Yanis Varoufakis's Blog, page 27

Our moral duty to Ukraine, and to each other – UNHERD (video + full transcript)

Since war broke out in Ukraine, Greek politician and economist Yanis Varoufakis has been accused of being a Putin apologist, a “Westsplainer”, and a conspiracy theorist. But what does he really think about this conflict? Freddie Sayers spoke to him about liberal warmongering, who’s benefitting from the war, and the West’s moral duty to put Ukrainian lives first.Have you had experience of being cast as pro-Putin for expressing unease about some of the Western measures against Russia?Immensely, and painfully. But let’s be clear, my pain is neither here nor there when you have atrocities, murders, a whole country being devastated by Putin’s armies. Who gives a damn about how I feel about my treatment by people on social media?Back in 2001, I labelled Vladimir Putin a war criminal because of the murder of 250,000 people in Grozny, Chechnya. It was in a Senate meeting of the University of Athens, which was discussing the motion for awarding an honorary doctorate to Putin, who had just become president of Russia. And I was in a minority of one opposing it. So having gone out on a limb, having condemned Putin, it was a bit surprising to be lambasted by several commentators as “Putin’s useful idiot.”Was the charge against you based on your blaming Nato expansion for the current crisis?The most pertinent criticism that I received was that I was “Westsplaining” — this is a version of “mansplaining” — that I was being condescending in the way that I was telling Eastern Europeans what’s in their interest. Now, that is a very serious accusation. Because we do know that mansplaining is something that we men often do.While I’m not claiming to have the monopoly of truth, I do believe that as a European, as a citizen of the world, I have the right to, for instance, comment that Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian power was built on a bedrock of animosity between the West and Russia, and that Putin exploited the humiliation of the Russians — at the hands of Nato, at the hands of the International Monetary Fund.Don’t forget how in the Nineties, even the reformers — liberals, neoliberals in Russia — were crushed by the West, by the International Monetary Fund, forcing Russia into an awful default in 1998 that caused the life expectancy of men in Russia to drop from 75 to 58. It was a catastrophe, a humanitarian catastrophe. And Putin, being a KGB strategist, utilised that pent-up frustration of Russians against the West in order to build up his horrid empire.Is your argument that without Nato expansion in Eastern Europe we would not be in this position?My point is this: there was an agreement between Gorbachev and George Bush Senior that Gorbachev would let Eastern Europe go its own way, on the condition that Nato would not expand eastward. We know that; this is well established. Given that Putin was pushing Russia back towards a re-militarised stance, and Nato and Russia were always going to develop an enmity between them, is it not a good idea to have a neutral zone between the two? Do we really want Russian nuclear weapons and Nato nuclear weapons to be side by side? For me, the neutrality of Eastern Europe is not a second best, it would be first best. It will be good for the people of Eastern Europe, it will be good for Nato, and it will be good for Russia, to minimise tensions to the extent that we can do that.But in any case, I am perfectly willing to accept an Eastern European progressive who says to me that I’m wrong. What I find intolerable is the lack of tolerance — that I’ve been told, “butt off, you’re a Westplainer in that you even have an opinion about what should be happening in Eastern Europe”. This is not a good foundation for Europeanism.They do say that when war begins, the truth dies very quickly. But it’s not just truth. It’s a capacity that we have in the West to have a civilised, rational debate amongst ourselves.What about the sanctions against Russia — do you support them? Well, it’s always the case that when sanctions are slapped on a dictatorial regime they hurt the people, not the dictators. Especially in the case of Putin. Putin has a war chest, which is quite large. And he doesn’t care about the plight of Russian people. But let me be clear on this. I’m not against the sanctions. Watching the atrocities coming out now — the towns, the villages that the Russian army has vacated — watching the devastation on the coastal areas of eastern Ukraine, I can understand why people say, “look, we simply do not want to trade with these people — we’re not going to let them have access to their yachts, and to their money, and all that,” that’s fine by me.I think that, in the end, we are going to have a lot more suffering — as a result of price increases, especially electricity prices — among the poor in Western Europe. I believe the dollar as the reserve currency is being placed under immense pressure. So I think that the American administration is going to live to regret the cutting off of the Central Bank of Russia from the dollar payment system.But none of that matters really at this very moment. Because what matters is the war. Freddie, what keeps me up at night is that people are being killed. And what I want us to work for, all of us — and let’s iron out our differences: how can we have an immediate cessation of fire and a withdrawal of Russian troops?What appalls me about those who purport to support Ukraine and who are attacking my position, is that they seem to be seriously considering the possibility that Ukraine is going to win the war and overthrow Putin. Now that’s completely pie in the sky. Anybody who believes that is jeopardising the lives of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians as we speak.At best, you’re going to have a stalemate. Now a stalemate is terrible for the people of Ukraine. Because we know what Putin is going to do. He’s going to do what he did in Grozny. He’s going to raze to the ground areas that he needs to abandon. The Ukrainian army has been very heroic, and I applaud them for having resisted. But they cannot win the war. Do we really want this painful, murderous stalemate go on and on and on? Do we really want to invest in regime change in Russia that is instigated by the United States? Whenever the United States has tried to regime change we’ve had complete catastrophe. Look at Afghanistan, look at Iraq, look at Libya. And this is a nuclear power. Do we want to play with this fire, with this nuclear fire?We should have an immediate ceasefire. President Zelenskyy, to his credit, has now adopted the proposal that I’ve been making from day one: that we should have an agreement between Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin — of course, with Zelenskyy, and the European Union participating — that makes a very simple trade, a deal. Russia withdraws from Ukraine, in exchange for an end to the sanctions and a commitment, by the West, that Ukraine is going to be part of the West but not part of Nato.Does that include being part of the EU?Putin wants a way out. I think that the United States and Zelenskyy, together, and the EU, must give him a way out. If he can be seen to have won a victory — something that he can present to his own people as a victory (“I have ended Nato’s eastward expansion. I went to war to stop Nato expanding and I succeeded”), I think that we have a moral duty to give him this way out. Now, I can’t guarantee that he will take it. But the West can offer him this way out, to stop the killings.A few weeks ago, giving an off-ramp to Putin might have proven popular. But it feels like the situation is different now. We’ve had a full-scale withdrawal of Russian troops from around Kyiv, and there seems to be increased confidence that something like a full-scale defeat might actually be in sight. What’s your reaction to that?That’s madness. There is no way that the Ukrainian army is going to defeat the panoply of the Russian army in Mariupol, in the areas between Crimea, and Donbas. All power to them if they can do it. I don’t believe that Zelenskyy believes it. I don’t believe that anybody actually believes it. Yes, it is wonderful that Putin did not walk into Kyiv unopposed. It’s wonderful that he’s been given a bloody nose. This is the time to sue for peace.Look, the West did that after the awful civil war in Yugoslavia. You’ll recall Srebrenica. We had atrocities galore across Bosnia. And not just in Bosnia — in Croatia, in Ukraine, in various areas that were devastated by the original civil war within Yugoslavia. And yet, under the auspices of the American President, the West sat down with Milosevic and they created an imperfect peace for Bosnia, which has been holding since then. Was that a mistake? Should we have continued the bloodletting, hoping that one side would completely annihilate the other side? I don’t believe so.There’s talk of really escalating the amount of military hardware being sent to support the Ukraine war effort. I’m presuming from what you’re saying that you’d be against that?While the Ukrainian army is resisting, I think we have a moral duty to support them militarily. Not me and you personally, but I’m not going to criticise the West for sending weapons to the Ukrainian resistors. But the whole point of resisting is to come to the point where we sue for peace. We can come to an agreement that leaves everybody slightly dissatisfied, which is the optimal agreement. Where, for instance, Ukraine stays out of Nato, it stops arming itself. Maybe there can be a demilitarised zone on both sides of the Russian-Ukrainian border. Crimea can be discussed in the next 10 years or so.Such an agreement could also be augmented with an understanding that Ukraine would not be prevented from entering the EU. Well, that agreement goes hand-in-hand with ending the arms race on both sides. Because who knows, maybe Putin tomorrow is going to be supported by the Chinese military? Do we really want that kind of escalation?Something’s happened quite suddenly where to speak like that is now seen as a betrayal.It’s what happens when war begins: we lose our head. Warmongering becomes cool and mainstream. Now, I have no doubt that there are cooler heads around Europe who are despairing. But they can’t speak out. I can see it in Germany, I can see it within the government of the Federal Republic: there are people who are besides themselves. They are pulling their hair out. Because if they speak out they will be immediately taken to task by the warmongers who are having a field day.This is why it’s important that we band together to bring a modicum of rationality back to the debate and to focus on the only thing that matters at the moment. It’s not money. It’s not trade. It’s not natural gas. It is human lives in Ukraine. How can we stop people from dying? Because if they continue — the ones who put the theoretical right of Ukrainians to be members of Nato above the life of people in Ukraine, and above the opportunity of Ukraine to prosper as a Western democracy, which is inside the EU and outside of Nato — we’re going to be creating a quagmire that will ensure two things. Firstly, that thousands of people will die who could be saved, and secondly, that Ukraine is going to be a desert.Do you observe that the people leading this warmongering, as you call it, would mainly describe themselves as liberals?Yes. I can see that. But it’s not the first time. I remember when the United States were about to invade Iraq, even Left-wingers like Christopher Hitchens, a man that I admired all my life, became liberal imperialists. He was gung-ho about invading Iraq and spreading democracy. If you think of the early 1960s, it was JFK who initially showed a degree of enthusiasm for taking over Vietnam.I do fear that it’s not just some liberal imperialists or liberal supporters of victory — of war until the final victory is achieved, as if it is possible to imagine invading Moscow. I feel that there’s something else there: a missing ingredient. Follow the money. The United States is a very complex economy. And it’s not homogeneous. Segments of the American economy are suffering as a result of the war, with the increasing price of oil. I believe Silicon Valley is not happy, because they’re being put in a very difficult situation. Even the banking sector, Wall Street, can’t really be enjoying what’s going on.But if you are selling weapons, you are having a party. You have Olaf Scholtz, the German Chancellor, about to order 100 billion euros worth of American equipment, because the Germans are not making the stuff. If you are providing fracked oil and gas from New Mexico, from Minnesota, from Texas, you are looking at the new deals that are being struck between the European Union and the United States for LNG (liquefied natural gas), and you are rubbing your hands with glee. Because what was a dying industry in the United States now suddenly has been given a huge lease of life. This is not a conspiracy. If you have liberal imperialists, and you’ve got people that are going to make a lot of money out of this liberal imperialism, and you bring these together, you have a very powerful constituency in favour of maintaining the conflicts.A lot of people will listen to what you’ve just said and think that it is verging on conspiracy: evil Americans in suits sitting around board tables, trying to create wars in order to profit from them. There’s no conspiracy; nothing of what I said is conspiracy. It’s the truth that if you’re selling arms, you are making a lot of money. If you’re selling oil and gas that is fracked in the United States, you are making a lot of money. We know that.It’s not causation though, is it? It’s one thing to observe that, but those people aren’t in charge of making the decisions. Of course. Because why didn’t they do it ten years ago? They would have had an interest in doing this ten years ago. Nobody forced Putin to invade. It wasn’t Nato’s fault that he invaded, even if Nato created circumstances for him to be powerful, in my view. It was Putin’s criminal choice to invade Ukraine. And that gave rise to military resistance by the Ukrainians, which I applaud. And then on the coat-tails of these developments that have nothing to do with them, people come in with particular axes to grind, political ones, and financial agendas. So the whole thing acquires momentum. This is not a conspiracy theory. That is, I think, a solid rational analysis of what was going on.How, then, should we treat the very popular and successful president of Ukraine? He has been incredibly effective at generating international attention. Should we support him? Should we be critical of him?We should be critically supportive. Look, I followed Zelenskyy’s career. It was interesting that he was elected on a platform for making peace with Moscow, and for sidelining the oligarchic and ultra Right-wing elements within Ukraine. We have to note that. It’s also true that he failed in doing this to a very large extent: the oligarchs that he was going to wage war against effectively had him. His reign has not been easy. And the oligarchs managed to maintain their control over the country, some would say, forcing Zelenskyy to succumb.The neo-Nazi Azov battalion in Mariupol and so on maintain their swastikas. I’m sure that Zelenskyy wanted to get rid of them, but he couldn’t. But none of this matters. Because when a country is invaded, I feel a natural duty to support the people who have been invaded and to support their leader — even if it’s somebody I would not have voted for, had I been one of them.But what about this overt campaign by Zelenskyy to encourage more direct Western military intervention?He’s the leader of a country that is being invaded: it is perfectly natural for him to be calling upon the rest of the world to come to their assistance. I’m sure he would have loved it if Nato waltzed in, even though I’m sure he understands that it would bring us to the precipice of a nuclear catastrophe. It is his job to ask for us to step in.But to his credit, he’s done something else as well. He’s embraced the neutrality solution. And he is participating in discussions with Russians, and negotiations. Let’s face it, the European Union is a figment of our imagination. We’re so fragmented, we are a non-player, really. It’s only the United States that can provide Zelenskyy with the backing he needs in his negotiations with Putin.What people object to about that is that it has the whiff of people making decisions for smaller countries over their heads. What the people of Ukraine want is neither here nor there.My own country would not exist if we didn’t have such an arrangement back in the late 1820s. We were under the Ottomans for 400 or 500 years. We had our own revolution, our own resistance against the Ottoman armies. In the end, how did Greece come about? It came about because the great powers — the English, the French, and the Russians — sat down with the Ottomans. And they said: “Greece becomes an independent state, it’s a kind of buffer zone between the Ottoman Empire and the West”. And we were given a chance to exist.What is your message, then, to people who object to the invasion of Ukraine but also feel deeply uneasy about the West’s involvement? How should they react when they are called Putin supporters?Be kind. I don’t think you should antagonise anybody these days, because there is so much antagonism already. Maintain your cool, support the Ukrainian resistance against Putin’s armies. Do not succumb to the silence of militarism and perpetual war. And always keep your eye on the trophy, which is immediate peace, withdrawal of Russian troops — and a neutral, democratic Ukraine that we all help get back up on its feet.

For the interview as published originally on the UNHERD site, click here.

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Saving Ukraine, dealing with Russia and the global repercussions of failing to do so – On TVO’s The Agenda with Steve Paikin

When economist Yanis Varoufakis last visited The Agenda a decade ago, the world was still reeling from the 2008 economic crash, which decimated the economy of his native Greece. In the years since, he ran for political office, became Greece’s finance minister, and started his own political party. Varoufakis is the focus of a new six-part documentary, “In the Eye of the Storm: The Political Odyssey of Yanis Varoufakis.” He joins us from Athens, Greece, to discuss financial instability in the world today.

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Unlike feudalism, techno-feudalism is born of the triumph of capital – KU Podcast-Interview

 

Along the lines on my evolving hypothesis that capitalism in the process of morphing into techno-feudalism, in this podcast I speak to two fine Finnish leftwing journalists who take me to task and interrogate me on this highly controversial idea.

For the podcast’s own site, click here.

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The Progressive International’s forensic look into the toxic activities of the IMF – video

An inquiry into the activities of the IMF by the Progressive International (@ProgIntl). Worth watching not just by those of us who have suffered its policies directly (Argentinians, Koreans, Greeks and now Sri Lankans, Lebanese etc.) but the Rest of the World whose majorities are suffering indirectly from the IMF’s activities.

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Here is what Central Banks could do to stem inflation without crushing the poor or killing off the Green Transition – The Guardian

Inflation is a disease that disproportionately afflicts the poor. Even before Vladimir Putin unleashed his brutal war on Ukraine, whose byproducts include soaring energy and food prices, inflation was already over 7.5% in the US and above 5% in Europe and the UK. Calls for its taming are, therefore, fully justified – and the interest rate rise in the US, with the same expected in the UK, comes as no surprise. That said, we know from history that the cure for inflation tends to devastate the poor even more. The new wrinkle we face today is that the supposed solutions threaten not only to deal another cruel blow to the disadvantaged but, ominously, to snuff out the desperately needed green transition.Two influential camps dominate public discourse on inflation and what to do about it. One camp demands that the inflationary flames be smothered immediately by the monetary policy version of shock and awe: raise interest rates sharply to choke expenditure. They warn that delaying a little monetary violence now will only necessitate “Volcker shock” levels of brutality later – a reference to Paul Volcker, the Federal Reserve chair who quelled the hyperinflation of the 1970s with sky-high interest rates that scarred the American working class to this day. The second camp protests that this is unnecessary, counter-proposing a steady as she goes stance for as long as wage inflation is kept on a leash.The two camps agree that rising wages are the real threat, their disagreement focusing only on whether it is prudent to act before or after they start picking up. They agree also that, to fight inflation, the supply of money and credit must be dealt with in a two-step sequence: central banks must first stop creating new money and only then raise interest rates. The two camps are dangerously wrong on both counts. First, wage inflation should be welcomed, not treated like public enemy number one. Second, it is precisely when interest rates are rising that central banks should continue to create money. Except this time, they should press it into the service of green investments and social welfare.Since 2008, inequality has been allowed to rise. A dozen years of central bank support for the rich, coupled with punitive austerity for the many, has led to chronic underinvestment and low wages. Central banks plucked the money tree ferociously to boost share and house prices, while wages languished. Asset-price inflation and mind-numbing inequality thus became the order of the day. Eventually almost everyone agreed, including many of the mega-rich, that wages had to rise not just in the interests of workers but also because low wages underpinned underinvestment and created societies bristling with low productivity, low skills, low prospects and poisonous politics.Remarkably, all it took for this consensus to vanish was a modest, by historical standards, wage inflation brought on by a post-lockdown labour shortfall. After a decade of turning a blind eye to rampaging asset-price inflation (even celebrating it, in the case of crazy house prices and boisterous stock markets), a whiff of wage inflation threw the authorities into an almost uncontrollable panic. Suddenly, the prospect of rising wages turned from an objective to a menace – prompting Andrew Bailey, the governor of the Bank of England, to ask workers to place their wage demands under “quite clear restraint”.But this isn’t a rerun of the 1970s, when the working class was the only casualty of interest rate rises. What’s critically different is that, today, a Volcker shock may well smother the green transition along with a large part of labour’s share of national income.The counter-argument is, of course, that neither workers nor society’s capacity to invest in the green transition will benefit from wage rises that are overtaken by rising prices. True. What is also true, however, is that a monetary policy that prioritises the prevention of wage inflation will, even if successful at nipping inflation in the bud, only lead to another wasted decade marked by underinvestment in people and nature. While the working classes may rise up 10 years from now to claim the share of aggregate income that they deserve, it is arguable that another 10 years of underinvestment in the green transition will push us all to the brink of, if not extinction, irreparable damage to humanity’s prospects.So how do we deal with inflation without jeopardising investment in the green transition? What is the alternative to a class war in the form of a blunt interest-rate policy that squeezes the supply of money across the board either violently (as the advocates of shock and awe propose) or more gently (the steady as she goes suggestion)?A decent alternative policy must have three goals: first, to repress asset prices (such as house and share prices) so as to stop scarce financial resources being wasted in building up paper values. Second, to push down the prices of basic goods while allowing for higher returns to investment in green energy and transport. Third, to deliver massive investment in energy conservation and green energy, transport, agriculture – as well as social housing and care. The following threefold policy agenda can achieve these three goals.First, raise interest rates substantially. Ultra-low interest rates have failed to boost investment – and, in any case, were never available to those who either needed to borrow money or wanted to borrow to do things society needed. All ultra-low rates did was to boost house prices, share prices, inequality and all those things that divide society.But, second, this must be done in concert with a massive central bank-supported green public investment drive. Naturally, raising interest rates will not boost investment, even if it is true that next to zero interest rates also did little to help investment. To escape the low-investment quagmire, the central bank should announce a new type of quantitative easing: it should stop financing the financiers and, instead, promise to stand behind (by buying, if needs be) public green bonds that raise funds to the tune of 5% of national income annually – a sum that will be invested directly into the green transition, giving society a fighting chance to do what it must to stabilise the climate.Third, extend the same public finance model (that is, getting the central bank to stand behind public bonds) to invest in social housing and care.In short, what I am proposing is a reversal of the toxic policies implemented since 2008. Instead of central banks providing free money and low interest rates to the rich, while the rest languish in the prison of austerity, the central bank ought to make money more expensive for the rich (through significant interest rate rises) while providing cheap money for investing into the things the majority and the lived environment both need and deserve.

For the Guardian’s site click here

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Cloudalists: Our New Cloud-based Ruling Class – Project Syndicate op-ed

Capital is everywhere, yet capitalism is on the wane. In an era when the owners of a new form of “command capital” have gained exorbitant power over everyone else, including traditional capitalists, this is no contradiction.ATHENS – Once upon a time, capital goods were just the manufactured means of production. Robinson Crusoe’s salvaged fishing gear, a farmer’s plough, and a smith’s furnace were goods that helped produce a larger catch, more food, and shiny steel tools. Then, capitalism came along and vested owners of capital with two new powers: The power to compel those without capital to work for a wage, and agenda-setting power in policymaking institutions. Today, however, a new form of capital is emerging and is forging a new ruling class, perhaps even a new mode of production.At the beginning of this change was free-to-air commercial television. The programming itself could not be commodified, so it was used to attract viewers’ attention before selling it to advertisers. Programs’ sponsors used their access to people’s attention to do something audacious: harness emotions (which had escaped commodification) to the task of deepening… commodification.The essence of the advertiser’s job was captured in a line spoken by Don Draper, the fictional protagonist in the television serial Mad Men, set in the advertising industry of the 1960s. Coaching his protégé, Peggy, on how to think about the Hershey chocolate bar their firm was peddling, Draper caught the spirit of the times:“You don’t buy a Hershey bar for a couple of ounces of chocolate. You buy it to recapture the feeling of being loved that you knew when your dad bought you one for mowing the lawn.”The mass commercialization of nostalgia to which Draper alludes marked a turning point for capitalism. Draper put his finger on a fundamental mutation in its DNA. Efficiently manufacturing things that people wanted was no longer enough. People’s desires were themselves a product requiring skillful manufacture.No sooner was the fledgling internet taken over by conglomerates determined to commodify it than the principles of advertising morphed into algorithmic systems permitting person-specific targeting, something television could not support. At first, algorithms (such as those used by Google, Amazon, and Netflix) identified clusters of users with similar search patterns and preferences, grouping them together to complete their searches, suggest books, or recommend films. The breakthrough came when the algorithms ceased to be passive.Once algorithms could evaluate their own performance in real time, they began to behave like agents, monitoring and reacting to the outcomes of their own actions. They were affected by the way they affected people. Before we knew it, the task of instilling desires in our soul was taken from Don and Peggy and given to Alexa and Siri. Those who question how real the threat of artificial intelligence (AI) is to white collar jobs should ask themselves: What exactly does Alexa do?Ostensibly, Alexa is a home-based mechanical servant that we can command to switch off the lights, order milk, remind us to call our mothers, and so on. Of course, Alexa is just the front end of a gigantic AI cloud-based network that millions of users train several billion times every minute. As we chat on the phone, or move and do things about the house, it learns our preferences and habits. As it gets to know us, it develops an uncanny ability to surprise us with good recommendations and ideas that intrigue us. Before we realize it, the system has acquired substantial powers to guide our choices – effectively to command us.With cloud-based Alexa-like devices or apps in the role once occupied by Don Draper, we find ourselves in the most dialectical of infinite regresses: We train the algorithm to train us to serve the interests of its owners. The more we do this, the faster the algorithm learns how to help us train it to command us. As a result, the owners of this algorithmic cloud-based command capital deserve a term to distinguish them from traditional capitalists.These “cloudalists” are very different from the owners of a traditional advertising firm whose ads could also convince us to buy what we neither needed nor wanted. However glamorous or inspired their employees may have been, advertising firms like the fictional Sterling Cooper in Mad Men sold services to the corporations trying to sell us stuff. In contrast, the cloudalists have two new powers that set them apart from the traditional service sector.First, cloudalists can extract huge rents from manufacturers whose stuff they persuade us to buy, because the same command capital that makes us want that stuff is the foundation of platforms (Amazon.com, for example) where those purchases take place. It is as if Sterling Cooper were to take over the markets where the wares it advertises are sold. The cloudalists are turning conventional capitalists into a new vassal class that must pay tribute to them for the chance to sell to us.Second, the same algorithms that guide our purchases also have the capacity surreptitiously to command us directly to produce new command capital for the cloudalists. We do this every time we post photos on Instagram, write tweets, offer reviews on Amazon books, or simply move around town so that our phones contribute congestion data to Google Maps.Little wonder, then, that a new ruling class is rising, comprising the owners of a new form of cloud-based capital that commands us to reproduce it within its own algorithmic realm of purpose-built digital platforms and outside of conventional product or labor markets. Capital is everywhere, yet capitalism is on the wane. In an era when the owners of command capital have gained exorbitant power over everyone, including traditional capitalists, this is no contradiction.

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Why Stop at the Russian Oligarchs? Project Syndicate op-ed

At a time when Russian bombs are destroying Ukrainian cities, there is good reason to focus on the oligarchs supporting the Kremlin. But do American multi-billionaires and Saudi princes enjoy less political clout, stash less money abroad, and use their influence any better?ATHENS – No sooner had Roman Abramovich, newly targeted by the United Kingdom’s sanctions on Russian oligarchs, announced that he was selling Chelsea Football Club than the feeding frenzy began. An athletics icon, City grandees, and even a respected Times columnist, each representing different American multi-billionaires, descended on London in a race to buy the club. Meanwhile, a host of London properties belonging to Russian oligarchs entered a long-overdue process of liquidation. What took so long?True, Western leaders encouraged the inflows. David Cameron, then UK Prime Minister, appealed in 2011 to a Moscow audience to “invest” in Britain. But it wasn’t hard to convince the oligarchs to flood London with their money. Western countries’ legislation prevents governments and the public not only from disturbing wealth stored in their jurisdictions but also from even knowing where and how much of it there is. Why else would countless corporations register in the US state of Delaware, using post office box addresses that guarantee their owners anonymity?In fact, Western democracies grant foreign wealth even more protection from scrutiny. In a 2021 report aptly titled “The UK’s Kleptocracy Problem,” the London-based think tank Chatham House revealed that the golden visas for sale to oligarchs from all over the world were granted after “checks … [that] were the sole responsibility of the law firms and wealth managers representing them.” In my country, Greece, following our state’s effective bankruptcy in 2010, an oligarch could buy a no-questions-asked golden visa, which also came with a Schengen visa (and the opportunity to live and travel anywhere in the European Union), for a measly €250,000 ($276,000). Similar visas are sold by other fiscally stressed eurozone countries, fueling a race to the bottom that the world’s oligarchs greatly appreciate.While there is good reason to focus on Russian money, now that Russian bombs are destroying Ukrainian cities, it is puzzling that only Russian billionaires are called oligarchs. Why is oligarchy, which means rule (arche) by the few (oligoi), considered an exclusively Russian phenomenon? Are the Saudi or Emirati princes not oligarchic? Do American billionaires, like those now flocking to buy Chelsea FC, smuggle less money out of their country than their Russian counterparts do, or have less political clout? Do they use such power better than the Russians?1Russia’s wealthiest 0.01% (the top 1% of the top 1%) have taken about half their wealth, around $200 billion, out of Russia and stashed it in the UK and other havens. At the same time, America’s wealthiest 0.01% have taken around $1.2 trillion out of the United States, principally to avoid paying taxes. So, in terms of magnitude, American plutocrats match every dollar that Russian plutocrats stash abroad to escape scrutiny with $10 of their own.As for the relative political clout of Russian and American billionaires, it is not at all clear who has more. While there is no doubt that a number of Russian oligarchs have President Vladimir Putin’s ear, he has more control over them than the American government has over its billionaires. Since the US Supreme Court’s 2010 decision affording corporations the right to donate to politicians as if they were persons, America’s richest 0.01% accounted for 40% of all campaign contributions. It has proved to be an excellent investment in wealth preservation.Is it by chance that in the years since the “deregulation” of campaign financing, American billionaires have obtained the lowest tax rate in over a generation, and the lowest among all wealthy countries? Is it an accident that the US Internal Revenue Service is starved of resources? According to an authoritative empirical study of the US legislative record, none of this is an accident: the correlation between what Congress enacts and what most Americans prefer is not significantly greater than zero.So, if non-Russian billionaires are also oligarchs, does the exclusive emphasis in the West on Russians mean that “our” oligarchs, and those nurtured by our allies, are in some sense better? Here we are treading on treacherous ethical ground.To argue that the Saudi billionaires behind the decade-long devastation of Yemen are “better” than Abramovich is to invite mockery. Putin would feel vindicated if we dared claim that the American oilmen who reaped a windfall from the illegal US-UK invasion of Iraq were morally superior to the owners of Rosneft and Gazprom. To be sure, Putin’s oligarchs turn a blind eye whenever a brave journalist is snuffed out in Russia. But, meanwhile, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange withers in a high-security UK prison, under conditions bordering on torture, for having exposed Western countries’ war crimes following their illegal invasion of Iraq. And how did Western oligarchs and governments respond when their Saudi business partners dismembered the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi?Following Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the UK government declared its determination to rip away the veil of secrecy and deception shrouding the money parked in Britain to escape the scrutiny of law enforcement and tax authorities. Whether the reality matches the rhetoric remains to be seen. Already, there are signs of tension between the ambition to seize oligarchs’ money and the imperative of keeping Britain “open for business.”Perhaps the only silver lining in the Ukrainian tragedy is that it has created an opportunity to scrutinize oligarchs not only with Russian passports but also their American, Saudi, Chinese, Indian, Nigerian, and, yes, Greek counterparts. An excellent place to start would be with the London mansions that Transparency International tells us sit empty. How about turning them over to refugees from Ukraine and Yemen? And, while we’re at it, why not turn over Chelsea FC to its fans.

The post Why Stop at the Russian Oligarchs? Project Syndicate op-ed appeared first on Yanis Varoufakis.

Προς τιμήν του Κρις Σμολς και του πρώτου συνδικάτου εργατών της Amazon – απόσπασμα από το ΑΛΛΟ ΤΩΡΑ

Μέσα στα μαύρα μαντάτα που μας έρχονται από παντού έσκασε και μία ελπιδοφόρα είδηση: Υπό την ηγεσία του Κρις Σμολς, εργαζόμενοι σε μια νεοϋορκέζικη αποθήκη της Amazon ξεπέρασαν την τρομοκρατία της εργοδοσίας και ίδρυσαν συνδικάτο. Προς τιμή τους σκέφτηκα να αναρτήσω σήμερα απόσπασμα από “ΤΟ ΑΛΛΟ ΤΩΡΑ” (Κεφ. 8), νουβέλα πολιτικής επιστημονικής φαντασίας στην οποία ο Κρις Σμολς  αναφέρεται μαζί με έναν φανταστικό χαρακτήρα (τον Αγκουέσι) που οργανώνει εργαζόμενους όπως ο Κρις εναντίον αφεντικών όπως ο Μπέζος (ο ιδιοκτήτης της Amazon).  Το γεγονός ότι ο Κρις, στην πραγματικότητα, ήταν αυτός που οργάνωσε τους συναδέλφους του κάνει την είδηση ακόμα πιο ελπιδοφόρα. Ακολουθεί το απόσπασμα που πρωτογράφτηκε το 2019.Ο Κώστας τότε αφηγήθηκε την ιστορία του Κρις Σμολς. Ο Κρις εργαζόταν στις αποθήκες της Amazon στο Στάτεν Άιλαντ του Νιου Τζέρσι όταν, στις αρχές της πανδημίας, τόλμησε να οργανώσει απεργία διαμαρτυρίας για την εξοργιστική έλλειψη μέτρων υγειονομικής προστασίας του ίδιου και των συναδέλφων του. Αμέσως τον απέλυσαν. Όμως δεν έμειναν σ’ αυτό. Οι πάμπλουτοι τύποι που αποτελούν το διοικητικό συμβούλιο της Amazon, με πρώτο και καλύτερο τον Τζεφ Μέζος, τον ιδιοκτήτη του μεγαθήριου, σπατάλησαν χρόνο αρκετό σε μια τηλεδιάσκεψή τους για να προγραμματίσουν, αυτοί οι Γολιάθ, την δολοφονία χαρακτήρα του Κρις Σμολς. Πράγματι, πολύ γρήγορα διέρρευσαν στα κανάλια ψευδή ρεπορτάζ πως ο Κρις εξέθεσε τους συναδέλφους τους στον κορωνοϊό, αρνήθηκε να μπει σε καραντίνα, ήταν μειωμένης νοημοσύνης κι άλλα τέτοια. Παρά το γεγονός ότι σημαντικός αριθμός δημόσιων προσώπων υπερασπίστηκαν τον Κρις, και αποδοκίμασαν τις τακτικές της Amazon, η κατακραυγή δεν έφερε κανένα αποτέλεσμα. Η Amazon βγήκε από το λοκντάουν πλουσιότερη, ισχυρότερη και με μεγαλύτερη επιρροή από ποτέ. Όσο για τον Κρις, μόλις πέρασαν τα πέντε λεπτά δημοσιότητάς του, παρέμεινε απολυμένος και κατασυκοφαντημένος.«Δεν ήταν η πρώτη φορά που εταιρεία έβγαινε ισχυρότερη από μια παγκόσμια καταστροφή, και με τη φήμη της να παίρνει μυθικές διαστάσεις», πρόσθεσε ο Κώστας. «Με τη λήξη του Δευτέρου Παγκοσμίου Πολέμου, η Ford και η General Motors εδραιώθηκαν στην αμερικανική συλλογική συνείδηση ως πατριωτικές εταιρείες που συνέβαλαν στην ήττα του Άξονα. Για ολόκληρες δεκαετίες, η πλειοψηφία των αμερικανών συμφωνούσε πως ό,τι ήταν καλό για την General Motors ήταν κάνει καλό και για την Αμερική. Κανείς δεν περίμενε πως κάποια εταιρεία ήταν δυνατόν να ωφεληθεί ακόμα περισσότερο από μια κρίση. Μέχρι που το κατάφερε η Amazon το 2020!».Κατά τη διάρκεια της πανδημίας, εξήγησε, ενώ οι περισσότερες εταιρείες απέλυαν, βγάζοντας τριάντα εκατομμύρια Αμερικανούς στην ανεργία σ’ έναν μόνο μήνα, η Amazon προσλάμβανε. Στα μάτια μιας μεγάλης μερίδας Αμερικανών φάνταζε σαν τον συνδυασμό του Ερυθρού Σταυρού, καθώς παρέδιδε στους εγκλεισμένους δέματα γεμάτα καλούδια, με το Νιου Ντιλ του Ρούζβελτ, έτσι που προσλάμβανε χιλιάδες προσωπικό επιπλέον σε περίοδο μαζικής ανεργίας, πληρώνοντάς τους συν τοις άλλοις και κάνα-δυο δολάρια την ώρα παραπάνω. Φυσικά, πίσω από τη βιτρίνα, η πραγματικότητα ενάντια στην οποία ξεσηκώθηκε ο Κρις Σμολς ήταν αηδιαστική.Στις αποθήκες της η Amazon αντιμετώπιζε τους εργαζόμενους ως αναλώσιμες μονάδες με μοναδική αξία τη σωματική τους ικανότητα να κουβαλάνε πράγματα και μηχανιστικά να τα συσκευάζουν σε πακέτα. Αλίμονο σε όποιον διαμαρτυρόταν για τις ανθυγιεινές συνθήκες δουλειάς ή την έλλειψη προστατευτικού εξοπλισμού ή την μη καταβολή αναρρωτικής άδειας σε όσους αναγκάζονταν να μπουν σε καραντίνα. Αυτή ήταν η πικρή αλήθεια που κρυβόταν πίσω από την αναγωγή της Amazon από επιχείρηση-μαμούθ σε τεχνοφέουδο που κατάφερε να γίνει κράτος εν κράτει.«Ζήτω ο Μπέζος!» αναφώναξε ο Τόμας. «Αφού αυτός ο Κρις δεν μπορούσε να τα βγάλει πέρα στην Amazon, έπρεπε να παραιτηθεί. Κανείς δεν του ζήτησε να δουλεύει εκεί. Αν δεν μπορείς να φροντίσεις τον εαυτό σου, πρόβλημά σου».Όχι μόνο δεν ξαφνιάστηκε ο Κώστας αλλά μάλλον χάρηκε με την αντίδραση αυτή. Ο σκοπός,  που δεν ήταν άλλος από το να βγάλει τον Τόμας από το πέπλο της σιωπής, επετεύχθη. Το ήξερε άλλωστε ότι ο Τόμας θα θεωρούσε τον Κρις ποταπό θύμα, ένα από τα μαλθακά πλάσματα των οποίων  η θυσία είναι το αναπόφευκτο επακόλουθο της υπνωτικής επιθυμίας των διάφορων Τζεφ Μπέζος για εξουσία. Για την ακρίβεια, ο Κώστας δεν θεωρούσε κακό πράγμα την ανικανότητα του Τόμας να καταδικάσει την ανηθικότητα της Amazon. Πως αλλιώς μπορούσε να σκέφτεται ένα νέο παιδί που ένιωθε την θλίψη να του πλημμυρίζει τα σωθικά και τη βούλησή του να εξαερώνεται με το που αποφάσιζε να προσπαθήσει κάτι; Η λαχτάρα του Τόμας για δύναμη τον εξωθούσε να τη θαυμάζει και να υποτάσσεται σε αυτήν, όπου κι αν την συναντούσε.«Μπορεί να είναι έτσι», συγκατάνευσε ο Κώστας. «Όμως, υπάρχει κι άλλο ένα είδος δύναμης – εντελώς διαφορετικής αλλά εξίσου σαρωτικής. Πιο ισχυρής θα έλεγα και από της Amazon ή του  Μπέζος. Είναι η δύναμη του Αγκουέσι και των Bladerunners του».Ο Κώστας περιέγραψε τις Ημέρες Απραγίας που στο Άλλο Τώρα λύγισαν Γολιάθ όπως η Amazon και, μαζί με τις ανάλογες καμπάνιες των Crowdshorters, των Wikiblowers, των Environs και των λοιπών τεχνοανταρτών, ανέτρεψαν ένα παγκόσμιο σύστημα υπερεξουσίας, την Τεχνοφεουδαρχία όπως την ονόμαζε, όμοιο του οποίου η ανθρωπότητα δεν είχε ξαναδεί. Όμως ο Τόμας δεν φάνηκε να πείθεται.«Δεν ξέρω τι πληροφορίες πήρες από την σκουληκότρυπα Κώστα», είπε με ύφος προβληματισμένο «αλλά δεν μπορώ να πιστέψω ότι οι Κρις Σμολς του κόσμου θα μπορούσαν ποτέ να τα βάλουν με τους Τζεφ Μπέζος. Μερικά ψίχουλα από το τραπέζι του, ένα κόκκαλο από το πιάτο του, να τους πέταγε ο Μπέζος θα αρκούσε για να κάτσουν στ’ αυγά τους.»«Η εξουσία στηρίζεται πάντα στον νόμο των μεγάλων αριθμών», απάντησε ο Κώστας. «Κανένας δυνάστης, ολιγάρχης ή επιχειρηματίας δεν έχει τη δύναμη να εξουσιάζει εκατομμύρια ανθρώπους δίχως τη σιωπηρή τους συγκατάθεση. Το μυστικό της απολυταρχίας δεν κρύβεται στα όπλα του δυνάστη, στους τραπεζικούς λογαριασμούς ή στους σέρβερ. Κρύβεται στο μυαλό των υποτασσόμενων. Για όσο διάστημα οι πολλοί πιστεύουν ότι είναι ανίσχυροι, παραμένουν ανίσχυροι. Από αυτή την άποψη, ο Μπέζος και ο Αγκουέσι δεν διαφέρουν τόσο όσο νομίζεις.»«Το μυστικό της συγκέντρωσης τεράστιας δύναμης», συνέχισε ο Κώστας, «είναι να συναθροίσεις τις μικρές δυνάμεις πάρα πολλών ανθρώπων. Αυτό πέτυχε ο Μπέζος. Σιγά σιγά, σταδιακά, έχτισε την ακαταμάχητη γοητεία της Amazon καθιστώντας την προφανή επιλογή όσων ήθελαν να αγοράσουν γρήγορα ένα βιβλίο ή ένα γκάτζετ ή μια οικιακή συσκευή – και, παράλληλα, προσλαμβάνοντας χωρίς πολλά-πολλά, έναν-έναν, ορδές ανθρώπων που είχαν χάσει την ελπίδα μιας καλής θέσης εργασίας. Έτσι έκανε την Amazon αποθετήριο της δύναμης αμέτρητων καταναλωτών, παραγωγών και εργαζόμενων.» Βλέποντας τον Τόμας να ακούει προσεκτικά, αποφάσισε να πάει την κουβέντα ένα βήμα πιο πέρα:Η βασική επιτυχία του Μπέζος ήταν να κάνει εκατομμύρια ανθρώπους να σκέφτονται «Amazon» όποτε ήθελαν να αγοράσουν κάτι εύκολα, να πουλήσουν κάτι εύκολα, ή να βγάλουν μερικά δολάρια εύκολα. Το αποτέλεσμα της συσσωρευμένης δύναμης αυτών των ανθρώπινων μαζών ήταν η δυνατότητα της Amazon να κρατά τις τιμές χαμηλές, χάρη σε μια στρατιά από παραγωγούς που αν δεν πουλήσουν την πραμάτεια τους μέσω της Amazon απλά θα πτωχεύσουν – και μιας άλλης στρατιάς εργαζόμενων που δεν έχουν άλλη επιλογή από το να δεχτούν ρομποτικές, ψυχοφθόρες και κακοπληρωμένες δουλειές στις αποθήκες της. Σε αντιδιαστολή, ο «στρατός» του Αγκουέσι και των συντρόφων του βάδισαν στα μικροσκοπικά χνάρια των Λιλιπούτειων που ακινητοποίησαν τον Γκιούλιβερ».Ο Τόμας θυμόταν την ιστορία του Τζόναθαν Σουίφτ αλλά δεν έβλεπε πως οι Λιλιπούτειοι του πραγματικού κόσμου μπορούσαν να ακινητοποιήσουν έναν τετραπέρατο Γκιούλιβερ όπως ο Μπέζος. «Είναι, πράγματι, πολύ δύσκολο», ομολόγησε ο Κώστας πριν συνεχίσει λέγοντας ότι το πιο δύσκολο απ’ όλα είναι να πιστέψει ο απλός κόσμος στη δύναμη που έχει. Για αυτό απαιτείται εμπνευσμένη ηγεσία που θα τον πείσει αλλά και που θα οργανώσει τις δράσεις οι οποίες επιβεβαιώνουν την ύπαρξη πραγματικής συλλογικής δύναμης.Η στρατηγική του Αγκουέσι ήταν να ξεκινήσει με μικρά βήματα στοχεύοντας όμως ψηλά. Οι Ημέρες Απραγίας των Bladerunners ζητούσαν από τον κόσμο μικροσκοπικές προσωπικές θυσίες που, συλλογικά, είχαν τεράστιο κόστος. Τί κόστος είχε το να μην επισκεφτείς την ιστοσελίδα της Amazon για μια μέρα; Απειροελάχιστο. Όταν όμως μερικά εκατομμύρια συμμετείχαν στην αποχή αυτή, το κόστος για τον Μπέζος ήταν μεγάλο, όχι μόνο λόγω απώλειας εσόδων αλλά – κι αυτό τον πόναγε περισσότερο – επειδή έπεφτε η τιμή της μετοχής της Amazon!«Αυτή ήταν η ιδιοφυία των τεχνοανταρτών», κατέληξε ο Κώστας: «Ελάχιστο προσωπικό κόστος για τους αδύναμους, μέγιστο πλήγμα για τους ισχυρούς!» Πολύ γρήγορα, οι Λιλιπούτειοι του Αγκουέσι διαπίστωναν την δύναμη τους, μέθυσαν από αυτή και, πριν προλάβουν τύποι σαν τον Μπέζος να αντιδράσουν, οι Ημέρες Απραγίας έγιναν ευκαιρία για τους πολλούς σ΄ ολόκληρο τον πλανήτη να νιώσουν ότι συμμετέχουν, με ελάχιστο προσωπικό κόστος, σε κάτι όμορφο, σε κάτι δυνατό, σε κάτι μεγαλύτερο από τους αδύναμους εαυτούληδές τους.Το επιχείρημα του Κώστα ολοκληρωνόταν: Όπως ο Μπέζος έχτισε την αυτοκρατορία της Amazon συγκεντρώνοντας την δύναμη εκατομμυρίων ανθρώπων, των οποίων το βιός εξαρτώταν από την ψηφιακή πλατφόρμα του, έτσι και οι τεχνοαντάρτες, όπως οι Bladerunners του Αγκουέσι, συγκέντρωσαν τη δύναμη ακόμα περισσότερων ανθρώπων που ξάφνου κατάλαβαν τη συλλογική δύναμή τους να βάλουν τέλος στη απολυταρχία του Μπέζος πάνω τους.«Ο Μπέζος και ο Αγκουέσι ήταν εξίσου ταλαντούχοι στο να συγκεντρώνουν την εξουσία των άλλων», συμπέρανε ο Κώστας. «Η βασική διαφορά τους ήταν ότι ο Μπέζος χρησιμοποίησε τη δύναμη αυτή για να ξεζουμίζει τους ανθρώπους, ενώ ο Αγκουέσι τη χρησιμοποίησε για να τους ενδυναμώσει».Όλη αυτή την ώρα ο Τόμας τον άκουγε προσεκτικά. Από τη σιωπή του ο Κώστας συμπέρανε ότι αμφιταλαντευόταν. Βλέποντάς τον να διστάζει, δοκίμασε μια διαφορετική προσέγγιση: «Ξέχνα όλα τα άλλα και δες το από αισθητική σκοπιά», του πρότεινε. «Η δύναμη που ενέπνευσε ο Αγκουέσι είναι πιο όμορφη από την ωμή και βαρετή δύναμη ενός πάμπλουτου τύπου και των δουλοπρεπών πρωτοπαλίκαρών του. Αν ήταν να μελοποιήσεις αυτές τις δυο δυνάμεις, η δύναμη  του Μπέζος για έμοιαζε με την «Επέλαση των Βαλκυριών» του Βάγκνερ, ενώ η δύναμη του Αγκουέσι θα θύμιζε την «Ενάτη» του Μπετόβεν».Καθώς ο Τόμας και ο Κώστας συζητούσαν, η Εύα στοχαζόταν τον χαρακτήρα του γιου της και τη σχέση που εξελισσόταν μπροστά στα μάτια της. Απ’ όσο γνώριζε, οι μουσικές αναφορές του Κώστα θα τον ξεπερνούσαν, ίσως και να μην είχε ακούσει ποτέ αυτά τα δυο μουσικά έργα. Η Εύα όμως ήταν σίγουρη ότι, ακόμα κι αν ο Τόμας τα γνώριζε, θα επέλεγε τις Βαλκυρίες χωρίς δεύτερη σκέψη – ανατρέποντας τις προσδοκίες του Κώστα. Ήταν σίγουρη για αυτό για έναν λόγο. Η «Ωδή στη Χαρά» του Μπετόβεν απαιτούσε μια πνευματική αισιοδοξία την οποία ο γιος της δεν διέθετε.Η ίδια είχε πειστεί ότι, μεγαλώνοντας χωρίς πατέρα, είχε γίνει ιδιαίτερα ευάλωτος στην απόλυτη πατριαρχική εξουσία. Φοβόταν ότι ένας Τζεφ Μπέζος, ένας Ρούπερτ Μέρντοχ, ένας Νταρθ Βέιντερ, ιδίως ένας Μεφιστοφελής, δεν θα δυσκολεύονταν να στρατολογήσουν τον Τόμας. Η ωμή επιβεβαίωση της αρσενικής εξουσίας που πρέσβευαν του υποσχόταν όλα όσα απουσίαζαν από τη ζωή του με τρόπο που η δημοκρατική εξουσία, όσο θεωρητικά ενδιαφέρουσα και αισθητικά ευχάριστη κι αν ήταν, δεν θα το κατάφερνε ποτέ. Έτσι, βλέποντας ότι ο Κώστας, το ακριβώς αντίθετο του πατριαρχικού δυνάστη, ίσως ικανοποιούσε την ανάγκη του νέου για κάποιον  padre padrone, η Εύα έπιασε τον εαυτό της να προσπαθεί να συγκρατήσει τα δάκρυα που θα πρόδιδαν τις σκέψεις της. «Πατέρας αφέντης». Η φράση είναι ο τίτλος της ιταλικής ταινία του 1977, σε σκηνοθεσία των αδερφών Ταβιάνι, που βασίζεται στην ομότιτλη αυτοβιογραφία του Γκαβίνο Λέντα. Αφηγείται την πραγματική ιστορία του γιου ενός βοσκού στη Σαρδηνία, ο οποίος κατάφερε να ξεφύγει από τον τυραννικό πατέρα του και να γίνει διακεκριμένος γλωσσολόγος και συγγραφέας. (Σ.τ.Μ.)

Το πιο πάνω απόσπασμα είναι από το Κεφάλαιο 8 του “ΤΟ ΑΛΛΟ ΤΩΡΑ“. Για την αγγλικής έκδοση πατήστε εδώ για την αμερικανική εδώ.

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In honour of Chris Smalls and the first Amazon Union in the US – an extract from my ANOTHER NOW

It was with immense delight that I heard the news: Led by Chris Smalls, Amazon workers at a New York warehouse overcame their bosses’ scaremongering and voted to form a trades union – the first by Amazon workers on US soil. In my 2020 science fiction novel ANOTHER NOW (Chapter 8), Chris Smalls makes a guest appearance, alongside a fictional character (Akwesi) who plays a major role in organising workers of Amazon-like corporations worldwide. I thought it pertinent to reproduce here, in honour of Chris Smalls and his fearless Amazon colleagues, the relevant extract. Keep going Chris!Costa began with the story of Chris Smalls, an Amazon employee who dared organise a walkout from the company’s Staten Island facility in protest at working conditions during the pandemic. He shot momentarily to fame when it was revealed that, having fired him, Amazon’s ultra-rich and uber-powerful directors spent a long teleconference planning his character assassination to undermine his cause. But even though a considerable number of public figures spoke out in Chris’s defence and decried Amazon’s tactics, Costa explained, the furore had no effect. Amazon emerged from the 2020 lockdown richer, stronger and more influential than ever. As for Chris, once his five minutes of fame faded, he remained fired and vilified.“It wasn’t the first time a corporation emerged from a global catastrophe stronger and with a splendid reputation amongst an appreciative public,” Costa said. “At the end of the Second World War, Ford and General Motor were enshrined in American mythology as patriotic corporations that helped defeat the Axis. For decades afterwards, if you claimed as some did that “what’s good for General is good for America”, you’d find plenty of Americans nodding in agreement. Could any corporation best this, you might wonder? Well, Amazon did in 2020.”During the pandemic, Costa explained, while most companies were shedding jobs, putting thirty million Americans on the dole in a single month, Amazon bucked the trend and appeared to a swathe of Americans as a cross between the Red Cross, delivering essential parcels to confined citizens, and Roosevelt’s New Deal, hiring one hundred thousand extra staff and paying them a couple of extra dollars an hour to boot. Of course, behind the façade, the reality that Chris Smalls protested was grim: in its warehouses, Amazon treated its human workers as fungible, expendable units reducible to their physical capacity to pick-and-pack. Good luck to anyone who protested at unhygienic facilities or a lack of protective equipment or sick pay. That was the ugly reality behind Amazon’s elevation from a near-monopoly to something closer to a state-within-a-state.“All power to Bezos!” said Thomas. “If this Smalls guy couldn’t hack it at Amazon, he should have left anyway. No one asked him to work there. If you can’t take care of yourself, that’s your own look-out.”Costa had expected – even hoped for – this reaction. He anticipated that Thomas would see Chris as a weakling whose sacrifice was the unavoidable corollary to Jeff Bezos’s mesmerising will to power. In fact, he sympathised with Thomas’s inability to care about Amazon’s ethics. How could it be otherwise for a young man who, sadness leaking out of him unstoppably, felt as powerless as he did? The boy’s yearning for power compelled him to admire and submit to it wherever he encountered it.“Maybe so,” said Costa. “But there’s another kind of power – entirely different but equally overwhelming. More powerful than Amazon and Bezos, it turns out. And we can see it in the story of Akwesi and his Bladerunners.”Costa described their Days of Inaction and the success they had had in securing pay rises for the Amazon workforce, but Thomas remained sceptical.“Bezos might have thrown them a bone to keep them quiet,” Thomas said, “but I don’t see how a bunch of consumers could ever weaken a megalith like Amazon enough to enable its takeover by the Chris Smalls of this world.”“Power always rests on the law of large numbers,” Costa replied. “No despot, oligarch or entrepreneur has enough power to rule over millions without their tacit consent. The truth about despotic power lies not in the despot’s weapons, bank accounts or computer servers but in the minds of those the despot controls. As long as the many believe they are powerless they remain so. In that sense, Bezos and Akwesi were not as different as you might think.The key to assembling immense power,” Costa went on, “is to aggregate the tiny capacities of many, many people. Bezos did this slowly, gradually building up Amazon’s overwhelming appeal as the path of least resistance for countless consumers, vendors and workers. All he needed was that millions learned instinctively to think of Amazon whenever they wanted to buy a book or a gadget or any household item quickly. And, of course, he needed to keep prices low courtesy of an army of workers with no option but to accept robot-like, soul-destroying, low-paid warehouse jobs. Akwesi’s army, by contrast, followed in the tiny footsteps of the Lilliputians who immobilised Gulliver.”It was hard for the little people to believe they had power, Costa explained. And it was not even enough. It took inspirational leadership to persuade them that they did, and then it took serious organisation combined with smart strategizing for that belief to have any effect. Akwesi’s strategy was to start small but aim high. His Bladerunners’ Days of Inaction required of consumers only tiny sacrifices, but delivered confidence-boosting rewards. Not visiting a website for a day cost them next to nothing but from the very start, thanks to Akwesi’s global reach, it translated into large costs for corporations like Amazon. Immediately, the Lilliputians saw the effect they could have and the Days of Inaction became much sought after opportunities for feeling part of an effective movement. Whereas previous protest movements took effort and commitment on the part of all involved, Akwesi’s innovation, according to Costa, was to offer disheartened folks a chance to make a difference without personally sacrificing that much at all.And in the same way that Bezos shored up Amazon by broadening its power base, from merely selling stuff over the internet to cornering the market for cloud computing and expanding into artificial intelligence, so Akwesi’s Bladerunners widened their power base by combining the Days of Inaction with the campaigns of Esmeralda’s Crowdshorters and with those of the Solsourcers, the Environs and the rest of the OC Rebels.“Bezos and Akwesi were equally talented at amassing power,” Costa concluded. “The basic difference was that Bezos used people-power to milk people while Akwesi used it to empower them.”Thomas had been listening intently. Costa inferred from his silence that he didn’t quite know whether to be impressed or dismissive. Sensing his vacillation, Costa chose a different approach.“Forget the politics and look at it aesthetically,” he suggested. “The force assembled by Akwesi is more beautiful than the blunt and boring power of an ultra-rich man and his sycophantic henchmen. If you were to put the two forces to music, Bezos’s would sound like Wagner’s ‘Ride of the Valkyries’, Akwesi’s like Beethoven’s Ninth.”As Thomas and Costa continued their discussion, Eva reflected on her son’s character and the relationship that was taking shape before her. Costa’s musical references were lost on the young man, and he was forced to attempt a different analogy. But had Thomas been familiar with these two musical works, Eva was sure he would have chosen the Valkyries every time. Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy’ required an optimism of the spirit that her son lacked. She felt keenly that it was the absence of a father figure in his life that made him susceptible to absolutist patriarchal power. A Jeff Bezos, a Rupert Murdoch, a Darth Vader, especially a Mephistopheles, would find it easy to enlist Thomas to their enterprise, their boisterous validation of male power promising him what he had lacked all his life in a way that democratic power, however intellectually intriguing and aesthetically pleasing, could not. So, as she discerned faint signs that Costa was, in some small way, fulfilling Thomas’s yearning for a padre padrone, even while he challenged that desire, she found herself holding back the tears.

The above is an extract from Chapter 8 of ANOTHER NOW – click here for the UK and here for the US editions.

 

 

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Putin must be given a golden bridge from which to escape – On Democracy Now!, with Amy Goodman

The only way of ending the killings, the injuries, the destruction of Ukraine and a permanent quagmire in Europe that threatens world peace, is a rational solution that will leave everybody slightly dissatisfied. “What is exactly the alternative? Is it regime change in Russia?” “Well, whenever the United States tried regime change, it didn’t turn out very well and has never been tried with a nuclear power. This is like playing with fire.”Transcript, courtesy of Democracy Now! Click here for the original postThis is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

The European Union has signed a new deal to import more liquefied natural gas from the United States, in the latest move by NATO allies to further isolate Russia following its invasion of Ukraine. The gas deal was announced a day after President Biden took part in emergency meetings of NATO, the G7 and the European Council. During a press conference in Brussels, Biden announced new sanctions against Russia.

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: We’re also announcing new sanctions of more than 400 individuals and entities, aligned with — in alignment with the European Union: more than 300 members of the Duma, oligarchs and Russian defense companies that fuel the Russian war machine.

AMY GOODMAN: President Biden is in Poland today, where he’s scheduled to meet with U.S. troops, as well as Ukrainian refugees. According to the United Nations, more than 3.6 million Ukrainians have fled the country since the Russian invasion began a month ago. On Thursday, President Biden announced the United States will accept up to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees.

In the latest news from the battlefield, Russia is claiming it’s destroyed a military fuel depot outside Ukraine. It’s one of Ukraine’s largest.

Meanwhile, local officials in the besieged city of Mariupol say they fear 300 people died last week in a Russian airstrike on a theater, which was being used as a shelter. Outside, the words “child” were on either side of the building facing upward; the words were written in Russian.

This comes as the Ukrainian government is asking the United States to start providing 500 Javelin and 500 Stinger missiles a day to help Ukrainian forces fight the Russian invasion.

We begin today’s show with Yanis Varoufakis, member of the Greek Parliament, former finance minister of Greece, founder of the Progressive International with U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders. He’s joining us from Athens.

It’s great to have you with us. Thanks so much for joining us, Yanis. If you can respond to this triple summit yesterday in Brussels — of NATO, of the EU, the European Union, and of the G7 — of the increased sanctions and, overall, what this war means?

YANIS VAROUFAKIS: There is an unprecedented show of unity within the West, but what is lacking are two things, Amy, if I may say — firstly, an appreciation of the fact that the rest of the world is not showing complete alignment with the West. This is an understatement. Even though the majority of countries in the United Nations voted against Russia, if you look at the countries that didn’t, they contain more than half of the population of the world, including not just China but also India and many other countries.

The second thing that’s missing from this show of strength, and the impressive sanctions that have been agreed against Putin and his henchmen, is a game plan. Exactly what is President Biden aiming for? Yes, it is important for him and for his government, for his administration, to show support for the Ukrainians, to provide Stinger missiles, to provide economic sanctions for Putin, which of course we know are not going to debilitate the Putin regime. But what is exactly the aim? Is it regime change in Russia? Well, whenever the United States tried regime change, it didn’t turn out very well, and has never been tried with a nuclear power. This is like playing with fire, or nuclear fire, I should say. If it’s not regime change, what exactly is it?

And so, allow me to just say this, that the famed philosopher and military strategist from China, Sun Tzu, once said that if you are faced with a formidable enemy whose total defeat is going to kill many or most of your people, as well, what you should do, Sun Tzu said, was to build a golden bridge behind your enemy from which your enemy can escape, to give him an opportunity to withdraw while claiming that he has achieved something. Now, Biden, by proclaiming that Putin is a war criminal — I have no doubt that Putin is a very nasty piece of work; I’ve called him a war criminal 20 years ago over his massacre of Chechens in Grozny — but what is the leader of the United States doing? What is he aiming at? Because if he is not leaving any room for a compromise, then he is effectively jeopardizing the interests of Ukrainians, because a quagmire in — an Afghanistan-like quagmire in the Ukraine is not exactly in the interests of any Ukrainian I know of.

AMY GOODMAN: So, if you could talk about specifically what’s being targeted and this commitment to end the reliance on Russian energy, that is so difficult for Europe right now? I mean, it seems like at this moment, this is the moment that so many green activists, like yourself, have felt could be a shift toward renewables, but instead it looks like: How can other countries, like the United States and Canada, fill in the fossil fuel emergency that’s taking place right now? But what this means for Russia, what this means for the rest of the world?

YANIS VAROUFAKIS: I think the West is inflicting major political and environmental damage on itself, whereas Mr. Putin, being a cynical agent that he is — a KGB strategist, let’s not forget — I have no doubt he was planning for all this. In the end, we’re going to damage the planet and the West more than we’re going to damage Putin, because Putin doesn’t really care much about Russians. He cares about himself.

And I can see a game plan here on behalf of Vladimir Putin. Let’s not forget that, as we speak, around $600 million to $700 million is being sent to Mr. Putin for the oil and gas that he’s selling the West. The plans that you mentioned for transporting liquefied natural gas from Texas and from Qatar to Europe, that concerns next winter, not this winter. Are we going to sacrifice the Ukrainians until next winter? This is the great question. And also, as we speak, Russia has found ways of bypassing the sanctions. We know that they’re dealing with counterparties in China, in India. A lot of dollar payments are being made to the Putin regime through these intermediaries.

I would very much have preferred for us to be discussing — you and me now, but the whole world — to be discussing President Biden’s proposals for a resolution that would mean an immediate ceasefire and an immediate withdrawal from the Ukraine in exchange for some kind of deal that Putin can sell to his own henchmen as something of a victory. Instead of that, Biden is doubling down, and he’s speaking in language which is consistent with regime change, which will be catastrophic for the people of Ukraine.

AMY GOODMAN: So, explain this further. You’re saying Biden should be sitting down with Putin, that Biden represents the United States, the world’s largest superpower, and could lead to a ceasefire. What isn’t he doing?

YANIS VAROUFAKIS: That. Look, I wish — as a European and a Europeanist and internationalist, I wish the European Union existed in substance, so that, you know, the president of the European Union could be sitting down with Putin. But we don’t have that. The European Union is a disunion, really. So, Biden is the only representative of NATO, of the West at the moment. I’m not going to pass judgment on the gentleman. He is, however, the only one who can sit down with Putin. They can talk on the phone, to begin with, before they actually sit down. Their foreign ministers will have to come to these exchanges.

But the idea must be really very simple: Putin must be given a golden bridge from which to escape his conundrum. He must be given something he can sell to his own people as mission accomplished. The only thing we can do, as democrats and internationalists, we should be able to tolerate, is the neutrality of the Ukraine, because this is a tiny, tiny, nonexistent price to pay for ending the war, having Russian troops evacuate the Ukraine, some kind of arrangement to be established for the Donbas area — we could kick into the long grass the question of Crimea; it could be shelved, something to be discussed in 10 years or so — in order to stop the killing and to stop the toxicity which is spreading from Ukraine across Europe, across the United States. I’ve been hearing senators in the United States, members of parliament of various European countries calling for NATO to intervene — because we know what that will mean. It will mean that the nuclear threat is going to reach levels that we haven’t seen since the Cuban Missile Crisis. We should be moving towards a rational solution that will leave everybody slightly dissatisfied — the Ukrainians, the Russians, me, you, Biden, Putin — but which will end the killing and will lead to an independent, democratic Ukraine.

AMY GOODMAN: You write in a recent article headlined “Why Stop at the Russian oligarchs?” “Perhaps the only silver lining in the Ukrainian tragedy is that it has created an opportunity to scrutinize oligarchs not only with Russian passports but also their American, Saudi, Chinese, Indian, Nigerian, and, yes, Greek counterparts. An excellent place to start would be with the London mansions that Transparency International tells us sit empty. How about turning them over to refugees from Ukraine and Yemen?” Talk more about this.

YANIS VAROUFAKIS: For many, many years now, we’ve all known, through the Panama Papers, through a variety of leaks of Transparency International, that our oligarchs, the oligarchs of this planet — the Russians, the Qataris, the Saudis, the Americans, the Greeks — they have been absolutely abusing our societies, our states, our tax systems. Yes, the Russians are pretty ugly in what they’re doing. They have plundered, in a very short space of time, the mineral resources, the industries of Russia, after the collapse of the Soviet Union. And they have bought their mansions in London, football teams and so on.

So, you know, it’s a wonderful opportunity — the fact that the Ukraine has concentrated our minds on what the Russian oligarchs are doing — to contemplate moving beyond them, because Russian oligarchs, it has been estimated, have taken $200 billion out of Russia, you know, looted money, plundered money, but American oligarchs have taken $1,200 billion out of the jurisdiction of the United States of America, hiding it from the IRS. And they are not much nicer people than the Russian oligarchs, I have to say. They have not protested the massacres of Yemenis in Saudi Arabia. They have not protested the killing of journalists, like Khashoggi in the Saudi Arabian Embassy or Consulate in Constantinople — in Istanbul, I should say. They have not lifted their little finger to help us fund the green transition. Why should we not extend our newly found antipathy towards oligarchs, who have been defrauding and plundering our countries — why not extend it to people beyond Russia?

AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you about some criticism that’s been leveled against your position right now, Yanis. I want to ask your response to a piece that was in The New Republic titled “’Neutrality’ Won’t Protect Ukraine.” The authors mention you, writing, “An increasing number of international commentators are also arguing neutrality might be a reasonable way to end the bloodshed quickly, by offering Putin a face-saving ‘off-ramp’ for the invasion. Ostensibly progressive voices like former Greek Minister of Finance Yanis Varoufakis have called for the ‘Finlandization’ of Ukraine, referring to Finland’s quasi-forced neutrality during the Cold War; the Russians have suggested Austria, which was formally neutral but maintained trade relations with both the United States and the Soviet Union, as a model for Ukraine.” Can you respond to what they’re saying? Also right now Finland is talking about possibly joining NATO.

YANIS VAROUFAKIS: Well, let’s take Finland, shall we? Finland had a war with Russia, with the Soviets. There was a stalemate, very much like what we have now in Ukraine. And the result was neutrality. There was an agreement between Washington, on the one hand, and Moscow, on the other, that Moscow would not interfere with Finland, it would not invade, it would take its troops out, and Finland would be allowed to live an independent, Western, democratic lifestyle, as long as it doesn’t join NATO and it doesn’t host American or European armies in its territory. The result was a wonderful state, a country, you know, that in every ranking outranks your country, the United States, my country, Greece, when it comes to education, to democracy, to technological innovation. Remember Nokia and all the great companies that came out of Finland. Finland is a success story. Neutrality allowed Finland to have democracy, independence and success and shared prosperity, a social democratic country, similarly with Sweden, similarly with Austria. So it’s a well-tested and well-tried-out model.

The reason that Ukraine has not had the same opportunity so far — because some people will say that — it’s been said that they gave up their nuclear weapons, they were not in NATO, therefore they were neutral, and nevertheless they suffered incursions and now this invasion by Mr. Putin. Well, it wasn’t the same. What Ukraine lacks is a summit, a summit between the American president and the Russian president, a summit involving the government of the United States and the government of Russia. This is what Finland had, what Austria had. The two blocs, NATO and the Warsaw Pact, represented by the president of the Soviet Union, or the general secretary of Communist Party then, and the American president, or a series of American presidents, they agreed — they shook hands — that Finland, Sweden, Austria will be left alone, under conditions of neutrality, to prosper democratically and to be part of the West without being part of NATO.

Now, a similar arrangement, in my view, has a very good chance of granting the Ukrainians the space, the independence and the democracy they need. Now, there are no guarantees. I cannot predict the future. But can the critics, who are, as you said, chastising me for adopting and promoting the neutrality solution — can they tell me what the alternative is? Because the only alternative they can come up with is regime change in Moscow. Well, this will take 10 years, five years, eight years. What do we do with the Ukrainians who are dying until then? Are you — this is my question to them — prepared to sacrifice their lives and a fantastic chance of a successful neutrality outcome? Are you prepared to sacrifice all that for the purposes of regime change?

And I’ll say this once again, Amy — I’m addressing the people in the United States: How many times have an attempt by the American government to effect regime change anywhere in the world worked out well? Ask the women of Afghanistan. Ask the people of Iraq. How did that liberal imperialism work out for them? Not very well. Do they really propose to try this out with a nuclear power?

AMY GOODMAN: Yanis Varoufakis, I want to thank you for being with us — we’re going to have to leave it with that question — member of the Greek Parliament, former finance minister of Greece, founder of the Progressive International with U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders.

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