Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism

by Yanis Varoufakis

So how does this relate to the New Cold War between America and China? From 1971 onwards, any non-American capitalist with massive dollar wealth faced the same problem: what to do with dollars in a country where they could not spend dollars? The only option was to take them back to America to invest them there. However, foreign capitalists soon discovered that the US government was not like other governments. In Britain, Greece or Spain, rich foreigners could buy whatever they pleased. In no uncertain terms, Washington made it clear to German, Japanese, and (later) Chinese capitalists: in our country, the United States of America, you can buy real estate. You can buy our government debt. You can buy small, insignificant companies, bankrupted factories in our rust belts and, of course, Wall Street’s labyrinthine derivatives. But keep your grubby hands off our Boeing, our General Electric, our Big Tech, our Big Pharma and, of course, our banks.