Capitalism is over and ‘social democracy is finished’ | Yanis Varoufakis
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- Опубліковано 26 кві 2024
- “We are voluntary servants.”
Capitalism is over and ‘social democracy is finished’, says Yanis Varoufakis, economist, author and former Greek finance minister. He tells Hugo Rifkind what’s taking its place.
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I've felt for a long time that Amazon was a different kind of misery. My friend's bike shop was ruined by Amazon. People would come into his shop and test ride his bikes and than turn around and buy them from Amazon. The irony is now they don't have his bike shop to have their repairs done. I'm not sure what the solution is for us but it feels like we are just making one mistake after the other and being emotionally manipulated by our politicians.
Those are two separate things. Amazon, is a private firm. If Yannis is correct, then techno-feudalism is the source of the malaise. That is the economy. So how do politicians become the target of vitriol? They’re victims of the same thing.
Many small businesses sell through Amazon.
@johnmcgrath6192 You cannot make a profit competing with someone operating out of a storage shed when you have the costs of operating a high street shop. This is the point.
@@RnanknPoliticians are the only people with the power to change the system through legislation.
People immediately jump in to defend Amazon - they may even love the Lord.
In old Feudalism, if things got bad, the peasants at least knew who to blame and where they lived. Now we have a thousand lords, our ownership has been decentralized, and they are all pointing their fingers at each other.
The peasants today are very akin to the reconstruction era South pre civil rights. White people and minorities who rely on proximity to whiteness to maintain their wealth, are targeting minorities while brainwashing the masses into thinking they have no power.
Yup. We are all grown to become our own oppressors.
Feudalism granted more agency to the rookies actually : you couldn’t choose your position, it was mostly hereditary, but you couldn’t be fired and if you went on a long journey like a pilgrimage (people travelled more than they would do after) you took back your very same place when you were back. Abusive lords were rarer thanabusive bosses.
Peasants were also armed and as they got more organised, became more effective soldiers than the knights oppressing them
Interesting idea
When I first read Dune, I found the idea of a hyper-advanced spacefaring civilization operating under a rigid feudal system to be a little silly. Now I'm not so sure
Star Trek is a child's vision of the future. Dune seems much more in line with human reality
The silly bit is thinking that such a society could become hyper-advanced
@@partydean17nah, i think Firefly is the most realistic view of the future. A mega government that is in marriage with mega corporations that rule a majority of miserable people in a centralized area and then the rest of the impoverished rabble lives on the outside. Resistance is crushed.
I ask If Bill Gates and Elon Musk are not hyper and not advancing 😂😂
Dune is based on Islamic prophecy for your records not based on white man values
Not just this: My friend sells on Amazon. One day they sent him an email that they were seizing his stock, closing his account and holding the money in his Amazon account. The appeal process is almost impossible to go through and very expensive. Amazon will now sell off his product in their warehouse to a third party. No government in the free world has this type of power but the terms and conditions make Amazon an entity that has their own law and operates under their own set of conditions completely independent from those that rule society (which lets face it are not that great anyway).
WoW! That's crazy Greed; glad I've been Off Amazon for going on a year now. I like Temu, its cheaper /good quality/ new brands/ free shipping & returns w/out a "Prime membership" cost. And surprised w/ the amazing deal$, I shop there almost exclusively.
I avoid them like the plague. There are plenty of alternatives. I despair when people use them as the default for everything.
@@seanoconor9987 Yup, Temu has been a very good replacement; No month $ubscribtion required for fast, free delivery & returns. Better price points for same, simular item$.
@seanoconor9987 , me too. Exactly. I don't use Beezos' company for anything, ever. It saddens me that so many people willingly bankrupt all decent businesses in favor of the 'zon's "free" shipping.
This is every digital service now. Look at social media companies controlling free speech. Your rights have been privatized to the highest bidder, and your politicians are complicit.
Adam Smith said the exact same thing. He pointed out that high profits are a sign of a sick system as the drivers of the system (consumers) would soon have nothing left to spend to keep it going, and if it isn't going... capitalism is dead.
Maybe high profits are a sign of a sick system…………..but it’s better than a autocratic genocidal system! If that’s your preference Ryan then why don’t you fk off over to Syria and any other authoritative states and live there! Gullible t…t!
Not dead, just transforming to slavery.
Smith also warned that the Merchant class would subvert national policy if they could. It has happened.
Not if you print baby print 💵
@@banditonehundred Only a meager amount of money is created that way (3%). It's the investment banks and private bankers who create the vast majority of money. And since they have the printing press, they print and print and print until those loans cannot be repaid (and you know the rest). But of course, people like you never blame that.
You skip to the very end of that process and put the responsibility on those saving the system from collapse (which of course is understandable to an extent, because saving the system is about refinancing the people who did this in the first place).
When Healthcare and Education become a bridge too far, it is a nation that has failed...
Why is it my fault you made a bunch of mistakes in your life and now you're old and broke and can't afford anything?
@@user-kq4hf8se5b because sickness is precisely not "his fault"...and everybody gets eventually old and sick (to various degrees)
but you are completely ignoring the fact that a) sickness can afflict anybody b) accidents that make you incapable of working happen c) universal healthcare, in its various forms, is and has from its inception been a system to the benefit of the whole society, not just the individual.
Go live in nations with little health care and then understand what a bridge too far really means! Self entitled t..t !
Well said…. Now step over that bridge into the alternative…….take your pick, democratic ….authoritive….. pie in the sky with the fairies!
@@user-kq4hf8se5b So far luck has been on my side and I live very comfortably... I wish the same for you... Thanks
The man is absolutely right about rent seeking. That convenience comes at a terrible cost.
Good job by the interviewer; asked the "dumb questions" at the right times and then oversaw a really good discussion.
Yanis is just another fake-Lefty employed by the very people he "criticizes."
Historically, fascism sweeps in on the heels of despair and poverty. I like FDR's definition of fascism best:
"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself.
That in it's essence is fascism: ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power."
----- Franklin D Roosevelt
That isn't the definition of fascism. Read what academics, who are experts in this field wrote about fascism. Roosevelt's definition is far closer to neo-liberalism. It was a shameful act of misdirection. No fascist would support the separation of the state from economics. That is the neo-liberal direction on a global level.
Mussolini would differ. FDR himself was a rich family scion, like Churchill. FDR carried the US into Chapter 13 bankruptcy (reorg) in 1933, the US was still on a deflationary gold standard, which the UK had left in 1914.
He described inverted totalitarianism more than fascism... But the difference is academic; fascism is capitalism in crisis.
@@GabrielHellborne"fascism is capitalism in crisis." Sure, clown. Here, you dropped this 🔴
@@aion5837 It's exactly the concept. The NSDAP lost support during economic upswings, and gained influence in downturns. Mussolini the same way. We're living under a transition to Mussolini's idea of "Corporatism" or "Corporate Fascism". But this is about more than economic issues.
The 4th industrial revolution has begun. "Depopulation" of the human herd has begun to support the revolution: Anyone not contributing to 'wealth generation' or the 'circular flow of money' doesn't get a share of earth's resources. It's that simple.
But culling the human herd will be difficult and take time. It took over 40 years to cull horse herds to acceptable levels when they were replaced by machines, it human herd will be a much larger challenge. It will require unprecedented levels of control not seen since the feudal, middle ages. They 'owned nothing' too.
The deep irony is that I'm going to buy his book on Amazon.
Dude I went and did the exact same thing and it was so automatic, the irony didn't even hit me until I saw your comment.
Why not just don’t.
Uh oh maybe that means he's wrong.
@@Kitties_are_pretty You would be right if the fact that many people refuse to wear sitbelts meant that using them is not good...
My local bookstore say the book is available to order with one week delay. I suspect they are ordering it on amazon and adding 10%.
I often hear people wonder why we no longer have the money to build hospitals, roads, and general services and infrastructure like we ("we" being first world countries) used to, especially if you compare our present situation with that of the post-WW2 period. It certainly is not the case that we no longer have the resources or labour; our construction processes are vastly more efficient than they were 70 years ago. It is simply a matter of money allocation (which, personally, makes me sad to think that something as inherently worthless and abstract as money is a reason for withholding humanity's progress, but I digress). What is SUPPOSED to happen is a kind of cycle: consumer spends -> corporation earns and pays taxes -> governments spend tax revenue on services & infrastructure. Where, however, has the money gone? People are quick to accuse politicians and governments of malfeasance, and if you imagine a pie chart of the distribution of this problem, then yes, that IS a part of the problem, but not as large as many would like to believe. What people generally fail to realize, is that a massive swath of our money is ending up in the hands of non-government, ultra-rich entities (i.e., the largest banks and corporations), as Yanis points out in this video. A combination of the ability to evade income tax and having resources to be nimble enough to relocate operations to jurisdictions with more favourable cost of labour and tax laws frequently leads to the taxes owed by these corporations to national governments never making it back into the treasury coffers. Instead, and as Yanis also pointed out, the ultra-rich entities are finding ways to avoid paying the tax and are instead using it for speculative purposes, further increasing their wealth while avoiding paying it back into public coffers for infrastructure investment.
What, then, do we do? As hard as it is to do in an expensive price environment such as one that we currently find ourselves in, try your best to do your business with smaller, less powerful banks and companies.
Don't waste your time with conventional politics 👉The Connections (2021) [short documentary] 💖
What you described is a thriving capitalism! One has to always remember to whom this system works.
Post-ww2 like construction booms can't last very long. They are fueled by money that workers are given. But these workers expect to buy homes and retire with this money and stop working. You can do this when you have economy that is quickly growing. When economy slows down and when there is no longer so much space to grow then financing large projects becomes much more challenging. In essence it was easy to print some money and pay them for people to build construction projects because you knew that economy is going to be 2x 3x etc lerger thus this debt incured will be no problem. When you already have fairly developed country you cannot expect that economy is going to grow 2x. You still could borrow money and fund social projects but overlook over this money must be much more careful and accurate. Post ww2 construction boom was easy to manage because even if it's efficiency was low and a lot of corrupt schemes took place that took money in wrong pockets construction projects could still be completed because there was plenty of money because expectations about future economy was very high. Today we have rather limited expectations about future economy and this really limits what we can do and this increases pressure on how we should use the money that we do have - if we don't use it to their best potential chances are economy will shrink as result. So we are trying to be careful with money. Unfortunately this also ends up badly because the way we try to be careful with money - at least in Europe - we somehow tend to assume that if we give money to the people this will not end up well - we like to assume that if however we going to give money to already succesful large corporates then somehow they will make things better - at least that's what large conglomerates in Europe manages to convince politicians in various ways sometimes through evolved rhetoric and marketing lead by lobby groups other times through old school bribes. So in a way yes it's just like what you say - there is enough money - it's all just about where the money goes. But it's also different than post ww2 because situation is much more tricky - it was rather easy to just print money and throw into construction projects. Today it's much more challenging to figure out how to allocate money effectively because supply of money is less big due to limited future economic expectations and because conglomerates just are better than they ever been in history in figuring out their ways of absorbing this gov issued money.
@@sk-sm9sh Much of what you say is why I hate the concept of money. Why should an abstract concept, which inherently has almost no physical value (except for the paper/plastic that we print it on or the metal used to mint coins), be what determines the progress of humanity?
Granted, when asked what a viable alternative to fiat currency would be, the best solution that I've encountered is a resource-based economy. This, of course, has its own serious potential downsides (i.e., how do you buy and sell goods in a modern economy using oil or wheat kernals?), but I feel like there HAS to be a better way. Fiat currency being the rate-determining-step when we HAVE the resources and labour capable of doing so much more with our species strikes me as ridiculous and lacking in collective problem-solving.
@@Nirvana7734 Can't have a large society in a resource driven economy, that's why money exists as a concept
Humans are greedy, and that's why it gets mismanaged, it's a constant rat race to the top
I only wish America would confront its problems the same way this man fronted up to his country's issues. Got to go through the hangover. RESPECT to Yanis.
Oh he 'fronted up' to his countries problems. Then he made them 10 times worse. Hoorah for the dogmatist.
What exactly did he achieve in his stint as Syriza minister? I don’t remember much
He attempted to restructure debt and face up to the debt 'slavery' and addiction to funny money. Yep, didn't work out. Point being he tried. "let the good times roll" I guess... I don't think that will work out.
@@deanfinnigan5577You do not get points for trying in political economics.
It is not a school sports day.
Thanks for the comment. Not trying to debate anything in here. Expressing support for a man's idea. Will leave the politics to you@@timg1246
At the beginning of the pandemic, I started thinking about this subject when reading Shoshana Zuboff's book. But what caught my attention most was the other aspect of this new feudalism. In the feudal period, especially in William the Conqueror's England, society was completely divided. The nobles of Norman origin who had power over the land spoke a different language from the language spoken by the feudal servants. The owners of Big Techs master a very special language, which is that of the algorithms that empower their platforms and that cannot be seen by users when they are extracting data, refining profiles and distributing targeted advertising. The common language that platform users use is economically irrelevant, because wealth is produced and accumulated through that other background language that is the private property of techno-feudal lords.
Another idea that occurred to me at that time was legal. In the Middle Ages, feudal lords had the power to dictate law and impose justice on their fiefdoms. The power of the Kings was very limited and they only resolved the most serious disputes between the nobles and even then they sometimes did not have the power to impose their decisions that contradicted the most powerful feudal lords. This characteristic of the Middle Ages is reproduced today, as States let the feudal lords of Big Techs dictate the law within their own platforms. Any conflicts between users and internet platforms can be resolved by the Judiciary, but the result is doubtful because of the inequality of arms between disgruntled users and the immense and powerful companies capable of shaping the politics of entire countries.
Extremely well put!
I agree, so what is the solution. Basicly we have to rethink our lives and go back to the feudal times with one differance. That is we own the ln, grow ourr food, make our own entertinment, stay withing a small area, work cooperativly, and use machinery that last forever. Look at the third world and how people in the countryside live well as their food is organic, cloths are functional, comunity cooperate. and taxes are low. Don't feed the beast.
Good points but you forget the global private/public merger. Public means CCP/EU/USA. Private means Google, Amazon, Alibaba, Vanguard, Blackroc and State Street. They all have 1 thing in common. NOONE EVER VOTED FOR THEM TO BE OUR MASTERS...
Well said!
@@chrisperkins7331 This new fedulism is (potentially) easier to defeat than that of the past. All people will have to do (which they wont) is stop using the internet and return to the way of life before the internet was invented or at the very least widespread and accessible enough to be adopted by the public at large.
The only downside is that governments around to world seem to be working towards locking everyone into the internet, making day-to-day life impossible without access to the internet. It's like governments believe that they would have the ultimate control over tech companies once people can't live without them and thus control over everyone.
We saw Apple making the shift from a producer of machines to a 'streamer' of data and a landlord of the app ecosystem, the was exactly the move that Yannis explains.
A bank as well.
Just about everything now is becoming a subscription service.
welcome to rent seeking economy
Don't waste your time with conventional politics 👉The Connections (2021) [short documentary] 💖
And it's getting worse, sir.
Really hitting the nail on the head. I have a feeling that Digital feudalism is something we will remember for a long time after we will have realized what it will have done to us.
Nah, the masses have no clue what historic feudalism was and what it has done to us, let alone they will understand an even more abstract concept.
Society does not learn from its mistakes and failures. Society doesn't learn. Period.
did you remember what you eat yesterday ?
congrats you are poisoned by your slavemaster
where does he think he got his jacket??
north korea??
😂
@@tocreatee5736 Wow. You are funny AND smart. Love you already. Sik kırığı.
Feudalism reigned for over 1,000 years so, yeah you are gonna live it your entire existence.
George Orwell in his book '1984' feared that people would be subdued by fear and brutality, whereas Aldous Huxley wrote in his book 'Brave New World' that people would be ruled by pleasure and would succumb to the 'ruling' class by this means.
You can see which way the Western world in particular is going, and some of the comments on this site bear this out. The phrase 'we were Amazon'd' is becoming more and more common when small business are forced out of business because they can't compete.
A Brave New World in the making?
I think the proto-elites read both books, unfortunately.
They didn’t just read them, they wrote them 😉.
Both of them insiders, who knew the masterplans.
@fr4797 fair play if they tell you in advance what they are gonna do right ?
Products are cheaper because they are made in the cheapest source of production and imported back to the consumer countries. It has destroyed millions of SMEs and their workers in democracies. Big companies and financiers have invested all the capital and technology in manufacturing in other countries and the capital markets. It's no good being able to buy cheap stuff when your own jobs are lower and lower paid.
Not to mention the quality of goods is junk, plastic pollution, it’s not really cheaper when you have to replace something every year as compared to a quality something that costs more up front but lasts for many years.
Don't waste your time with conventional politics 👉The Connections (2021) [short documentary] 💖
@@brucepoole8552 because capitalism is not about selling products and services but about profit. Built-in obsolescence is how tech industry operates and it has bled to other sectors aswell. Don't blame developing countries what can be explained by how this economic system operates.
The great part about capitalism is the ability to efficiently produce large qualities of products cheaply, there is no reason to attack those systems.
@@maknavickas Well, this is the part of technological progress, inventions and the like, not the capitalism per se. See now, when the biggest profit is coming from the khazar-casino (financial instruments) they tend to move from producing stuff to amass digital "profits" there. It will end when one can't exchange false money from casino for a real things. Soon. But first we're going to starve.
Really respect this guy. Hope his political career rekindles. Has a lot to give..
The problem is not big corporations. The problem is that big corporations are paying nothing back into the system. The earnings could be regulated with tax, but who has done that really? Who dares?
As long as the companies can buy the politicians. The problem will always be big corporations. Let’s not act like they care about the smaller companies
There's no such thing as payback for rich people. Lower classes pay the real taxes with their job
the problem is big corporations
Big corporations own politicians. Try advocating policies against big corporations and see how far you can go. 🤷🏻♂️
_" Who dares? "_
thoseones who said over centuries
_" again the persian gulph inferno ? "_
We have the power to stop this. We have to act people.
Vote Green Party!🇬🇧...
Fraud A.I. trying to get humans to attack one another 😂
Ypu all need to start promoting solutions rather than copypaste the same appeals to populism ad infinitum
Check out *PROJECT 2025*
This is why we must call for Direct Digital Democracy with neither Parties nor Politicians.
Citizen initiated referendums with thresholds and a social contract means Communities can vote their own laws. As well as a Public Authority to audit police and prosecute bad actors in our own courts.
With the appropriate checks and balances, you could have a national digital forum where qualified professionals can debate the issues in a public setting without all the disinformation and bad faith antics, hatespeech etc.
Any vote would need to pass the 70% threshold, with a veto or _rewrite_ vote needing 30%.
The issues would be debated, the public educated, and then a vote taken. Votes that fail will have to wait a year before trying again. Any new proposal (Citizen Initiated Referendum) would have to reach a threshold of support before it made it onto the register. This would all be subject to a Social Contract (New Constitution) that forbids human rights abuses and discrimination, that can be written in the same manner based on the core principles we all share. Councils and Boards could operate in a similar fashion at Scale.
It works in a way that obligates people to better educate themselves ( that is to use logic and evidence in their reasoning ) for a better understanding of the issues, and then take collective responsibility for the outcomes. As opposed to the divisive US v them scapegoating and bi-partisan finger pointing the current Capitalist Pyramid Scheme runs on.
This can be achieved through a General Strike or Velvet Revolution, much like the Occupy movement, peacefully occupying State Buildings until a People's Mandate can be implemented.
Alternatively candidates could run with the directive to install a Direct Democracy, and therefore wouldn't need to have any policies of their own, they could even be Mascots!
If you agree with these ideas please copy and paste this post, the only ones that can stop them is US, all of us, on the same page, with the goal of a Direct Democracy without Parties or Politicians, for a safer sustainable future for our kids.
The Greens - their various national parties - are putting all of us at risk of failing to address the climate crisis before it blows past irreversible tipping points. They’re accomplishing this by spreading their grossly-irrational, fear-laden message that nuclear power is so dangerous to all life on earth that gov’ts may not use it as a better alternative than burning coal to generate electricity.
Germany is the poster-child for showing how the Greens used fear to undermine an elected govt’s efforts to curb carbon pollution. As a result of the Green’s fear-mongering after the Fuk-U-Shima disaster, Merkel was politically bullied into closing down all of Germany’s nuclear power plants. In contrast to Japan, Germany has -0- risk of earthquakes or tsunamis.
The Green’s reactionary behavior against nuclear power shows just how destructive fear can be when used as a political weapon. The carbon pollution released in building those reactors had already been released: the electrical power they were producing from then on until their decommissioning was by far the most carbon-free that’s ever been available to Germany. So WHY was it’s Green Party in favor of burning brown coal instead? And why did the German people let it happen?
There is no stopping the zaibatsu's.
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What a terrible year it is…
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I found his extraordinary resume when I searched for his name on Google. I count it a gift that I went over this remark
I am surprised to see a interview like this on a right leaning channel. Great journalism. Subscribed!
than you must a beliver of the "only higher one entity"...
...well india is far right when the globe is on your front
Ghandi loves you
I get chills everytime Yanis speaks. He has a very impressive ability to articulate his thoughts, and he is able to convey how what he is saying is representative of our current situation
Most of his talk is symbolic, I don't think he can help a country to live with higher standards of living
@@ivanrodrigo4558Indeed he can't, his ideas of bankruptcy and parallel currencies as a way to fight back are a nightmare scenario for the middle and lower classes.
You are not alone. He is amazing!!!
I have listened to Yannis discussing "techno-feudalism" for over a year, Very insightful. He also released a video outlining how the "Energy market" here in the UK/and elsewhere that have models similar to ours, is a complete scam; he describes how the scam market operates. Worth searching for!
Yes the energy market video is interesting
Don't waste your time with conventional politics 👉The Connections (2021) [short documentary] 💖
You can disagree with some of his political vision but his mind is exquisitely sharp, honest and visionary analysis of reality.
Would be good if he began using this 'sharp mind' he alledgedly has; It's been decade, dude's never made sense in his life.
@nvelsen1975 Wherever Varafakis crops up, they always pay trolls to post stuff.
He is a failed politician with a huge PR set up.
@@nvelsen1975it has to do with the tendency of linear reductionism to produce the dunning kruger effect, or near profound psychosis state, in the academic intelligencia. Obfuscation of dialectic conformity engenders a disconnect to real world fluidic dynamics and the inherent socioeconomic stability generated from what the compartmentalized consider, often, to be chaos. What is chaos to the fly, is divine order to the spider.
@@antoniosanders477he is a proven incompetent economist or what he claims he is
he's so sharp that he never does or says anything important. hmm
Varoufakis is always fascinating. Always abstract thinking. Great.
And always paying people to big him up
@@timg1246 i see only a grey rat in kittycatchen from the otherones
Late-stage Capitalism ends with voluntary-slavery. 😢
It's not voluntary if you need to pay rent to have food and shelter.
Look at 1991 Soviet Union for Late stage Capitalism endgame.
@@higherground9888 We don't even need to look so far. Many are finding themselves in this situation now.
@@isoboy2125 Yeah but there's no dead government employees yet.
Capitalism was never "voluntary". It is just illusion of choice.
This is why we have to bring back the Eisenhower Tax rates...Wealth is once again being hoarded in to the hands of fewer individuals and there is not enough money circulated forcing the Government to debase currency which in today's world is to print more money...this flaw has existed since Sumer...
yes brilliant so the government has even more power-its even worse letting corrupt politicians spend it on war...
Power is in the hands of corporations. In response, unions are strengthening, but we need to remove corporate manipulation of the law before we can have lasting change.
@@Anuchan Due to the extreme censorship by UA-cam (it's cancerous), my comment won't show up. Just as has happened to the other 3 people here. So I will break it into multiple comments so I can rephrase the words or sentences that aren't allowed...:
That won't happen. There are no working class organizations
@@Anuchan The previous organizations I'm talking about were massive labor unions, and smaller socialist and communist movements (except in Eastern Europe and Asia - they were massive over there and taking power).
@@Anuchan (this was supposed to come after teh first comment, but it was deleted so I'll shorten it...)
to put the fear of god into the
When the interviewer puts some rails up for him, Yannis is an absolutely pleasure and great mind for helping us understand where we are. He is so thoughtful, candid, decent, fair, as much as is possible when ideas and politics matter.
Fully agreed with a correction: This isn't automatically happening because of technology... it's happening because this technology is being centralized to governments and corporations, instead of decentralized and open sourced so it's ran by individuals. Any attempt to do so is met with screams about "safety" and how we can't protect god knows who from what unless governments team up with corporations to control the population, topped by convenience as people are too lazy to want to setup anything themselves and consider even having to plug an internet cable on their own an "expert thing for geeks". Only once people embrace and demand full openness and decentralization will this authoritarian nightmare end.
bro capitalism works against this with all its might. this is a liberal consumer side action pipedream
yanis never blamed technology.
he never so much as suggested that this was the fault of the technical advances.
i think he made it perfectly clear that the responsibility lies on the people who shape the laws that allow this to happen.
if you want to add something, dont do it as a "correction".
centralized by corporations and then used to manipulate government policy in their favor. corporations have the upper hand over government in capitalism
Why wouldn’t individuals who have a competitive advantage end up replicating the exact same structures corporations have? Centralization isn’t the problem and decentralization isn’t the solution. Greed has its own logic. In fact, a strong central government that has power over and above that of any individual group may be a necessary check on greed, provided it is explicitly structured to prevent wealth accumulation by its members. Meaning, I agree that corporations and governments shouldn’t be able to enrich each other, but one has to have control over the other. If there’s a way to make government transparent and directly accountable to the general populace, that may be part of the solution.
it's run* (not: it's ran)
Every time I get the time to listen to Yanis, my respect for him gets greater. His idea of the Amazon Empire being feudalism is interesting, and makes a lot of sense. And of course he's completely correct about Greece doing the right thing and going bankrupt. I recall back before the Financial Crash they were saying average UK credit card debt was 10k... I had none, meaning someone out there had my share as well.... I could tell the situation was not going to end well, it is only a matter of time before the house of cards falls, and the longer you allow total irresponsibility the worse that fall will eventually be.
No he is not. The problem with Yanis is the theory sounds great the reality is completely different his concepts dont work outside of the virtual models he works on. Countries cannot go bankrupt nobody forgets the debt. Italy post world war II was in massive debt it was bankrupt but you cannot wind up the country and forget the debt so they had to spend 50 years paying it off. Because the problem is when a country is in effect bankrupt the very next day you need millions to pay the workers of the government. Nobody works for free if the government has no money it cannot employ people, the government simply does not exist. The only people you can borrow money from are the same people who loaned you the money in the first place.
He has ZERO solutions to problem. You can point out the issues all day long but he has no economic solution to replace the capitalism. He lives in a fantasy dream land that is why he was sacked in Greece. It got to the cruch they discovered the reality that neither IMF or EU would not bow down and facing trying to go bankrupt the government knew they would not exist if they did.
@@redscope897
It's obvious you didn't read the book
His book is on audible tho 🤷♂️
if greece had defaulted on the debt it would have been brutal.. honestly i did think it was a solution but hasnt greece paid off much of the default now? with the loans - id need to google the details & i guess theres a pile o dodgy stats out there..
if they didnt take the loan what was the plan? supose i need to go back and read his stuff
Holes in argument ... 1. Most of the goods sold on Amazon are sold by big and small business4s, not Amazon. ... 2. Greece went wobbly because it was a huge kleptocracy.,. The gcvt/ownership class loved to borrow huge sums of money from foreign banks because up to half of the borrowed money was pocketed by the ownership.high govt official gang. Yes, it was irresponsible of the foreign banks to lend to such wankers but they made so much on those loans anfd they knew that when the IMF bailed our Greece most of the m0oney borrowed from the IMF would be shipped out of Greece and into the foreign banks to paty off the huge debts Failure of bank regulators. ... 3. In the case of the USA it is committed (corporations, Trump, Biden, and whoever's next) to rebuild a self-sufficient North Anmerican economy (Mexico, USA, Canada). In efect it will go back to a time when unions couold be strong anjd win high wages because manufacturing can no longer be shipped anroad. Just like the time when unions were strong in the USA. High wages for workers, and fairly Universal Basic Income will not interfere with the prosperity of the upper middle class and so the politics willcease to belong to the big corporationbs. Globalized corporations enriched the huge upper middle class while driving much of the working class into poverty and near po0verty. Degobalization will majke labor - and the poor - stroner as a force. The uS anticipates the collapse of China and the unrelisability of suppluy lines for goods produced abroad tomake it to North America. The rest of the world - especially Europoe - will be in treouble and have to figure out how to cope. Germany, for instance, will not continue to sell to China, Russia and even the rest of EU. France will be well positioned to thrive because its electricity willbe 1005 nuclear (meaning cheap) sand its arable land is rich. It does have to solve the problem of youth being locked out of its labor market. And, like the rest of Europe, how to pay for the huge number of old folks with a small number of younger workers. to pay the taxes needed. But multi-generation housing will have to make a comeback. .... In North America the big problem is credit card debt and lack of affordable housing.. That is solvable in various ways, as is the water problem. .... Arguing for an inevitable techno-feudalism from the Greek experience and then projecting it to other economies is not credible. the US govt still controls money. That meands unions and pro9gressive administrations can bring techno-wealth under control. T France and the US may evenb put needed pressure on the UK govt to dismantle the corrouption of the City of Lomndon financiers who hide huge amounts of wealth fro taxes and perfiorm money laudering for criminal cartels and corrupt kleptocrats from countries with corrupt govts.
We could always imagine other ways to control Amazon. If they Take forty percent of all sold on their website our governments could then say we will tax fifty percent of all they take of that forty percent and give it back as subsidies to lower high street business rates and help pay staff wages and other bills and charges which online sellers do not face. That would also raise Amazon prices to make the high streets more competitive. We might then get back our boarded up towns as a social place to shop drink and eat as they were built to be. There is always more than one way to fry a fish. But with our present caliber of politicians that possibility is just a pipe dream. Amazon could pay them vastly more than the taxpayers do once they retire after serving Amazon slavishly in Parliament.
I think car companies should also subsidize horse and buggy retailers.
You're absolutely right, the problem is that the problem needs to be redefined. The problem isn't a lack of money. The problem isn't dishonest politicians. The problems isn't Amazon. The problem, is that in this economy and political system the majority of the spoils don't trickle down, they rise up. Then, once that small capitalist class owns most of the wealth, it also owns most of the political power. Then, it uses that political power to control the media narrative, to focus on non-problems, and ultimately to ensure that "the majority of the spoils" continue to go to them.
@@MikBak1814 I don’t know about all that, I’m just trying to get some subsidies for my horse and buggy business.
I think you're just trying to talk nonsense.@@jjthefish446
Traditional high street/main street retail busnesses sold at least on a 50% mark up. Most of the goods sold on Amazon are from small and big companies, not from Amazon.
The clarity and honesty of this man is inspiring and fascinating.
agreed
He's a broken record. He had the chance to prove his ideas in Greece and he failed miserably
As it’s so rare alas……….
BOT, listen what he says about that.@@phpn99
Tsipras betrayed him.
Just because the first few sentences Varoufakis said in this video I have to give a like to that video. Well said!
This is something I’ve been worrying about lately. Thanks for clarifying it in my mind. Your guest pointed out some ideas that I never thought about before.
Don’t give up on the people.
They are starting to wake up.
As a long observer of humans and a voracious reader of history, I don't bet on the humans in groups.
The rise of right wing parties in Europe is very telling.
We're waking up none of the Deplorables, which remain a steady 30-40% of the USA population. With that boat anchor out, we're going nowhere fast.
Yannis himself is a major curiosity.
He has astounding observation skills. Coupled with honesty and fine communication he is a treasure.
His insights add to this list of wonders.
However his conclusions - I have read many of his books - simply do not match his own observations or his well articulated insights.
Incongruity in the extreme.
Could you give an example?
No problem. One of his books he relayed his observations from inside the Euro zone group discusses. So we’ll you felt like you were there.
Those raw observations where coupled with penetrating insights into what, how and why the euro zone group functioned that way.
Page afte toage. Chapter after chapter. Explains it was a
dogs brakrdiast of barely concealed hate, resentment and nationalism. It doesn’t function at all.
And yet, with perfect incongruity, his final chapter talks about how the Euro and euro zone is a wonderful thing.
It has his complete backing!
It was the most astounding switch, as though he had not read his own book nor lived is own life. The final chapter might well have been written by something else who wasn’t there.
His ideology does not obscure his observations. But he is ideologically blind with regard to his conclusions.
Quite astounding.
Several other people noticed this. It’s very noticeable.
I’d love to spend a long time with him.
"Says" rolandnelson@@rolandnelson6722
@@rolandnelson6722 He's not saying the Euro as it is, is a wonderful thing. The previous chapters which you talk about, with all of those explanations, point out what the Euro could be. Like how sharing the US dollar isn't a problem for each US state.
@@rolandnelson6722 He spoke about this in a talk he gave; the euro would be wonderful if Europe was an united federal state.
Thank you for a clear picture of what is going on economically in the world today!
Finally someone defines current situation properly
Compelling viewing and Listening to Yanis. Another Now, his book of speculative fiction set in the year 2035. Imagine a fair, decent world with fewer banks, fewer billionaires, and tech giants, is a great read.
Yes. Can't recommend that book enough. It solves the issues of both capitalism and previous socialist experiments.
Yeah, I read most of the book in one day. The idea of the portal between the present and the future is amazing.@@gallectee6032
Is it on the index for antisemitism?
@@gallectee6032"previous socialist experiments" that have always failed. So, let's do it again. Fantasy. He is an idiot.
Bot
If only the establishment had listened to this guy when Greece was suffering it's last financial crisis! But I suspect he was targeted by "vested interests" through the EU, trying to hold on to the system that was filling THEIR POCKETS?
Since his resignation, and his acceptance of the global situation, (got past the bitterness?) he has been the font of some VERY interesting theories and ideas!
Yannis was betrayed by the Greek PM.
Before Varoufakis agreed to run for finance minister (which is out of the ordinary - they're appointed, not elected), he made sure the cabinet and particularly Tsipras agreed to his strategy that would've gotten Greece out of debt slavery. It was to compromise and compromise some more, agreeing to 4/5ths of the terms demanded by the creditors, while taking out the most toxic parts which would prevent recovery and repayment of these loans, and sticking to your guns on removing those most toxic parts while signaling that if the creditors do not budge 1/5th of the way, that they will haircut the SMP bonds which the ECB president (Mario Draghi) was using to save the Euro.
With that program, the ECB was monetarily financing member states, which is illegal for it to do. But Mario Draghi made a clever justification that it is not actually monetarily financing member states, it is only bringing down the interest rates that the corporations of those deficit states have to pay to borrow, to match those of other EU states such as Germany (who pay a much lower rate), which is in its charter. This enraged the Bundesbank as that comes with a risk of inflation, and at a cost to the surplus states such as Germany (for example as their bonds begin providing no return, so their pension funds cannot purchase them), but technically, the ECB wasn't actually monetarily financing memeber states. So the Bundesbank had no leg to stand on. It couldn't legally force the ECB to stop. But if the SMP bonds were haircut (which were under Greek jurisdiction), that's what the ECB would have done. So the full amount of the bond would now not be repaid by Greece (meaning the ECB would've actually given that money to Greece without getting repaid - hence it would be monetarily financing it). So the haircut would provide a legal basis for the Bundesbank to sue the ECB to stop it (even though this program was saving the Euro). Varoufakis knew that the global oligarch community would not permit such massive repercussions for such a lowly sum, so the creditors would have no doubt compromised and agreed to budge 1/5th of the way. But throughout Varoufakis's attempts in acquiring this compromise from the creditors, Tsipras started believing that they would not agree to these terms despite the gigantic repercussions, and so he reneged on Varoufakis's strategy and agreed to more "bailouts".
This is why Varoufakis was laughing at having to deal with creditors who do not want their money back - it was not their money. The creditors already got their money back through the "bailouts". This was now the EU citizens' tax money. And they do not care about getting that back. They prefer to punish Greece as harshly as possible instead. To make sure the unemployment rate, the state budget, and everything else that austerity and neoliberal policies entail, goes to the absolute worst it can be made to be, so that the citizens would feel maximum pain. Its purpose? to send a message to the other European states, particularly France, what it has in store if it doesn't begin getting its budget in order. Which is why you can now see Macron adopting authoritariansm, and all sorts of underhanded tactics to uncivilize French capitalism.
This is what the Euro is all about. Making things worse for its citizens over time, while the opposite happens for the special interests. While you look at the US and its healthcare, employer-employee relationship where millions of people have to get two or three jobs to survive, and etc, and think what an absolutely horrilbe dypostic system, our oligarchs are looking at that and salivating. Wondering how to import as much of that system as they can, because that benefits them.
I've been saying this for a couple years. He is onto things. Can't disagree. I and others have called it technocracy, or feudalism, but he's put the words together appropriately.
To simplify this idea: there’s a redistribution of wealth happening, manufacturers, small businesses and consumers are all feeding one big machine which is a tech company/marketplace. One could think that “oh ok but these tech giants create jobs”, but I used to work at one and let me tell you that these jobs are oftentimes underpaid and/or meaningless. I feel it in my bones as a small niche business owner. I worked really hard to not depend on marketplaces, but consumers keep using them for the sheer convenience, and HALF of my profits are going to the marketplace although, technically speaking, they don’t do even a 1/10000 of the work I do to source and document and list all the items. It’s a very frustrating situation to be in. I would rather pay for advertisements than to the marketplaces, but my niche is so unique that generic social media ads are just not working for a business like mine, very very sad.
In 2013 Paolo Gila published with Bollati Boringhieri, Torino (a most refined publisher in Italy) a book called 'Capitalesimo: Il ritorno del Feudalesimo nell'economia mondiale'. There he talks about vassals etc and talks about the morphing of the system into a neo feudal one. 2013.
Well, count on italians to say it like it is before a lot of people. It's an old country, they have faced everything some political organism can face.
Yanis is a masterful politician and I admire him for sharing his ideas and also for what he doesn't share. He knows how to construct an argument
Thank You
I needed a good laugh
^^
He may be great at many things but not politics. He got 3% last election
I started thinking I’d like to hear counterpoints to his arguments
Although the technofeudal idea is appealing and worth listening to
@@MK-my6ev give me the bin - i have breaksHit
Yanis is a clever guy that more people should listen to.
He is right . thanks from Scandinavia.
Gov’t reduces taxes for the wealthy, but still needs money so they issue interest bearing bonds. Who receives this interest? The wealthy 10%. Who pays the interest? The remaining 90% of taxpayers. The gov’t has created a class of Rentiers.
And some day the party is going to end. Who do you think is going to pay? Who always pays?
@@gallectee6032 The vassals--you, me, Mr Varoufakis--will pay, not the rentiers or governments who get funded by the rentiers
Which is why we should purge the rich. Everything they have was stolen. They're not entitled to the power and money, they didn't earn it. De-privatize and re-publicize.
And here I am still holding out for Star Trek Socialism.
Well, the good news is that is what we are headed for in the world of AI, of course, getting there will mean lots of winners as well as losers along the way, and of course, that assumes it doesn't just end up being our own answer to the Fermi Paradox...
@@brianmi40 come to me looser - you are undead since the reproducing
Democracy always has been a mariage of politics and business. It is now that we become aware of what that really means.
Wasn't this also a common definition for fascism?
Nope, direct democracy has existed even before the existence of states. You are talking about liberal democracy
@@salj.5459 Even in athens where (direct)democracy started the rich had plenty influence with there being a class system also. When you go against the rich they leave and country becomes poor..with a endlessly struggling economy with at some point there being a revolution.
@@fortynine3225 Direct democracy didn't begin in Athens, the notion of democracy as a political notion did. In pre-state African societies, often there would be a democratically elected chief or elder who could also lose his position. Among equals, voting (democracy) is a natural part of decision making.
@@salj.5459 Just electing a chief means very little. People would be threatened and bribed likely. Stuff like direct democracy is about giving everybody voting power on a wide variety of subjects. This does not work since most people are not qualified, this same problem we see in political leadership..not qualified (because of being chosen by unqualified voters..)
afaik a states laws should be based on what is reasonably right and wrong. If that is not the case than you are dealing with organised crime. That is why i see pretty much all states as being run by (incompetent) criminal gangs.
You are so great Mr Giannis Varoufakis Greece needs good politicians like you thanks for helping me understand better the world we live ..
True, although this subject was already brought up by Lenin about 100 years ago in "Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism"
I was thinking what happened with Yanis, good to know now, good interview, I would call Hypercapitalism what we live now.
Anand Giridharadas is quite clear it's Plutocracy.
I like Yanis. He fought for his country but was swamped by the machinery that is the EU. His compatriot prime minister was similarly overcome and stood bye as the machinery sought to imprison YF purely for making the effort to save his country. Yanis, you are a good man and will forever have my respect.
Interviewer has exceptional questioning skills. An impressive debate. Many thanks.
If Humans decided to abandon Capital as a measure of value,
the Oligarchs lose control of the system.
Our aspirations to become Budzillionaires appears to be extinguished,
if we depart from the social system of belief that Capital can value out time on this planet.
Apparently we do need to decide on values that are actually real and do contribute to human existence.
But we seem to need to decide soon.....
In the past it seems like one of the goals of the rich was to be descrete an not flaunt wealth. Now with social media we see it everywhere. Reality Shows with insanely wealthy people who never seem to work, "Rich Kids of Instagram" showing off pictures of 16 year olds getting $200 cars for their birthdays and spending thousands of dollars shopping. Where I live in San Diego there is a long row of Yachts docked that are all minimum of 100 Million Dollars. They have become a tourist attraction for the tourists to take photos in front of.
Something has changed. I think now the income gap has become so large and the positions of the super rich so ensconced that they are no longer concerned parading in front of commoners.
Meanwhile were I live a small business owner who employs 20 people and works 60 hours a week everyweek gets taxed to death and cant offored to buy a home making $150G a year. If he does manage to get into a house, mortgage takes everything.
I guess Im saying that people see the reality of the deparity and feel like their only solution it to become super wealthy which will not happen for most everybody.
That’s like saying we need to stop using numbers to count…all things have stored value..or potential energy. Capital is simply a method of quantifying it. The problem isn’t so much capital, as it is the notion that capital is currently a requirement for obtaining the basic needs such as food, shelter, healthcare, etc. That doesn’t have to be the case. The system is on the verge of removing human beings from the means of production entirely, and that includes white collar jobs. When this occurs, capital will no longer be needed to be used as a cudgel to get people to work. In short, the main reason why capital is still a problem for your average person is the system can find no better way to motivate people to work, and currently the system still needs us to work so that it can survive. One thing to keep in mind however….if the system no longer needs us to participate in the means of production, do you really think that it is just going to give lots of people money so that they can live happily ever after?? No, the likely scenario is that WE human beings will be seen as “excess production” and our numbers will be deliberately reduced. That’s the future we face, and there really isn’t anything we can do about it. The system is so effective at propagandizing people to do its will that most people will actually call for their own destruction. It’s already happening! Good luck!
@@JB-qt3wo Capital in the hands of honest Humans seems to be beneficial ?
The use of massive amounts of Capital to a human may produce an overabundance of addictive trends, in greedy individuals.
Your view of "work" appears to reflect drudgery and pain.
Many Humans produce products that reflect their pride of accomplishment.
To me you express a view of Humanity that is not informed about what has kept Humans from killing each other completely for the vast treasures that some folks appear to possess?
You not only appear to need to learn that Humans do retain a small amount of Human dignity as well as empathy for fools like You who make claims that the Robots will become the new Masters.
The use of Money as a measure of value will end abruptly as the Western Powers run out of their ability to provide alternative forms of Capital.
Humans lived without Money for thousands of years, it is possible to accomplish that once again.
Credit Cards replaced Cash, to prevent a massive run on the Banks in 2008.
Will Crypto Cash be capable of replacing the US Treasury Notes?
The illusion continues...........Until it does not.
@@danielhutchinson6604 Yes cash will be replaced. It will be replaced with something much worse. The government will love nothing more than to have a digital ledger that tracks transactions perfectly so that they make sure they don’t miss out on a single dime of taxes!! Digital central bank coin will allow this. Every purchase and movement will be tracked, and if you misbehave, your ability to purchase could be turned off in an instant. I am saying that the system is going to change, but that the change is going to be worse for humanity. I correctly described capital, and how it is used in our current system. However, I am under no delusions that capital will be replaced by some superior system. Again, as the system begins to implement this, people are so fundamentally ignorant of how economics works that they will actually encourage the system to push them further into enslavement 🤷♂️
@@JB-qt3wo You can get Food and shelter on Farms and Ranches, from Socialists who have worked with their neighbors to enable Human Life for centuries.
Replacing Small Agricultural organizations with large Production Facilities appears to be a failure. We apparently need to convert back to the Agricultural Lifestyle that was so helpful to Wastern Traditional Clans before the advent of Capitalism creating Industrial Production of everything from Food production to Housing.
Amish and Mormons appear to demonstrate the methods advantages.
Lina Khan's endeavour to break up Amazon's over reach is long overdue and to be commended. What a nightmare conglomerate and business model for social democracy, civil society and the working class.
Ironically Amazon has more successfully accomplished the effective distribution of economic inputs better than any top down government intervention in the economy. It liquidates middle class business owners faster and more peacefully than Stalin could have ever hoped for, and if anything it has benefited lower and lower middle class people more than anybody else because it has provided tens of thousands of zero to low skilled individuals with jobs and lowered the cost of goods, as well as dramatically decreased the time and energy your average working class family spends on shopping for goods. Not having to physically leave your house to procure goods was a luxury reserved for only the most wealthy of individuals for most of history. Amazon is a red-herring for liberals. The true issue for anyone who truly cares about the working class should be providing pro-natalist entitlements to young families to fund childcare and education expenses, and the reform of higher education. With so much extra wealth accumulating at the top, it must be redistributed to fund entitlements. If we don’t do this, the government will have to put down millions of people who are rioting when they lose their jobs to AI. Who cares about Amazon!! We’re facing deindustrialization and mass social unrest if we don’t solve the population collapse crisis in the developed world. Amazon won’t have anyone to sell to if we don’t do something now.
shouldn't be a social democracy then, just a normal one. Cause government needs to get their filthy fingers out of our business and benefiting who they want creating monopolies.
@@jefferymadison1287You are so confused if you blindly hate "Government". You're literally saying "Democracy is the problem". You're view is literally a creation of Anti Democracy billionaire funded propaganda. You are not oppressed because somebody inspects a factory for safety violations.
@@jefferymadison1287It's either one kind of monopoly or another. Monopolization is the natural tendency of capitalism. Or, did you forget that the 1880s ever happened?
The difference is that you get to vote for who runs the government. You can't vote Jeff Bezos out of office. It's an imperfect system to be sure. Very much so.
But the system you advocate is truly "perfect" in the sense that it guarantees the concentration of wealth in a few hands and the complete impoverishment of almost everyone else. It allows for no other outcome.
@@jefferymadison1287 isn't this literally what big companies do?
Thank! You! Yanis. You are telling the Truth.
Although I'm not a leftist at all, Varoufakis is a highly intelligent person and brings valuable arguments to the table why we're in the current fall of capitalism. Something to ponder about.
It was an English economist I can’t remember his name ,but he calculated that a capitalist system can only support a set number of people ,that point may have been reached
then you dont understand his argument here really. The reality of big tech is that it creates a digital environment where capitalists can operate and it charges for operation. So it is technically not even a monopoly, but a level higher: it creates the field in which the capitalist operates and charges them for operation. This is a new kind of feudalism.
It also creates massive problems for states. And especially for the economic model of european states as we are in the sidelines of american and chinese big tech
Are you talking about John Maynard Keynes?
His name was Thomas Malthus. This line of thought is typically referred to as “Malthusian economics”.
You're thinking of Malthus, and he was on about the agricultural capacity of the world; he's been proven wrong as science marches on, but it's a fair point to say that one finite planet cannot sustain infinite growth.
Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus said something to that effect in his work, "An Essay on the Principle of Population." However, he didn't say this with reference to capitalism, which had not fully emerged in the late 18th century -- the time Malthus wrote his book.
This man has a wonderful voice in addition to his remarkable mind
Our please. Are you his boyfriend.
Or just a paid troll.
His voice is great but his accent makes his speech rather hard to understand.
@@HexanitrobenzeneWhat is even more difficult to understand is why so many people fall for a failed politician with bad ideas.
The paid trolls help in that, most likely.
@@timg1246
In this strange world, a "failed politician" is more likely to be honorable than not, and "successful politician" is not necessarily honorable. Failing in politics is certainly not a criterion to dismiss person's ideas.
@@HexanitrobenzeneHis ideas are bad. That is why they failed. Ideas have to work in the actual world we live in, not some fantasy world where this sort of nonsense suddenly makes sense.
We've never had capitalism. We've had mixed economy. We've never had a free market.
That IS simply untrue. That were about no rules (exept for the trivial stuff) until 1900s (workers' unions gaining power) or really post 1929
This chappie is a very good interviewer - very intelligent questions and excellent listening. Of course, it helps that he has an absolutely epic guest, but the way he draws his guest is excellent.
Fascinating. I agree with him. He's penetrated the clouds.
So a few decades from now I have to cose where I pledge allegiance to the technofeudal overlords and their noble houses: House Zuckerberg, House Musk, House Bezos etc.
Not decades. Just a few years.
Sim! Verdadeiramente a assistirmos, no nosso turno, ao fim da propriedade privada em favor do pagar para usufruir. Neo feudalismo.😢
Este senhor merece todo o respeito.
Não esqueço o exemplo corajoso da Grécia em 2015 através dos 3 referendos.
Saudações de Portugal.🇬🇷🇵🇹
O fim da propriedade privada pressupõe políticas de esquerda que advogam precisamente o fim desta. O pagar para usufruir idem aspas. Não estará na sua alocução uma contradição de posições quando elogia Varoufakis sendo ele um forte defensor das políticas económicas falidas da esquerda que em vez de resgatar a economia Grega ainda a afundou?
Tens a noção o problema em Portugal não é o capitalismo mas sim o marxismo, marxismo é só o feudalismo "rebranded" para a época moderna.
Nem vi o vídeo mas dizer que o capitalismo está terminado, parece me algo que um comunista diria.
@@luisantos1996se você nem viu o vídeo não pode opinar nada... Portugal eh um país de merda, só se criou pela exploração das colônias ,
@@luisantos1996 ai está. Não viste o vídeo. Não entendeste em que perspectiva se está a dizer que o capitalismo está a morrer.
Varoufakis is a genius.
One of the best economists you can hear.
Not really, considering he’s a leftist
is he? Wasn't he in charge of the Greek finances when they went bankrupt?
@@jim-es8qkNo he took over from those who created the mess but our media made it look like he was to blame being a socialist. Google mcarthyism
He should have solved all problems of global capitalism by himself, being an omnipotent minister for some months in the most powerful country ever, obviously 🙄
@@jim-es8qk YES, due to Aléxis Tsípras whose party just went down in flames and who now brought in a golden boy of the US Bankers to further mess up Syriza. If GREECE had its own currency the good old Drachma everything would be fine. I knew from the beginning that the Euro would be a disaster for Greece and it is. I am an American but I live in Greece now and lived in Greece before the EURO. Before the EURO, Greece was a dream. Now it is only good if you have a foreign pension like some of us do. Having economic union without political union is sheer lunacy.
YV makes real sense overall, except for the ridiculous statement that none of us can live our lives without Amazon, Alexa, et al. I'm happily avoiding them all, as are many others I know. (And no, I'm not that old or technologically illiterate and I don't live in Mayberry but in a major city.) It's sheer laziness to succumb to the worst "techno-feudalism" offenders and then say, "What choice do I have? I simply must get all my meals from UberEats and order everything I desire from Amazon via a device that spies on me and profits off my information." Come on. Life was not that miserable or impossibly difficult before these inventions 15-20 years ago. In fact I believe it was better. Just stop willingly commiting yourself to serfdom and you might be surprised how easy and liberating it is.
As long as the majority believe that they can somehow enhance their miserable lives by accumulating more and more unnecessary junk while not even going out of bed, the monsters like Amazon will thrive.
You are literally using a Google account right now.
Yeah. It's similar to the sugar situation. If you're eating it, you believe you can't live without it. Once you ditch it, you are shocked you can, and life is even much much better (no headaches, food tastes better, your body looks better, etc.)
Mister Varoufakis destroyed the economy of Greece with his crazy socialist policies, and now he rags his tail out and tries to present himself as a saviour. No thanks
@@cmh8204 Sure, everyone on the planet uses Google and email, to some degree. My claim is that we can minimize our digital serfdom by avoiding complete enslavement, eg not buying from Amazon, avoiding Siri or Alexa, deleting social media accounts, not feeding the monster with our every move. You don't find it silly to say "We can't live our lives without Alexa and Amazon"? Statistics show that about 30% of the country uses Amazon regularly, which means 70% do not, at least in the US.
Great to hear from Yanis 🎉
He has a hypnotic voice and a delivery similar to a guy I met standing on a quay side on Greek island. He spoke fast, fascinating delivery, hypnotic about the natural qualities of a sponge. He introduced himself as a marine biologist, a diver and a man of the oceans. On he went, until the punchline. I can sell you a sponge for €5, if you buy 3 it will cost €10
There is something enchanting about Yanis delivery. How he seduces the microphone. But then he tries to sell you a sponge. Great delivery. Everything he touches evaporates. Seems like a nice guy as he picks your pocket
Spurious correlation.
Bearing in mind the fact that most people have no idea what, feudalism is, because they never bother reading.
China has 150,000 SOEs, state directed credit, and the largest financial entity in the world is the SASAC. If any significant portion of your stuff comes from China (it does) and/or your government has chosen winners and losers (it has) then you can’t lose capitalism. You never had it.
China is poor example because they never fully liberalized their economy. Capitalism has always been feudalism with extra steps.
Very enlightening, thank you so much.
TY Yanis, your input really helps us understand how dire it really is. Jim
The essence of this was argued by Thomas Piketty in his 2013 work and beyond.
I'd vote for Piketty, Varoufakis and Göpel as consulting triumphvirate for a global government...
@@JohnDoe-bw3tz that’s terrifying
The share of labor in national income has been dramatically decreasing since the start of the 21st century. The low-rate economic growth make the capital to suffer and this suffer is transferred to labor. The social democracy never existed as such. The labor income share allowed to survive (Max Weber) for the majority. Now it is not possible. Capitalism is not finished. It just closes the point of stability when the capital has full power to make all labor poor. This is capitalism.
I just want to say that whatever the mic+processing combo is that they used for Yanis here, it sounds so good. Crisp. Mmmmm.
In 2019 I was deeply influenced by an article in the LARB about “The End of Capitalism Evolving into Neo-Feudalism” by Comrade Jodi Dean. It really has proven an accurate forecast of what Varoufakis now is defining as “Techno-Feudalism”.
It’s hard for people to grasp this as being possible. Varoufakis ( a hero of the masses to me) has found the means to explain this “back to the future” Feudal world made largely possible by an illusion of freedom that is instead creating a new Peasantry that must yield to new Lords or be banished to the hinterlands.
Capitalism was over as soon as social democracy started. Social democracy was turned into corporatism. So far the companies can't be bothered to actually run things. Its cheaper to make people think they actually have a say while they bail companies out of their mistakes. Most companies today have higher budgets and profit margins than most countries. Many of them could run their own armies if they felt so inclined. Wait another 40-50 years and they will. Just to provide security in unstable areas of course.
Some corporations already have their own private armies, not to mention mercenaries.
Capitalism was over as soon as corporations became public limited companies. There is no such thing as capitalism in the modern West. As an example, Jeff Bezos only owns 10% of Amazon shares.
That is actually what capitalism was founded on. The Dutch East India Company had its own private army and the right to tax
just to set the record straight - techno feudalism is not something he thought of first
A friend and colleague of mine predicted this over twenty years ago.
Im impressed with the host maintaining composure pronouncing the hellenic names
"Nations are a dying industry, corporations are the structures of the future." -- Akio Morita, founder Sony Inc.
The time has come for a peaceful economic revolution to democratize multinational corporations in the same way we democratized the nation state in 1776. Democratic Economic Nations, Republics of Capital, Companies without Kings. #EconomicRepublics
I have no idea if he's right or wrong, but he presents a compelling case.
5 people owns more money than 99% of everyone in world, if thats not feutalism I dont know what is.
try Anand Giridharadas.
He’s a fantastic speaker & conveyer of ideas!
On a seperate
note i absolutely love his voice, i could listen to it all day
Always loved Prof Varoufakis and him unexpectedly referencing David Graeber just underpins that. Rip prof Graeber - thanks for the great body of work.
Thank you for the great insights from Yanis. BUT, what are the possible futures?
I agree with a lot of what he says, but he doesn't offer solutions. Similar to Chris Hedges, he's just a bit of a doomsayer.
Futures are based on what propaganda you chose to believe in….if it’s against democracy, then you chose the alternative…….authoritarian propaganda!
Addressing a problem publically doesn't need to involve proposing solutions and it doesn't take anything away from the validness of the observations... disparaging the observation as "doomsaying" doesn't help either, it's very much shooting the messenger... the addressing and the solution of a problem will have to be done by different actors anyway, so...@@adammarshall6257
@@adammarshall6257 This is not true. He's written a whole book about it. Another Now. He also frequently provides solutions in his lectures and speeches (e.g. "Yanis Varoufakis on what's wrong in Europe today and how to fix it tomorrow morning"). There's no doubt in my mind in Technofeudalism he also provides solutions.
Don't you think that just because you haven't seen him offer solutions, it's a bit ridiculous to claim he hasn't offered any?
And his solutions - briefly - are?
Fascinating stuff; every time Yannis speaks, I learn something new.
appreciating Yanis taking on the podcast circuit .
What an amazing voice
I think the problem of comparison arises from the nature of _what_ you're selling. A lot of the simplistic examples people use to describe economics include _physical products_ which are produced and sold.
But manufacturing represents only a minority share of most modern advanced economies. The majority of productivity in almost all developed economies comes not from manufacturing but from services. It sounds obvious, but the overwhelming key difference is that products are physical objects, while services are immaterial actions.
To produce a product requires capital (ie. assets used for economic production) and labour, and the ingredients for each individual product. But to provide a service, it doesn't require ingredients, only labour and capital.
This inherent difference between objects and actions changes the way in which they are supplied to meet demand.
Furthermore, if you can get a machine to perform a service (ie. collecting data, displaying an advert, taking a consumer's order, carrying out a financial transaction), that removes the labour cost from each transaction, leaving only the cost of acquiring and maintaining their economic assets (capital).
If the nature of the service is a rare, one off occurrence, it makes sense to charge pay-per-use, such as air-travel. But for a service that a consumer might use regularly, such as using their phone, watching television or commuting on a train, it makes more sense to use a subscription model.
Now, some consumers will use the services a lot, getting better value from what they pay in fees. But a lot of the consumers will use the service a lot less, effectively subsidising those who use it more.
When you think about it, this is kind of how taxes and government expenditure works, just in the private rather than public sector. We all pay a subscription to the government, and the government provides services, like repairing roads, teaching students, preventing crime etc.
i asked my horse - he told me that he knows the way home and that mules never want to know where they came from just like Albert Pike trashcopies with a printerstation in greece
this was easily one of the most informative + inspiring things I've ever seen, I've just finished watching it for the 2nd time, and I'm really excited to now get the book, Yanis' references to the late 1700s are a terribly relevant example from recent-ish history, so powerful to think we may be on the brink of undoing the current cloud-shackles -
I'm really grateful to be able to have access to the thoughts of incredible thinkers around history/economics/revolutionary ideas like this, it's really exciting to think we're potentially only one small revolution away from a far more equitable social situation, given how "globalised" the world asserts to being... it really sounds possible that enough people can agree around the world.. that we don't want to be cloud serfs, maybe more that we want to have a share of the profits being sourced from technological growth.
no longer should the risks be socialised with profits privatised, the more people that learn this key human right the better I think. thank you yanis, pls i rly hope that people see the sense in this information..
At first I thought he was just going to talk in circles but, lo and behold-- he makes some very important points. Quite pertinent to what I see...
For some people, social democracy is the difference between life and death. Btw what happened in greece around 2015?^^
There was a referendum with two options. Saying yes and continue borrowing money and doing austerity or saying no to those loans. People voted 62% No, but the left political party which was in charge turned that no into a yes.
@@TheofanisKasimisGovernment is a Crime syndicate
Greece was mega broke and had no leverage for negotiation
Being this guy must be so depressing he is always doom gloom I am supressed he is able to put a smile on his face half of the time with how he only ever sees the bad in everything
Respect for yanis
Peace to Yanni V. His book "Adults in the Room" really opened my eyes to the real financial issues facing Europe/Greece. Thanks for this interview.
Are there really only two systems in practice? Capitalism and Feudalism? It seems to me, as soon as you leave a reasonably free, capitalist system, you fall into something that might look different from Feudalism, but is a heck of a lot like it.
Yeeeaaah that’s a worry. Looks to me at a minimum we need strong governments able to uphold laws. Like with Uber, it was plain unlawful the way they had people working for them in many places. You need a strong government to uphold workers rights and prevent tech companies from taking over all sorts of parts. Then again you do want to have innovation and international (cross-government) collaboration, which corporations are pretty good at.
I’d be weary of grand reforms on a s massive scale to critical systems. I’d be more in favour of tweaking, adapting… and using conversations on platforms such as these to inform those types of changes
@@StillGamingTM Definitely, it’s pretty rare we wouldn’t all be better off with bending the curve a little rather than so many major changes.