Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism

by Yanis Varoufakis

Try putting yourself in the shoes of Chinese capitalists, or China’s finance minister, whose savings are in the form of dollar assets worth trillions: US Treasury Bills (i.e. loans to the American government), real estate in California, shares and derivatives in the New York money markets. Everyone knew that the US government could confiscate the lot at any time, but no one believed Washington would ever dare to, because such a move would deter anyone from ever stashing their wealth within the US-controlled dollar payments system again. Then the inconceivable happened: four days after Putin’s troops invaded Ukraine, Washington seized more than $300 billion belonging to Russia’s central bank and evicted anyone transacting through Russia’s central bank from all international payment systems.[11] Would you still be comfortable with trillions of dollars’ worth of your assets in US hands? But what could you do?