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Talking to My Daughter: A Brief History of Capitalism

Yanis Varoufakis

4.11 · Rating details · 9,930 ratings · 1,147 reviews

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

‘Why is there so much inequality?’ Xenia asks her father, the world-famous economist Yanis Varoufakis.

Drawing on memories of her childhood and a variety of well-known tales – from Oedipus and Faust to Frankenstein and The Matrix – Varoufakis explains everything you need to know in order to understand why economics is the most important drama of o ...more

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Published February 28th 2019 by Vintage Digital (first published 2013)

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Aug 17, 2018 Kevin rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: everyone

Shelves: econ-market, 2-brilliant-intros-101, econ-finance, econ-general, 1-how-the-world-works, econ-marxism

A favorite, surpassing the sea of ECON101 books; the storytelling alone makes me revisit this annually. The most accessible and engaging intro to "the market society" (capitalism) you can ask for, unraveling this enigma while rooted in real-life concerns and historical/global scope...

The Brilliant:
--A flow of stories grounded in real world history bringing to life the big-picture logic and consequences of our global market economy, with minimal jargon and zero abstract formulas. You can suppleme ...more

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Dec 08, 2017 T.D. Whittle rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: reviews

Two stars for "It was okay."

What I liked: Varoufakis explains his understanding of the evolution of Capitalism briefly, clearly, and engagingly. A bright child really could read and grasp what he has written. That's well done and not easy to achieve.

I am going to review this as if politics and economies are necessarily married to each other, because that is Varoufakis's belief and one which I completely agree with. Good luck trying to separate the two! He gives a very good explanation of Bitcoi Two stars for "It was okay."

What I liked: Varoufakis explains his understanding of the evolution of Capitalism briefly, clearly, and engagingly. A bright child really could read and grasp what he has written. That's well done and not easy to achieve.

I am going to review this as if politics and economies are necessarily married to each other, because that is Varoufakis's belief and one which I completely agree with. Good luck trying to separate the two! He gives a very good explanation of Bitcoin and why, in the end, it's a very bad idea as an economy.

What I didn't like: While I agree with much of what he says, I simply disagree with his ideas about how to solve our global economic problems. He is clearly a socialist though does not use that term even once, I suppose to avoid alienating people who are are afraid of socialism and it's farther-left sibling, communism. Looking up info on Varoufakis, I found he is a member of the Democratic Socialist party in Greece, so that's the foundation on which he stands. I thought (for heaven's sake) we'd learnt by now that these economies and the politics that invariably evolve along with them do not work. How many times do we have to go over this? This guy has a brilliant mind and is older than me, hasn't he seen enough to know this is a truly terrible idea? There has not been a single country that has fully incorporated Socialism without making a tremendous mess of it.

I am not anti socialist programs, though, as part of a capitalist economy. Varoufakis has only one offer on the table by the end of his book: commodification versus democratization (using his terms). I choose neither, because I believe we can have a compromise of the two. I think what we need is to finesse our laws to protect public interests against full commodification, meaning private ownership, of what are and should remain public assets.

In fact, I rather like our political and economic arrangement here in Australia, though we have our flaws like any society and need improvements. There are many things we get right. We are a federal parliamentary representative democracy (and, though I am fond of the Queen, it's probably time we moved on to being a full republic and moved completely out from under monarchy). We are a capitalist economy, certainly, but we have plenty of socialist programs woven into our sociopolitical fibre. It seems durable and works well for many or most people―again, it is not perfect. No society is nor ever will be. We continue to have debates over resources and who has rights to what lands, etc.

But we have solid and reliable taxpayer-funded infrastructure (roads, libraries, gardens, protected lands, military and police protection) and support (housing and welfare for the needy, unemployment and disability benefits, elder care benefits including retirement-age pension, universal healthcare, etc.). Again, these are not perfect, but they are pretty good and robust, and often under threat by private interests trying to barge in where they most certainly do not belong. So, there are always folks trying to steamroll the public and get their own way, but there are also folks pushing back. That is natural with human beings and is held in check better or worse depending on which party sits in government at the time.

Anyway, your mileage may vary, depending on your politics and economic outlook.

NB: I am not interested in arguing economics and politics with people. I have read this book in its brief entirety and am merely sharing some of my thoughts about it, which I can only explain by sharing, in a limited way, some of my own economic and political opinions. If you want to debate these topics, there's always Facebook and Twitter. Or, feel free to argue amongst yourselves here, but I am unlikely to respond because, frankly, I am exhausted by politics lately due to our current global situation. Cheers. ...more

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Mar 23, 2020 Trevor rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: behavioural-economics, literature, economics

This is a lovely book and I’ve asked both of my daughters to read it and have already started talking to one of them about it. It is nice for a couple of reasons. The first is that it explains complicated ideas in highly accessible ways. As he says at the start, you probably shouldn’t trust anyone who can’t explain even difficult concepts in a way that a reasonably educated person can understand. This is doubly true of economics, particularly since our world is run according to the dictates of e This is a lovely book and I’ve asked both of my daughters to read it and have already started talking to one of them about it. It is nice for a couple of reasons. The first is that it explains complicated ideas in highly accessible ways. As he says at the start, you probably shouldn’t trust anyone who can’t explain even difficult concepts in a way that a reasonably educated person can understand. This is doubly true of economics, particularly since our world is run according to the dictates of economists – you know, if you are going to ruin my life with your austerity policies, then you should have the decency to explain to me why I should do without health care and an education system for my kids. And more than the vague platitudes Dire Straits parodied (We’re gonna have to pay what’s owed, we’re gonna have to reap from some seed that’s been sowed).

The book uses science fiction and Greek myths to provide metaphors to help explain economic concepts. It also references some of my favourite books – like Guns, Germs and Steel – to provide a kind of ‘why us and not them’ background to economic development. He also references some ideas from behavioural economics, not least the idea that moving from transactions of social solidarity to those of financial exchange often undermine what is best and most human about our interactions. The example he gives is of people giving blood – something dear to my heart as I’ve been doing this for years. In Australia you don’t get paid for the blood you donate. I do it because I think it is a nice way to give back to society without getting to choose who you are going to help. Too much charity is about us giving to ‘people like us’ or people so distant as to be abstract concepts, more than fellow humans – I like the idea that I’ve no idea who my blood will end up in – that it could potentially be someone like my current prime minister, who I would struggle to pour water on if he was on fire.

In other countries they pay people to give blood. You might think that the countries where they pay you would end up with more blood. That they would have the people like me still doing it, but also other people (poor people perhaps) who need the money. So, A plus B ought to be more than just A alone. This isn’t how it works out. As he says, making it a financial transaction puts people off donating – because the idea of ‘selling’ your blood seems distasteful. In this case we have moved from altruism to a financial transaction – and the value of the transaction isn’t enough and perhaps never could be enough to make it seem worthwhile – whereas when it was being done for free it became something quite different.

The same thing happened years ago when a city council I used to work at contracted out a service that they once provided as a community service – meals on wheels for the elderly. The organization that won the contract thought that they would be able to continue to use the volunteers that had ‘always’ helped out. But even though the contract winner would still be delivering meals to the very same old people, the volunteers were not at all happy to be asked to donate their labour so that an organization would be able to profit from it. And the organization was planning to profit from the contract. The commodification of transactions isn’t really compatible with social solidarity.

The discussion in the book of the transition from Feudalism to Capitalism is also instructive and interesting. He links this to the enclosing of land and therefore the removal of peasants, who had to then go to towns searching for work. As such, they had to sell their labour for the first time – making their labour a commodity – something that is a precondition of capitalist production. The author is particularly good at explaining the difference between work that is done to sustain social interactions and work that is done in exchange for wages, and how the previous, in patriarchal societies, wasn’t always ‘fair’ either.

He explains the problems associated with replacing human labour with machines and how this undermines economic development since it allows those who own the machines to horde so much of society’s wealth.

I think his explanation of how and why markets are likely to fail is useful since it is so clear and so clearly, and pointedly, directed at arguments against the ‘tragedy of the commons’.

This is a fast read, and one that never gets beyond the common reader who is paying attention. It explains difficult concepts like how banks can create money out of thin air, how they have incentives to do this little magic trick a little too often, and how that ultimately means governments will need to step in as the whole thing comes crashing down. It explains how inflation and interest rates work and are interrelated. Like I said, there are a lot of otherwise complex ideas explained here in ways that are both easy to follow and, in fact, really engaging. And that is as it should be.
...more

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Jan 03, 2020 May 舞 rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction

Buddy read with R Nair

"The worst slavery is that of heavily indoctrinated happy morons who adore their chains and cannot wait to thank their masters for the joy of their subservience."

I've been meaning to read a book explaining how Capitalism works for a very long time, and I'm glad to say that this concise yet inclusive work of non-fiction delivers splendidly.

Written in very simple language, this book explains:

The necessity of surplus for states to exist.
The emergence of profit as an end of i ...more

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Oct 09, 2018 W.D. Clarke rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: how-d-it-come-to-this

In this book, Varoufakis shows us how the growth of human civilization gave birth to the first systems of politically-legitimized inequality (and how ancient and feudal inequality, characterized by "societies with markets", gave way to a much different kind of world, that of the "market society", of capitalism, in which everyone is driven to, compelled to, sell their labour, and in which the only real value is "exchange value").

Varoufakis also takes us on a tour of several key moments that truly In this book, Varoufakis shows us how the growth of human civilization gave birth to the first systems of politically-legitimized inequality (and how ancient and feudal inequality, characterized by "societies with markets", gave way to a much different kind of world, that of the "market society", of capitalism, in which everyone is driven to, compelled to, sell their labour, and in which the only real value is "exchange value").

Varoufakis also takes us on a tour of several key moments that truly define the capitalist world as we now know it: the imposition of debt via the contract (with Marlowe's Dr. Faustus); the expansion of capitalism via debt-financed industrialisation (with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein); the "black magic" of how private bankers create money out of nothing (with John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath); the irrational mysteries of money and labour markets (with Jean-Jacques Rousseau's fable of "The Stag and the Hares" and the myth of King Oedipus); and the triple threat of our current economy, automation, virtual currencies and environmental degradation (with Star Trek and The Matrix).

In the end, this is a highly entertaining and informative little book, for the neophyte and initiate alike. I wish my own father had given something like this to me when I was a teen. Varoufakis closes with a juxtaposition of two ancient Greek concepts, idiotis vs Eudaimonia: idiots are those who place themselves outside of civilization by refusing to think of the common good: an idiot is literally a privateer, someone who minds only his own business, and ignores that of others. True happiness comes from understanding our true, interconnected nature, and involves an environment and an economy in which each of us can literally "flourish", grow from tiny acorns into mighty the oak trees of our fullest potential. Varoufakis challenges his daughter to see past the conventional wisdom of those idiots whose technocratic mumbo-jumbo would prevent us from reaching toward a more democratic world, one in which eudaimonia is a possibility for everyone. I have a hunch which side his daughter Xenia (whose name's "etymology comes from the Greek word xenos , meaning ‘stranger’ or ‘foreigner’ and translates as ‘kindness to strangers’" (146) will pick. He seems like a pretty good dad.

I have a longer version of this review on my blog if you are interested in reading more about this excellent book. I have also made a "Digested read" (re-presenting, and doing some mulling over its key arguments) of it here ...more

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Apr 11, 2019 D. St. Germain rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: capitalism

Yanis Varoufakis, the cheeky former Greek minister of finance and a saavy economics professor, delivers an explanatory book on modern capitalism for the non-academic, using a variety of examples from European history, Greek mythology, and pop culture to make his points.

Varoufakis believes that understanding economics is key to a truly well-functioning democracy. Yet, the jargon-filled academic field of economics obscures important ideas in strange language and uses inane examples that make it ...more

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Nov 24, 2017 Malcolm rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: political-economy, marxism-and-the-left

Yanis Varoufakis, economics professor and former finance minister of Greece, subscribes to a simple view that I share: if you can’t teach your subject to kids, you’re not such a good teacher….. (OK, string theorists might get a let off on that one, but only maybe). Now, for those of us who teach history, sociology, cultural studies and the like it might seem that we’re getting off easily in comparison to Varoufakis, who teaches economics. Towards the end of the engaging and highly accessible his Yanis Varoufakis, economics professor and former finance minister of Greece, subscribes to a simple view that I share: if you can’t teach your subject to kids, you’re not such a good teacher….. (OK, string theorists might get a let off on that one, but only maybe). Now, for those of us who teach history, sociology, cultural studies and the like it might seem that we’re getting off easily in comparison to Varoufakis, who teaches economics. Towards the end of the engaging and highly accessible history of capitalism he turns his focus on those who see economics as a science, whose complex economic models obscure and obfuscate the everyday experience of those of who live with their edicts, and the window-dressing of politicians who implement their plans and advice – and he is in no way forgiving of those who make his/their area of expertise one of untrammelled confusion.

Varoufakis teaches by story-telling and cutting through the density of much that passes for economic theory to find everyday events, situation and scenarios that can help explain the points he making about money, markets, power, work & labour and global (or, rather glocal) ecosystems. In keeping with Syriza, the party for whom he became finance minister, his history is largely a Marxist one constrained by the historiographical insights of Karl Polyani while his economics is, for the most part, Keynsian, but what we might see as small-state Keynsian in that he sees a world that is predominantly democratic where decision-making rests on cooperative community approaches with a democratic state (although he doesn’t suggest the relationship between these two levels, and that’s not the point of the book). In that sense, he is working in a framework provided by fairly orthodox heterodox economics (if that’s not an oxymoron).

As orthodoxically heterodox, Varoufakis is in good company and although there is quite a lot about that outlines economic approaches that reject the dominant neo-liberal leave-it-to-the-market style, there is little I have seen that is this accessible and this engaging; he seems to have read his intended audience well. Of course, that means there are many who will find fault – for not being sufficiently Marxist or Keynsian or whatever the preferred style is, for being over-reliant on game theory or underplaying the environmental aspects of capitalism’s development and order or countless other problems. Then there are those who will find fault with his ‘oversimplification’ of economics or his politicisation of the ‘market’. One of the many things I have learned as a teacher, alongside the need for humility, is that there are many ways to tell the same story or make the same point and our readers/students/pupils need to hear several different forms to get it: we hear and read differently, and diversity in writers’/teachers’ voices is essential.

To my mind, Varoufakis has achieved something more of us should aim for; demystifying a set of social relations more often than not presented in complex ways that limit our ability to be involved in debates about and the politics of those relations. When that limitation is imposed on something as essential as ‘the economy’ it is profoundly undemocratic and dangerous. If this invigorating economics ‘text’ demystifies those relations and enhances our economic literacy, which I am convinced it must, Varoufakis has done us all a favour.

If you’re concerned that there is an economic discussion going on around you and want to get to understand the underpinning system – set aside the frankly magical and mystifying language of economic management and go for politics and systems analysis. This is good place to start – but beware it will encourage you to find more demanding texts, and so it should! I would have liked a suggestion for further reading – but Naomi Klein’s No is Not Enough is a good start. ...more

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Feb 11, 2019 Rossdavidh rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: black

Before he launched Progressive International with Bernie Sanders in 2018, before he wrote books on the world's response to the 2008 financial crisis, before he was Greece's Finance Minister in 2015 during high-stakes negotiations between Greece and the EU on how to cope with Greece's economic and budgetary collapse, Yanis Varoufakis wrote a book (in Greek) explaining economics to adolescents (such as his daughter). It was subsequently translated into many other languages, but not into English un Before he launched Progressive International with Bernie Sanders in 2018, before he wrote books on the world's response to the 2008 financial crisis, before he was Greece's Finance Minister in 2015 during high-stakes negotiations between Greece and the EU on how to cope with Greece's economic and budgetary collapse, Yanis Varoufakis wrote a book (in Greek) explaining economics to adolescents (such as his daughter). It was subsequently translated into many other languages, but not into English until 2017.

His daughter was, I think, around 11 years old at the time he wrote this book, although I cannot find that detail just now so I might be slightly off. In any case, he was clearly writing at someone who was old enough to talk to about complex issues like how finance works, but not so old as to already have done a lot of reading on that. The book is, of course, a good book for adults to read as well, largely because most of us have not done that much reading about how finance works either.

More importantly, much of what we have read about how finance works, is not true. In some cases it was never true, but more importantly, finance today does not work the same as it did 100-200 years ago. Most of the money in our economy, today, has no physical existence, not even as paper. Most of the government debt, is not for the purpose of the government being able to spend more (it is for financial institutions such as banks to be able to buy a reliable bond that is highly liquid, and absolutely safe).

Not everything in Varoufakis' analysis is correct, in my opinion. He seems entirely too confident in the ability of democracy to rein in government excesses on behalf of the wealthy and well-connected, and therefore not particularly worried about government accumulating more and more power. It also seems clear to me that, the larger the polity, the more remote its leaders are from any given citizen (and the closer they are to the very wealthy). Thus, the government of Greece is much closer to caring about the welfare of ordinary Greeks, than the EU, which begs the question of whether it is a good idea for Greece to have committed their economic welfare into the hands of a bunch of non-Greeks in Brussels.

But, while his view of the world and how it could/should work may not be any better than the neo-liberal ideology which reigned from the end of the Cold War until 2008, it is at least a different view, and he is at his best when he is puncturing that neo-liberal ideology by pointing out the many ways in which the reality does not match the theory.

I have a 13-year old daughter; it had occurred to me when I began reading this book that I might wish to give it to her when I was done. If she had the slightest bit of interest in economics, I probably would. In the meantime, I think reading it myself has stimulated a lot of fresh thinking about how our economy works, and how it ought to work instead. Any book that does that is worth reading. ...more

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Jun 09, 2020 ·Karen· added it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

The first time I've ever understood Bitcoin. ...more

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May 06, 2019 Ali Khosravi rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: economics

Probably one of the best books ever written about the economy and the history of Capitalism (and to think that he finished writing it in only 9 days), the difference being that Varoufakis is not afraid to demystify and simplify his vocation whereas his colleagues have a egotistical tendency to make economic concepts sound more complicated than they actually are to attract more research funding. This is an absolute must read for every young person today, to understand what kind of a world we will ...more

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Dec 11, 2020 Nishanth rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: economics

Yanis Varoufakis just moved up a notch in my personal list of favorite authors. What an outstanding book this is. To reinforce my rating ,I would like to first mention another book Principles of Economics ,regarded as one of the more popular Economics textbooks for beginners, (I now have second thoughts as to whether there even exists such a thing as a 'Textbook' in economics) that I happened to read before I stumbled upon this gem and the contrast could not be much sharper.

Gregory Mankiw in hi Yanis Varoufakis just moved up a notch in my personal list of favorite authors. What an outstanding book this is. To reinforce my rating ,I would like to first mention another book Principles of Economics ,regarded as one of the more popular Economics textbooks for beginners, (I now have second thoughts as to whether there even exists such a thing as a 'Textbook' in economics) that I happened to read before I stumbled upon this gem and the contrast could not be much sharper.

Gregory Mankiw in his 800 page 'textbook' uses complex mathematical and statistical models, graphs, theories and so on (The Neoclassical approach I'm told) to explain how the Economy works. Yanis doesn't need all that and takes just under 200 pages to put his point across and does he do it well : In fact the words 'Supply' and 'Demand' just appear once and that too at the fag end of this book- no mean feat for someone who sets out to explain economics for introductory readers- In this book he is trying to explain how the economy works to his daughter and the way he goes about achieving this is truly heartwarming. With all due respect to Gregory Mankiw, I couldn't help but reflect on his 'textbook' after finishing this and my mind keeps going back to this passage where Yanis writes "The more I understood the economists theories and mathematics the more I realized that the so called experts in our great universities, on our TV screens etc., did not have a clue".

He then writes more scathingly and rubs salt into a mainstream economist's wounds by saying "The second raters among economic commentators" -(Now, there are quite a few of them in India with regular columns in leading newspapers ramming the neoliberal ideology into peoples minds), "not only did not understand the models of the great economists, whom they worshipped, but remarkably did not seem to care that they did not understand them".! . It is not an overstatement if I say that this book opened up a whole new world for me to explore.

The author also cautions us on the type of world we have been moving towards for quite sometime now where all 'experiential value'- is to be converted into 'exchange value', monetized and commodified. Amazon's attempt to pay our neighbors and turn them into deliverymen in order to cut their logistics costs (https://www.theguardian.com/technolog...) is a case in point that comes to mind where the experiential value of helping out our neighbors for the sheer joy of it is being turned into exchange value. This book has had me thinking long and hard and probably is the best that I have read this year. The epilogue at the end is the icing on the cake. I'm hoping to try and get my sister to read this, who isn't much of a reader I have to say. Essential reading for anyone interested in knowing how the actual economy works. ...more

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Feb 03, 2018 Doruntina Berisha rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I'm surprised that people rated the book with 2 stars! But then again people who like and profit from Capitalism obviously won't like this book. The book is brilliantly written. ...more

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Mar 08, 2017 Roel Peters rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Without doubt, Yanis Varoufakis is a brilliant man. His book, "The Global Minotaur", was a much needed alternative vision on the state of the global economy. However, in his new book, using simple examples and some history lessons, Varoufakis tries to explain his vision in words that a teenager would understand. I agree on the starting point of the book, that many theories exist solely to legitimize the position of the ruling class and rationalize inequality. Yet, despite his obsessive reference ...more

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Nov 22, 2020 Carlos Martinez rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: economics

4.5 stars, rounded up to 5 simply because of how much I enjoyed it.

This is a brilliant ABC of economics, in particular the Marxist critique of capitalism. I didn't learn all that much (mainly I got some ideas for how to Talk To My Son About the Economy), but Varoufakis is such a great storyteller, and he brings economic concepts to life in a very powerful way. An excellent primer, and goes well with the less Marxist but very useful Economics: The User's Guide. Varoufakis does a really great job ...more

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Dec 18, 2020 Bridget McGovern rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

There’s nothing quite as intoxicating as a good book. I started this book this morning and finished it by the afternoon. As someone who only has a more-or-less elementary understanding of economics, this was an excellent, accessible, and digestible primer to economic theory. He does away with pretentious academic writing and draws on anecdotal stories, Greek mythology, and books/movies from popular culture to explain capitalism. He’s definitely made me excited (and more confident) to dive deeper ...more

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Dec 02, 2020 Tanroop rated it really liked it · review of another edition

A great and very accessible intro to economics.

Varoufakis writes well, in a way most will understand easily, and explains key aspects of the world we inhabit today: the birth of capitalism- putting lie to the quite frustrating belief that capitalism is "just human nature"- and market societies, the role of debt, currency, banks, and so much more.

A key takeaway is the volatility and perverse incentives that are integral to capitalism. Hopefully this book gets people thinking about alternatives. ...more

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Aug 01, 2019 muthuvel rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: economics, favorite

Right from the boomers upto today's newer generations of various terminologies, Economy is something that's always been a bit obscure to clarify things out. People often say it's too big to fail. In 2008, US recovered the market economy from the crises period through people's tax money of 14 trillion dollars so as to make things stable. Most of everyday influencers say that we have to leave Economics to the experts. Yanis being a Economist himself simply disagrees.

"There are no economic experts. Right from the boomers upto today's newer generations of various terminologies, Economy is something that's always been a bit obscure to clarify things out. People often say it's too big to fail. In 2008, US recovered the market economy from the crises period through people's tax money of 14 trillion dollars so as to make things stable. Most of everyday influencers say that we have to leave Economics to the experts. Yanis being a Economist himself simply disagrees.

"There are no economic experts. The economy is the way in which social power is organized - it's a question about democracy. So if we are to accept that there is a group of experts and we have to defer to them, then, effectively, we accept oligarchy."

Yanis Varoufakis, besides being an familiar economist, is a member of Hellenic Parliament and has served briefly as finance minister of Greece in 2015 before he resigned his position due to conflicts of reconciling Greek economy and European Union's. He writes a journal to his early teen daughter who lives in Australia on her innocent question on why there's so much inequality in the world that we live in.

I certainly believe that the habit of making things simple is not a matter of perception with mildly granted attitude. It's a matter of understanding and equally the ability to explicate for better perceptions. As per that, it is a rare gem of a book. Everyone especially bankers who either don't know what they're doing in the market society or perhaps, pretending not to know what they're doing, for contemporary survival, should read this work for the sake of respecting human intellect.

The book covers from the concept of surplus originating from Agricultural revolution, relations between Money and Surplus, changes in the perception of usury in the modern times, gambling adventures of bankers in the market economy and role of government in being the savours for some obvious and some obvilious reasons come into picture.

I loved the way author concluded the book by quoting T.S. Eliot, "We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time."

I've been seriously thinking of translating the work in the native language. Of course, I dont mean to boast myself since I have no skills or experience in having done such works before but it geniunely kindled up my spirits to try for it and glad to help someone do the same. ...more

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Jan 23, 2018 James rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy, i-own-hardback, non-fiction, politics

A very clear discussion of market economics presented as a series of missives to his daughter in Australia. Each chapter was short enough for a single commute into town, and draws on lots of comparisons with popular and more traditional (although mostly Greek) references to illustrate his points. Heartily recommended for anybody who, like me, wanted to have more of a grounding in a subject that I've previously had to rely on the BBC's Steph McGovern for all my knowledge. A point deducted as it f ...more

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Jul 25, 2018 Paul rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: economics, history

"When you were born, your name, Xenia, appealed to me greatly because its etymology comes from the Greek word xenos, meaning 'stranger' or 'foreigner' and translates as 'kindness to strangers'. The appeal of this name came in part from my belief that the best way to see your country, your society, is to see it through the eyes of an outsider, a refugee. [...] Doing so will grant you the opportunity to retain your freedom."

In this book, Yanis Varoufakis who is widely regarded as one of the gr

"When you were born, your name, Xenia, appealed to me greatly because its etymology comes from the Greek word xenos, meaning 'stranger' or 'foreigner' and translates as 'kindness to strangers'. The appeal of this name came in part from my belief that the best way to see your country, your society, is to see it through the eyes of an outsider, a refugee. [...] Doing so will grant you the opportunity to retain your freedom."

In this book, Yanis Varoufakis who is widely regarded as one of the greatest living economists in the world, tries to explain the most important and most widely misinterpreted topics in Economics in the most simple of ways. And he has succeeded beautifully.

Writing his words as if he was talking to his (at the time of writing) 14 years old daughter, Xenia, Varoufakis presents in each chapter a series of related economical concepts in a very smooth and graspable way. Any person, even the one completely new to economics, will be able to understand the ideas presented, appreciate them and finally see them in action in his/her life. As a person who has already studied and understood thoroughly these concepts in college, I cannot help but appreciate the simplicity in which Varoufakis was able to explain them in his book. And even though I am familiar with all the ideas, I enjoyed absorbing them in this simple way; which also gave me new ways to explain them to other people who are completely unfamiliar with them.

Not only he presents ideas and examples, Varoufakis also poses some very important questions regarding the economic/political system in our world. Questions, I am compelled to admit, are often forgotten by the so-called "professionals" in this field but usually come to the mind of the person just starting to understand economics. The problem, as Varoufakis believes and I have come to believe also, is that "economists" are sometimes (most of the times?) failing to keep their feet on the ground... a mistake that has cost and will cost the world (especially the weakest of people) a lot.

Aiming to explain, enlighten and build a critical mindset, this book is one to be remembered for a long time, I believe. ...more

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Mar 01, 2018 Abhijeet Jain rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: everyone

Shelves: audio-books, economics

Amazing book! Covers a lot of ground related to economics, from ancient Egypt system to present trend of cryptocurrencies. I especially love the way Yanis presented his views. The book gives you an interesting perspective to look at markets. A society with markets vs market societies, government vs bankers, the author talked about these in quite a detail.
Overall an interesting book. Would be re-reading it soon.

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Feb 02, 2021 Laura Mitchell Hutchinson rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Brilliant.

I never thought I would be able to understand anything about the economy (even though I have a business degree... Econ101 was not my forte). This book was an absolute gem to find — an economist explaining the history of economies to his young teen daughter. The language is simple enough and there are lots of familiar pop-culture stories and metaphors woven throughout to explain theories and shifts.

I learnt so much about the economy obviously but also race, history, money, technology, ...more

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Jan 04, 2020 R Nair rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

"If the economy is the engine of society and debt is its fuel, then labour is the spark, the life-breathing force that animates that engine, while money is the lubricant without which that engine would seize up"

A buddy read with May

Short, sweet and concise. This book explains all the essentials that a simpleton such as yours truly has been confounded by over the years and has been too embarrassed to ask anyone about. Turns out most people don't have a fair idea about statements like " Central ba ...more

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Nov 13, 2017 Matt Thackeray rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Like many heterodox economists, Yannis Varaoufakis enjoys the limelight given by holding provocative and challenging points of view. This book is very much in the same vein, examining how capitalism in its current form came to be. Using a range of personal anecdotes and pop culture references, he illustrates in relatively easy-to-follow discussions the various aspects of what drives our modern economies.

Where his book falls down is in the blanket covering of all forms of capitalism being the sam ...more

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Apr 16, 2020 Kurdo Chali rated it really liked it

I have always said that economics is not a science as any other experimental science like physics is. At last, it can be regarded as some methods and formulas of mathematics and statistics applied to the different economic situations.
And unsurprisingly this fascinating book repeated my belief, but this time I heard it from a well-known economist.
The brutality and inhumanity of the capitalistic world order can hardly be explained better than this. And recommend reading this book to any body who w ...more

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May 25, 2018 Coral Davies rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

"Leaving the economy to the experts is the equivalent of those who lived in the Middle Ages entrusting their welfare to the theologians, the cardinals and the Spanish inquisitors. It is a terrible idea."

A necessary book for all. Not interested in economics? Find it dull and unnacessible? Honestly give this a go. Thought-provoking and relatable, Yanis once again gets us all thinking about the important questions in life with regards to the economy and politics. ...more

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Feb 02, 2018 Ashleigh rated it liked it · review of another edition

While there was nothing new in this book, it did succeed in presenting a coherent and relatable explanation of what the economy is and why it functions as it does. I would have liked it if Varoufakis had also provided some more thoughts on potential solutions or alternatives, but it is still a short and worthwhile read. 3.5 stars.

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Aug 15, 2020 Dr. Tobias Christian Fischer rated it liked it · review of another edition

A good idea to make things understand economy better - sometimes it is actually quit difficult to grasp the facts and get a clue what it means. But there are a lot of good examples that makes sense such as refrigerator or others. I like the description of automation and the commodities and connection to nature of market competition.

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Jan 17, 2018 Dan Hamilton rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Yanis has done something noble here. He’s taken an endlessly complex topic and brought it down to a level understandable by anyone willing to listen. And he’s done so with wit, wisdom, and an unmistakable moral clarity.

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Apr 12, 2021 Wick Welker rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: politics, economics, fav-nonfiction, nonfiction

We have two options: democratize or commoditize.

I highly enjoyed this one-sided conversation that Varoufakis has with his daughter. He lets go of the heady economic theory and just talks brass tacks: the ins, outs and flaws of market economies. He lays out some interesting and hilarious ground rules: economists don't know why they're talking about and should stop thinking of themselves as scientist on a foundation of established theory.

What we have here is a definition of the market economy and We have two options: democratize or commoditize.

I highly enjoyed this one-sided conversation that Varoufakis has with his daughter. He lets go of the heady economic theory and just talks brass tacks: the ins, outs and flaws of market economies. He lays out some interesting and hilarious ground rules: economists don't know why they're talking about and should stop thinking of themselves as scientist on a foundation of established theory.

What we have here is a definition of the market economy and the inequality that is a natural consequence. Societies used to just have simple markets: the buying and exchange of goods in a market within a society. This was transformed with the advent of surplus. Surplus is the direct driver that transformed our civilization into a market culture where everything, including human labor, is commoditized. Surplus is what causes the concentration of wealth. Surplus is the driver of the modern economy because with surplus, comes currency, credit and debt. Credit is not new. Credit is ancient. With credit and the debt it creates, bankers are able to employ their "black magic", meaning they sell money for interest rates, creating artificial market bubbles that inevitably collapse, driving bank runs and mass financial failure for those most vulnerable in the system. This isn't a flaw, it's a feature.

Enter the State, the bureaucracy, the boogieman. The lie is that the corporatist or people who actually believe free markets exist, is that the State destroys wealth and hinders innovation. But the truth is that the corporatists would not exist without the protection the State offers via state-enforced violence and also the creation of public debt. Let's make something very clear: public debt benefits the elite. Public debt benefits the market economy. In no way does the US debt in particular have any harmful effects on the economy. There is no crowding out when the State is the issuer of its own currency. Not a single private system will ever have to pay back this debt. If you believe otherwise, you have been manipulated by a politician. Public debt is a private surplus. Public debt is the guardian of the false free markets. The State steps in and puts a bandaid over the bankers black magic, propping up recycling of the market economy to being another ride around the roller coaster. This is Keynesian and MMT. It is how the world economy currently operates.

Destroying the human labor force along with the environment, and to do it faster than your competitor via AI, is the cornerstone of the current market economy. Through monopolization, tax dodging, predatory merging, weakening of unions, automation and prohibitory employee contracts, the labor force has been weakened into a serfdom. Varoufakis makes no distinction between corporate oligarchs and political bureaucrats--they are now the same. The world and the US economy is run by a corporate plutocracy. A minority of white, rich men control the world. This is an unassailable fact.

Solutions? Varoufakis offers two choices: commoditize everything or democratize everything. Commoditization will not stop. Varoufakis claims that we are far too entrenched do scale back our global market economy and the disasters that follow. It's almost like he's saying to go further. What I mean is, he's saying that you commoditize everything and democratize the ownership. The atmosphere is not owned by anyone. Hence, there is zero financial motivation to protect the atmosphere for carbon emission. However, if someone owned the atmosphere, say the public, then there could be a price for destroying the atmosphere which would incentive better environmental practices while benefiting the public.

This is a smart, brief and fascinating read by an incredibly smart person. I highly recommend. ...more

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May 31, 2018 Ryan Boissonneault rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Talking to My Daughter About the Economy: A Brief History of Capitalism by Yanis Varoufakis is a short book that describes the economy in simple terms using personal stories and classical literature and myths.

To begin with, let’s start with a quote from the book, which I think might capture the overall message nicely:

“The worst slavery is that of heavily indoctrinated happy morons who adore their chains and cannot wait to thank their masters for the joy of their subservience.”

This heavy indoct ...more

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About Yanis Varoufakis

Yanis Varoufakis

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Autobiography:

Let me begin with a confession: I am a Professor of Economics who has never really trained as an economist. While I may have a PhD in Economics, I do not believe I have ever attended more than a few lectures on economics! But let's take things one at a time.

I was born in Athens back in the mists of 1961. Greece was, at the time, struggling to shed the post-civil war veil of totalitar Autobiography:

Let me begin with a confession: I am a Professor of Economics who has never really trained as an economist. While I may have a PhD in Economics, I do not believe I have ever attended more than a few lectures on economics! But let's take things one at a time.

I was born in Athens back in the mists of 1961. Greece was, at the time, struggling to shed the post-civil war veil of totalitarianism. Alas, those hopes were dashed after a brief period of hope and promise. So, by the time I was six, in April of 1967, a military coup d' etat plunged us all into the depths of a hideous neo-Nazi dictatorship. Those bleak days remain with me. They endowed me with a sense of what it means to be both unfree and, at once, convinced that the possibilities for progress and improvement are endless. The dictatorship collapsed when I was at junior high school. This meant that the enthusiasm and political renaissance that followed the junta's collapse coincided with my coming of age. It was to prove a significant factor in the way that I resisted conversion to the ways of anglosaxon cynicism in the years to come.

When the time came to decide on my post-secondary education, around 1976, the prospect of another dictatorship haδ not been erased. Given that students were the first and foremost targets of the military and paramilitary forces, my parents determined that it was too risky for me to stay on in Greece and attend University there. So, off I went, in 1978, to study in Britain. My initial urge was to study physics but I soon came to the conclusion that the lingua franca of political discourse was economics. Thus, I enrolled at the University of Essex to study the dismal science. However, within weeks of lectures I was aghast at the content of my textbooks and the inane musings of my lecturers. Quite clearly economics was only interested in putting together simplistic mathematical models. Worse still, the mathematics utilised were third rate and, consequently, the economic thinking that emanated from it was atrocious. In short shrift I changed my enrolment from the economics to the mathematics school, thinking that if I am going to be reading maths I might as well read proper maths. After graduating from Essex, I moved to the University of Birmingham where I read toward an MSc in Mathematical Statistics. By that stage I was convinced that my escape from economics had been clean and irreversible. How deluded that conviction was! When looking for a thesis topic, I stumbled upon a piece of econometrics (a statistical test of some economic model of industrial disputes) that angered me so much with its methodological sloppiness that I set out to demolish it. That was the trap and I fell right into it. From that moment onwards, a series of anti-economic treatises followed, a Phd in... Economics and, naturally, a career in exclusively Economics Departments, in every one of which I enjoyed debunking that which my colleagues considered to be legitimate 'science'.

Between 1982 and 1988 I taught at the University of Essex, the University of East Anglia and the University of Cambridge. My break from Britain occurred in 1987 on the night of Mrs Thatcher's third election victory. It was too much to bear. Soon I started planning my escape. But where to? Continental Europe was closed to non-native academics, at that time, and Greece awaited with open arms - to enlist me into its conscript army. No, thanks, I thought to myself. Even Thatcherism is preferrable. My break came shortly after when, out of the blue, I was invited to take up a lectureship at the University of Sydney. And so the die was cast. From 1988 to 2000 I lived and worked in Sydney, with short stints at the University of Glasgow (and an even shorter one at the Université Catholique de Louvain). In 2000 a combination of nostalgia and abhorrence of the concervative turn of the land down under (under the government of that awful little man, John Howard) led me to return to G ...more

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“When economists insist that they too are scientists because they use mathematics, they are no different from astrologists protesting that they are just as scientific as astronomers because they also use computers and complicated charts.” — 5 likes

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