δικαιολογείται η υποκρισία της ΕΕ που ακυρώνει την ηθική αξίωση της Ευρώπης να θεωρείται πολιτισμένη

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El Pais long interview on my TECHNOFEUDALISM

LONG READ by MIGUEL ÁNGEL GARCÍA VEGA in El Pais on my Technofeudalism. Miguel has interviewed me many times in the past but this time he did so exclusively for my new book TECHNOFEUDALISM: What killed capitalism which will shortly be available in Spanish also. Here is the English language version of Miguel’s piece, based on our conversation (click here for the El Pais site).Yanis Varoufakis, 62, turns on his laptop and enters the Zoom meeting. He sits in the studio of his home in Athens, Greece. One of the most well-known and influential economists in the world, he offers a kind greeting before beginning his conversation with EL PAÍS.For the first time in many years (he had promised his wife, Danae) he took a few days of vacation in August, in the Aegean Sea. But, soon after, he was back at work, keeping track of all his appointments (including this one).Varoufakis studied at a private school, before completing two postgraduate degrees in Mathematics and Economics at the universities of Essex and Birmingham. He has taught in Australia, the United States and, since 2000, has lectured in Economics at the University of Athens. But his life — and his “myth” — is intertwined with politics.He served as the finance minister of Greece between January and July 2015. Those were difficult days, when he dealt with Wolfgang Schäuble — who served as finance minister at the time under former German Chancellor Angela Merkel — in the familiar story that was the seemingly endless Greek sovereign debt crisis. This was when the Troika — the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the European Commission — put the squeeze on Greece for every last euro, as a condition for issuing a financial rescue package. In July 2015, citizens voted against austerity and the social suffering it would cause. Although his side won the referendum, Varoufakis resigned, after five months in office.In February 2016, he created the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25). And, in March 2018 — as a former member of the left-wing Syriza party — he founded MeRA25, the “political branch” of the movement. He then returned to the Greek Parliament as an elected legislator. Since then, this “libertarian Marxist” — this is how he defines himself, with an evident sense of provocation — has also had great success with bestsellers, such as Talking to My Daughter About the Economy and Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism. Brilliant with titles, one of his latest articles is called Let the Banks Burn. He has also coined several terms for our era, such as “cloud capitalism,” “de-dollarization,” “global austerity” and “techno-feudalism.” Although he may not intend it, many of his columns are somewhat impregnated with the pessimism of the philosopher Emil Cioran (1911-1955) and his temptation to exist: “Writing is a matter of life or death.”Without a doubt, his latest book is imbued with a certain sadness. It was born from a conversation he had many years ago, in 1993, with his communist father, Giorgios.As we struggle with our internet connection, Varoufakis jokes: “Now that computers can talk to each other, will this make it impossible to overthrow capitalism? Or will technology finally reveal its Achilles’ heel?”Question. Perhaps it has already revealed it?Answer. Amazon’s Alexa, for example, is nothing more than a portal. Behind it, there’s a centralized totalitarian system created to satisfy its owner, Jeff Bezos. [This system] does four things at the same time: it trains us to tell it what we want. It directly sells us what we know we “want,” regardless of any real market. It makes us reproduce its capital in the cloud (that is, it’s an immense behavior modification machine), because thanks to our work — which is done without remuneration — it publishes reviews or rates products. And finally, it amasses enormous profits from the capitalists who are operating within this network… generally, 40% of the sticker price [of products]. This isn’t capitalism — welcome to technofeudalism!Q. What’s your hypothesis?A. Capitalism is now dead. It has been replaced by the techno-feudal economy and a new order. At the heart of my thesis, there’s an irony that may sound confusing at first, but it’s made clear in the book (Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism). What’s killing capitalism is capitalism itself. Not the capital we’ve known since the dawn of the industrial age. But a new form, a mutation, that’s been growing over the last two decades. It’s much more powerful than its predecessor, which — like a stupid and overzealous virus — has killed its host. And why has this occurred? Due to two main causes: the privatization of the internet by the United States, but also the large Chinese technology companies. Along with the way in which Western governments and central banks responded to the great financial crisis of 2008.Varoufakis’ latest book warns of the impossibility of social democracy today, as well as the false promises made by the crypto world. “Behind the crypto aristocracy, the only true beneficiaries of these technologies have been the very institutions these crypto evangelists were supposed to want to overthrow: Wall Street and the Big Tech conglomerates.” For example, in Technofeudalism, the economist writes: “JPMorgan and Microsoft have recently joined forces to run a ‘blockchain consortium,’ based on Microsoft data centers, with the goal of increasing their power in financial services.”Q. It’s been nearly 600 days since the war in Ukraine began. What do you think about this? And what impact does it have on the economy?A. My thoughts are the same as on the first day Putin invaded Ukraine. It’s a war that will end quickly if there’s a peace agreement… otherwise, it can last for decades. If it continues, there will be no winners — only losers. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians dead, hundreds of thousands of Russians dead. It will impoverish Europe and make Africa more miserable. The West must offer the Russian leader a very simple agreement, [bringing the territorial lines] back to where they were before February 2022. In exchange, Ukraine will never be a member of NATO. It’s the Austrian solution: it’s part of Europe, it has an army, it’s a liberal democracy but not part of the organization. This is the only possibility that coincides with Ukrainian interests, while avoiding sacrifice and impoverishment.

In February of 2016, Varoufakis created the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025, or DiEM25.

Q. Europe is aging, growth is slow, the economic center of the world is moving to South Asia and Southeast Asia. What kind of future awaits the Old Continent? Will it become a luxury resort for millionaire foreigners on vacation?A. There won’t be a breakup of the European Union. It has been saved by Mario Draghi (the former president of the ECB) thanks to the injection of billions of euros. We’re entering a period of decline, though. About a month ago, I met with the president of Mexico, López Obrador. The EU doesn’t concern him. Of course, Mexico wants to have a good relationship and everything, but what counts for them is the United States and the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa).Think about geopolitics, especially after the war in Ukraine. Think NATO — whatever that is. It’s not a European foreign policy: it’s NATO’s foreign policy. The secretary general decides our policies for us. But imagine — I wish this were the case — that, tomorrow, there’s a table for peace talks. Who would be sitting at the table? Zelenskiy and Putin… and Xi Jinping, Modi and Biden. Who would represent Europe? Nobody. We don’t have leaders. Poles, Estonians and Lithuanians don’t trust Emmanuel Macron or Germany’s Olaf Scholz, because they think they’re too close to Putin. But can you imagine an EU represented by someone other than Germany or France? It’s worse than a crisis. We (Europe) are becoming irrelevant.Q. Today, some German politicians recognize the error that was austerity, which was the policy you fought against when you were negotiating the bailout for Greece.A. They only say that after they retire. You should be judged by what you do when you are in the administration. That’s what counts. The rest doesn’t matter to me. Christian Lindner — the current German finance minister — is pushing austerity. He’ll never admit that they’re wrong. The German economic model is dying and Europe is close behind it. What are the industries of the future? Solar, wind, batteries and software development. The EU doesn’t even exist [in these fields], because it doesn’t invest in anything. What’s [the EU] going to do about China, which has an absolute monopoly on batteries?Q. Why is there no equivalent to Amazon in Europe?A. For the same reason: nobody invests. We’ve wasted 14 years practicing austerity. Germany’s mobile phone system is almost Third World. It’s an underdeveloped country in terms of digitalization. They’ve approved — with all those years of delay — a digitalization budget of $200 billion euros ($212 billion) over the next five years. About 50 billion euros less than expected. Do you know they still use fax machines in Germany?Q. What powers do politicians have over large corporations?A. Zero. Once upon a time, politicians had a role… Franklin Roosevelt, Willy Brandt (Germany), Harold Wilson (United Kingdom), or even Nixon. They could change things. Get people to sit around the table. Now, unions no longer exist. There’s no one to sit with [today’s leaders]. If you clash with the system, it eliminates you.Q. China, Singapore, India, Saudi Arabia — among other countries — have shown that they can grow and generate prosperity, while still being dictatorships or autocracies or nations with dubious respect for human rights. That is, without being democracies.A. We forget about history. Democracy was never part of capitalism. Already in the 19th century, in Great Britain, the philosopher John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) defended liberalism. He respected property rights, freedom of expression… but liberalism was the opposite of capitalism. The official Chinese party says, well, we’re liberal like the British were. They recognize private property — if you have a house, they won’t take it away from you, you can accumulate as much money as you want, do business. This is liberalism. [But only] as long as you don’t say anything against the party.Is this so different in Britain? Did you see the coronation of Charles III? There was a professor outside the House of Commons who held up a blank banner. He was arrested for disrespecting the king. This isn’t freedom of speech, is it? Is the United States a democracy? Oh, really? You have a party in government with two different faces. Trump was a poor excuse for a human being. He changed the North American Free Trade Agreement, undid the nuclear pact that Obama had signed with Iran, started the cold war against China. Biden arrived. He was supposed to be the anti-Trump. Has anything changed? No, he’s made it worse. The cold war has gotten worse, there’s more enmity with Iran. Cuba suffers a worse embargo than under the former president. Of course, I would prefer to have dinner with Biden rather than Trump. However, that’s not what a democracy is supposed to be about.Q. Is feminism compatible with the current economic system?A. Capitalism only brings enormous, terrible burdens. One is the exploitation of women. The only way women can prosper is at the expense of other women. No, in the end — and in practice — feminism and democratic capitalism are incompatible.If there’s one thing Yanis Varoufakis is, it’s tough. Perhaps it comes from the days when his father, Giorgios — a communist steel engineer — taught him, in front of the fire of a red brick fireplace (in a modest house), the properties of metals. It has served him well in the gym, in European politics, or last March, when a group of “hired thugs” — in the words of Varoufakis — beat up the former minister while he was having dinner in the popular Exarchia neighborhood of Athens. The “thugs” (who claimed to be activists) shouted at him and accused him of having “sold out to the Troika.” After the incident, the former Finance Minister ended up in the hospital. “We’re not going to let them divide us,” he wrote on Twitter. “We keep going!”Born in the 1920s, Giorgios — whose parents were Greek — grew up in Cairo, Egypt, before entering the University of Athens to study Chemistry. But he was caught up in the Greek Civil War (1946-1949). He was detained and questioned by the police. He refused to denounce his fellow communists and spent four years in prison as a result. Later, when he restarted his studies, a conservative woman noticed him. Her name: Eleni. Varoufakis’ future mother. In the end, her father’s ideas resonated with her and communism became the landscape of their conversations.Years later, he would ask his parents what freedom meant to them. His mother said it was the possibility of choosing your partners and your projects. His father replied: time to read, experiment and write. These notions run through all his books.Giorgios — under Greece’s far-right regime — had many problems finding work. The secret police did everything possible to get him fired. With some good fortune — although the salary was lower than what he was entitled to — the Halyvourgiki Hellenic Steel Industry hired him as assistant to the director. In a kind of delayed justice, he eventually became president of the board of directors.This was the environment that Yanis grew up in, with stories about prisons, with memories of harshness and reprisals. Perhaps, thanks to this upbringing, his life has been one of perseverance: he holds two doctorates (in Economics and Mathematics), served as finance minister of his country and has taught classes in the United States, Australia and Greece.Everything begins in childhood — the rest is the inexorable repetition of days.At the University of Sydney, when he was teaching, he met Xenia’s mother, Margarite — an Australian-born professor of European history, with Greek roots. They fell in love and got married. They went to live in Greece. But the relationship didn’t work out and they broke up. Margarite returned to Australia, without knowing that she was pregnant. When she found out, she returned to Greece — they had to give the relationship another chance. “But it wasn’t working. And she went back to Australia. It was a nightmare. Because I missed my daughter a lot,” he commented in an interview with The Guardian. “As a consolation, I put her to sleep at night via Skype.”In this fragile emotional state, he discovered by chance, in an art gallery, an installation titled Breathe. It was work by the artist Danae Stratou. A work in which water and earth breathe. He was impressed. They had dinner and fell in love. He now lives in Athens with Stratou and her two children. Danae — who participated in the 48th edition (1999) of the prestigious Venice Biennale cultural exhibition — comes from a very wealthy family. Her father founded the textile company Peiraiki-Patraiki.Q. Few economists doubt the idea that, to prosper in life, the family you are born into is more important than all the effort you put in.A. That’s right. The lottery of birth. We live in very unequal societies. The greatest predictor of our future is the wealth and situation of our families.Q. In another one of your books — Talking to My Daughter about the Economy — you teach Xenia about the threats of capitalism. What kind of world do you think she will live in?A. I never, never, never make predictions, because if I were forced to answer you, my answer would be very sad. I certainly don’t think things will go well in the future. But this is different from simply giving a weather forecast. Societies lack the right to predict, because what counts is the result of our actions, the result of what we do. We have the moral duty to act.Q. In your latest book, you note that BlackRock — the world’s largest asset manager, by the amount of assets under management — is part of the problem. When you hear the CEO Larry Fink say that he will continue investing in oil and gas because his clients demand it — despite his supposed commitment to sustainable funds — what do you think?A. The only solution is to dismantle the company.Q. Drastic.A. Well, capitalism must also be dismantled. I’m a leftist, after all.

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Cory Doctorow reviews my TECHNOFEUDALISM for truthdig

Socialists have been hotly anticipating the end of capitalism since at least 1848, when Marx and Engels published  The Communist Manifesto  – but the Manifesto also reminds us that capitalism is only too happy to reinvent itself during its crises, coming back in new forms, over and over again.Now, in Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, Yanis Varoufakis – the “libertarian Marxist” former finance minister of Greece – makes an excellent case that capitalism died a decade ago, turning into a new form of feudalism: technofeudalism.To understand where Varoufakis is coming from, you need to go beyond the colloquial meanings of “capitalism” and “feudalism.” Capitalism isn’t just “a system where we buy and sell things.” It’s a system where capital rules the roost: the richest, most powerful people are those who coerce workers into using their capital (factories, tools, vehicles, etc) to create income in the form of profits.By contrast, a feudal society is one organized around people who own things, charging others to use them to produce goods and services. In a feudal society, the most important form of income isn’t profit, it’s rent. To quote Varoufakis: “rent flows from privileged access to things in fixed supply” (land, fossil fuels, etc). Profit comes from “entrepreneurial people who have invested in things that wouldn’t have otherwise existed.” This distinction is subtle, but important: “Profit is vulnerable to market competition, rent is not.” If you have a coffee shop, then every other coffee shop that opens on your block is a competitive threat that could erode your margins. But if you own the building the coffee shop owner rents, then every other coffee shop that opens on the block raises the property values and the amount of rent you can charge.The capitalist revolution – extolled and condemned in the Manifesto – was led by people who valorized profits as the heroic returns for making something new in this world, and who condemned rents as a parasitic drain on the true producers whose entrepreneurial spirits would enrich us all. The “free markets” extolled by Adam Smith weren’t free from regulation – they were free from rents.But rents, Varoufakis writes, “survived only parasitically on, and in the shadows of, profit.” That is, rentiers (people whose wealth comes from rents) were a small rump of the economy, slightly suspect and on the periphery of any consideration of how to organize our society. But all that changed in 2008, when the world’s central banks addressed the Great Financial Crisis by bailing out not just the banks, but the bankers, funneling trillions to the people whose reckless behavior brought the world to the brink of economic ruin.Suddenly, these wealthy people, and their banks, experienced enormous wealth-gains without profits. Their businesses lost billions in profits (the cost of offering the business’s products and services vastly exceeded the money people spent on those products and services). But the business still had billions more at the end of the year than they’d had at the start: billions in public money, funneled to them by central banks.This kicked off the “everything rally” in which every kind of asset – real estate, art, stocks, bonds, even monkey JPEGs – ballooned in value. That’s exactly what you’d expect from an economy where rents dominate over profits. Feudal rentiers don’t need to invest to keep making money – remember, their wealth comes from owning things that other people invest in to make money.Rents are not vulnerable to competition, so rentiers don’t need to plow their rents into new technology to keep the money coming in. The capitalist that leases the oil field needs to invest in new pumps and refining to stay competitive with other oil companies. But the rentier of the oil field doesn’t have to do anything: either the capitalist tenant will invest in more capital and make the field more valuable, or they will lose out to another capitalist who’ll replace them. Either way, the rentier gets more rent.

“Profit is vulnerable to market competition, rent is not.”

So when capitalists get richer, they spend some of that money on new capital, but when rentiers get richer, they spend money on more assets they can rent to capitalists. The “everything rally” made all kinds of capital more valuable, and companies that were transitioning to a feudal footing turned around and handed that money to their investors in stock buybacks and dividends, rather than spending the money on R&D, or new plants, or new technology.The tech companies, though, were the exception. They invested in “cloud capital” – the servers, lines, and services that everyone else would have to pay rent on in order to practice capitalism.Think of Amazon: Varoufakis likens shopping on Amazon to visiting a bustling city center filled with shops run by independent capitalists. However, all of those capitalists are subservient to a feudal lord: Jeff Bezos, who takes 51 cents out of every dollar they bring in, and furthermore gets to decide which products they can sell and how those products must be displayed.The postcapitalist, technofeudal world isn’t a world without capitalism, then. It’s a world where capitalists are subservient to feudalists (“cloudalists” in Varoufakis’s thesis), as are the rest of us the cloud peons, from the social media users and performers who fill the technofuedalists’ siloes with “content” to the regular users whose media diet is dictated by the cloudalists’ recommendation systems.A defining feature of cloudalism is the ability of the rentier lord to destroy any capitalist vassal’s business with the click of a mouse. If Google kicks your business out of the search index, or if Facebook blocks your publication, or if Twitter shadowbans mentions of your product, or if Apple pulls your app from the store, you’re toast.Capitalists “still have the power to command labor from the majority who are reliant on wages,” but they are still mere vassals to the cloudalists. Even the most energetic capitalist can’t escape paying rent, thanks in large part to “IP,” which I claim is best understood as “laws that let a company reach beyond its walls to dictate the conduct of competitors, critics and customers.”Varoufakis points to ways that the cloudalists can cement their gains: for example, “green” energy doesn’t rely on land-leases (like fossil fuels), but it does rely on networked grids and data-protocols that can be loaded up with IP, either or both of which can be turned into chokepoints for feudal rent-extraction.

Capitalists “still have the power to command labor from the majority who are reliant on wages,” but they are still mere vassals to the cloudalists.

To make things worse, Varoufakis argues that cloudalists won’t be able to muster the degree of coordination and patience needed to actually resolve the climate emergency – they’ll not only extract rent from every source of renewables, but they’ll also silo them in ways that make them incapable of doing the things we need them to do.Energy is just one of the technofeudal implications that Varoufakis explores in this book: there are also lengthy and fascinating sections on geopolitics, monetary policy, and the New Cold War. Technofeudalism – and the struggle to produce a dominant fiefdom – is a very useful lens for understanding US/Chinese tech wars.Though Varoufakis is laying out a technical and even esoteric argument here, he takes great pains to make it accessible. The book is structured as a long open letter to his father, a chemical engineer and leftist who was a political prisoner during the fascist takeover of Greece. The framing device works very well, especially if you’ve read  Talking To My Daughter About the Economy , Varoufakis’s 2018 radical economics primer in the form of a letter to his young daughter.At the very end of the book, Varoufakis calls for “a cloud rebellion to overthrow technofeudalism.” This section is very short – and short on details. That’s not a knock against the book: there are plenty of very good books that consist primarily or entirely of analysis of the problems with a system, without having to lay out a detailed program for solving those problems.But for what it’s worth, I think there is a way to plan and execute a “cloud rebellion” – a way to use laws, technology, reverse-engineering and human rights frameworks to shatter the platforms and seize the means of computation. I lay out that program in  The Internet Con: How the Seize the Means of Computation , a book I published with Verso Books a couple weeks ago.WAIT, BEFORE YOU GO…If you’re reading this, you probably already know that non-profit, independent journalism is under threat worldwide. Independent news sites are overshadowed by larger heavily funded mainstream media that inundate us with hype and noise that barely scratch the surface. We believe that our readers deserve to know the full story. Truthdig writers bravely dig beneath the headlines to give you thought-provoking, investigative reporting and analysis that tells you what’s really happening and who’s rolling up their sleeves to do something about it.Like you, we believe a well-informed public that doesn’t have blind faith in the status quo can help change the world. Your contribution of as little as $5 monthly or $35 annually will make you a groundbreaking member and lays the foundation of our work. SUPPORT TRUTHDIG

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Why I refuse to condemn Hamas or the Israeli settlers but insist that we, Europeans & Americans, are the culprits for the atrocities in Israel-Palestine

When Hamas launched its offensive into Israel, appalled by the butchery and the human toll it would bring on, I tried to pierce through the fog of war, through all the fear and all the loathing, and to focus instead on what could end the endless cycle of inhumanity. What was its root cause? Hamas? The Israeli settlers? Netanyahu? The Palestinian Authority? Israelis? Palestinians? No. While all of the above are actors in a vile drama, they are not its author, its creator. Who, or what, is?My answer: The decade-long construction of a permanent, ironclad Apartheid. Apartheid IS violence! That’s the root cause of the endless violence. And, so, my first comment immediately after the brutal Hamas Offensive (on 7th October) read thus: “The path to ending the tragic loss of innocent lives – both Palestinian and Israeli – begins with one crucial first step: the end of the Israeli Occupation and Apartheid.” On 8th October, during an interview in Berlin (click adjacent icon and read the full text below), I refused to condemn either Hamas or the Israeli settlers committing atrocities across Israel-Palestine. Instead, I condemned us, Europeans and Americans, as the true villains who, for decades, we stood idly by while the underlying cause of these atrocities, Apartheid, became a fait accompli.Why did I not take the easier route of, on the one hand, condemning Hamas and, on the other, championing the rights of Palestinians? Because I wanted to make the point that it is we, Europeans and Americans, who must be condemned. Because it is we, Europeans and Americans, who, with our patronisingly ritual moralistic condemnations (whether one-sided or equidistant), have been making Peace impossible in Israel-Palestine.Let me explain why I say this. Why do I condemn us, Europeans and Americans, rather than Hamas, settlers, Netanyahu or any of the other actors in this drama? Because we have allowed our governments to allow successive Israeli governments to believe that, instead of a Peace Treaty, Israel can contain the Palestinians behind fences and a whole architecture of Apartheid either to keep them there as sub-humans or to cause them gradually to leave for distant lands. Because we have allowed Israel to force upon Palestinians a cruel dilemma: Either die a terrible, silent, gradual collective death or take up arms and, often, take with them innocent people.How are we, Europeans and Americans, allowing this? We allow this by keeping dead quiet when Palestinians are suffering killings, evictions, war crimes. By dismissing Israeli war crimes (like those committed now that Gaza is being turned into a parking lot) as “inevitable”, as Acts of God – like a Volcano erupting as is its wont, as its nature dictates. And by issuing stern condemnations of Palestinians, calling them ‘animals’ and ‘savages’, when some of them lash out violently, brutally, in response to the slow genocide the Apartheid state is calculatingly foisting upon their families and communities. This stance of ours, with our ritualistic condemnations of Palestinian violence and acceptance of Israel’s right to commit war crimes in self-defence, is the perfect gift to the extremists on both sides: Hamas love us for it, since we confirm Western indifference to Palestinian suffering. Settlers and Netanyahu, on the other side, also love us for it, since it us a green light to reinforcing their Apartheid and ethnic cleansing program.“But, Yanis”, friends and foes ask me “do you not have a moral duty to condemn Hamas’ atrocities?”My answer to friends is unequivocal:There is nothing that can justify deliberate violence against non-combatants. Attacking Israelis at a rave is wrong, bombing Palestinian hospitals is wrong, abducting Ukrainian children is wrong, torturing Russian prisoners is wrong… In fact the nationality, the identity, of the victim or of the attacker is utterly irrelevant. Either targeting innocents is ALWAYS wrong, no matter who does it, or you are indulging in selective outrage (e.g., Ursula von der Leyen) which is tantamount to excusing your side’s war crimes while strongly condemn the other side’s war crimes. This is the end of ethics, the end of any chance of International Law worth its name.My answer to defenders of Israel’s right to impose Apartheid is also unequivocal:If you did not condemn Israel’s killing of unarmed journalists, doctors and children, you lost the right to condemn Hamas’ atrocities now. The Geneva Convention on war crimes either applies to everyone or no-one. And anyone invoking it against the weak while exempting the powerful is committing an obscenity.In summary, those who demand from me a condemnation of Hamas or of Israeli Settlers or of any of the belligerents in Israel-Palestine will not get it: Because such ritualistic condemnations by us, Europeans and Americans, throw fuel into the fire – they are part of the problem, not the solution. What we MUST do I explained in that controversial interview:“This incredible tragedy must be converted into an opportunity for us Europeans [and Americans] to wake up and to redeem ourselves by demanding that we collectively take the first decisive step toward Peace. And that is the destruction of the state of apartheid. Just like we did in South Africa.”In summary, it is precisely because I am appalled by the never-ending cycle of atrocities perpetrated by both sides that I refuse to participate in ritualistic selective moral outrage along with those who strategically turn a blind eye to the source of all atrocities: Israel’s Apartheid.Frequent, pressing questionsSurely, Israel is nothing like South African Apartheid and Hamas is nothing like Mandela’s ANC!Nelson Mandela was never in doubt that Palestinians lived under Apartheid. [He also knew well that Israel was, openly, the best ally of the White Supremacists in Pretoria.] Desmond Tutu, a hero of the anti-Apartheid movement in its place of origin, understood it also – and articulated it beautifully.

Hamas is of course nothing like the ANC. [I never said it was.] But Israel’s Apartheid is modelled on the Apartheid the ANC fought. The simple point here is that Apartheid (South African or Israeli) IS violence and, thus, begets violence. And the only way to stop violence is to end Apartheid – not moralistically to condemn violence while turning a blind eye to Apartheid.Is Israel not engaged in a war for its very existence?No, it is not. Israel is a nuclear-armed state with perhaps the most technologically advanced army in the world and the panoply of the US military machine (including aircraft carriers at the ready) having its back. There is no symmetry with Hamas, a group which can cause serious damage to Israelis but which has no capacity whatsoever to defeat Israel’s military, or even to prevent Israel from continuing to implement the slow genocide of Palestinians under the system of Apartheid that has been erected with long-standing US and EU support.Are Israelis not justified to fear that Hamas wants to exterminate them?Of course they are! Jews have suffered the Holocaust which was preceded with countless pogroms and a deep-seated antisemitism permeating Europe and the Americas for centuries. It is only natural that Israelis live in fear of a new pogrom if the Israeli army folds. However, by imposing Apartheid on their neighbours, by treating them like sub-humans, the Israeli state is stoking the fires of antisemitism, is strengthening Hamas and, in the end, contributes to the awful insecurity consuming Jews in Israel and the Diaspora. Apartheid against the Palestinians is not the Israelis’ best defence – to put it mildly.What about antisemitism?It is always a clear and present danger. And it must be eradicated, especially amongst the ranks of Palestinians fighting for their civil liberties – as well as from the hearts and minds of their supporters in the rest of the world. For my take on Antisemitism, please see this.Do I condemn Hamas’ atrocities?I condemn every single atrocity, whomever is the perpetrator or the victim. What I do not condemn is armed resistance to an Apartheid system designed as part of a slow-burning, but inexorable, ethnic cleansing program.So, do I think that what Hamas did a week ago is a legitimate act of resistance? Or ‘just’ a criminal atrocity?Breaking out of the illegal Fence, and battling with the Israeli army that is caging Palestinians in, was not an atrocity. Killing civilians (old or young) was a repugnant atrocity. Like in every war, war crimes are indefensible.Why don’t Palestinians pursue their objectives by peaceful means?They did. The PLO recognised Israel and renounced armed struggle. And what did they get for it? Absolute humiliation and systematic ethnic cleansing. That is what nurtured Hamas and elevated it in the eyes of many Palestinians as the only alternative to a slow genocide under Israel’s Apartheid.What should be done now? What might bring Peace to Israel-Palestine?An immediate ceasefire. The release of all hostages (Hamas’ and the thousands held by Israel). And a Peace Process, under the UN, supported by a commitment by the International Community to end Apartheid and to safeguard Equal Civil Liberties for All. As for what must replace Apartheid, it is up to Israelis and Palestinians to decide between the Two-State Solution and the solution of a Single Secular State. [For what it is worth, DiEM25’s position, which was reached after a long and energetic debate, was that the Two-State solution is now obsolete and a Single State with Equal Civil Rights for All is the most realistic solution. See this.]Additional sourcesAn incomplete list of Israel’s War Crimes since 7th October 2023Timeline of my tweets and interviews since 7th October 2023TEXT OF MY 8th October 2023 INTERVIEW“Those who try very hard to extract from people like me, from DiEM25, a condemnation of the attack by the Hamas guerrillas will never get it. And they will never get it for a single reason. Those who care about humans without discrimination, who care equally for a Jew and an Arab, must ask themselves a very important question: What exactly is their idea of the cessation of hostilities? That Palestinians are going to lay down their arms and go back into the largest open-air prison in the world where they are constantly suffocated by the Apartheid state? In other words, back in South Africa in the era of Apartheid, what was the problem? Was it that some members of the Black Resistance, including the ANC but not only the ANC, took up arms against the South African regime and sometimes killed innocent people? No, that was not the problem. The problem was Apartheid. Apartheid, whether it is practised in South Africa or in Palestine-Israel, is always going to procure violence because it is a violent, misanthropic system. Any human being living on the wrong end of Apartheid will either die a terrible, silent death or rebel and, often, take with them innocent people. The criminals here are not Hamas, not even the Israeli settlers who are killing Palestinians. The criminals are us, Europeans and Americans. Every single member of our German society, our French society, our Greek society, the United States society. We have participated in this crime against humanity over the decades by keeping our mouths shut as long as there is no trouble down there. As long as people are dying outside the reach of cameras. As long as it is Palestinians who are dying and not the occupiers. So, this incredible tragedy must be converted into an opportunity for us Europeans to wake up and to redeem ourselves by demanding that we collectively take the first decisive step toward Peace. And that is the destruction of the state of apartheid. Just like we did in South Africa.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avtX-CWmVG8

 

 

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