Awesome guest, great questions, insightful answers. Brilliant vid! I hope Yanis sticks around in the UK for awhile, it feels slightly more bearable to live here knowing he's present.
"gave the ANEL guy the ministry of defence and he was so happy to dress up as a general" -that was the way I'd interpreted that nomination. Good to hear! :)
Very intelligent guy and very perceptive in describing the problems that people perceive - particularly in his analysis of how debt-fuelled growth (the policy of all Western governments since 1971) makes the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. However, I'm sorry Yanis - the phrase Libertarian Marxist does not make any sense at all. Yes, Marx thought that the state would wither as socialism progressed, but he was a madman. Like all of Marx's predictions, the truth is the exact opposite - more socialism means more government and less liberty.
"more socialism means more government and less liberty" - I'll give a link to a way of thinking that' a la Varoufakis in the sense of being both leftist and refreshingly independent-minded. It might give laughs and intellectually entertain: archive.org/details/BrankoHorvatWhatIsSocialism1989
Haven't watched the video yet, but as of yesterday I found out that the title was true! His beef with Bakunin was just a misunderstanding of each other.
Great interview and a great individual. I do think, however, that he needs to learn a little bit more about UKIP, before he starts calling them racist. And I'm not even a supporter of UKIP.
Inherently racist groups in UK interpret the push of Farage for control of borders as rascist. Farage was all about showing the EU to be a corrupt and non democratic. The remain camp pushed hard for him to be seen as racist. If you work on any UK campus and live in the right area, life is sweet but move to the poor side of the tracks and you see how quality of life in the UK has fallen.
The interviewer seems to be on a different wave length from the interviewee. As always when it comes to Europe the British start to fill in the gaps between words with interpretations of their own, and put words into other people's mouths. Annoying git this interviewer, who can't stop trying to categorize Varoufakis and put him in a (British-design) box. Varoufakis is excellent and doesn't let himself be contorted by the guy.
+Luciano G aha ! I see what you are saying. Yes, Mr V recognises the extent to which manual and now low/medium paid service sector jobs are in the process of disappearing. Technology wise, it's all about access and analysis of data now and there are still a wide range of well paid analysis jobs - that is until the machines get organised again via algorithms. Here in Australia, these sort of debates are rare to non-existent. However, our latest (5 in 5 years) President/ Prime Minister recons that finance should go into driving technological innovation. But why, when as we know this makes a few billionaires even richer, puts more people out of work and according to the prevailing (Keynesian) economic theory is deflationary ! The flip side is prices do seem to be coming down. www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/10/income-inequality-america
Re 2008. When all else fails, the 'Sovereign State' comes to the rescue to the financial class -of which Marx refereed as part of the 'Lumpen Proletariat'.
Using terms like Libertarian or Marxist or any other such terms, just boxes a person into an "us vs them" situation that can be used by any enemy that wants to box others in.
Varoufakis is the enemy of the 1st world working classes. He is a vehement supporter of neoliberal globalization (which he correctly calls libertarian Marxism) where the workers of the 1st world are forced to compete with workers of the 3rd world. Through mass immigration and unfettered free trade, the standard of living of the 1st world working classes is being lowered to 3rd world levels. Varoufakis loves this since his social class, the Bourgeoisie, benefit from the resulting cheap labor. At third world labor prices, Varoufakis and his ilk can afford hordes of 1st servants and live a life of luxury.
+LE SINGE COMMUNISTE Are you trying to saying that Marxists are anti-government? Can you explain? What did you think of Varoufakis's remark that corporations would become extinct?
+Fred Welf Varoufakis did say, Marx did not approve of the nation state. But ironically, that's what saved the financial class at the expense of the rest of us- and still are being bailed out courtesy of Quantitative Easing and Negative real interest rates. Corporations cannot respond to the pace of technological change, despite attempting to cannibalise themselves and their products and services. So far the message seems to be. Do not work and save. Borrow and speculate.
+Fred Welf Marx's post-capitalist utopia was explicitly anti-government. Marx saw government as the executive committee of the bourgeoisie. He did not live long enough to see that the working classes (in the 1st world) developed a level of emancipation throw bourgeois democracy so that certainly in the post-WW2 there was at least a balance of power at the government level between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. So for the bourgeoisie to advance their class interests, they need to destroy the equalizing power of government. So the various elements of the bourgeoisie developed a phalanx of anti-government ideologies to not only destroy the balance of power wrought by proletariat representation in government, but to create a distorted form of what I call the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie where wealthy elites destroy the 1st world working classes through neoliberal globalization (of which one element is bourgeois Marxism) where the 3rd world in forcibly injected into the 1st world through mass immigration and/or "free" trade. The ultimate result will be a bourgeois utopia (but conversely a working class dystopia) where the small ruling elite (of which Varoufakis is a full member in good standing) re-institutes the power relations of feudalism through neoliberal globalization. But ultimately with neoliberal globalization were are heading backwards to power relations of pre-capitalist feudalism even as technology rapidly moves forward. So corporations will ultimately develop and fulfill the role formerly played by feudal lords in the pre-capitalism days. Economics is not the entire story, power-relations outside of money are also important but Marxist analysis tends to ignore these aspects of the human condition.
Talks sense about the reality of the EU, but there is no prospect of democratising the EU. The executive proposes any changes and they're not turkeys voting for Christmas.
no the reason the london riots happened was because mark duggan was killed by armed police although no gun was found on mark duggan, they were angry and they wanted answers to why mark duggan was killed so they wen't to Tottenham police station but no one would come out to address there questions which made the crowd more angry and sparked the london riots.
+West Yorkshire I think what was meant by the interviewer/Varoufakis is that specific event was the catalyst which sparked the riots, but the latent anger which powered the riots stems from degrading socioeconomic conditions.
I can never understand how it is seen to be extreme or xenophobic to want an Australian point style system for immigration. I think what is extreme is complete uncontrolled open borders, which is what this guy advocates for.
roy race What does that have to do with an immigration system? In fact, just to add to that what has being 'nice' got to do with an immigration system?
I'd advise you to do a lot more research on this. Our (Australian ) immigration processing system is broken and the only time it is not xenophobic is when it is benefiting corporations over the working class ie import of cheap unskilled labour.
Great interview. Marxism is not my cup of tea though. Corbyn should recruit Yanis ASAP. I want to see entertainment :) Maybe you should interview Farage as well
If he was any different from Tsipras he should not just have left his post, he should have made a call to the greek people to overthrow Tsipras : they had a fuckin' referendum that said NO to the EU plan. But no, all he does is smoke and mirrors.
If varoufakis ideas are so good then why is Greece in worse shape today. His policy ideals were the equivalent of trading one bad apple for another in the hopes the second bad apple will taste better. Idealogy without responsibiliy=Greece. You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today A Lincoln
+bfor12 In an earlier interview, Vroufakis explained that the debacle with Greece started when they sponsored the Olympics - the costs put them in debt. Today, it seems that several groups have entered into ideological positions which is why he was trying to explain the behavior of the military and police. Note his discounting of the police' gripping to Golden Dawn.
+bfor12 He never implemented any of his ideas. Greece is in a fiscal straitjacket placed by the ECB and EU Commission, and has no sovereign control over its monetary or fiscal policies--so how on Earth do you expect them to implement any ideas they may have under such conditions?
Negatively, I understand that Greece is fomenting a serious tax resistance problem, especially when the largest corporations, the richest people have a constitutional tax exemption.
Bastani is using the twisted American meaning of libertarian as anti-state ... using the original European definition, "libertarian socialism" is not the contradiction in terms it would seem in the US. Kind of a waste to bug Varoufakis about this ...
Crisis of capitalism? What crisis? What capitalism? You mean the socialism in which we live currently? Yes, there is crisis, but crisis of socialism. Huge regulations, huge taxes. This is what socialism really means. EU socialism and US socialism are in crisis. Capitalism is about free market and low taxes so obviously there is no capitalism around isnt it. And btw UKIP is libertarian, capitalist, freedom party, which is absolute opposite to NAZI - national socialism, in fact, UKIP is ultimately anti-socialist, pro-freedom party and against EU-socialist project, so Mr Yanis Varoufakis, please make sure, you understand your vocabulary before you use it. Also if you want to know real information about capitalism and socialism read more Ludwig von Mises, not Karl Marx...
Just the opposite. People today name things in different names. People think that huge taxes is capitalism. Well, absolutely not. Socialist state means 100% taxes, because socialist state is owner and manager of all property, not citizens. Capitalist countries are just the opposite. Capitalist countries are countries where citizens manage and owns property, not the state, and also have low taxes. Of course there is very strong anti-capitalist propaganda against these countries. Socialist from Brussels and Washington call them "tax heavens". Merkel, Holland, Obama and all those socialists want our taxes. They, of course, hate countries with low taxes, contries which are friendly to its citizens and foreign citizens and give them low taxes. So, commrades from Brussels and Washington, be so nice and give your citizens low taxes. Show us, that you are citizens friendly and that you care!
Tomas Juras no, capitalism has to do with property norms. What you call socialism is in fact state capitalism. In a capitalist system the capitalist class owns the means of production, in socialism the workers do. I find it hilarious how you then accuse capitalist elites of being anti capitalists, that's asinine. Your knowledge of politics comes from hearing scary sounding buzzwords, nothing of actual substance.
The Mad Libertarian Hm... I accuse capitalist elites of being anti-capitalist? Well, the fact is that they are anti-capitalist because they are socialists just like the majority of the Western population. And of course maybe I do not understand everything, but what I do know that for example the current French president Mr. Francois Holland is socialist and the French government is led by PS which is Parti socialiste. In fact the EU is socialist project, and is dominated by French and German socialists. Even socialists from other EU countries like Mr Barroso former president of EU commission who was Portugal maoist and Mr Juncker from his Christian Social People's Party of Luxembourg who is current president of EU commission. The former French president Mr Mitterrand was founder of Parti socialist of France and he was socialist too. The Maastricht treaty and the EU is his creation together with Mr Helmut Kohl former German chancellor. German nationalism and socialism achieved via EU the goal which it could not get in two world wars. All the EU policies are state interventionism on the international scale. Interventionism is the road to full scale socialism, Marx wrote this very clearly and this is our direction just now. So, if you like socialism you can be cool. Its on his way :-)
This guy I really do not like and I do not understand why he is everywhere on youtube. I do not want to see his face at all. So he sold the Greek down the river... Should he get a medal for that? Now he comes on youtube to claim that he did not mean to do it? Sorry I do not buy it. Go away Varoufakis, you did enough damage.
More people need to listen to Varoufakis.
Labour Theory of Value I believe him when he says you can’t negotiate with the EU.
We did... until he was willing to make us all bankrupt in Greece overnight. Your entire life savings gone... poof. For his ideals.
Awesome guest, great questions, insightful answers. Brilliant vid! I hope Yanis sticks around in the UK for awhile, it feels slightly more bearable to live here knowing he's present.
I'm genuinely impressed with his clarity of thought, so much different from how he is perceived/portrayed
+fugooglestupid me too, wow were we mislead by all the partisan medias about him, he's brilliant.
my only complaint is that it could've been longer.
+Myrkskog If you'd like to see more Aaron spoke to Yanis for Zed Books too: ua-cam.com/video/03rdRWqZgb0/v-deo.html
Nice one.
Fucking Awesome Interview.
Fantastic interview. Varoufakis' final 2 words are the most hopeful future I think we can all wish for!
+Richard Pycroft It is the only reason Whoopi Goldberg agreed to play a part, because it portrayed black folks well in the future.
"gave the ANEL guy the ministry of defence and he was so happy to dress up as a general" -that was the way I'd interpreted that nomination. Good to hear! :)
+Nico NicoNico Indeed, and excruciatingly hilarious at the same time.
Great interview guys
Best part is the LAST minute. Pay attention there because that's VERY important.
+Joe Ravenscroft
www.thevenusproject.com/
You're welcome. :)
Our numbers are growing as people change their mind.
That's the idea :)
Very intelligent guy and very perceptive in describing the problems that people perceive - particularly in his analysis of how debt-fuelled growth (the policy of all Western governments since 1971) makes the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
However, I'm sorry Yanis - the phrase Libertarian Marxist does not make any sense at all. Yes, Marx thought that the state would wither as socialism progressed, but he was a madman. Like all of Marx's predictions, the truth is the exact opposite - more socialism means more government and less liberty.
"more socialism means more government and less liberty" - I'll give a link to a way of thinking that' a la Varoufakis in the sense of being both leftist and refreshingly independent-minded. It might give laughs and intellectually entertain: archive.org/details/BrankoHorvatWhatIsSocialism1989
You have to love the clarity of Varoufakis!
Go Yanis ! Make a good PM !
great interview. can i ask what camera you guys used? looks amazing
Excellent and well spoken.
Haven't watched the video yet, but as of yesterday I found out that the title was true! His beef with Bakunin was just a misunderstanding of each other.
GREEKS-THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD.
💫
4:02 there's a zombie at the door. yiiekes
Great interview and a great individual. I do think, however, that he needs to learn a little bit more about UKIP, before he starts calling them racist. And I'm not even a supporter of UKIP.
Inherently racist groups in UK interpret the push of Farage for control of borders as rascist. Farage was all about showing the EU to be a corrupt and non democratic. The remain camp pushed hard for him to be seen as racist. If you work on any UK campus and live in the right area, life is sweet but move to the poor side of the tracks and you see how quality of life in the UK has fallen.
The interviewer seems to be on a different wave length from the interviewee. As always when it comes to Europe the British start to fill in the gaps between words with interpretations of their own, and put words into other people's mouths. Annoying git this interviewer, who can't stop trying to categorize Varoufakis and put him in a (British-design) box. Varoufakis is excellent and doesn't let himself be contorted by the guy.
lol Varoufakis became an Accelerationist.
SINGULARITY NOW
+john Mars what ?
+Luciano G aha ! I see what you are saying. Yes, Mr V recognises the extent to which manual and now low/medium paid service sector jobs are in the process of disappearing. Technology wise, it's all about access and analysis of data now and there are still a wide range of well paid analysis jobs - that is until the machines get organised again via algorithms.
Here in Australia, these sort of debates are rare to non-existent. However, our latest (5 in 5 years) President/ Prime Minister recons that finance should go into driving technological innovation. But why, when as we know this makes a few billionaires even richer, puts more people out of work and according to the prevailing (Keynesian) economic theory is deflationary ! The flip side is prices do seem to be coming down.
www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/10/income-inequality-america
Excellent!
Re 2008. When all else fails, the 'Sovereign State' comes to the rescue to the financial class -of which Marx refereed as part of the 'Lumpen Proletariat'.
Very good comment on nigel farage
Using terms like Libertarian or Marxist or any other such terms, just boxes a person into an "us vs them" situation that can be used by any enemy that wants to box others in.
That's why the man with the inferiority complex on the wheelchair Schaueble hated him.......because he is brilliant
16:17 Aaron getting an tingles over Corbyn haha
Varoufakis is the enemy of the 1st world working classes. He is a vehement supporter of neoliberal globalization (which he correctly calls libertarian Marxism) where the workers of the 1st world are forced to compete with workers of the 3rd world. Through mass immigration and unfettered free trade, the standard of living of the 1st world working classes is being lowered to 3rd world levels. Varoufakis loves this since his social class, the Bourgeoisie, benefit from the resulting cheap labor. At third world labor prices, Varoufakis and his ilk can afford hordes of 1st servants and live a life of luxury.
+LE SINGE COMMUNISTE Are you trying to saying that Marxists are anti-government? Can you explain?
What did you think of Varoufakis's remark that corporations would become extinct?
+Fred Welf Varoufakis did say, Marx did not approve of the nation state. But ironically, that's what saved the financial class at the expense of the rest of us- and still are being bailed out courtesy of Quantitative Easing and Negative real interest rates. Corporations cannot respond to the pace of technological change, despite attempting to cannibalise themselves and their products and services.
So far the message seems to be. Do not work and save. Borrow and speculate.
+Fred Welf Marx's post-capitalist utopia was explicitly anti-government. Marx saw government as the executive committee of the bourgeoisie. He did not live long enough to see that the working classes (in the 1st world) developed a level of emancipation throw bourgeois democracy so that certainly in the post-WW2 there was at least a balance of power at the government level between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.
So for the bourgeoisie to advance their class interests, they need to destroy the equalizing power of government. So the various elements of the bourgeoisie developed a phalanx of anti-government ideologies to not only destroy the balance of power wrought by proletariat representation in government, but to create a distorted form of what I call the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie where wealthy elites destroy the 1st world working classes through neoliberal globalization (of which one element is bourgeois Marxism) where the 3rd world in forcibly injected into the 1st world through mass immigration and/or "free" trade. The ultimate result will be a bourgeois utopia (but conversely a working class dystopia) where the small ruling elite (of which Varoufakis is a full member in good standing) re-institutes the power relations of feudalism through neoliberal globalization.
But ultimately with neoliberal globalization were are heading backwards to power relations of pre-capitalist feudalism even as technology rapidly moves forward.
So corporations will ultimately develop and fulfill the role formerly played by feudal lords in the pre-capitalism days. Economics is not the entire story, power-relations outside of money are also important but Marxist analysis tends to ignore these aspects of the human condition.
Talks sense about the reality of the EU, but there is no prospect of democratising the EU. The executive proposes any changes and they're not turkeys voting for Christmas.
no the reason the london riots happened was because mark duggan was killed by armed police although no gun was found on mark duggan, they were angry and they wanted answers to why mark duggan was killed so they wen't to Tottenham police station but no one would come out to address there questions which made the crowd more angry and sparked the london riots.
+West Yorkshire I think what was meant by the interviewer/Varoufakis is that specific event was the catalyst which sparked the riots, but the latent anger which powered the riots stems from degrading socioeconomic conditions.
I can never understand how it is seen to be extreme or xenophobic to want an Australian point style system for immigration. I think what is extreme is complete uncontrolled open borders, which is what this guy advocates for.
roy race
What does that have to do with an immigration system? In fact, just to add to that what has being 'nice' got to do with an immigration system?
+Connor D lololololololol. Trollolololol. Go home and stay there. The rest of the world doesn't want your views thanks.
+Zastanick My views are moderate.
Ahahahahaha. Keep telling yourself that. Such Rational. So enlightened. Wow.
I'd advise you to do a lot more research on this. Our (Australian ) immigration processing system is broken and the only time it is not xenophobic is when it is benefiting corporations over the working class ie import of cheap unskilled labour.
Great interview. Marxism is not my cup of tea though. Corbyn should recruit Yanis ASAP. I want to see entertainment :) Maybe you should interview Farage as well
+Tom Lim When is the next UK General Election and what are the chances of Corbyn being PM ?
If he was any different from Tsipras he should not just have left his post, he should have made a call to the greek people to overthrow Tsipras : they had a fuckin' referendum that said NO to the EU plan.
But no, all he does is smoke and mirrors.
If varoufakis ideas are so good then why is Greece in worse shape today. His policy ideals were the equivalent of trading one bad apple for another in the hopes the second bad apple will taste better. Idealogy without responsibiliy=Greece. You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today A Lincoln
+bfor12 In an earlier interview, Vroufakis explained that the debacle with Greece started when they sponsored the Olympics - the costs put them in debt. Today, it seems that several groups have entered into ideological positions which is why he was trying to explain the behavior of the military and police. Note his discounting of the police' gripping to Golden Dawn.
+bfor12 He never implemented any of his ideas. Greece is in a fiscal straitjacket placed by the ECB and EU Commission, and has no sovereign control over its monetary or fiscal policies--so how on Earth do you expect them to implement any ideas they may have under such conditions?
Negatively, I understand that Greece is fomenting a serious tax resistance problem, especially when the largest corporations, the richest people have a constitutional tax exemption.
+bfor12 'If varoufakis ideas are so good then why is Greece in worse shape today' - Goldman Sachs
You literally described the exact thing Varoufakis rejected...
Varoufakis= 1
What is Yanis' last word to the question about fully automated luxury communism? I couldn't make it out.
+MyMpc1 star trek
So it is, very clear too!
+MyMpc1 Everyone on Star Trek is a) educated and b) has a moral conscious.
Dystopia or Utopia / Heaven v Hell
Bastani is using the twisted American meaning of libertarian as anti-state ... using the original European definition, "libertarian socialism" is not the contradiction in terms it would seem in the US. Kind of a waste to bug Varoufakis about this ...
10.00 feminism
Crisis of capitalism? What crisis? What capitalism? You mean the socialism in which we live currently? Yes, there is crisis, but crisis of socialism. Huge regulations, huge taxes. This is what socialism really means. EU socialism and US socialism are in crisis. Capitalism is about free market and low taxes so obviously there is no capitalism around isnt it. And btw UKIP is libertarian, capitalist, freedom party, which is absolute opposite to NAZI - national socialism, in fact, UKIP is ultimately anti-socialist, pro-freedom party and against EU-socialist project, so Mr Yanis Varoufakis, please make sure, you understand your vocabulary before you use it. Also if you want to know real information about capitalism and socialism read more Ludwig von Mises, not Karl Marx...
Socialism has never meant that and you trying to call capitalism another name so you can try to defend your toxic ideology is pathetic.
Just the opposite. People today name things in different names. People think that huge taxes is capitalism. Well, absolutely not. Socialist state means 100% taxes, because socialist state is owner and manager of all property, not citizens. Capitalist countries are just the opposite. Capitalist countries are countries where citizens manage and owns property, not the state, and also have low taxes. Of course there is very strong anti-capitalist propaganda against these countries. Socialist from Brussels and Washington call them "tax heavens". Merkel, Holland, Obama and all those socialists want our taxes. They, of course, hate countries with low taxes, contries which are friendly to its citizens and foreign citizens and give them low taxes. So, commrades from Brussels and Washington, be so nice and give your citizens low taxes. Show us, that you are citizens friendly and that you care!
Tomas Juras no, capitalism has to do with property norms. What you call socialism is in fact state capitalism. In a capitalist system the capitalist class owns the means of production, in socialism the workers do. I find it hilarious how you then accuse capitalist elites of being anti capitalists, that's asinine. Your knowledge of politics comes from hearing scary sounding buzzwords, nothing of actual substance.
The Mad Libertarian Hm... I accuse capitalist elites of being anti-capitalist? Well, the fact is that they are anti-capitalist because they are socialists just like the majority of the Western population. And of course maybe I do not understand everything, but what I do know that for example the current French president Mr. Francois Holland is socialist and the French government is led by PS which is Parti socialiste. In fact the EU is socialist project, and is dominated by French and German socialists. Even socialists from other EU countries like Mr Barroso former president of EU commission who was Portugal maoist and Mr Juncker from his Christian Social People's Party of Luxembourg who is current president of EU commission. The former French president Mr Mitterrand was founder of Parti socialist of France and he was socialist too. The Maastricht treaty and the EU is his creation together with Mr Helmut Kohl former German chancellor. German nationalism and socialism achieved via EU the goal which it could not get in two world wars. All the EU policies are state interventionism on the international scale. Interventionism is the road to full scale socialism, Marx wrote this very clearly and this is our direction just now. So, if you like socialism you can be cool. Its on his way :-)
Tomas Juras omfg, youre a moron, why bother come back 3 weeks later with more idiotic shit? Seriously, you sound like youre in a fucking cult.
hahaha farage would destroy this joker
This Man is To Intelligent and Honest for most of the People. I recommend to Read His Book
"Adults in the
Room" Eye opener
🌎
This guy I really do not like and I do not understand why he is everywhere on youtube. I do not want to see his face at all. So he sold the Greek down the river... Should he get a medal for that? Now he comes on youtube to claim that he did not mean to do it? Sorry I do not buy it. Go away Varoufakis, you did enough damage.