Yanis Varoufakis's Blog, page 18

Technofeudalism has just arrived… Read the Preface here

Just laid my hands on the first copy of TECHNOFEUDALISM – What killed capitalism. Good feeling. There is no substitute for physicality. Below, I copy the Preface and Table of Contents to offer you a whiff of the argument and style. I believe it will be in UK bookshops at the end of the month. If in the UK, please join me at several events listed below:BATH on Monday 25th September – 19:30 Christ Church, Julian Road, Bath, Somerset BA1 2RHMANCHESTER on Tuesday 26th September – 19.30 Home Theatre, at 2 Tony Wilson Pl, Manchester M15 4FNEDINBURGH on Wednesday 27th September – 19.30 Greenside Church, 1b Royal Terrace, Edinburgh, EH7 5ABLONDON on Thursday 28th September – 19.30 at the Royal Festival HallELY on Friday 29th September – 19.30 at the Lighthouse Auditorium, Chapel Street, Ely, Cambridgeshire CB7 4EGPrefaceSome years ago, I decided to write a brief history of capitalism. To temper the task’s enormity, and force myself to focus on what capitalism boils down to, I decided to pretend I was narrating capitalism’s story to my then twelve-year-old daughter. So, without seeking Xenia’s permission (something she will never let me forget!), I began writing the book in the form of a long letter to her. Taking care to use no jargon (not even the word capitalism!), I kept reminding myself that whether or not my narrative made sense to a youngster was a litmus test of my own grasp of capitalism’s essence. The result was a slim volume entitled Talking to My Daughter: A brief history of capitalism. It took as its starting point an apparently simple question of hers: why is there so much inequality?Even before it was published, I was feeling uneasy. Between finishing the manuscript and holding the published book in my hands, it felt as if it were the 1840s and I was about to publish a book on feudalism; or, even worse, like waiting for a book on Soviet central planning to see the light of day in late 1989. Belatedly, that is.In the years after it was published, first in Greek, later in English, my weird hypothesis that capitalism was on the way out (and not merely undergoing one of its many impressive metamorphoses) gathered strength. During the pandemic, it became a conviction, which became an urge to explain my thinking in a book if for no other reason than to give friends and foes outraged by my theory a chance properly to disparage it having perused it in full.So, what is my hypothesis? It is that capitalism is now dead, in the sense that its dynamics no longer govern our economies. In that role it has been replaced by something fundamentally different, which I call technofeudalism. At the heart of my thesis is an irony that may sound confusing at first but which I hope to show makes perfect sense: the thing that has killed capitalism is … capital itself. Not capital as we have known it since the dawn of the industrial era, but a new form of capital, a mutation of it that has arisen in the last two decades, so much more powerful than its predecessor that like a stupid, overzealous virus it has killed off its host. What caused this to happen? Two main developments: The privatisation of the internet by America’s, but also China’s, Big Tech. And the manner in which Western governments and central banks responded to the 2008 great financial crisis.Before saying a little more on this, I must emphasise that this is not a book about what technology will do to us. It is not about AI-chatbots that will take over our jobs, autonomous robots that will threaten our lives, or Mark Zuckerberg’s ill-conceived metaverse. No, this book is about what has already been done to capitalism, and therefore to us, by the screen-based, cloud-linked devices we all use, our boring laptop and our smartphone, in conjunction with the way central banks and governments have been acting since 2008. The historic mutation of capital that I am highlighting has already happened but, caught up in our pressing dramas, from debt worries and a pandemic to wars and the climate emergency, we have barely noticed. It is high time we paid attention!If we do pay attention, it is not hard to see that capital’s mutation into what I call cloud capital has demolished capitalism’s two pillars: markets and profits. Of course, markets and profits remain ubiquitous – indeed, markets and profits were ubiquitous under feudalism too – they just aren’t running the show any more. What has happened over the last two decades is that profit and markets have been evicted from the epicentre of our economic and social system, pushed out to its margins, and replaced. With what? Markets, the medium of capitalism, have been replaced by digital trading platforms which look like, but are not, markets, and are better understood as fiefdoms. And profit, the engine of capitalism, has been replaced with its feudal predecessor: rent. Specifically, it is a form of rent that must be paid for access to those platforms and to the cloud more broadly. I call it cloud-rent.As a result, real power today resides not with the owners of traditional capital, such as machinery, buildings, railway and phone networks, industrial robots. They continue to extract profits from workers, from waged labour, but they are not in charge as they once were. As we shall see, they have become vassals in relation to a new class of feudal overlord, the owners of cloud capital. As for the rest of us, we have returned to our former status as serfs, contributing to the wealth and power of the new ruling class with our unpaid labour – in addition to the waged labour we perform, when we get the chance.Does all this matter to the way we live and experience our lives? It certainly does. As I will show in chapters 5, 6 and 7, recognising that our world has become technofeudal helps us dissolve puzzles great and small: from the elusive green energy revolution and Elon Musk’s decision to buy Twitter to the New Cold War between the USA and China and how the war in Ukraine is threatening the dollar’s reign; from the death of the liberal individual and the impossibility of social democracy to the false promise of crypto to the burning question of how we may recover our autonomy, perhaps our freedom too.By late 2021, armed with these convictions, and egged on by a pandemic that strengthened them, the die had been cast: I would sit down and write a brief introduction to technofeudalism – the far, far uglier social reality that has superseded capitalism. One question remained: Whom to address it to? Without much thought, I decided to address it to the person who had introduced me to capitalism at a ridiculously young age – and who, like his granddaughter, once asked me an apparently simple question that shapes almost every page of this book. My father.For the impatient reader, a word of warning: my description of technofeudalism does not come until chapters 3 and 4. And for my description to make sense, I need first to recount capitalism’s astounding metamorphoses over the preceding decades: this is chapter 2. The beginning of the book, meanwhile, is not about technofeudalism at all. Chapter 1 tells the story of how my father, with the help of some metal fragments and Hesiod’s poetry, introduced my six-year-old self to technology’s chequered relationship with humanity and, ultimately, to capitalism’s essence. It presents the guiding principles on which all of the thinking that follows is based, and it concludes with that seemingly simple question father put to me in 1993. The rest of the book takes the form of a letter addressed to him. It is my attempt to answer his killer question.TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

Chapter 1 – Hesiod’s lament

Father’s friendsA child’s introduction to historical materialismFrom Heat to LightA most peculiar introduction to capitalismAn equally odd introduction to moneyFree to choose? Or to lose? Father’s question

Chapter 2 – Capitalism’s metamorphoses

Retrieving the irretrievableTechnostructureAttention markets and the Soviets’ revengeThe audacious Global PlanMad numbers The fearless Global MinotaurFrom uncontrollable discontent to controlled disintegrationThe Minotaur’s favourite handmaidens: Neoliberalism and the computerBack to your question

 Chapter 3 – Cloud Capital

Commanding capital

From Don to AlexaSingularitiesThe birth of the internet commonsThe New EnclosuresCloud capital: beginningsCloud-ProlesCloud-Serfs Wither markets, hello cloud-fiefsBack to your question

Chapter 4 – The Rise of the Cloudalists and the Demise of Profit

The secret of the new ruling class 2008’s unintended consequencesPoisoned money, gilded stagnationHow profits became optional for the cloudalistsPrivate InequitiesBack to your question

Chapter 5 – What’s in A Word?

What would it take for capitalism to die?Rent’s revenge: How profit succumbed to cloud rentCapitalism on steroids?The technofeudal method to Elon Musk’s Twitter madnessThe technofeudal underpinnings of the Great Inflation The case of German cars and green energyBack to your question: Is capitalism not back on track?

Chapter 6 – Technofeudalism’s global impact: the New Cold War

Technofeudalism with Chinese characteristicsTechnofeudal geopolitics: The emerging ‘threat’ of China’s cloud finance Technofeudal geopolitics: How Ukraine helped divide the world into two super cloud-fiefsThe spectre of technofeudalism over Europe, the Global South, the Planet Back to your question: who wins and who loses?

Chapter 7 – Escape from Technofeudalism

The death of the liberal individualThe impossibility of social democracy Crypto’s false promiseImagining Another NowDemocratised companiesDemocratised moneyThe cloud and the land as a commonsA cloud-rebellion to overthrow technofeudalismBack to your question, one last time

APPENDIX 1 – The Political Economy of Technofeudalism

APPENDIX 2 – The Madness of Derivatives

Influences, Readings and Acknowledgments

 

 

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Austerity Ruined Europe, and Now It’s Back – Project Syndicate op-ed

The United States is experiencing an investment boom, owing to industrial policies that grant enormous subsidies – including to European firms – for investing in America, largely in green tech. Europe, meanwhile, is responding with a return to the austerity policies that caused it to fall behind the US in the first place.ATHENS – In 2008 Europeans earned, in aggregate, 10% more than Americans. By 2022, Americans were earning 26% more than Europeans. This week, the Wall Street Journal confirmed that Europeans are becoming poorer not just collectively but also privately. This shocking reversal of fortune was caused by the unprecedented level of austerity European governments inflicted upon their economies following the 2008 global financial crisis.Austerity is not only bad for vulnerable people in need of state support during tough times; it also stifles investment. In any economy, collective expenditure equals collective income. By substantially reducing public expenditure at a time when private expenditure was falling, European governments hastened the rate at which total income diminished.Is it any wonder that Europe’s businesses refused to invest in the capacity to produce stuff that consumers would not have the money to buy? That’s how post-2008 austerity slayed continent-wide investment and put Europe on a path of secular decline.Every austerity drive hits one area of fiscal expenditure first and hard: public investment, which, compared to other relatively inelastic government outlays, like pensions and public-sector salaries, is the softest target of budget cutters. So, it was the long-term dampening effect of austerity on public investment, not just the effect on aggregate demand and private investment, that left Europe permanently scarred.Today, more than a decade later, the eurozone features lower levels of public investment (as a percentage of aggregate income) than any other advanced economy or economic bloc. And if we exclude Ireland, as we must (given its GDP contains multinationals’ income that the Irish never see), Europe’s economic powerhouse, Germany, comes last within Europe in terms of its rate of overall investment.Apart from luxury goods (where companies like LVMH, Hermès, Porsche, and Ferrari lead the way) and soccer, Europe is becoming an economic minnow. The mighty German car industry may have retained its output but its value-added is in long-term decline.Across Europe, investment in manufacturing green tech is woeful. Batteries, artificial intelligence, and all the digital technologies that are driving global growth have left Europe in their wake. Back in 1990, Europe was manufacturing 44% of the world’s semiconductors; now it only makes 9% (the US produces 12%). Big Tech is almost exclusively American and Chinese. Of the top 20 tech companies worldwide, only two, ASML and SAP, are European.The pandemic put Europe’s austerity drive on hold for a few years as the EU’s fiscal rules were suspended and governments went on a spending spree to support businesses’ bottom line. A Recovery Fund was announced, which many rushed to herald as Europe’s Hamiltonian moment. It was, of course, no such thing (as I warned at the time).The pandemic was yet another global crisis that put Europe at a disadvantage relative to America. Europe’s stimulus was not only smaller than the US package; it also packed a smaller punch for every euro spent because, unlike in the United States, where a larger share of public money was sent as grants directly to citizens, European governments favored firms. And since firms in bad times are substantially less likely to spend money (except on their own shares) than citizens are, Europe’s stimulus was even smaller than the headline numbers suggest.Economic historians will look back to the 2008 financial crash, the post-2009 public debt crisis that ensued, and the pandemic as a sequence of opportunities Europe’s elites chose to miss, instead defaulting to austerity as soon as circumstances permitted. Most commentators blame this on irrational fear of inflation (owing to, say, Germans’ collective memory of the Weimar Republic), macroeconomic illiteracy, or other factors. I have argued that it is primarily motivated by an enduring class enmity toward Europe’s working people.Regardless of the reason, the fact is that Europe is about to make the same mistake at the worst possible moment. While our industry and infrastructure are wilting after years of underinvestment, the US is experiencing an investment boom, owing to President Joe Biden’s policy agenda, which grants enormous subsidies to companies (including European firms) that invest in America, largely in green tech.The EU, meanwhile, is responding the only way it seems to know: with moves to restore the fiscal rules that will revive the austerity policies that caused Europe’s relative immiseration in the first place.The writing is on the wall. Europe will make noises about setting up its own investment fund to counter America’s new industrial policies, but the result will be underwhelming and as divisive as the Recovery Fund was.As Europe continues to lose ground and its net exports to America and to China decline (also because of the “de-risking” policies the US is imposing on the EU), Europe’s protectionists will gain an upper hand, turning their ire more toward China than America. The costs of having shifted from Gazprom’s cheap gas to expensive liquefied natural gas shipped from the Gulf of Mexico notwithstanding, soon the costs of advanced solar panels (which only the Chinese can provide at low prices) will rise, along with the costs of the entire green-energy transition.Currently, Europe’s commentariat is still worried about inflation, which is understandable given that our conglomerates have used their market power to fatten their profit margins during the cost-of-living crisis. But, beneath the European economy’s surface, the true danger is a fresh recessionary dynamic – which we can already see in the money supply and total investment data.It takes no prophet to see what’s in store for Europe as austerity returns. Life in Europe will continue to get pricier as real wages fall and the quality of jobs worsens. Meanwhile, Europe, as an idea and an entity, will follow the majority of Europe’s working people down the narrowing path they have been on for more than a decade.

For the Project Syndicate site where the article was originally published, click here.

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Europe’s Fading Democracy – Project Syndicate op-ed

The European Union has long suffered from a democratic deficit, owing to the absence of a united European polity that can hold EU political institutions accountable. In recent years, three developments have all but destroyed the idea of the EU as an effective force for good within and beyond Europe.ATHENS – The quiet days of August are a good time to contemplate the year ahead. Peering at my 2024 calendar, the European Parliament elections loom largest. Sadly, they fail to inspire me the way they did five years ago.In 2019, I stood for the European Parliament in Germany while a German colleague stood in Greece. DiEM25, our pan-European movement, wanted to make the point that European democracy will remain a sham unless it becomes fully transnational. In 2024, such gestures are not even symbolically meaningful.My weariness, as I face next June’s European elections, is not due to any loss of interest in European politics or to recent political defeats, of which I have had my fair share. What wearies me is the difficulty of even imagining democracy’s seeds taking root in the European Union in my lifetime.European loyalists will lambast me for saying this. How dare I describe the EU as a democracy-free zone, when it is run by a Council comprising elected prime ministers and presidents, a Commission appointed by elected national governments, and a Parliament elected directly by Europe’s peoples and vested with the power to dismiss the appointed Commission?The hallmark of any democracy in deeply unequal societies is institutions designed to prevent the reduction of all human interaction to power relations. To keep despotism at bay, the executive’s discretionary power must be minimized by a sovereign polity with the means to minimize it.The EU’s member states furnish these means to their polities. However limited its choices might be, a country’s citizens retain the authority to hold its elected bodies accountable for their decisions (within the country’s exogenous constraints). Alas, this is impossible at the EU level.[image error]When our leaders return home following an EU Council meeting, they immediately shed responsibility for unpopular decisions, blaming their Council colleagues instead: “It was the best I could negotiate,” they say with a shrug.EU functionaries, advisers, lobbyists, and European Central Bank officials know this. They have learned to expect member-state representatives to toe the line and tell their national parliaments that, while they disagreed with the Council’s decisions, they were too “responsible” and committed to European “solidarity” to resist.And therein lies the EU’s democratic deficit. Crucial policies that a majority of Council members reject often pass easily, and there is no polity that can pass judgment on the Council itself, hold it accountable, and, ultimately, dismiss it as a body. When the Council reaches some half-decent agreement (like the one between the Spanish and Dutch prime ministers, Pedro Sánchez and Mark Rutte, to reform the EU’s fiscal compact), national elections, which never focus on EU-level decisions, can cause them to vanish into thin air.Moreover, the formal power of the European Parliament (which still lacks the authority to initiate legislation) to fire the Commission in toto is about as useful as equipping the Greek navy with a nuclear bomb to counter Turkey’s threats to seize an islet close to its coast.None of this is new. But I am wearier today because three developments have all but destroyed the idea of the EU as an effective force for good within and beyond Europe.For starters, we lost all hope that common debt might act as the Hamiltonian glue that would turn our European confederacy into something closer to a cohesive democratic federation. Yes, the pandemic led Germany, at last, to accept the issuance of common European debt. But, as I warned at the time, the political conditions under which the funds flowed were a Euroskeptic’s dream come true. The result? Rather than a first step toward the necessary fiscal union, NextGenerationEU (Europe’s Pandemic Recovery Fund) ruled out a Hamiltonian conversion.Second, the war in Ukraine has killed off European aspirations of strategic autonomy from the United States, which, despite the official niceties following Donald Trump’s defeat in 2020, continues to view the EU as an adversary to be contained. Whatever one believes a Ukraine-Russia peace agreement must contain, what is beyond dispute is the EU’s irrelevance during the diplomatic process that leads to it.Third, there is no longer any pretense that the EU is a purveyor of principled cosmopolitanism. Europeans disdained Trump’s “Build the Wall” campaign rallies, but the EU has proven more adept at building walls than Trump ever was. On Greece’s border with Turkey, in Spain’s Moroccan enclave, on the eastern borders of Hungary and Romania, in the Libyan desert, and now in Tunisia, the EU has funded the erection of abominations that Trump can only envy. And not a word is being uttered about the unlawful behavior of our coast guards, operating under the cover of a complicit Frontex (the EU’s border control agency), which has indisputably contributed to thousands of deaths in the Mediterranean.After the 2019 European elections, the liberal press expressed relief that Europe’s ultra-right did not do as well as feared. But they forgot that, unlike the inter-war fascists, the new ultra-rightists do not need to win elections. Their great strength is that they gain power, win or lose, as conventional parties fall over one another to embrace xenophobia-lite, then authoritarianism-lite, and eventually totalitarianism-lite. To put it differently, autocratic European leaders like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán don’t need to lift a finger to spread their chauvinist creed throughout the EU and Brussels.These are not the musings of a Euroskeptic who thinks that European democracy is impossible because a European demos is impossible. It is the lamentation of a Europeanist who believes that a European demos is entirely possible but that the EU has moved in the opposite direction. We have watched Europe’s rapid economic decline and its democratic (and ethical) deficits develop in parallel.Despite my misgivings, it’s an easy decision for me to stand again in the European elections – this time in Greece with MeRA25 – precisely because my misgivings need to be aired during the campaign. The paradox is that I must convince myself that EU electoral politics is worth the trouble before I can convince anyone else.

For the Project Syndicate site, click here.

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What’s behind this summer’s unnaturally huge Greek forest fires – UNHERD

My grandmother had the theory that, as we get older, our mind subconsciously cleanses our memories of a myriad misfortunes, leaving a sanitised version of the past for us to feel nostalgic about. The optimism of remembrance, she called it. Little did she know that her reasonable hypothesis would, one day, become the climate change deniers’ mantra.Until a few summers ago, I dismissed my sense that our bushfires were getting worse as merely Grandma’s optimism of remembrance in action – that I was forgetting how awful bushfires were back in the day. Then, in 2018 I witnessed, from a few kilometres afar, a horrendous fireball resembling a US-style twister only made of flames. In a few short minutes it consumed Mati, a seaside suburb north of Athens, incinerating more than one hundred people, one of them an old friend and her husband. My grandma’s theory no longer seemed to hold water.Two summers ago, this time from our home’s veranda, my partner and I watched helplessly as a firewall painstakingly destroyed a whole mountain on the other side of the Saronic Bay in whose forests I had spent a magical family holiday in the early 1970s. That fire burned for three days and for two horrendous nights during which the stars seemed pinned on a scarlet backdrop and the air was thick with ashes tasting of wholesale death. It took us weeks to smile again.And, now, this dreadful summer. I need not describe the situation in Rhodes, Corfu, Attika etc. Words fail me, especially since ten minutes ago I heard it on the wireless that a twin-engined firefighting Canadair airplane crashed near Karystos while diving into a ravine to throw seawater onto yet another conflagration – the fate of the two pilots in morbid abeyance (Nb. Their death was later confirmed). Sorry, grandma, at least on this, your theory is now irrelevant. Greece is desertifying, a fate worse than living in a desert because of all the perishing (animal, vegetable and even mineral) that comes with the desertification process.Experts tell me that Greece is no outlier. That worse developments are afoot in the New World; e.g., the 2019 hideous fires in South East Australia or the unbelievable 50oC temperatures in British Columbia two years later. I am sure they are right and that, unlike the Cold War and the Euro Crisis that did begin in Greece, climate disaster did not begin in my homeland. Be that as it may, for many people in the West, but also in the Global South, some very old Greek ideas about our collective fortunes continue to resonate and are, thus, bound to be resurface as Greece burns.Hesiod told us the tale of Prometheus and his daring act to steal fire from Zeus to deliver it to us, humans, so that we could create the technologies (like the conversion of pig iron to steel) that would allow us to flourish as a species. Accepting Zeus’ horrendous punishment, Prometheus clearly hoped that we, humans, would put fire to good use – that we would apply it to lighten up our lives without burning down the Earth. It was a faith that Hesiod did not share. In his poem Works and Days, Hesiod did not mince his words regarding the white heat of technology and the Iron Age (which he called the Fifth Age):I wish I did not have to live among the people of the Fifth Age, but either had died earlier or been born later. For now truly is a generation of iron who never rest from labour and sorrow by day or from perishing by night… But, notwithstanding the good mingled with their evils,… [this generation] will know no favour for those who keep their oath or for the just or for the good…, strength shall be right,… the wicked will hurt the worthy,… bitter sorrows will be left for us mortals, and there will be no help against evil. [ 174-200 ]Fire begat steel, steel begat power and power was something that humans could not handle wisely, Hesiod explained before prophesying that Zeus would have no choice but to, one day, destroy a humanity incapable of restraining its own, technologically induced, power. Today, surrounded by technologies that would have baffled Zeus no end, it is our children that are issuing warnings not too dissimilar to Hesiod’s.Meanwhile, the adults are playing childish games; like appointing the head of an Emirati oil company as head of… Cop28 (the latest rendition of the UN-sponsored global summit against climate change). And it is, of course, not just the UN. The EU political tide is shifting against the green transition, with the new farmer’s party in the Netherlands tilting the political field against it, thus causing the European People’s Party, led by Manfred Weber in the European Parliament, to take the hint and to question the EU’s net zero policies, as PM Rishi Sunak recently did in the UK.Returning to Greece, I am often asked about the prospects of green politics here. In the interest of full disclosure, I lead MeRA25, the only parliamentary party to have campaigned against all new fossil fuel investments, including for a ban on oil-and-gas drilling in the Mediterranean. Partly as a result, in the general election of last June, we lost all nine of our parliamentary seats (including mine). Sure enough, there were other reasons and own faults to explain our defeat, but the fact that every single television and radio channel is either owned or sponsored by oligarchs heavily invested in fossil fuels does seem pertinent. How do they get away with it? Why do the Greeks turn a blind eye while the heat sizzles their bodies and crushes their souls?In 1969, dad and mum bought a plot of land deep inside a splendid pine forest in an area sixty kilometres northeast of Athens that was deemed (and remains) unfashionable. The law allowed us to place, in between the pine trees, a log cabin no larger than ninety square metres. Which we did. No electricity, no running water, no telephone, it was a dreamy place that I shall never forget.Soon after, others followed. Industrial workers, shopkeepers, drivers, school teachers – a cross-section of the working class and the Athenian petit-bourgeois discovered the joys of ‘our’ forest, as they had every right to. The more wooden houses appeared the greater the popular demand for paved roads, electricity, water and all the mod cons of modern life. Gradually, residents bent the rules. Cement foundations, stone patios and unlicensed extensions appeared overnight.The initial resistance of the municipality gave way to electoral calculations and lobbying. Trees were cut to accommodate asphalt roads, electricity relay towers were built and telephone lines were installed. They, in turn, created greater demand for land and for houses that were breaking, in broad daylight, all the local laws.The ‘development’ that humans brought to that forest is a good parable of Greece’s path from the 1970s to our entry into the European Union, to the phoney debt-fuelled growth which led (after Wall Street and the franco-german banks collapsed) to Greece’s bankruptcy and, yes, to the thirteen years of austerity that followed (which hit badly, amongst other services, our fire brigades). Two years ago, following that summer’s sickening fires, I wrote about all this, again to seek answers and thus to steady my own nerves. Today, I seek solace in thinking again about our cabin house and the forest that welcomed it so generously.In 1999 the place was still recognisable as a pine forest, only now it was infested with disrespectful humans. One hot summer day, that year, a ravenous bushfire descended upon our forest from the north. Hundreds of houses were burned to a crisp. The forest was gone. Had humanity not invaded it, it would have regenerated in twenty or thirty years. Alas, the invaders grabbed the opportunity to expand their abodes where the trees used to be, and to plant non-native species of trees, grow vegetables etc. Today, you would not know that a pine forest flourished there during my teen years.These thoughts I share with you dear reader as I try to understand why a people whose country burns do not embrace green politics at the polling stations. One reason, which we encounter all over the world, is that the weak know that the powerful have the political capacity to make them pay for the green transition. After having paid for the bankers’ crimes, after having suffered a decade of harsh austerity, they will now have to pay for the huge cost of righting the planet whose degradation netted the rich treasures beyond the reach of any Treasury.However, in the case of my people, there is that other reason too: A well-repressed sense of common guilt. Our working class and our petti-bourgeoisie know that, in the early 1970s, they too played their part in a steady assault on Nature. While each did little individual damage, compared to the vast devastation wrought by the oligarchs, their guilt makes it easy for the ruling class to say to them: “We were in this together.” And in doing so, to silence dissent.

For the UNHERD site where the article was originally published, click here.

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Το πρόταγμα, οι συμμαχίες και το θέμα ηγεσίας του ΜέΡΑ25 – ThePressProject

Απόσπασμα από την τοποθέτηση του Γιάνη Βαρουφάκη στην Πολιτική Γραμματείας της 13ης Ιουλίου Μετά την διπλή εκλογική ήττα, το ΜέΡΑ25 προβήκαμε (βλ. Αποφάσεις Κεντρικής Επιτροπής της 9ης Ιουλίου) σε σκληρή αυτοκριτική όσον αφορά τον τρόπο που επικοινωνήσαμε τις θέσεις μας. Κοινό ήταν το αίσθημα ότι η «ρήξη», η συνεχής ονομαστική αναφορά στους γνωστούς ολιγάρχες, η αναφορά στην «Μητσοτάκης ΑΕ», η εχθρότητά μας προς τον (δυστυχώς δημοφιλή) Φράχτη, ίσως να μας στοίχησαν. Πως αν «στρογγυλεύαμε» τον λόγο μας, αν ήμασταν πιο «ήπιοι» για ολιγάρχες και Φράχτες, θα τρομάζαμε λιγότερο και σήμερα θα είμασταν στη Βουλή. Νομίζω ότι εδώ κάνουμε λάθος. Ότι παρασυρμένοι από την πραγματική ανάγκη αυτοκριτικής, δώσαμε (κι εγώ ο ίδιος) περισσότερη σημασία στον τρόπο που επικοινωνούμε τις θέσεις μας απ’ ότι έπρεπε.Να σας θυμίσω συνοδοιπόροι ότι δεν πουλάμε παγωτά όπου στόχος μοναδικός είναι η μεγιστοποίηση του τζίρου. Υπηρετούμε πολιτική παράταξη που επιλέγει να πιστεύει αυτά που λέει και να λέει εκείνα που πιστεύει. Πολιτική παράταξη που αποκαλύπτει αντι-δημοφιλείς αλήθειες και που τα βάζει με τεράστια συμφέροντα όποιο και να είναι το κόστος – προσωπικό, εκλογικό, πολιτικό. Ούτε η αλήθεια ούτε η ιδεολογία μας είναι διαπραγματεύσιμες. Και το πιο ωραίο; Μόνο αν το αποδεικνύουμε αυτό στον κόσμο, ιδίως μετά από απώλειες και ήττες όπως τώρα, θα μας εκτιμήσουν αρκετά ώστε κάποια στιγμή να μας ψηφίσουν κιόλας. Αν εμείς δεν σταθούμε ανυποχώρητοι π.χ. στον ρατσισμό του Φράχτη, ο οποίος – ναι – μπορεί να είναι δημοφιλής, ποιος θα το κάνει; Ποιανού συμπάθεια θα κερδίσουμε αν, όπως ο ΣΥΡΙΖΑ, κι εμείς κάνουμε εκπτώσεις και τον υποστηρίξουμε; Κανενός!Ερχόμενος τώρα στην προεκλογική συμμαχία μας με άλλες αγωνιστικές δυνάμεις και κινήματα, ο κύβος ερρίφθη στο 1ο Διαβουλευτικό Συνέδριο του ΜέΡΑ25 όταν αποφασίσαμε, ομόφωνα, να υιοθετήσουμε την στρατηγική της λαϊκής συστράτευσης, όχι βέβαια απλά τη συγκόλληση πολιτικών κομμάτων. Το «ΜέΡΑ25-Συμμαχία για τη Ρήξη» σε κάποιους φάνηκε ως μια τέτοια συγκόλληση – κι αυτό ήταν σαφώς αρνητικό. Στην πραγματικότητα όμως δεν ήταν απλά μια συγκόλληση. Επειδή με τους συντρόφους της ΛΑΕ αποδείξαμε πως αριστερά σχήματα μπορούν να συγκλίνουν (και να βάλουν στην άκρη διαφορές και πικρίες), η Συμμαχία μας προκάλεσε μια πραγματική συσστράτευση ανένταχτων, τόσο ως υποψήφιοι όσο και ως στηρίζοντες (π.χ. η Επιστολή Στήριξης των 66).Και τώρα επί προσωπικού (το οποίο όμως έχει σημαντικές πολιτικές διαστάσεις): Η δαιμονοποίησή μου, που ήταν συστηματική και ευφάνταστη (π.χ. Αίγιναgate, «θα σας πάρει τις καταθέσεις», «ψήφισε Μνημόνιο», «έδινε τον ΟΣΕ για 1 ευρώ», «έβαλε πρόστιμο 100 ευρώ στους ανεμβολίαστους», «άνθρωπος του Σόρος, του Πούτιν και των Αμερικανών(!)») είχε καθαρό και λογικό στόχο το να καταστήσει δύσκολο σε πολλές και πολλούς ανένταχτους να θέλουν να έρθουν κοντά στο ΜέΡα25. Αυτό θέτει ένα σημαντικό ερώτημα στρατηγικής το οποίο θα κληθεί να απαντήσει το 2ο Διαβουλευτικό μας Συνέδριο τον ερχόμενο Δεκέμβρη: Μήπως θα ήταν χρήσιμη για το κόμμα η αντικατάστασή μου ως Γραμματέα; Πρόκειται για ερώτημα που οι Σύνεδροι, όλες κι όλοι μας, έχουμε υποχρέωση να απαντήσουμε χωρίς φόβο και πάθος.Στην συνεδρίαση της Κεντρικής Επιτροπής της 9ης Ιουλίου, η τ. Βουλεύτρια Αν. Αττικής Μαρία Απατζίδη έθεσε το ερώτημα απαιτώντας εδώ-και-τώρα την παραίτησή μου και την διεξαγωγή Έκτακτου Συνεδρίου τον Σεπτέμβρη (αντί για τον Δεκέμβρη που τελικά αποφασίσαμε). Πολλοί ξενίστηκαν από την παρέμβασή της. Όχι εγώ. Σε αγωνιστικά, ανυπάκουα κόμματα όπως το ΜέΡΑ25 δεν υπάρχουν ιερές αγελάδες. Θεώρησα πολύ υγιή και χρήσιμη την απαίτηση-τοποθέτηση της Μαρίας και για αυτό την επικρότησα (και στενοχωρήθηκα που, δυστυχώς, αυτό-υπονομεύτηκε μέρες μετά ανακοινώνοντας την κάθοδό της με ακροδεξιό ψηφοδέλτιο στις δημοτικές εκλογές στο Μενίδι – αλλά αυτό είναι μια άλλη πονεμένη ιστορία). Η βασική αντίρρηση με την πρόταση της να παραιτηθώ εκείνη τη στιγμή ήταν πως η άμεση παραίτησή μου εντός του καλοκαιριού και η σύγκλιση ενός Συνεδρίου τον Σεπτέμβρη χωρίς καμία προσυνεδριακή ζύμωση των μελών μας θα οδηγούσε όχι στην συντεταγμένη αλλαγή ηγεσίας (κάτι που μόνο μετά από ικανό προσυνεδριακό διάλογο μπορεί να γίνει, ώστε το Συνέδριο να είναι ώριμο) αλλά στην διάλυση του ΜέΡΑ25.Ένα από τα ερωτήματα που θα κληθεί λοιπόν να απαντήσει το 2ο Διαβουλευτικό Συνέδριο μας τον Δεκέμβρη είναι αν μία/ένας άλλη/ος Γραμματέας θα ήταν χρησιμότερη/ος. Ως συνιδρυτής και εγγυητής του ΜέΡΑ25, όπως φαντάζομαι και κάθε μέλος και φίλος μας, θα ήθελα να ξέρω ποιές/οί συνοδοιπόροι ενδιαφέρονται να αναλάβουν τον ρόλο και με ποια ατζέντα. Ανυπομονώ οι απαντήσεις σε αυτά τα ερωτήματα να κάνουν πολλούς συνέδρους να πουν: ναι, υπάρχει λόγος το ΜέΡΑ25 να αποκτήσει νέα/ο Γραμματέα.Έως τότε, στο μεταξύ, επιτρέψτε μου να καταθέσω την εξής άποψη: Όποια/ος και να πάρει τη θέση μου, στο βαθμό που οι θέσεις του ΜέΡΑ25 πλήττουν τους ολιγάρχες και ο πλουραλισμός μας ενοχλεί εξ αριστερών το ΚΚΕ, η δαιμονοποίηση της επόμενης, του επόμενου, Γραμματέα δεν θα αργήσει. Ήδη τους ακούω στα αυτιά μου να λένε: «Επικίνδυνος ο Βαρουφάκης αλλά τουλάχιστον σε σχέση με…. ήξερε τι έλεγε». Αυτό βέβαια δεν σημαίνει ότι δεν πρέπει να αλλάξουμε Γραμματέα. Σημαίνει ότι η αλλαγή δεν είναι καταδικασμένη να πετύχει και πως πρέπει να προετοιμαστεί μεθοδικά, συλλογικά, πολιτικά.Κλείνω με το βλέμμα στην κοινωνία και στο μέλλον. Το προοδευτικό μέρος του μπλοκ του ΟΧΙ, που τον Ιούλιο του 2015 είχε πατήσει το 50% (με ένα 12% του ΟΧΙ να είναι απολίτικο ή να προέρχεται από την Ακροδεξιά), ήταν μια μεγάλη κατάκτηση του ανθρωπισμού εναντίον και των δύο όψεων του αυταρχισμού: του ακραίου μνημονιακού ιδιωτικομανούς κέντρου, από τη μία, και της ρατσιστικής Δεξιάς από την άλλη. Τώρα που το προοδευτικό μέρος του μπλοκ του ΟΧΙ ηττήθηκε κατά κράτος στις πρόσφατες εκλογές, η βασική δυσκολία μας – που την πληρώσαμε ως ΜέΡΑ25 στις κάλπες – είναι ότι δεν μπορούμε να πείσουμε για το ρεαλιστικό των πολιτικών μας όχι γιατί ο κόσμος δεν πιστεύει ότι είναι τεχνικά εφαρμόσιμες αλλά επειδή δεν βλέπει πώς εμείς θα εκλεγούμε για να τις εφαρμόσουμε. Κι αυτό τους κάνει να μην μας ψηφίζουν, επιβεβαιώνοντας έτσι την προσδοκία τους ότι οι πολιτικές μας… δεν θα εφαρμοστούν.Έτσι, το Ακραίο Κέντρο (αυτό που λάθος, αλλά κοινώς, αποκαλείται νεοφιλελευθερισμός) νικά κατά κράτος. Η μέγιστη νίκη του είναι πως έχει πείσει τον κόσμο ότι, συγκριτικά, η πιο αποτελεσματική αντίσταση σε αυτόν είναι ο εθνικός ταυτοτισμός, η Άκρα Δεξιά – κι όχι η διεθνιστική Αριστερή Ανυπακοή που το 2015, έστω και για λίγο, φάνηκε ικανή να καταγράφεται στο μυαλό των πολλών ως πλειοψηφική στην Ελλάδα και εν δυνάμει πλειοψηφική σε μεγάλο μέρος της ΕΕ – στη Ισπανία, Ιρλανδία, Πορτογαλία, αλλά και με μεγάλη άνοδο στην Γερμανία.Το ΜέΡΑ25 μπήκαμε στη Βουλή το 2019 όσο ο απόηχος εκείνης της αίσθησης υπήρχε ακόμα κι όσο οι πολιτικές μας δεν απειλούσαν να στερήσουν από την ολιγαρχία τουλάχιστον 100 δις. Το 2023 ο απόηχος του προοδευτικού ΟΧΙ είχε σβήσει (ελέω και των 60 δις δανεικών που έριξε στην κοινωνία η κυβέρνηση Μητσοτάκη) ενώ η ολιγαρχία απέκτησε πολλές προσόδους που οι πολιτικές του ΜέΡΑ25 (ιδίως ο «Οδυσσέας» και η θέση μας για κατάργηση του Χρηματιστήριου Ενέργειας) απειλούσαν να καταργήσουν. Το ζητούμενο για το ΜέΡΑ25 του μέλλοντος είναι πως θα μιλήσουμε ξανά στις ψυχές τουλάχιστον 200 χιλιάδων ψηφοφόρων κόντρα σε μέσα της ολιγαρχίας που είναι αποφασισμένα να μην μας αφήσουν να ορθοποδήσουμε.Δύσκολο το εγχείρημα. Αλλά έχετε τίποτα καλύτερο να κάνετε σε αυτή τη ζωή από το να το παλέψουμε; Εγώ δεν έχω! Και χαίρομαι που βλέπω τόσα από τα παλιά αλλά και τόσα νέα μέλη μας να πιστεύετε το ίδιο, να είστε εδώ την ώρα που άλλοι φεύγουν ψάχνοντας επαγγελματική ή πολιτική αποκατάσταση αλλού. Όλες κι όλοι μας, ενισχυόμενοι από τους πολλούς και εξαιρετικούς νέους συνοδοιπόρους που πυκνώνουν τις τάξεις του κόμματος, βλέπουμε την πρόσφατη ήττα ως ευκαιρία Ανασυγκρότησης του ΜέΡΑ25 και Ανασύνταξης του ευρύτερου Ανυπάκουου Προοδευτικού Χώρου. Κι έτσι προχωράμε, μαζί, προς το 2ο Διαβουλευτικό Συνέδριο του ΜέΡΑ25 τον ερχόμενο Δεκέμβρη.

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What is money and who rules the world? | Yanis Varoufakis on Escaped Sapiens #46

On this episode of the podcast I speak with Yanis Varoufakis about the role of banks and politicians. Yanis is an economist, politician, author and Secretary-General of MeRA25. He is perhaps best known for his role as the Greek Minister of Finance during the Greek credit crisis. In our discussion we cover some fairly big questions: Who really foots the bill when banks are bailed out? Who are the winners and losers during inflation? Are those that control the means of production still the dominant class? Why isn’t the EU home to big tech giants like facebook and amazon? What powers do politicians really have? What might a non-exploitative and sustainable social economy look like in practice and is there a peaceful way to get there?

These conversations are supported by the Andrea von Braun foundation (http://www.avbstiftung.de/), as an exploration of the rich, exciting, connected, scientifically literate, and (most importantly) sustainable future of humanity.

The views expressed in these episodes are my own and those of my guests.

Thumbnail image by: Socrates Baltagiannis. Check out his work here: https://www.socratesbaltagiannis.com/

Menu: 0:00

– Introduction 0:55

– Best swimming in Greece. 3:41

– What is money? 9:50

– Why do economies crash? 19:10

– Winners and losers of bank bailouts. 25:40

– Alternatives to saving the bankers. 33:30

– Where are the European Tech Giants? 37:40

– The European Catastrophe. 41:50

– What is the EU lacking? 43:55

– Forced Federation. 52:00

– Who holds power today? 56:30

– Buying shares and using amazon. 59:50

– What makes you happy?

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How the EU out-trumped Trump, plus what is killing capitalism: My last week’s Diary in The New Statesman

The week started ominously with a French journalist asking me whether the Greeks have turned cold-hearted, alluding to the apparent apathy to the drowning of hundreds of refugees off the coast of the Peloponnese and to the murky role played in this tragedy by our Coastguard. Yes, I replied without a second thought. A population that has been brutalised by thirteen years of crisis, whose median per capita real incomes are now 40% lower than in 2007, and whose democracy was crushed in 2015 (when their brave referendum vote was ignored) have become too numb and too cynical to care even about their own rights. How else can one explain the recent electoral triumph of a Prime Minister who had been caught red-handed eavesdropping on political opponents, even on members of his cabinet and the top brass of our armed forces?Build the Wall!Pollsters informed me that a chief reason our party, MeRA25, fared badly in the recent general election was our opposition to the Wall on our border with Turkey. My mind raced to the 2016 mass rallies addressed by a Donald Trump screaming “Build the Wall!” at the top of his voice. Back then, Europeans looked at him with disdain. Since then, Europe has proven far more adept at building Border Walls than Trump ever was. On the Greek-Turkey border, in Spain’s Moroccan enclave, on the eastern borders of Hungary and Romania, in the midst of Libya’s desert, the European Union has funded the erection of abominations that should fill Trump’s heart with envy. Are we not great hypocrites? And for what? For a thousand years we exported millions of migrants, often armed to the teeth, to the globe’s four corners. Now that Europe is aging, the migratory flows have reversed. We have a pressing need for many migrants every year. Instead of welcoming people willing to spend thousands of dollars to risk life and limb to get here, we fence them off and push their boats back into the stormy seas. Nothing but racism can explain this.TechnofeudalismI spent most of the week locked up in a studio recording the audiobook of my forthcoming Technofeudalism: What killed capitalism. It was hard work and great fun to read out loud a book which, while written from a Marxist analytical perspective, is bound to annoy leftists just as much as it annoys true-blue believers in capitalism’s inevitability. Why do I fear that leftists will be annoyed? At the heart of my thesis is an irony that may sound, at first, confusing: the thing that has killed capitalism is… capital itself. Not capital as we have known it since the dawn of the industrial era, but a new form of capital, a mutation of it so toxic that like a stupid, overzealous virus it has killed off its host. Upon hearing me saying this, a lovely SWP friend put it to me angrily: “If the system we live under is no longer capitalist, why is it not socialist?” Quite!Cloud CapitalSo, what on earth is cloud capital? For starters, it does not live anywhere near the clouds but, rather, it comprises our networked machinery, thousands of miles of optic fibre cables on the ocean floors, AI-driven algorithms and communications’ hardware crisscrossing the planet. So, like railway tracks and industrial robots, it is a form of capital. But, rather than merely a produced means of production, cloud capital is a produced means of behaviour modification. It turns us all into a type of serf, by inciting us to labour for free so as to build up its stock (e.g., when we upload stuff on TikTok). It speeds up proletarian labour in the factories and warehouses. And, crucially, it replaces markets with platforms, like amazon.com, which look like markets but are most certainly not markets. Cloudalists, its owners, now have the power to extract gigantic rents from conventional capitalists (e.g., the 35% cloud-rent Amazon, Apple, Alibaba etc. charge vendors). Unlike capitalism, whose fuel was profit, our technofeudal world runs on rent, like feudalism used to – except that cloud rent is made possible not via land ownership but via the ownership of this newfangled, toxic form of (cloud) capital, our era’s enclosed digital commons.But, is Amazon not a capitalist market?  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 asked me a few years ago. A type of digital fief, I replied instinctively. A postcapitalist one, whose historical roots remain in feudal Europe but whose integrity is maintained today by a futuristic, dystopian type of cloud-based capital.Are Meta and TikTok not capitalist competitors? TikTok drained Facebook’s users and revenues. Isn’t this exactly the market competition that Ford, Edison and Westinghouse faced? No, it’s not. Battles and rivalries leading to the rise and fall of fiefs, were part-and-parcel of feudalism. But we should not confuse rivalry between fiefs with market-based competition, where lower prices and higher qualities rule. Under technofeudalism, the rivalry between members of the technofeudal class is determined by power that transcends markets.

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New AI Germ Busters Can Also Bust Unions – Project Syndicate op-ed

Humanity has now developed AI algorithms capable of fully decoding a killer bug’s proteins and creating an effective antibiotic. Was there ever any doubt that conglomerates like Amazon would seize upon this opportunity to shrink workplaces along their supply chain where AI predicts a higher probability of unionization?ATHENS – Last week brought a rare good-news story: artificial intelligence enabled researchers to develop an antibiotic capable of killing an exotic superbug that had defied all existing antimicrobial drugs. An AI-driven algorithm mapped out thousands of chemical compounds in key proteins of Acinetobacter baumannii, a bacterium that causes pneumonia and infects wounds so severely that the World Health Organization had classified it as one of humanity’s three “critical threats.”Once the mapping was done, the AI proceeded to invent an effective drug with novel features compared to existing antibiotics. Without AI’s help, the life-saving antibiotic would remain a pipe dream. It was a scientific triumph for the ages.But there is a nasty flipside. Remember Chris Smalls, the Amazon warehouse worker who organized an employee walkout from the company’s Staten Island, New York, facility to protest working conditions during the pandemic?Smalls shot to brief fame when it was revealed that, having fired him, Amazon’s rich and powerful directors spent a long teleconference planning to use character assassination to undermine his cause. Still, a couple of years later, Smalls successfully organized the first (and still only) formally recognized Amazon employees union in the United States. Today, such successes are imperiled by the same AI technology that produced the germ-busting antibiotic.Smalls’ union was a bitter setback for Amazon managers, who had been trained for years to use any means, fair or foul, to prevent workers from unionizing. In a training video leaked in 2018, managers were coached to watch for warning signs of organizing activity. They were urged to use surveillance cameras outside Amazon’s warehouses to spot employees who linger after their shift, potentially seeking to persuade colleagues to join a union. They were also encouraged to eavesdrop on employees’ conversations, listening for phrases like “living wage” or “I feel drained.”Soon after, software replaced, or at least aided, the bosses’ primitive surveillance methods. In 2020, Recode reported that Amazon had purchased the geoSPatial Operating Console (SPOC) to monitor workers prone to unionization efforts. And Vice exposed how Amazon’s human resources department monitored employee listservs and Facebook groups to predict work slowdowns, strikes, and other collective action.[image error]The software categorized worker traits and behaviors according to whether they were correlated with pro-union tendencies. But the software’s predictive power disappointed Amazon, so the company continued to rely on regional managers keeping tabs on workers the old-fashioned way.All that has now been eclipsed by AI. Why keep an eye or an ear trained on employees, or purchase software to read their posts and Facebook pages, when a centralized AI can detect union-friendly phrases and behaviors in every Amazon warehouse automatically in real time and at zero cost?Disconcertingly, union-busting AI relies on exactly the same scientific breakthroughs that yielded the germ-busting AI. Before AI, researchers categorized molecules as vectors that either contained or did not contain certain groups of chemicals. This was no different, and no more efficient, than Amazon’s SPOC software categorizing employees on the basis of their perceived temptation to form a union.AI germ-busting programs, in contrast, rely on neural networks and machine-learning models capable of exploring chemical spaces that human researchers would need decades to survey. They are then trained to analyze the molecular structure of a germ’s proteins and to identify compounds with a high probability of killing it.The AI union-busting programs rely on the same process. The only difference is that, instead of chemical spaces and molecules, AI explores warehouse spaces to focus on employees, whose real-time data is constantly uploaded to the program by the electronic devices they must carry everywhere they go in the workplace – including the toilet.These AI-driven systems learn how to devise strategies to neutralize their programmed target, whether it is a bunch of proteins at the heart of a germ or a band of workers in the break room. In both cases, AI categorizes its targets into vectors which are subsequently used to maximize the probability of eliminating them.It was inevitable. Humanity proved brilliant enough to develop AI algorithms capable of fully decoding a killer bug’s proteins – without any human input – and creating an effective antibiotic. Was there ever any doubt that conglomerates like Amazon would seize upon this opportunity to identify, and shrink, workplaces along their supply chain where AI predicts a higher probability of unionization?Economists earnestly profess that the forces of demand and supply work reliably to ensure that technological change benefits us. This fiction allows them to avert their gaze from the vicious class struggle going on under their noses, wrecking the lives of millions while rendering the macroeconomy unable to generate (at least without untenable levels of debt) enough demand for the goods that the technology can produce.Warren Buffett, who owes his success largely to ignoring economists’ illusions, famously quipped that the class war is real and that his class is winning it hands down. That was before algorithm-driven digital devices replaced foremen on the shop floor, dictating a pace of work and a total surveillance regime that made the factories in Charlie Chaplin’s  Modern Times  look like a workers’ paradise. As if that were not enough, AI is now empowering conglomerates to snuff out the only institution able to give workers a modicum of power in a world where they have next to none: labor unions.The class war Buffett acknowledged will soon pit AI-clad cloud-based capital in every sector against a worldwide precariat free only to lose and lose again. Whatever one’s politics or aspirations, it should be clear that this economy is both unspeakable and unsustainable.

For the Project Syndicate site where this article was originally published click here.

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Austerity Ruined Europe, and Now It’s Back – Project Syndicate op-ed

The United States is experiencing an investment boom, owing to industrial policies that grant enormous subsidies – including to European firms – for investing in America, largely in green tech. Europe, meanwhile, is responding with a return to the austerity policies that caused it to fall behind the US in the first place.ATHENS – In 2008 Europeans earned, in aggregate, 10% more than Americans. By 2022, Americans were earning 26% more than Europeans. This week, the Wall Street Journal confirmed that Europeans are becoming poorer not just collectively but also privately. This shocking reversal of fortune was caused by the unprecedented level of austerity European governments inflicted upon their economies following the 2008 global financial crisis.Austerity is not only bad for vulnerable people in need of state support during tough times; it also stifles investment. In any economy, collective expenditure equals collective income. By substantially reducing public expenditure at a time when private expenditure was falling, European governments hastened the rate at which total income diminished.Is it any wonder that Europe’s businesses refused to invest in the capacity to produce stuff that consumers would not have the money to buy? That’s how post-2008 austerity slayed continent-wide investment and put Europe on a path of secular decline.Every austerity drive hits one area of fiscal expenditure first and hard: public investment, which, compared to other relatively inelastic government outlays, like pensions and public-sector salaries, is the softest target of budget cutters. So, it was the long-term dampening effect of austerity on public investment, not just the effect on aggregate demand and private investment, that left Europe permanently scarred.Today, more than a decade later, the eurozone features lower levels of public investment (as a percentage of aggregate income) than any other advanced economy or economic bloc. And if we exclude Ireland, as we must (given its GDP contains multinationals’ income that the Irish never see), Europe’s economic powerhouse, Germany, comes last within Europe in terms of its rate of overall investment.Apart from luxury goods (where companies like LVMH, Hermès, Porsche, and Ferrari lead the way) and soccer, Europe is becoming an economic minnow. The mighty German car industry may have retained its output but its value-added is in long-term decline.Across Europe, investment in manufacturing green tech is woeful. Batteries, artificial intelligence, and all the digital technologies that are driving global growth have left Europe in their wake. Back in 1990, Europe was manufacturing 44% of the world’s semiconductors; now it only makes 9% (the US produces 12%). Big Tech is almost exclusively American and Chinese. Of the top 20 tech companies worldwide, only two, ASML and SAP, are European.The pandemic put Europe’s austerity drive on hold for a few years as the EU’s fiscal rules were suspended and governments went on a spending spree to support businesses’ bottom line. A Recovery Fund was announced, which many rushed to herald as Europe’s Hamiltonian moment. It was, of course, no such thing (as I warned at the time).The pandemic was yet another global crisis that put Europe at a disadvantage relative to America. Europe’s stimulus was not only smaller than the US package; it also packed a smaller punch for every euro spent because, unlike in the United States, where a larger share of public money was sent as grants directly to citizens, European governments favored firms. And since firms in bad times are substantially less likely to spend money (except on their own shares) than citizens are, Europe’s stimulus was even smaller than the headline numbers suggest.Economic historians will look back to the 2008 financial crash, the post-2009 public debt crisis that ensued, and the pandemic as a sequence of opportunities Europe’s elites chose to miss, instead defaulting to austerity as soon as circumstances permitted. Most commentators blame this on irrational fear of inflation (owing to, say, Germans’ collective memory of the Weimar Republic), macroeconomic illiteracy, or other factors. I have argued that it is primarily motivated by an enduring class enmity toward Europe’s working people.Regardless of the reason, the fact is that Europe is about to make the same mistake at the worst possible moment. While our industry and infrastructure are wilting after years of underinvestment, the US is experiencing an investment boom, owing to President Joe Biden’s policy agenda, which grants enormous subsidies to companies (including European firms) that invest in America, largely in green tech.The EU, meanwhile, is responding the only way it seems to know: with moves to restore the fiscal rules that will revive the austerity policies that caused Europe’s relative immiseration in the first place.The writing is on the wall. Europe will make noises about setting up its own investment fund to counter America’s new industrial policies, but the result will be underwhelming and as divisive as the Recovery Fund was.As Europe continues to lose ground and its net exports to America and to China decline (also because of the “de-risking” policies the US is imposing on the EU), Europe’s protectionists will gain an upper hand, turning their ire more toward China than America. The costs of having shifted from Gazprom’s cheap gas to expensive liquefied natural gas shipped from the Gulf of Mexico notwithstanding, soon the costs of advanced solar panels (which only the Chinese can provide at low prices) will rise, along with the costs of the entire green-energy transition.Currently, Europe’s commentariat is still worried about inflation, which is understandable given that our conglomerates have used their market power to fatten their profit margins during the cost-of-living crisis. But, beneath the European economy’s surface, the true danger is a fresh recessionary dynamic – which we can already see in the money supply and total investment data.It takes no prophet to see what’s in store for Europe as austerity returns. Life in Europe will continue to get pricier as real wages fall and the quality of jobs worsens. Meanwhile, Europe, as an idea and an entity, will follow the majority of Europe’s working people down the narrowing path they have been on for more than a decade.

For the Project Syndicate site where the article was originally published, click here.

The post Austerity Ruined Europe, and Now It’s Back – Project Syndicate op-ed appeared first on Yanis Varoufakis.

Η Ανασυγκρότηση του ΜέΡΑ25 κι η Διαγραφή Σακοράφα: το προσωπικό μου μήνυμα στον κόσμο του ΜέΡΑ25

Χτες το βράδυ, η Κεντρική Επιτροπή αποφάσισε την Ανασυγκρότηση του ΜέΡΑ25. Κι εγώ, μαζί με τον Κλέωνα Γρηγοριάδη και την Λίτσα Αλεξάκη, την εισήγηση στην Επιτροπή Δεοντολογίας να διαγραφεί άμεσα η Σοφία Σακοράφα. Τα δύο, δυστυχώς, πάνε χέρι-χέρι. Η Ανασυγκρότηση (πολιτική-ηθική-οργανωτική) του ΜέΡΑ25 δεν μπορούσε να γίνει χωρίς Ρήξη Ολική με συμπεριφορές που δεν ταιριάζουν στο κόμμα της Ανυπακοής στην Ολιγαρχία.Όλα αυτά τα χρόνια, από τον Γενάρη του 2015 ως τώρα, έχω δεχθεί αμέτρητα μαχαιρώματα, ατέλειωτη ακολουθία απογοητεύσεων από ανθρώπους στους οποίους πίστεψα και θεώρησα αδέρφια μου. Το πιο πρόσφατο ήρθε τώρα, μετά την Κεντρική Επιτροπή, όταν συνεργάτες μου – που μέχρι τότε με προστάτευαν από τη θέα της για να μην καταρρεύσω προεκλογικά – μου έδειξαν φωτογραφία παρμένη στις αρχές Ιουνίου εγκάρδιας χειραψίας της Σοφίας Σακοράφα με τον Βαγγέλη Μαρινάκη. Ράγισε η ψυχή μου. Σας μιλώ ειλικρινά. Ένιωσα να χάνω τη θέληση να συνεχίσω. Κι αυτό γιατί δεν ήταν η πρώτη φορά.  Τον περασμένο Φλεβάρη, είχε δημοσιευτεί φωτογραφία με την Σοφία να βραβεύει τον Αχιλλέα Μπέο, τον άνθρωπο της νύχτας που τρομοκρατεί συστηματικά τους συνοδοιπόρους μας στον Βόλο. Αναγκάστηκα, τότε, να ζητήσω συγγνώμη εκ μέρους του ΜέΡΑ25 (και της Σοφίας!), καθώς η Σοφία δεν δέχθηκε να το κάνει. Μου υποσχέθηκε ότι δεν θα επαναληφθεί κάτι ανάλογο. Κι όμως. Μέσα στην πιο σκληρή αναμέτρησή μας με τον Μαρινάκη και τους γνωστούς έξι-επτά ολιγάρχες, την ώρα που εμείς ματώναμε τη φανέλα του ΜέΡΑ25 κόντρα στον Μαρινάκη και την φάρα του, η Σοφία επέλεξε – χωρίς να με προειδοποιήσει, προστατεύσει, προϊδεάσει – να βρεθεί στο ίδιο κάδρο («θεσμικά») με χαμόγελα και χειραψίες με τον αρχι-ολιγάρχη που ο Κλέων, ο Κρίτων, η Λίτσα, εγώ, εσείς με κίνδυνο προσωπικό καταγγέλλουμε μέσα κι έξω από τη Βουλή – τον ολιγάρχη ο οποίος δεδηλωμένα δούλεψε φιλότιμα να εξαφανίσει το ΜέΡΑ25.Και σαν να μην έφτανε αυτό, στην χτεσινή Κεντρική μας Επιτροπή, που στόχος μας ήταν η ενωτική συμπόρευση, βρεθήκαμε αντιμέτωποι με μια ύπουλη προσπάθεια να τιναχτεί το κόμμα κυριολεκτικά στον αέρα. Δεν τα κατάφεραν. Η Κεντρική μας Επιτροπή βγήκε ενισχυμένη με νέους ανθρώπους, με στιβαρό πρόγραμμα ανασυγκρότησης, με συντεταγμένη πορεία προς το 2ο Διαβουλευτικό Συνέδριο του ΜέΡΑ25. Εμείς θα προχωρήσουμε όπως έχουμε χρέος. Εκείνοι που πέταξαν στα σκουπίδια την αδελφική αγκαλιά που τους έδωσα, που τους δώσατε, επιλέγοντας να παραμείνουν ξένα σώματα στην οικογένεια του ΜέΡΑ25, και να συγχρωτίζονται με τους Μπέους και τους Μαρινάκηδες, δεν έχουν θέση σε αυτό τον ωραίο αγώνα μας.Κλείνοντας το προσωπικό αυτό σημείωμα σε κάθε μία, σε κάθε ένα σας, με τη δική σας αλληλεγγύη και συνεισφορά, θα επιτευχθεί ο στόχος της οργανωτικής, πολιτικής και ηθικής Ανασυγκρότησης του ΜέΡΑ25. Για τους ανθρώπους, όχι για τα αξιώματα. Αυτός ο αγώνας είναι πολύ ωραίος για να πέσει θύμα των επαγγελματιών της πολιτικής.

Ακολουθεί το κείμενο της επιστολής μας, με τον Κλέωνα Γρηγοριάδη και τη Λίτσα Αλεξάκη, στην Επιτροπή Δεοντολογίας, για διαγραφή της Σοφίας Σακοράφα από το ΜέΡΑ25:

ΠΡΟΣ την Επιτροπή Δεοντολογίας & Τήρησης Καταστατικού του ΜέΡΑ25Κυριακή 9η Ιουλίου 2023, ώρα 23.50Αγαπητές και αγαπητοί συνοδοιπόροι,Σήμερα, η Κεντρική Επιτροπή ενέταξε νέες δυνάμεις στις τάξεις του κόμματος και δρομολόγησε την ανασυγκρότηση του ΜέΡΑ25 ώστε να συνεχίσουμε κι εκτός Βουλής, ακούραστα και ανιδιοτελώς, τον αγώνα εναντίον της ολιγαρχίας. Όμως, ιδιαίτερα σε αυτή τη νέα, δύσκολη φάση του ΜέΡΑ25, νιώθουμε την ανάγκη να προστατεύσουμε αυτό τον ανιδιοτελή αγώνα «για τους ανθρώπους, όχι για τα αξιώματα» αποβάλλοντας μια σκιά που πέφτει βαριά στην ψυχή μας. Αναφερόμαστε, με λύπη, στη Σοφία Σακοράφα – την οποία τόσο πιστέψαμε και τόσο στηρίξαμε.Τον περασμένο Φλεβάρη, η Σοφία έπληξε όλους μας βραβεύοντας τον Αχιλλέα Μπέο – τον ακροδεξιό, μισογύνη παράγοντα της νύχτας και κόκκινο πανί για όλα τα κινήματα της περιοχής. Γνωρίζουμε καλά την στενοχώρια των μελών μας όταν η Σοφία αρνήθηκε να ζητήσει συγγνώμη από τους προοδευτικούς ανθρώπους του Βόλου. Θυμόμαστε πως ο Γραμματέας αναγκάστηκε να «το πάρει πάνω του» ζητώντας ο ίδιος συγγνώμη λέγοντας: «…δεν έχω κανέναν ενδοιασμό να ζητήσω συγγνώμη εκ μέρους του ΜέΡΑ25 από τον λαό του Βόλου και τα κινήματα που πρωτοστατούν στον αγώνα κατά του κ. Μπέου…»Ήταν άδικο να επωμιστεί το ΜέΡΑ25, μέσω του Γραμματέα του, άλλο ένα βάρος που δεν μας αναλογούσε. Αλλά πλησίαζαν οι εκλογές, και θεωρώντας σίγουρο ότι η Σοφία Σακοράφα (ιδίως μετά την γενναιόδωρη και άκρως συντροφική παρέμβαση του Γραμματέα) δεν θα επαναλάμβανε το ατόπημα, σιωπάσαμε. Κάναμε λάθος! Την 4η Ιουνίου νέα φωτογραφία-κόλαφος είδε το φως της δημοσιότητας με την Σοφία σε εγκάρδια χειραψία με τον… Βαγγέλη Μαρινάκη – τον ολιγάρχη που κατονομάζαμε, με προσωπικό κίνδυνο, στη Βουλή.Σε μια προεκλογική περίοδο που τα ΜΜΕ του κ. Μαρινάκη είχαν ρητή άνωθεν εντολή να μας αποκλείουν (όπως καταγγέλλαμε επισήμως), η εγκάρδια συνεύρεση Σακοράφα-Μαρινάκη ξεπέρασε κάθε όριο ανοχής. Όπως έγραψε μετά το επεισόδιο με τον Α. Μπέο γνωστός αγωνιστής της Αριστεράς, εξηγώντας γιατί δεν στήριξε το ΜέΡΑ25: «Αν δεν μπορούμε να κάνουμε ρήξη ούτε καν στον ΣΕΓΑΣ θα κάνουμε ρήξη με την ολιγαρχία και το σύστημα που διαφεντεύει τον πλανήτη;»Αυτή τη φορά, δεν θα επαναλάβουμε το λάθος να σωπάσουμε: Σας καταθέτουμε την άποψη πως, όσο παραμένει – μετά από τέτοιες συμπεριφορές – η Σοφία Σακοράφα στο ΜέΡΑ25, πλήττεται άδικα αλλά σκληρά η αξιοπιστία του ως πραγματικά ανιδιοτελές κόμμα. Θεωρούμε, και το καταθέτουμε εδώ με θλίψη αλλά και οργή, πως η Επιτροπή Δεοντολογίας πρέπει να επιληφθεί άμεσα διαγράφοντας τη Σοφία Σακοράφα ώστε να προστατευτεί το κόμμα μας, ιδίως στη σημερινή κρίσιμη φάση ανασυγκρότησης η οποία θα πετύχει με την ανιδιοτελή και ακούραστη συμβολή όλων μας.Με φιλικούς και συνοδοιπορικούς χαιρετισμούς,Λίτσα Αλεξάκη, Γιάνης Βαρουφάκης, Κλέων Γρηγοριάδης

 

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