Yanis Varoufakis's Blog, page 8

Musk, Trump and the Broligarchs’ novel hyper-weapon – Le Monde 4-1-2025, full original English version

How does wealth manage to persuade poverty to use its political freedom to keep wealth in power? By merely posing his dazzling question in 1952, Aneurin Bevan captured liberal democracy’s greatest paradox. Today, in the era of Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, J.D. Vance and their Big Tech brethren, Bevan’s time-honoured paradox has only grown preposterously.Observing the emergent broligarchy’s elaborate conspiracy to extract as much wealth and power as they can from Donald Trump’s second coming, it is justifiable to feel sick in the stomach. Men of tremendous wealth, with a history of treating the mothers of their children sadistically, of endorsing books  justifying torture and the elimination of human rights, of making zillions from government and military procurement while tirelessly working toward disbanding government programs that offer a sliver of protection to the poor, have decamped at Mar-a-Lago kissing Donald Trump’s ring and preparing for direct government power.From their perspective, the deal they cut with Donald Trump is an incredible bargain with a rate of return that no conventional business can hope to emulate. For a few hundred million dollars that they invested in Trump’s re-election, within minutes of his victory they amassed extra wealth to the tune of hundreds of billions. To be precise, the value of Thiel’s Palantir shot up by 23% while Musk’s Tesla saw its stock rise by 40% to a capitalisation level higher than most of the rest of the global car industry combined.For a few crumbs off their table, that they ploughed into the Trump campaign, the Big Tech brotherhood are in the process of receiving three amazing gifts: Gargantuan government contracts. A tremendous goldrush following the elimination of regulations that will allow them a gloves-off onslaught against the public’s concerns over their ways and wares (e.g., autonomous vehicles, rogue AI bots and drones, massive increases in electricity consumption). And, lastly, immense state-sanctioned bargaining power in their dealings with workers, suppliers, competitors and the rest of us.And then there are, of course, the non-trivial concerns about their broader ambitions. Thiel’s favourite book is, reportedly, The Sovereign Individual. Its authors, James Dale Davidson and William Rees-Mogg, literally and without the slightest hint of irony liken the broligarchs to the Olympian gods before going on to argue that it is only right and proper that they dominate the world. “Commanding vastly greater resources and beyond the reach of many forms of compulsion, the Sovereign Individual will redesign governments and reconfigure economies”, they proclaim. As for Thiel himself, his explanation of why he likes this shoddy book so much is that it offers an “accurate” prediction of “a future that doesn’t include the powerful states that rule over us today.” What Thiel neglected to say, of course, is that his dream is not one in which exorbitant power has withered but, rather, that it is a dream in which men like him monopolise it. At least he is honest enough to acknowledge that his version of freedom is incompatible with democracy.But is any of this truly novel? However reprehensible the broligarchs’ practices and convictions might be, is it not possible that we are surrendering to a recollection of the past that is so recklessly optimistic that, by contrast, the present looks like a deterioration, when it is nothing but a recapitulation of our past? After George W. Bush violated the Geneva Convention, even the US constitution, to legalise endless torture in Guantanamo Bay, American friends lamented the loss of America’s innocence. I could not agree with them. Was America’s innocence not lost during the Civil War? The Spanish-American War? The Prohibition? Hiroshima? McCarthyism? Vietnam? The assassination of the Kennedys, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X? The Oklahoma bombings? Surely, an innocence so casually lost can be fairly easily recovered! Are we not doing the same now, appearing astounded that a bunch of oligarchs are going through the same revolving doors connecting Big Business and government?In many ways, we have seen it all before. John D. Rockefeller, one of America’s original robber barons, headed a dynasty that makes Musk’s look amateurish, including a media mogul son and a grandson who would become Vice President. Thomas Eddison had an elephant executed in public, electrocuting him with George Westinghouse’s alternating current, to sway government in favour of his direct currency electricity generation system. Henry Ford bought a newspaper to strong-arm mayors and city councils into ripping streetcars off city streets to make way for Ford cars and buses.Back then, Big Business did not enjoy the power of the internet but they had other ways of shaping our political, philosophical and cultural milieu. Have we forgotten how the oligarchs, e.g., the Koch brothers, spent decades funding the Atlas Network and the Mont Pellerin Society to turn neoliberalism into a universal creed that disguises a cruel class war against the majority as a campaign for freedom? Or how Goldman Sachs supplied Bill Clinton’s administration with its own CEO to be the Treasury Secretary that eliminated all the regulations which impeded Wall Street’s worst excesses?That’s all true. However, there is a superpower, a hyper-weapon, that the broligarchy possess today that their Big Business and Wall Street predecessors did not. It is a form of capital that never existed until recently: cloud capital which, of course, does not live up in the clouds but down on Earth, comprising networked machines, server farms, cell towers, software, AI-driven algorithms – and on our oceans’ floors where untold miles of optic fibre cables rest.Unlike traditional capital, from steam-engines to modern industrial robots that are produced means of production, cloud capital does not produce commodities. Instead, it comprises machines manufactured so as to modify human behaviour. These produced means of behavioural modification train us to train them to determine what we want. And, once we want it, the same machines sell it to us, directly, bypassing markets. In this light, cloud capital performs five roles that used to be beyond capital’s capacities: It grabs our attention. It manufactures our desires. It sells to us, directly, outside any traditional markets, what it made us want. It drives proletarian labour inside the workplaces. And it elicits massive free labour from us to sustain the enormous behavioural modification machine network to which it belongs with our free voluntary labour: As we post reviews, rate products, upload videos, rants and photos, we help reproduce cloud capital without getting a penny for our labour. In essence, it has turned us into its cloud serfs while, in the factories and the warehouses, the same algorithms that modify our behaviour and sell products to us are deployed – usually by digital devices tied to the workers’ wrists – to make them work faster, to direct and to monitor them in real time.Unsurprisingly, the owners of this cloud capital, the cloudalist broligarchy, enjoy a hitherto undreamt power to extract: untold quantities of free labour from almost everyone in addition to mind-numbing cloud rents from vassal capitalists and, of course, surplus value from proletarians. Especially now that they have purchased a seat at Trump’s presidential table, their power is one that a John D. Rockefeller, a Henry Ford, even the still active Rupert Murdoch, would have given an arm and a leg to have.Returning to Bevan’s brilliant question, today it is easier to see how wealth persuades poverty to give up its freedom and, instead, to serve the broligarchs-in-charge: via their cloud capital that has a capacity, unlike any hitherto form of capital or government department, to shape our behaviour automatically and directly. Nothing short of a revolution can restore any hope of personal agency, let alone of democracy.

For the Le Monde site, where this article was originally published, please click here.

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Star Trek: A humanist communist manifesto for our times – UNHERD

On 9 February 1967, hours after the US Air Force had levelled the Port of Haiphong and several Vietnamese airfields, NBC aired a Star Trek episode featuring a concept that clashed mercilessly with what had just happened in Vietnam: the Prime Directive – a general ban on its Starship captains from using superior technology (military or otherwise) to interfere with any community, people or sentient species, even if non-interference might cost them their own lives.Turning such a radically anti-imperialist ideology into the cardinal rule of the fictional United Federation of Planets, which American audiences identified as the logical extension of the United States of America, it would have been unsurprising if President Lyndon B. Johnson, or the Pentagon, had demanded Star Trek’s immediate cancellation. Happily, it didn’t. And so it was that, over the 939 episodes (across 12 different series) that followed, Star Trek’s Primary Directive allowed writers and directors to explore its political and philosophical repercussions, including ethical conflicts that led to its frequent violation though never its annulment.It also allowed for something else: the inference that this futurist Federation could never have matured enough to adopt the anti-imperialist Prime Directive before a humanist version of communism had been established on Earth!Star Trek’s libertarian communism versus authoritarian collectivismThat Star Trek depicts a communist society, without of course calling it that, is crystal clear. In a 1988 episode the USS Enterprise comes across a rusting old Earth vessel carrying cryogenic crypts containing human plutocrats who had paid large sums to be frozen and sent into space in the hope that aliens might find and cure them of whatever disease was killing them in 1988. After the crew of the Enterprise thawed and cured them, one of them, Ralph Offenhouse, a businessman, demands to contact his bankers and law firm back on Earth. Captain Jean-Luc Picard is left with no option but to break the news to him that, in the intervening three centuries, much has changed.Picard: People are no longer obsessed with the accumulation of things. We have eliminated hunger, want and the need for possessions. We have grown out of our infancy.Offenhouse: You’ve got it all wrong. It has never been about possessions. It’s about power.Picard: Power to do what?Offenhouse: To control your life, your destiny.Picard: That kind of control is an illusion.Offenhouse: Really, I am here, aren’t I?Offenhouse’s allusion to the penchant for accumulation that underpins the will to power points to the reason why the Prime Directive is incompatible with the spirit of capitalism: As long as accumulation, fuelling the expansion of markets, is our society’s motivating force and ideology, imperialism is inevitable. To escape it, humanity must first eliminate scarcity of material goods – an elimination that, in The United Federation of Planets, was achieved on the back of the invention and widespread deployment of replicators: machines that convert plentiful green energy into any form of matter one desires, from food to gadgets to spaceships.This is not exactly a novel idea. In 350BC Aristotle had predicted that “…if every instrument could accomplish its own work, obeying or anticipating the will of others, like the statues of Daedalus, or the tripods of Hephaestus, which, says the poet, “of their own accord entered the assembly of the Gods;” if, in like manner, the shuttle would weave and the plectrum touch the lyre without a hand to guide them, chief workmen would not want servants, nor masters slaves.”An avid Aristotelian himself, Karl Marx based his vision of a freedom-enhancing communist society, in which both the state and the market have withered, on machines like Star Trek’s replicators that liberate us from non-creative, soul-crushing labour. In one of his early writings, he imagines what will follow the invention of such machines:“In a communist society, where no one is confined to a single sphere of activity, but can excel in any field he wishes, society regulates total production, and thus I can do this today and that tomorrow, hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, look after cows in the evening, practise in theatre criticism after dinner – without having to be a hunter, fisherman, cowherd or theatre critic.” [The German Ideology, 1845]Marx’s words resonate when we meet Captain Benjamin Sisko’s father who, in the 24th Century, runs a Creole restaurant in New Orleans only because he loves the look of appreciation in the face of neighbours who love his cooking, for free of course since money is now obsolete. They also resonate with Picard’s answer to Offenhouse who, upon hearing that he was to be sent back to an essentially communist Earth, asks glumly: “What will happen to me? There is no trace of my money. My office is gone. What will I do? How do I live? What is the challenge?” “The challenge Mr Offenhouse” replies Picard encouragingly, “is to improve yourself, to enrich yourself. Enjoy it!” Marx would have, I am in no doubt, applauded energetically.Joy is not a word that naturally rhymes with communism, at least the Soviet variety. But pleasure is central to Star Trek‘s version of communism, which rejects the notion that escaping the logic of accumulation requires individuals to submit to a collective. Star Trek‘s writers make this point brilliantly by contrasting the Federation, made up of creative individuals who are free to choose their projects and partners, with the Borg – a dystopian cyborg collective made up of drones linked together in a beehive-like social order that expands by assimilating every species it encounters.Eschewing lazy critiques of collectivism, Star Trek rejects it while also acknowledging its lure. When Captain Catherine Janeway rescues a Borg drone (Seven-of-Nine) from the Borg Collective, we are treated to her traumatic reintroduction to humanity. As she is weaned off the Collective, she experiences debilitating withdrawal symptoms, missing desperately the Collective’s voice in her head – a reminder of how authoritarianism can be dangerously attractive to the lonely. But also of how important it is to pay the price of personhood, even at the risk of loneliness which only friendship and creative work can counter.Star Trek’s Historical Materialist Theory of ChangeFor any manifesto to have practical utility, it must offer a theory of change, not just a vision of a splendid future. Star Trek does not shirk from this responsibility. While respecting the Prime Directive, the Federation keenly watches the evolution of primitive species around the galaxy for clues into humanity’s own history. Moreover, it offers a coherent theory of social evolution founded on solid historical materialist tenets.Consider, for example, the episode where the USS Voyager is locked in the gravitational field of a strange planet on whose surface time moves much faster than within the orbiting spaceship. Soon Captain Janeway and her officers realise that during each one of their minutes the backward humanoids on the planet experience 58 sunrises. Thus, the crew enjoy a bird’s eye view of that society’s evolution, as if observing it unfold on fast-forward.What they see is a rendition of humanity’s history – how technological innovations clash with superstitions and antiquated exploitative social relations bringing about revolutions, progress, but also wars and environmental disasters. At times, it seems as if the species under observation, like humanity, might destroy themselves. But, in a happy ending they too manage to overcome their imperialisms and their accumulative urges to press new technologies into the service of their common good – indeed, even to liberate Voyager, setting it free and on its way back home.Another narrative strategy for outlining how a luxurious, freedom-expanding communism arose by the 24th Century was to use time travel to go back to our near future. It turns out that the 21st Century was pretty brutish. In episodes screened in 1995 we learn, for example, about the Bell Riots of September 2024 which put paid to the system of apartheid in San Francisco where the city’s wretched, poor and sick had been hitherto walled off in a ghetto. That rebellion, along with a devastating World War 3, put humanity on course to eliminate nationalism, capitalism and, lastly, expansionism.Insights from the Federation’s edgesPerhaps the most interesting insights arrive when the screenwriters take us to the edge of the Federation where its explorers encounter, and often wage war against, other civilisations that are either at a more primitive stage of development or have created technologically advanced tyrannies.There, on the margin, alien species afford us opportunities for introspection, like the Bajorans who have just come out of the brutal occupation by the Cardassians – a supremacist species that ran Bajor like a penal colony complete with concentration camps and genocidal drives. In an episode which could easily be staged on the theatrical stage as a one-act play a Bajoran freedom fighter identifies a former Cardassian concentration camp monster and works tirelessly to bring him in front of a Federation-Bajoran War Crimes tribunal. With a soul-wrenching plot twist the script delivers an unexpected catharsis – a reminder that good science fiction is not so much about the future but rather an extraordinary tool for revisiting our past. Indeed, I can think of no other TV program which, within forty minutes, can better educate the young to the horrors of the Holocaust.Orbiting Bajor there is a Federation-run space station (DS9) where different species mingle to trade; a meeting point between the communist, post-money and post-waged labour Federation and other civilisations for whom accumulation and profit remain central. In that space station there is a sleazy bar ran by Quark, a Ferengi, who treats his workers like cattle that have lost their market value. Until, that is, his brother, who also works for him, has had enough: He calls upon his fellow workers to form a union and strike for their basic rights. When his employer-brother tries to bribe him, he picks up a tablet and reads slowly from its screen something he has downloaded: “Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains!”For Quark, like for every other Ferengi, neoliberalism is more than an ideology or even a secular religion – it is also a culture, a way of being. Pitching their critique of neoliberalism at its most humourful, Star Trek’s writers portray the Ferengi as humanoids incapable of differentiating themselves from Homo Economicus. Judging from the lengths the scriptwriters went to compile all 285 of The Ferengi Rules of Acquisition, the Ferengi Holy Book, they must have had enormous fun. Here is a sample: “Profit is its own reward” (41). “Feed your greed, but not enough to choke it” (43). “Expand or die” (45). “Exploitation divided by time equals profit” (54). “Treat people in your debt like family… exploit them” (111). “A wealthy man can afford everything except a conscience” (261). “War is good for business” (34). But, “Peace is good for business too” (35).To balance off the neoliberal Ferengi brutalism with glimpses of another form of tyranny – the bureaucratic centralist version – Star Trek transports us to a non-Federation planet along with the USS Voyager’s abducted doctor who is forced to work in a hospital where, to his horror, he discovers that medical care is dished out strictly in proportion to the patient’s social worthiness index – a number compiled by a centrally-controlled computer whose coding is primed to reflect the bureaucracy’s valuation of each citizen’s worth.Environmental negative externalities also make an appearance near the borderlands beyond which the Federation’s jurisdiction ends. Two alien scientists, that had been lampooned as cranks, succeed in proving that Federation and non-Federation spaceships travelling at warp speed (i.e., faster than the speed of light) inflict serious damage on the fabric of the surrounding time-space continuum. When Captain Picard confirms the validity of their science, he strives to convince Starfleet that the time has come to reduce the damage by slowing down, or even immobilising, their spaceships. Echoing contemporary arguments against net zero legislation in Western countries (e.g., “If the Global South continue to burn coal, why should the West inflict upon itself massive costs for cutting down?”), the Federation’s government is reluctant to act unilaterally, unless non-Federation civilisations act too.AI and what it means to be humanIn truly Hegelian style, Star Trek interrogates our humanity by planting alien officers inside Federation spaceships so as to force humans to reflect in the eyes of beings with a philosophy and outlook that is sharply different to theirs (e.g., Vulcans, like Spok, Tuvok and T’Pol, who have a well-honed capacity to repress all emotion). However, the one face-off that is most pertinent to our own times, today, is what follows when Lt Cmdr Data is introduced on the bridge of USS Enterprise.Data is a supersmart android with no capacity to feel. Nevertheless, he is driven by a massive urge to understand humans. In a bid to become one, Data studies carefully not only our behaviour but also our art, music, drama, literature. As a result, not only does he become a much appreciated member of the Enterprise crew but, also, from our perspective, a dramatis persona that, in the age of large language models and Chat-GPT bots, serves our thinking about AI well.Soon after his deployment, the question of Data’s rights come to the fore. Does he have any? When a request comes from a Federation laboratory for Data to submit himself to it, for the purposes of being disassembled with a view to replicating him so that Starfleet can equip every starship with a Data, Data refuses. When told not to worry because all his memories will be uploaded to a computer and, thus, none of ‘him’ will be lost, Data raises a subtle objection that could have come straight from Noam Chomsky’s rejection of vulgar materialism: “There is an ineffable quality to memory which I do not believe can survive your procedure”, he tells the laboratory’s chief. When the latter shrugs his shoulders and suggests that, no matter what, Data has no choice but to obey, Captain Picard demands that the matter of whether Data has the right to refuse his dismantling be heard by a court – offering to be Data’s advocate.During the ensuing trial, the judge rules that the question before the court is whether Data is property or whether he has agency – or a soul, as she puts it more dramatically. The laboratory’s advocate proceeds to demonstrate that Data is a machine made of mechanical parts and sophisticated software which allows ‘it’ only to simulate sentience. As for ‘its’ refusal to submit, he rhetorically asks the judge: ““Would you permit the computer of your Starship to refuse a reset?” Picard realises that he is hitting a brick wall.During a recess, Picard has an epiphany of how to win the case, on Data’s behalf, after a chat with the ship’s bartender, a black woman played by Whoopi Goldberg. He decides to focus on Starfleet’s intention to replicate Data so as to manufacture an army of Datas. “Once we create thousands of Datas”, he asks the court, “is there a point when they become a race? And won’t we be judged by how we treat that race? Now tell me: What is Data? What is he?” “A machine” replies his adversary, to which Picard responds with his final pitch to the judge:“Your Honour, this courtroom is a crucible where we burn away irrelevances in order to be left with pure product, the truth, for all time. Sooner or later, this laboratory, or some other, will succeed in replicating Lt Cmdr Data. The decision you reach here today will determine how we regard this creation of our genius. It will reveal the kind of people we are. It will significantly redefine the boundaries of liberty and freedom, expanding it for some, savagely curtailing it for others. Are you prepared to condemn him, and all who come after him, to servitude and slavery?”Lastly, he throws a piercing look at the judge before concluding: “Starfleet was founded to discover new life.” Pointing at Data, he adds: “Well, there it is. Waiting.”Data’s trial ends with the verdict that it is not beyond reasonable doubt that the android Commander is not sentient – and, thus, that Data has the right to refuse to submit to his dismemberment. But that does not mean that Star Trek submits to panpsychism, acknowledging that AI capable of passing the Turing test and simulate sentient beings (as Chat-GPT does already) is not the same thing as being sentient. In the same historical materialist fashion that it explores human evolution from superstition to sophistication, its writers depict the evolution of mindless mechanical systems to entities capable of consciousness – like Data (or, in another episode, the nanites who also evolved into sentience).More broadly, Star Trek eschews both techno-fetishism (the idea that all engineering advances are good for humanity) and techno-phobia. For example, the Federation regulates genetic engineering heavily, permitting it only as a means to cure diseases but prohibiting its use for enhancing human capacities, lest such technology fashions a supremacist sub-race (something that did happen in the 22nd Century triggering the eugenics wars). On the other hand, while cognisant of the possibility of AI going haywire (as it did in an episode narrating the evolution of a righteous rebellion by holographic AI beings into a dangerous fundamentalist religious sect), the Federation recognises AI as a new form of life – with all the rights as well as perils that new life entails.Conclusion: The answer lies in politics, not technologyThe United Federation of Planets is no utopia. The enemy within, xenophobia, is there, dormant and ready to sully the Federation’s humanism; ready even to rescind the Prime Directive. When the crew of the USS Enterprise return from a mission to save the Federation from the insecure and thus lethal Xindi, a mob of humans attacks the ship’s Denobulan doctor in what was a pure hate crime against an alien. Soon after, a Moon-based human supremacist terrorist cell hold the rest of humanity at ransom until all aliens leave Earth. And it is not just populist speciesist extremists that the Federation must reckon with: It is also its own secret services, outfits like Section 31 who pose a serious threat to its libertarian communism. And yet, as a defiant injection of hope, the Federation’s humanist communist values hold.The question is: Despite the fun that some of us get from watching Star Trek, do its almost one thousand episodes have anything substantial to offer today’s moribund left in our uphill struggle to remain relevant as we negotiate a sensible path through the maze of AI technologies, mass xenophobia, the New Cold War, the climate emergency etc.? I think so. Star Trek’s main lesson for today’s left is that we need to avoid both a conservative techno-phobia and the liberal techno-optimists’ error of focusing on the technology and failing to appreciate that it all boils down to property rights and the political struggles surrounding them.In 1930, in a world reeling from the Great Depression, John Maynard Keynes dared dream that, by the end of the 20th Century, technological progress would have eradicated scarcity, poverty and exploitation. In The Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren he imagines a world where mankind’s ‘economic problem’ has been solved; that:“For the first time since his creation, man will be faced with his real, his permanent problem – how to use his freedom from pressing economic cares, how to occupy the leisure, which science and compound interest will have won for him, to live wisely and agreeably and well.”The reason history disproved Keynes was not that humanity failed to invent the necessary technologies but, rather, because the property rights over the machines became ridiculously concentrated in the hands of a tiny minority. Is it any wonder that neither science nor compound interest delivered us from scarcity, poverty, exploitation and war? Is it any wonder that, instead of Keynes’ happy commonwealth, humanity had edged closer to an early Star Trek episode entitled The Cloud Minders, who live on a suspended-on-the-clouds paradise while the rest, like troglodytes, work in a half-drugged state in underground mines? (Nb. This episode inspired me to refer, in my Technofeudalism, to the Big Tech brotherhood as the cloudalists.)Star Trek commits the mistakes of neither Keynes nor of the techno-fetishists. Cloud capital and AI is a necessary but insufficient condition for our liberation. To make it sufficient, it will take a political revolution that shifts ownership of our snazzy machine networks away from the tiny oligarchy and turn them into a commons. At the same time, as Star Trek poignantly shows, our liberation depends on not falling into the other trap of authoritarian collectivism.Today’s moribund left could do far worse than to take its cue from Star Trek‘s bold embrace of a humanist anti-authoritarian communism.

A shortened version of this article was published by UNHERD

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Trump, the Dollar and China: What to watch for in 2025

Trump wants to boost exports, bring back American jobs from overseas and reduce the trade deficit. To achieve this he needs a weaker dollar. Trump also wants a strong dollar and will not brook any challenges to its near monopoly of international payments. Can he possibly have both?Trump’s Problem No.1: His announced tariffs will most likely boost the dollar as a result of increased uncertainty globally. Even if he slaps large tariffs on imports, the increase in the dollar’s value will eliminate the downward pressures on imports and the US trade deficit.Trump’s Problem No.2: His announced large tax cuts for the rich will boost the influx of foreign capital into the US, further boosting the dollar and the gap between domestic savings & investment, which is the root cause of the US trade deficit.Trump’s Problem No. 3: The near monopoly of the US dollar over international transactions is what ensures the paradox that, whenever things go bad in the US economy, the dollar rises. If Trump were serious about the US trade deficit, and his stated objective of wanting to push the dollar down to make US exports more attractive, he should want to end the dollar’s global dominance. But that would spell the end of the United States as a global hegemon – something Trump does not want to see happen on his watch.Perhaps what might work for Trump would be something similar to what Ronald Reagan did to Japan in the so-called 1985 Plaza Accords: he gave them the ultimatum “appreciate your currency massively or face massive tariffs on your exports”. Can Trump do the same to China? China is no Japan – it will not roll over that easily.Talking of China, Beijing also faces a great dilemma in 2025 and beyond:To stay put and play for time until the US internal contradictions play out?Or to turn the BRICS into a Bretton-Woods-like system, with the yuan at its heart?Beijing has not made up its mind.In the next year, or years, we shall know the answers. Till then, be well.

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Πρωτοχρονιάτικο Μήνυμα 2025: Ευχές και μια ανάλυση της συγκυρίας

Είμαι ο Γιάνης Βαρουφάκης με τις ευχές του ΜέΡΑ25 σε όλες κι όλους: φίλους, συνοδοιπόρους, επικριτές και αντίπαλους.Για εμάς, για το ΜέΡΑ25, το 2025 έχει ιδιαίτερη σημασία. Δεν είναι άλλωστε τυχαίο το 25 στο όνομά μας.Όταν τέτοια εποχή πριν δέκα χρόνια, τέλη του 2015, ιδρύαμε το κίνημά μας κόντρα στην ολοκλήρωση της Ευρωπαϊκής Ένωσης ως μια ένωση λιτότητας και αυταρχισμού, λέγαμε ότι η Ευρώπη είχε το πολύ μια δεκαετία για να αλλάξει πορεία. Άντε μέχρι το 2025. Τότε ήταν που ο Τζούλιαν Ασάνζ πρότεινε να βάλουμε το 25 στο όνομά μας.Από την πρώτη στιγμή λοιπόν, μια δεκαετία τώρα, λέγαμε ότι η Ευρώπη είτε θα εκδημοκρατιζόταν πριν το 2025 είτε θα κατακερματιζόταν, βυθίζοντας ακόμα πιο βαθιά στο τέλμα την μικρή μας πατρίδα, την Ελλάδα.Η Ευρώπη δεν εκδημοκρατίστηκε. Για αυτό τώρα κατακερματίζεται – και καθιστά την εξαρτημένη, υποταγμένη Ελλάδα λιγότερο βιώσιμη από ποτέ.

Καθώς αποχαιρετάμε το 2024, με το σημαδιακό 25 προ των πυλών, αξίζει να θυμηθούμε πως, αρχής γενομένης με τα Μνημόνιά τους, η άρχουσα τάξη Ευρώπης και Ελλάδας κακοποίησαν, εξουθένωσαν, καταρράκωσαν τους λαούς μας – ενισχύοντας μόνο αρπακτικά και κρυπτο-φασίστες.

Δεκαπέντε χρόνια λιτότητας για τους πολλούς και βουνά κρατικού χρήματος για τους λίγους οδήγησαν, από την μία, στην εκποίηση της Ελλάδας και, από την άλλη, στην αποβιομηχάνιση της Γερμανίας. Μετέτρεψαν την πατρίδα μας σε έρημο που την ονόμασαν ειρήνη. Οδήγησαν την Ευρώπη σε στάση επενδύσεων που την ανάγκασε να χάσει μια ολόκληρη τεχνολογική επανάσταση.Είναι τυχαίο ότι η Ευρώπη τώρα βολοδέρνει σε μη αναστρέψιμη παρακμή; Παρακμή τεχνολογική, οικονομική, πολιτική και, εν τέλει, και ηθική;Είναι τυχαίο που αυτή η Ευρώπη είτε υποστηρίζει είτε κάνει τα στραβά μάτια στη γενοκτονική εκστρατεία του Ισραήλ στην Παλαιστίνη;Είναι τυχαίο ότι αντί να εργάζεται για τον τερματισμό του πολέμου στην Ουκρανία η Ευρώπη κάνει τα πάντα για να τον διαιωνίζει;Είναι περίεργο ότι στις Βρυξέλλες το μέλλον της Ευρώπης διαμορφώνεται όλο και λιγότερο στα κτίρια της ΕΕ και όλο και περισσότερο στα διπλανά κτήρια του ΝΑΤΟ;Τίποτα δεν είναι τυχαίο. Η αρχή έγινε με τα Μνημόνιά τους που ήταν το πρώτο βήμα για αυτό που ζούμε, πανευρωπαϊκά, 15 χρόνια τώρα: Σκληρή λιτότητα και κανόνες της βάναυσης αγοράς για τους πολλούς. Σοσιαλισμός και βουνά κρατικού χρήματος για τους πολύ ολίγους.Σε αυτή την θλιβερή Ευρώπη εντυπωσιάζει πόσο μισητό έχει γίνει το Κέντρο – κεντροδεξιά και κεντροαριστερά, μαζί βέβαια και με τους τέως πράσινους που τώρα ντύθηκαν στα χακί και θέλουν πόλεμο παντού.Στη συλλογική ευρωπαϊκή συνείδηση, οι Βρυξέλλες είναι πλέον η πρωτεύουσα όπου η αξιοπρέπεια και η δημοκρατία πηγαίνουν για να πεθαίνουν – η πρωτεύουσα όπου ο αυταρχισμός συμβαδίζει με την εγκληματική ανευθυνότητα.

Κάθε νέα πολιτική που ανακοινώνεται στις Βρυξέλλες μοιάζει με ακόμη ένα τανγκό με την αποτυχία. Το βλέπουμε στα πρόσωπά τους: Ακόμη και οι ίδιοι δεν πιστεύουν αυτά που λένε. Με την ευρωπαϊκή βιομηχανία σε διαδικασία εκκαθάρισης, την Πράσινη Συμφωνία να έχει ξεχαστεί, την Έκθεση του Μάριο Ντράγκι στο καλάθι των αχρήστων, το μόνο πράγμα που τους απέμεινε είναι να τους τρέχουν τα σάλια με την ιδέα των δισεκατομμυρίων που θα ξοδέψουν για οβίδες, σιδερένιους θόλους και δολοφονικά drones εξοπλισμένα με τεχνητή νοημοσύνη. Με πρώτο και καλύτερο τον Διευθύνοντα Σύμβουλο της «Μητσοτάκης ΑΕ»!

Απαλλαγμένοι από τις αλυσίδες του Ανθρωπισμού, έχουν πλέον αγκαλιάσει την ίδια τους την αποτυχία. Έχουν ασπαστεί την ματαιότητα της ύπαρξής τους. Εισπράττουν τα αργύριά τους και προσβλέπουν με χαρά στις διευθυντικές θέσεις που τους περιμένουν όταν θα συνταξιοδοτηθούν. Τελικά, δεν τους νοιάζει ότι είναι απατεώνες – ούτε καν ότι οι ψηφοφόροι τους το πήραν χαμπάρι.

Σε αυτή τη μεταμοντέρνα εκδοχή της δεκαετίας του 1930, όπως και τότε, και ιδίως αφού η επίσημη Αριστερά επέλεξε να «πάει συναινετικά» με το Ακραίο Κέντρο, στον πολιτικό στίβο ευδοκιμούν μόνο οι ξενοφοβικοί και οι φασίστες – οι μετεμφιεσμένοι και οι απροκάλυπτοι φασίστες. Από τότε, έντρομο το καταρρέον Κέντρο προσπαθεί να κρατήσει ψηφοφόρους υιοθετώντας έναν ρατσισμό-λάιτ – που, βέβαια, ρίχνει λάδι στη φωτιά του φουλ ρατσισμού και καταβροχθίζει τον ζωτικό χώρο του Κέντρου.

Κοιτάζοντας στο μέλλον, κανένας άνεμος δεν είναι ούριος για κάποιον που προχωρά σε λάθος κατεύθυνση. Εδώ που φτάσαμε η τύχη δεν θα βοηθήσει την Ελλάδα, δεν θα βοηθήσει την Ευρώπη. Το 2025 πρέπει να αρχίσουμε να φτιάχνουμε την δική μας τύχη.Το 2025 το ΜέΡΑ25 θα παρουσιάσουμε την ανανεωμένη ατζέντα μας για την Ελλάδα του 2035. Γιατί όταν ένας λαός χάνει μια δεκαετία έχει διπλή υποχρέωση να παλέψει για την επόμενη.Ραντεβού για όλα αυτά τους επόμενους μήνες.Για τώρα, Χρόνια Πολλά – με την ψυχή ψηλά και την ελπίδα αμείωτη.

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A Message for 2025: DiEM25 predicted Europe’s fall – plus what we must do next

Hello everyone. This is a message on behalf of DiEM25, the paneuropean movement that came together in Berlin when it was still possible to dream of reversing the degeneration of the European Union into an austerity union that drags the peoples of Europe down into a quagmire of naked exploitation of People and Nature, rampant inequality, technological regression, xenophobia and war.Back then, as DiEM25 was coming together toward the end of 2015, we said that Europe had at most a decade to get its act together. That’s why we added 25 to our name: either Europe would democratise by 2025 or it would disintegrate. It didn’t democratise. So, as it is now disintegrating.As we farewell 2024 and prepare ourselves for 2025 – which we had imagined as Europe’s deadline – we now reflect on how Europe’s ruling class has abused, diminished, exploited and depressed our continent.Fifteen years of austerity for the many and free money for the few have led to northern Europe’s deindustrialisation and southern Europe’s desertification. Europe, as a result, missed a whole technological revolution and is now in irreversible decline – technologically, financially, politically, morally.Is it any wonder why, within Brussels, Europe’s future is shaped less and less in the EU building and more and more in NATO’s headquarters? Is it any wonder that Europe plays precisely no role in ending the cruel Ukraine war that Europe’s open, festering wound? Is it any wonder that Europe is either supporting or just putting up with Israel’s war crimes and genocidal drive in Gaza as if it were an act of God?In this postmodern version of Europe’s 1930s, the radical centre has become sensationally unpopular. Brussels is seen as the capital city where decency and democracy come to die; the capital city where unchecked, undemocratic power goes hand in hand with criminal irresponsibility.Every policy announcement by the EU leadership is just another dance with failure. You can see it on their faces. Even they do not believe what they are saying. With Europe’s industry in the process of liquidation, the Green Deal gone, Mario Draghi’s Report already in the dustbin, the only thing they are waxing lyrical about is spending zillions that they do not have on weapons, iron domes, drones and AI-equipped killing machines.Unencumbered by the chains of their pretend-euro-humanism, they have now embraced their own failure. They own the essential futility of their existence. They collect their salaries and look forward to the directorships they will be offered once they retire. Ultimately, they no longer care that they are frauds – and that Europeans can see that.In this postmodern version of Europe’s 1930s, as in the original 1930s, only the xenophobes and the (thinly disguised) fascists flourish. As in the original 1930s, the clueless centrists are paving the ground for them. The EU’s leaders last resort is to try to win over the strident xenophobic right while shoring up the crumbling centre. Alas, as in the original 1930s, the strident xenophobic right will devour them.Luck will not help Europe now. No wind is favourable to a continent that lacks direction.To make our own luck, Europeans need a transnational movement that links local movements together into a paneuropean force that halts this slide into a new version of the 1930s. This movement is already here. It is DiEM25.In 2025 DiEM25 will roll out our renewed agenda for a Europe that promotes Peace around the world, comes down hard on human rights abuses everywhere, introduces a basic income for Europeans, ends humanity’s dependence on a fossil fuel industry determined to wreck what is left of our planet and, last but not least, projects a vision of the economic democracy without which no progressive agenda can flourish.Join us to make 2025 a hopeful year.Carpe DiEM25!

 

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The West Is Not Dying, but It Is Working on It – Project Syndicate op-ed

Western power is as strong as ever. What has changed is that the combination of socialism for financiers, collapsing prospects for the bottom 50%, and the surrender of our minds to Big Tech has given rise to overweening Western elites with little use for the last century’s value system.ATHENS – A motley crew of centrist pundits in Europe, the Global South, and, following Donald Trump’s election victory, the United States believe that the West is in decline. To be sure, never has so much power been concentrated in the hands of so few people (and postcodes) in the West, but does that alone mean Western power is doomed?In Europe, there is good reason to embrace the narrative of decline. Just as the Roman Empire shifted its capital to Constantinople to extend its hegemony by another millennium, abandoning Rome to the barbarians, so did the West’s center of gravity shift to the United States, abandoning Britain and Europe to the stagnation that is rendering them inert, backward, and increasingly irrelevant.But there is a deeper reason for the pundits’ gloomy sentiment: the tendency to confuse the decline of the West’s commitment to its own value system (universal human rights, diversity, and openness) with the West’s decline. Like a snake shedding its old skin, the West is gaining power by shedding a value system which sustained its ascendancy during the twentieth century but which, in the twenty-first, no longer serves that goal.Democracy was never a prerequisite for the rise of capitalism, and what we now think of as the West’s value system is not a prerequisite for it, either. Western power was built not on humanist principles but, rather, on brutal exploitation at home coupled with the slave trade, the opium trade, and various genocides in the Americas, Africa, and Australia.Make your inbox smarter.Select NewslettersDuring its ascendancy, Western power went unchecked abroad. Europe sent millions of colonists to subjugate peoples and extract resources. Europeans pretended the natives they saw were not human and declared their land terra nullius, a land without a people for settlers craving that land – the first act of every genocide from the Americas, Africa, and Australia to Palestine today.But, while unassailable abroad, Western power was challenged at home by its wretched lower classes who rose up in response to economic crises caused by the inability of the many to consume enough of the goods they were producing in the factories belonging to the few. These conflicts spilled over into industrial-scale warfare between Western powers vying for markets, culminating in two world wars.As a consequence, the West’s elites had to make concessions. Domestically, they acquiesced to public education, health systems, and pensions. Internationally, outrage at the West’s cruel wars and genocides led to decolonization, universal declarations of human rights, and international criminal courts.For a couple of decades after World War II, the West basked in the warm glow of distributive justice, the mixed economy, diversity, the rule of law at home, and a rules-based international order. Economically, these values were served extraordinarily well by the centrally planned, US-designed global monetary system known as Bretton Woods, which allowed America to recycle its surpluses to Europe and Japan, essentially dollarizing its allies to sustain its own net exports.But then, by 1971, America had become a deficit country. Rather than tighten its belt in Germanic style, the US blew up Bretton Woods and blew out its trade deficit. Germany, Japan, and later China became net exporters, whose dollar profits were sent to Wall Street to buy US government debt, real estate, and shares in companies that the US allowed foreigners to invest in.Then, the American ruling class had an epiphany: Why manufacture stuff at home when foreign capitalists could be relied upon to dispatch both their products and their dollars to the US? So, they exported whole production lines abroad, triggering the deindustrialization of America’s manufacturing heartlands.Wall Street was at the heart of this audacious new recycling mechanism. To play its role, it had to be unrestrained. But wholesale deregulation needed an economics and a political philosophy to support it. Demand created its own supply, and neoliberalism was born. Before long, the world was awash in derivatives surfing the tsunami of foreign capital inundating New York’s banks. When the wave broke in 2008, the West nearly broke with it.Panicked Western leaders authorized the minting of $35 trillion to refloat the financiers while imposing austerity on their populations. The only part of these trillions that was actually invested in machinery went to building up the cloud capital that gave Big Tech its pervasive power over Western populations’ hearts and minds.The combination of socialism for financiers, collapsing prospects for the bottom 50%, and the surrender of our minds to Big Tech’s cloud capital gave birth to a Brave New West, whose overweening elites have little use for the last century’s value system. Free trade, anti-trust rules, net zero, democracy, openness to migration, diversity, human rights, and the International Court of Justice were treated with the same contempt with which the US treated friendly dictators – its “own bastards” – after their usefulness ended.With Europe rendered impotent by its inability to federate political power after it had federated its money, and the developing world more in debt than ever, only China is left standing in the West’s way. The irony, however, is that China does not want to be a hegemon. It just wants to sell its wares unimpeded.But the West is now convinced that China poses a lethal threat. Like Oedipus’s father, who died at his son’s hand because he believed the prophecy that his son would kill him, so the West is working tirelessly to push China to take the plunge and seriously challenge Western power, such as by turning the BRICS into a renminbi-based Bretton-Woods-like system.In 2024, the West continued to grow stronger. But, with its value system in the gutter, so did its penchant for engineering its decline.

For the Project Syndicate site click here.

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My reply to Chris Giles celebration of the eurozone bailouts in the Financial Times

@ChrisGiles (Financial Times) decided to have some fun by celebrating “The astonishing success of Eurozone bailouts”, using Greece as the poster girl/boy of that exercise in futility, the EU’s most spectacular failure. With such friendly scribblers, Europe has no need for sworn enemies!His evidence? That Greece, the basket case of the euro crisis, reported GDP per head growth between 2019 and 2024 of “more than 11 per cent”. Seriously? Has he never heard of that cruel phenomenon called a ‘dead cat bounce’ (i.e., even a dead cat will bounce significantly if dropped from a great height)?Had he allowed his readers a longer view, the dead cat bounce would have become evident: GDP per capita remains 16% below its 2008 level – the only EU (or indeed OECD) country not to have caught up after the 2008 crisis.Had he also taken an interest in real wages, Mr Giles would have noticed that Greece has managed to break another bleak record: real wages are languishing at a sad level 22% below their 2008 level, with Hungary a distant second (-18%). To add insult to injury, Greek wages (in PPP terms) have managed not only to remain at the bottom of the eurozone league table but to beat Bulgarian wages in the race to the bottom of the equivalent EU table.Mr Giles also thought it a good idea to take a swipe at my claim that Greece remains in debtors’ prison. He must have been feeling confident that his readers would never get to see the actual data. Per head income in Greece is now more or less where it was in 2002: at around €19k. Back then, however, debt per head amounted to €15k (€13.5k public and only €1.6k private debt). Today, with the more or less the same income, every Greek is saddled with, on average, a €64.6k debt (€38.7k public και €25.9 private). In aggregate, public and private debt is close to €800 billion (€405 billion public and €380 billion private) while national income struggles to reach €230 billion. [Nb. Only the delinquent debts of citizens to the tax office, social security, banks and vulture funds amount to a whole GDP, i.e. €230 billion. Additionally, in a country of 10 million souls, 1.1 million homes and business premises have been foreclosed by the funds that bought the distressed mortgages from the banks and are being auctioned off.\If this is not debtors’ prison, what is?Last, but certainly not least: Mr Giles has missed out on perhaps the worst aspect of the EU bailouts’ spectacular failure: the wave of universal austerity that the Greek bailouts unleashed (hitting in turn Ireland, the Iberian peninsula, Italy, France and, finally Germany itself), coupled with tremendous money printing by the ECB, created the forces that are now devastating Europe’s industrial heartlands: Universal austerity ensured that aggregate demand was too low for corporations to want to invest in productive capacity. And ECB largesse (also known as Quantitative Easing) allowed Big Business to make money by buying back their own shares, rather than investing. The result? Fifteen years of an investment strike that has led to Europe missing out on a whole technological revolution (green energy, batteries, EV, cloud capital, AI etc.). Greece’s bailouts, in short, spearheaded catastrophic policies that are, today, rendering Europe a failed economic bloc.To conclude, Tacitus-like @ChrisGiles is treating his FT readers to a celebration of the eurozone bailouts when, in reality, they created a desert and proceeded to call it peace. With such friendly scribblers, Europe has no need for sworn enemies.

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Ο εχθρός του ιμπεριαλιστή δεν είναι πάντα φίλος του αντι-ιμπεριαλιστή – Εφημερίδα των Συντακτών

O ιμπεριαλισμός τελικά κερδίζει όταν κάνουμε το λάθος να υποστηρίζουμε τυραννικές μορφές όπως ο Ασαντ.Στις 15 Αυγούστου 2021 έπεσε το αμερικανοκίνητο καθεστώς της Καμπούλ. Τότε, εξέφρασα ανακούφιση για την ήττα του αμερικανικού ιμπεριαλισμού και, ταυτόχρονα, τρόμο για το τι επρόκειτο να υποστούν οι γυναίκες του Αφγανιστάν στα χέρια των τζιχαντιστών Ταλιμπάν.Αμέσως, το «φιλελεύθερο»-ιμπεριαλιστικό λόμπι των ΗΠΑ μου επιτέθηκε ομαδόν επειδή πανηγύριζα τη νίκη των… Ταλιμπάν. Για τα τσιράκια του ιμπεριαλισμού, αν δεν υποστηρίζεις τον ιμπεριαλισμό τους, είσαι υποστηρικτής των τζιχαντιστών που τα έβαλε μαζί τους. Η ιμπεριαλιστική νοοτροπία αρνείται να δει το προφανές: το καθήκον να αντιταχθούμε, με την ίδια θέρμη, τόσο στον ιμπεριαλισμό τους όσο και στους τζιχαντιστές που ο ιμπεριαλισμός τους ενισχύει με τη βαρβαρότητά του.Την περασμένη Κυριακή, το καθεστώς του Ασαντ κατέρρευσε καθώς οι τζιχαντιστές εισέβαλαν στη Δαμασκό. Και πάλι, εξέφρασα την ανακούφισή μου για την πτώση ενός τυραννικού καθεστώτος, προσθέτοντας: «Οι Σύροι έχουν υποφέρει αρκετά. Το ζητούμενο από αύριο είναι να μην υποφέρουν περισσότερο, όπως οι Ιρακινοί και οι Λίβυοι μετά την πτώση των δικτατόρων τους».Αμέσως, δέχθηκα (όπως και στην περίπτωση της πτώσης της Καμπούλ) επίθεση επειδή πανηγύρισα τη νίκη των… τζιχαντιστών – αυτή τη φορά από αντιπάλους του αμερικανικού ιμπεριαλισμού. Γι’ αυτούς, αν δεν υποστήριζες τον Ασαντ, θα έπρεπε να είσαι υποστηρικτής των τζιχαντιστών που αντιτάχθηκαν στον Ασαντ και των Αμερικανοϊσραηλινών χορηγών τους. Πρόκειται για την ίδια λογική με εκείνη του ιμπεριαλιστικού λόμπι: «Αν δεν είσαι μαζί μας, είσαι εναντίον μας». Οπως οι Αμερικανοί αρνούνταν την ευθύνη της ενίσχυσης των Ταλιμπάν βομβαρδίζοντας χωριά και πόλεις, έτσι κι οι αντι-ιμπεριαλιστές επικριτές μου αρνούνται να δουν ότι, λόγω των τυραννικών του μεθόδων, το καθεστώς Ασαντ μόνο τους τζιχαντιστές που το ανέτρεψαν ενίσχυε.Το δίδαγμα από αυτή την τραγωδία για τους αντι-ιμπεριαλιστές είναι απλό: ο ιμπεριαλισμός τελικά κερδίζει όταν κάνουμε το λάθος να υποστηρίζουμε τυραννικές μορφές όπως ο Ασαντ (ή, πριν από αυτόν, ο Σαντάμ) επειδή είναι εχθροί του ιμπεριαλιστικού εχθρού μας. Ο μόνος τρόπος να νικηθεί ο ιμπεριαλισμός μακροπρόθεσμα είναι να κερδίσουμε τις καρδιές και τον νου της πλειοψηφίας. Κάτι που δεν γίνεται υποστηρίζοντας λαομίσητους τυράννους μόνο και μόνο επειδή είναι εχθροί των εχθρών μας.Αλλά, ρωτούν κάποιοι, δεν ήταν το Ιράκ σε καλύτερη κατάσταση πριν ο στρατός των ΗΠΑ ανατρέψει τον Σαντάμ; Φυσικά και ήταν. Η Λιβύη δεν ήταν καλύτερα πριν η Δύση ανατρέψει τον Καντάφι; Φυσικά και ήταν. Η Συρία δεν κινδυνεύει να υποστεί ένα ακόμα χειρότερο λουτρό αίματος μετά την πτώση του Ασαντ, όπως ακριβώς έγινε στο Ιράκ και τη Λιβύη; Φυσικά. Αλλά αυτός δεν είναι λόγος να αντιμετωπίζουμε τον Σαντάμ, τον Καντάφι ή τον Ασαντ ως τη «λύση», ως το αντίδοτο στον ιμπεριαλισμό. Τα τυραννικά καθεστώτα αποξενώνουν τους ίδιους τους λαούς τους και, στο τέλος, καταρρέουν – καταλήγοντας ανίκανα να αντισταθούν στον ιμπεριαλισμό.Εν ολίγοις, οι αντι-ιμπεριαλιστές έχουμε υποχρέωση να υιοθετούμε ελάχιστα ηθικά πρότυπα. Αυτό είναι το μεγαλύτερο όπλο μας, όχι τα AK47 ή οι αντιαεροπορικοί πύραυλοι. Γιατί μόνο με ελάχιστα ηθικά πρότυπα μπορούν να κερδηθούν οι μάζες. Μόνο τηρώντας ελάχιστα ηθικά πρότυπα θα εκθέτουμε τη διπροσωπία των δυτικών ΜΜΕ που, χωρίς να ερυθριάζουν, πέρασαν τόσο γρήγορα από το (α) να δικαιολογούν την επί δύο δεκαετίες κατοχή του Αφγανιστάν ως απαραίτητη στον αγώνα για την αποτροπή της κατάληψης της Καμπούλ από τους τζιχαντιστές στο (β) να πανηγυρίζουν για την κατάληψη της Δαμασκού από τους… τζιχαντιστές!Αλίμονο, αν εμείς δεν τηρούμε ελάχιστα ηθικά πρότυπα και, αντίθετα, υποστηρίζουμε τυράννους που αντιτίθενται στους εχθρούς μας. Τότε φαντάζουμε στα μάτια της πλειοψηφίας το ίδιο υποκριτές με τα φερέφωνα της δυτικής προπαγάνδας. Κι αυτό θα ήταν το μεγαλύτερο δώρο στον δυτικό Τύπο, στον ιμπεριαλισμό, στην τυραννία. Διότι, τότε, η αντιπαράθεση θα εκφυλιζόταν σε μια κουβέντα του στιλ «Οι δικοί μας μπάσταρδοι δεν είναι τόσο κακοί όσο οι δικοί σας».Είναι, τελικά, απλό: Οπως δεν χρειάστηκε να κλάψει κανείς για τον Σαντάμ Χουσέιν για να καταδικάσει την εγκληματική εισβολή του Μπους στο Ιράκ ή για το αμερικανικό καθεστώς στην Καμπούλ πριν καταδικάσει τους Ταλιμπάν, έτσι και με τον Ασαντ: χαιρετίζουμε την πτώση του δικτάτορα και καταδικάζουμε τους τζιχαντιστές που τον έριξαν. Οχι μόνο δεν είναι ουδετερότητα (ίσες αποστάσεις) αλλά είναι ο μόνος αποτελεσματικός τρόπος να σταθούμε στο πλευρό των πολλών και να τα βάλουμε πραγματικά με τον ιμπεριαλισμό.Τώρα, μετά την πτώση του Ασαντ, προέχει να στρέψουμε τα πυρά της κριτικής μας προς τον δυτικό Τύπο που, ενώ μιλάει με λυρισμό για τη «νέα Συρία που γεννιέται», δεν λέει λέξη για τις αμερικανικές και ισραηλινές βόμβες που πέφτουν από τον ουρανό σε όλη τη νέα αυτή Συρία – ή για τα ισραηλινά τανκς που πατάνε τη γη της. Και να συνεχίσουμε να μιλάμε για τον λαό της Παλαιστίνης, τον οποίο ο ιμπεριαλισμός συνεχίζει να πολτοποιεί χωρίς σχεδόν κανείς να μιλάει για αυτό από την ώρα της πτώσης του Ασαντ – ένα αναπάντεχο δώρο στον Νετανιάχου και τους χορηγούς του σε ΗΠΑ – Ε.Ε.

*Το άρθρο αποτελεί συντομευμένη απόδοση της μηνιαίας στήλης του Γιάνη Βαρουφάκη στο κινεζικό ειδησεογραφικό πρακτορείο quancha.cn

The post Ο εχθρός του ιμπεριαλιστή δεν είναι πάντα φίλος του αντι-ιμπεριαλιστή – Εφημερίδα των Συντακτών appeared first on Yanis Varoufakis.

Lessons from Syria: An imperialist’s enemy is not always an anti-imperialist’s friend – China Academy op-ed

On 15th August 2021, when the Kabul US-puppet regime fell, I expressed relief that US imperialism was defeated and, simultaneously, horror at what the women of Afghanistan were about to suffer in the hands of the jihadist Taliban.Immediately, the US liberal-imperialist lobby attacked me for… celebrating the Taliban victory. You see, for imperialism’s stooges, if you do not support US imperialism you must be a supporter of jihadists who opposed US imperialism. The imperialist mindset refuses to see the obvious: we had a duty to oppose, with equal fervour, both US imperialism and the jihadists that US imperialism strengthened through its brutality. They could not see that a US imperialist invasion only strengthened the jihadists who wanted to place the women of Afghanistan under gender apartheid.Last Sunday, Assad’s regime collapsed and the jihadists stormed Damascus. Again, I expressed relief that a tyrnannical regime had fallen, adding:  “Syrians have suffered enough. The task now is to ensure they do not suffer more, as the Iraqis and the Libyans did after the fall of their dictators. To that end, foreign powers, Western and non-Western, must also be kept at bay.”Immediately, I was (as in the case of the fall of Kabul) attacked for celebrating the… jihadist victory – this time by opponents of US-imperialism. For them, if you did not support Assad you must have been a supporter of the jihadists who opposed Assad. Same logic as that of US imperialism’s cheerleaders: “If you are not with us you are against us”. My anti-imperialist detractors could not see that the Assad regime, because of its tyrannical ways, only strengthened the jihadists who overthrew Assad.[image error]My message to anti-imperialists who think that supporting tyrannical figures like Assad (or, before him, Saddam) because he is the enemy of our imperialist enemy is: Think again! To fight imperialism and win in the long run, we must win the hearts and minds of people. And we cannot do this by supporting tyrants, whom the people loathe, just because they are enemies of our enemies.But was Iraq not better off, some ask, before Saddam was overthrown by the US army? Of course it was. Was Libya not better off before the West took out Qaddafi? Of course it was. Is Syria not running the risk of becoming an even worse bloodbath after Assad’s fall, just as Iraq and Libya were? Of course it does. But, this is no reason to treat Saddam, Qaddafi or Assad as the ‘solution’, as the antidote to imperialism. Their tyrannical regimes alienate their own people and, in the end, crumble – thus proving incapable of resisting imperialism. That they may be, for a while, the enemy of the chief imperialist, the US, does not make them a friend of anti-imperialists.In short, anti-imperialism will only succeed if anti-imperialists maintain some minimum ethical standards. That’s our greatest weapon, not AK47s or anti-aircraft missiles.A bullet-riddled portrait of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad adorns Hama’s municipality following the city’s capture by rebel forces on December 6, 2024For if we stick to minimum ethical standards we can win over the masses worldwide who appreciate a principled humanist stance. We can also expose more readily the duplicity of the Western media who went, without blushing, from (a) justifying the two-decade-long occupation of Afghanistan as essential in the fight to prevent the jihadists from taking Kabul to (b) celebrating the take over of Damascus by the… jihadists!Alas, if we don’t maintain minimum ethical standards, and instead support tyrants who are opposed to our enemies, our opposition to the enemy’s favourite tyrants will sound as hypocritical as the Western press. And that, believe me, would be the greatest gift to the Western press, to imperialism, to tynanny. For, at that point, it would be reduced simply to a contest between their “tyrants” and our “tyrants”.To conclude, there is nothing confusing about condemning both Saddam Hussein and George W. Bush’s criminal invasion of Iraq. Both Milosevic and NATO’s bombing of Serb civilians. Both the Taliban and the US invasion of Afghanistan. Both Assad’s regime and the US-backed jihadists that overthrew him. Not only is there no contradiction but it is the only right and effective way to be anti-imperialist.Turning to what really matters today, what we now have after the fall of Assad is a Western press waxing lyrical about the new Syria being born without saying a word about the US and Israeli bombs falling from the sky all over the new Syria.Also, have you noticed that no one is talking about the ongoing genocide in Gaza? This is the greatest gift to Netanyahu, his US minders and their EU genocide cheerleaders.So, comrades, let us maintain minimum ethical standards in combating imperialism. And let’s keep talking Palestine!

For the China Academy site click here.

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Ανοιχτή επιστολή των Γιάνη Βαρουφάκη & Μπράιαν Ίνο προς τους δικαστές του ΔΠΔ με αφορμή την επέτειο της 7/10: Κινητοποιηθείτε τώρα, αλλιώς το Διεθνές Δίκαιο «τελειώνει»

ΑΝΟΙΚΤΗ ΕΠΙΣΤΟΛΗ ΠΡΟΣ ΤΟΥΣ ΔΙΚΑΣΤΕΣ ΤΟΥ ΔΙΕΘΝΟΥΣ ΠΟΙΝΙΚΟΥ ΔΙΚΑΣΤΗΡΙΟΥ7η Οκτωβρίου 2024Αξιότιμοι δικαστές του Διεθνούς Ποινικού Δικαστηρίου,Όταν τον Ιανουάριο μάθαμε ότι το Δικαστήριό σας αποφάσισε να εξετάσει τις καταγγελίες για όσα συμβαίνουν στην περιοχή Ισραήλ-Παλαιστίνης, αναθαρρήσαμε. Η ανθρωπότητα χρειάζεται ένα Διεθνές Ποινικό Δικαστήριο που να διασφαλίζει το Διεθνές Δίκαιο και να είναι έτοιμο να διερευνήσει σοβαρές καταγγελίες για παραβιάσεις του.Σήμερα, 7η Οκτωβρίου 2024, ακριβώς ένα χρόνο μετά την έναρξη της τελευταίας και πιο βάναυσης φάσης της εβδομηνταεξάχρονης ισραηλινοπαλαιστινιακής σύγκρουσης, αισθανόμαστε την ανάγκη να απευθυνθούμε σε εσάς. Όχι μόνο εξαιτίας της αυξανόμενης βαναυσότητας των όσων συμβαίνουν δυτικά του Ιορδάνη ποταμού, αλλά και εξαιτίας του επικίνδυνου προηγούμενου που δημιουργείται όταν κράτος-μέλος του ΟΗΕ καταστρατηγεί κατά το δοκούν το Διεθνές Δίκαιο όσον αφορά την αποδεκτή συμπεριφορά κρατών σε περιόδους πολέμων και συγκρούσεων. Εάν καταφανείς παραβιάσεις του Διεθνούς Δικαίου δεν ελέγχονται από ένα δικαστήριο όπως το δικό σας, όλο και περισσότερα κράτη θα διαπράττουν εγκλήματα πολέμου χωρίς καν τον φόβο της καταδίκης από τα δικαστήρια τα οποία η διεθνής κοινότητα, αμέσως μετά τις εκατόμβες του Δεύτερου Παγκόσμιου Πολέμου, κατέστησε υπεύθυνα για την προστασία του Διεθνούς Δικαίου.Διότι είναι πλέον αδιαμφισβήτητο: Η κυβέρνηση του Ισραήλ έχει βαλθεί να αφανίσει συστηματικά κάθε πτυχή της ζωής των Παλαιστινίων στη Γάζα. Έχουμε ήδη δει:Τον πιο εντατικό βομβαρδισμό πυκνοκατοικημένης αστικής περιοχής στην μεταπολεμική ΙστορίαΤην πιο στοχευμένη λιμοκτονία πληθυσμού από τον Δεύτερο Παγκόσμιο ΠόλεμοΤη συστηματική καταστροφή υγειονομικών εγκαταστάσεων και υπηρεσιώνΈναν άνευ προηγουμένου αριθμό δολοφονημένων δημοσιογράφων και προσωπικού του ΟΗΕ.Η ισραηλινή κυβέρνηση έχει πλήξει σχολεία, πανεπιστήμια, βιβλιοθήκες, αρχεία, πολιτιστικά κέντρα, χώρους πολιτιστικής κληρονομιάς, τζαμιά και εκκλησίες. Καθηγητές και δάσκαλοι έχουν σκοτωθεί, μαζί με τους μαθητές τους και συχνά ολόκληρες τις οικογένειές τους. Εν τω μεταξύ, υπό την κάλυψη της σύγκρουσης στη Γάζα, Ισραηλινοί έποικοι, προστατευόμενοι από Ισραηλινούς στρατιώτες, εκδιώκουν Παλαιστίνιους από την προγονική τους πατρίδα, παραβιάζοντας ευθέως κάθε αρχή του Διεθνούς Δικαίου.Δεν πρόκειται απλά για παραβιάσεις από κάποια κυβέρνηση. Η διεθνής κοινότητα δεν έχει κανένα λόγο να περιμένει ότι κάποια κυβερνητική αλλαγή θα επαναφέρει το ισραηλινό κράτος στους κόλπους του Διεθνούς Δικαίου. Την 19η Ιουλίου 2024 το Διεθνές Δικαστήριο έκρινε παράνομη την κατοχή της Δυτικής Όχθης, της Γάζας και της Ανατολικής Ιερουσαλήμ από το Ισραήλ. Πέντε ημέρες αργότερα, η ισραηλινή Κνεσέτ ψήφισε, με συντριπτική πλειοψηφία 65-9, να αγνοήσει την απόφαση του Διεθνούς Δικαστηρίου και να χαρακτηρίσει προκλητικά τη Δυτική Όχθη, τη Γάζα και την Ανατολική Ιερουσαλήμ ως μέρος της «Γης του Ισραήλ». Για να αποδείξει ακόμη περισσότερο την περιφρόνησή της για το Διεθνές Δίκαιο και τους θεσμούς που δημιούργησε η ανθρωπότητα μετά τον Δεύτερο Παγκόσμιο Πόλεμο για να το υποστηρίξει, την περασμένη Τετάρτη η κυβέρνηση του Ισραήλ απαγόρευσε στον Γενικό Γραμματέα του ΟΗΕ Γκουτέρες την είσοδο στη χώρα!Ιδού λοιπόν το ερώτημα: Πότε μπορούμε να περιμένουμε διώξεις από το δικαστήριό σας;Σήμερα είναι η επέτειος της έναρξης του πιο ζοφερού κεφαλαίου μιας τραγωδίας για την οποία η γενιά μας θα είναι υπόλογη στις μελλοντικές γενιές.Σήμερα η ανθρωπότητα χρειάζεται περισσότερο από ποτέ ένα δικαστήριο σαν το δικό σας, όπου αμερόληπτοι νομικοί από όλο τον κόσμο μπορούν να καταλήγουν σε συναίνεση σχετικά με το τι συνιστά νόμιμη συμπεριφορά στον πόλεμο και τα επακόλουθά του.Σήμερα, ο ζωτικής σημασίας ρόλος σας κρίνεται. Για αυτό σας καλούμε να δράσετε άμεσα.Σας ευχαριστούμεΓιάνης Βαρουφάκης και Μπράιαν Ίνο

Εάν θέλετε να εκφράσετε την συμφωνία σας με την επιστολή μας (έστω και ανώνυμα), πατήστε εδώ.

Για αντίγραφο (σε pdf) αυτής της επιστολής, πατήστε εδώ.

Για την ανάρτηση του Μπράιαν Ίνο, πατήστε εδώ.

ΓΙΑΤΙ ΣΤΕΙΛΑΜΕ ΤΗΝ ΠΙΟ ΠΑΝΩ ΕΠΙΣΤΟΛΗ ΣΤΟ ΔΠΔ ΣΗΜΕΡΑ, 7η ΟΚΤΩΒΡΙΟΥΠριν από ένα χρόνο, σαν σήμερα, στις 7 Οκτώβρη, μαχητές υπό την ηγεσία της Χαμάς έπληξαν και διαπέρασαν τον φράχτη που φυλάκιζε 2,3 εκατομμύρια Παλαιστίνιους (κυρίως πρόσφυγες από την πρώτη εθνοκάθαρση της Νάκμπα του 1948) στη Γάζα, τη μεγαλύτερη φυλακή στον κόσμο. Σε απάντηση στη δολοφονία εκείνη την ημέρα πάνω από χιλίων ισραηλινών πολιτών και την απαγωγή εκατοντάδων άλλων, πράξεις που συνιστούν εγκλήματα πολέμου, το Ισραήλ ανταπέδωσε με μια στρατιωτική εκστρατεία που διαρκεί ένα χρόνο και ισοδυναμεί με καλά σχεδιασμένη, εκούσια γενοκτονία.Ένα χρόνο μετά, τουλάχιστον 50 χιλιάδες Παλαιστίνιοι έχουν σκοτωθεί επί τόπου ενώ περισσότεροι από 200 εκατοντάδες χιλιάδες έχουν υποκύψει σε τραύματα και ασθένειες στη συνέχεια – για να μην αναφερθώ στα δεκάδες χιλιάδες ακρωτηριασμένα παιδιά χωρίς επιζώντες γονείς.Σήμερα, στην επέτειο της 7ης Οκτωβρίου, δεν διαφαίνεται κανένα τέλος στη γενοκτονία. Το Ισραήλ τελεί υπό την εξουσία μιας γενοκτονικής ακροδεξιάς κυβέρνησης, η οποία δεν χάνει ευκαιρία να κλιμακώσει τη δολοφονική εκστρατεία της στη Δυτική Όχθη, την Ανατολική Ιερουσαλήμ, το Νότιο Λίβανο και ευρύτερα. Και μάλιστα, το χειρότερο είναι ότι υπάρχουν σαφείς ενδείξεις ότι η μεγάλο μέρος της αντιπολίτευσης υποστηρίζει τη γενική κατεύθυνση της κυβέρνησης που οδηγεί στην καταστροφή όχι μόνο τη Μέση Ανατολή αλλά και την ίδια την ισραηλινή κοινωνία.Ο Μπράιαν Ίνο και εγώ εκτιμούμε ότι η χιονοστιβάδα των εγκλημάτων πολέμου που συσσωρεύεται καθημερινά δεν είναι μόνο μια καταστροφική πορεία για τους Παλαιστίνιους και τους Ισραηλινούς, αλλά και μια καταστροφική εξέλιξη για την διεθνή Ειρήνη, ακόμα και για την αυτοεκτίμηση της ανθρωπότητας,. Μετά τον τελευταίο παγκόσμιο πόλεμο και τις θηριωδίες του, τα κράτη μας συγκεντρώθηκαν υπό την αιγίδα του ΟΗΕ για να συμφωνήσουν σε κρίσιμες αρχές του Διεθνούς Δικαίου, συμπεριλαμβανομένων των Παγκόσμιων Ανθρωπίνων Δικαιωμάτων και της αποδεκτής συμπεριφοράς κατά τη διάρκεια πολέμων.Για αυτό, σήμερα, με αφορμή τη ζοφερή επέτειο, ο Μπράιαν κι εγώ κάνουμε έκκληση στο Διεθνές Ποινικό Δικαστήριο να κάνει το καθήκον του: Να στηρίξει το Διεθνές Δίκαιο διώκοντας αυταπόδεικτα εγκλήματα πολέμου που γίνονται μπροστά στα μάτια μας στο Ισραήλ και στα Κατεχόμενα Παλαιστινιακά εδάφη. Διαφορετικά, θα έχουν συνεισφέρει στην νομιμοποίηση της γενοκτονίας, διεθνώς.Γιάνης Βαρουφάκης

The post Ανοιχτή επιστολή των Γιάνη Βαρουφάκη & Μπράιαν Ίνο προς τους δικαστές του ΔΠΔ με αφορμή την επέτειο της 7/10: Κινητοποιηθείτε τώρα, αλλιώς το Διεθνές Δίκαιο «τελειώνει» appeared first on Yanis Varoufakis.