Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism

by Yanis Varoufakis

That was the East-meets-West aspect of globalisation. Then there was, of course, the Global South – deficit countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America with weak economies constantly agonising over a shortage of dollars which they had to borrow from Wall Street to import medicines, energy and the raw materials necessary to produce their own exports, which they needed to earn the requisite dollars to repay Wall Street. Inevitably, every now and then, they ran out. At that point, the West would send in the bailiffs – the International Monetary Fund – which would lend the missing dollars on condition that the debtor government handed over the country’s water, land, ports, airports, electricity and telephone networks, even its schools and hospitals, to the local and international oligarchs who would, once in control of these companies and assets, have no alternative but to channel their earnings into Wall Street.