The night the Demos found its voice, for a brief, wonderful moment On the afternoon of Friday, 3 June, as the working day drew to a close, I breathed a sigh of relief. A week of closed banks was almost over. Despite the long queues at ATMs and the uncertainty of what awaited us the […]
Books
Austerity’s hidden purpose – Project Syndicate/Katmandu Post
Back in the 1830s, Thomas Peel decided to migrate from England to the Swan River in Western Australia. A man of means, Peel took along, besides his family, ‘300 persons of the working class, men, women, and children,’ as well as ‘means of subsistence and production to the amount of £50,000.’ But soon after arrival, […]
Techno-Feudalism & the End of Capitalism – interviewed by Alice Flanagan for NOW THEN
“If you know of Yanis Varoufakis, you know him as the economist and Greek finance minister whose nuanced analyses of the crisis of 2008 became perhaps the defining voice among left-wing critics of global finance. If you don’t know who he is, it’s never too late to get to know him – and conveniently Yanis’s most recent […]
ANOTHER NOW: Why a science fiction novel on the alternatives to capitalism we could have had today? – Festival of Debate
In conversation with Sara Hill, Festival of Debate, Sheffield Imagine a world with no banks. No stock market. No tech giants. No billionaires. Imagine if Occupy and Extinction Rebellion actually won. ANOTHER NOW, my political science fiction novel, examines what such a world would look like through the eyes of three characters: Iris, a disillusioned […]
‘The Austerity Doctrine in the Time of Coronavirus’: Crucial Q&A on post-pandemic austerity with Brian Eno & Yanis Varoufakis plus special guests Stephanie Kelton & Naomi Klein
In the 3rd episode of Let’s Talk It Over regulars Brian Eno and Yanis Varoufakis welcomed very special guests Stephanie Kelton and Naomi Klein to discuss The Austerity Doctrine in the Time of Coronavirus. Here are some of the questions tackled in the program: Austerians for years told us that all hell would be unleashed on […]
Για την Τεχνοφεουδαρχία & την υπέρβασή της, καθώς και τα πιο “πεζά” ζητήματα της επικαιρότητας – στο ΠΡΩΤΟ ΠΡΟΓΡΑΜΜΑ με τον Γιώργο Παπαζαχαρίου
Καλεσμένος του Γιώργου Παπαζαχαρίου στο Πρώτο Πρόγραμμα της ΕΡΤ, αναφέρομαι στην Τεχνοφεουδαρχία του σήμερα, στην υπέρβασή της (όπως την περιγράφει στο νέο του βιβλίο ANOTHER NOW, που θα κυκλοφορήσει προσεχώς και στα ελληνικά – αλλά και για την πρόταση του ΜέΡΑ25 για τη σύσταση ανεξάρτητου Σώματος Δίωξης Πολιτικού και Μεγαλοεπιχειρηματικού εγκλήματος, τη διαπλοκή των ΜΜΕ, […]
From an imagined hi-tech rebellion to the GameStop incident: Lessons for collective action in the 21st Century – Der Freitag
When in 2008 I heard that Lehman Brothers collapsed, and thousands of its staff were laid off, I allowed myself a fantasy. I imagined that one of the laid off financial engineers, whom for some reason I named Esmeralda, would turn into a dissident. That, incensed with the way she had been discarded by the […]
Did we see yesterday something like ANOTHER NOW’s Crowdshorters in action ? You be the judge!
In my ANOTHER NOW I imagined a new type of resistance movement that uses the tools of finance to bring down capitalism and create a democratic market socialist economy in its stead. I called them CROWDSHORTERS. Yesterday, I received many messages suggesting that the CROWDSHORTERS are emerging for real, with the Reddit group that supported […]
Is it sensible to fret about public debt’s rise during the pandemic? A debate with Todd G. Buchholz on Pairagraph
Is public debt a bomb about to explode taking us down? Or is fretting about public debt a tactic for preparing public opinion for a new austerity drive that will cause debt to grow even faster? Read my debate with Todd G. Buchholz organised by pairagraph.com (see here for the original publication) Todd G. Buchholz’s […]
To rid ourselves of GDP we need to move beyond capitalism, to ANOTHER NOW – Response to Timothée Parrique’s response
In a reaction to a throwaway line of mine in this interview relating to my new book ANOTHER NOW, Timothée Parrique wrote this piece. I find it hard to disagree with anything of substance he wrote. I was not even upset that Timothée (who clearly has not read my book) misrepresented my position, making me sound […]
“What New Institutions Do We Need For An International Green New Deal To Be Feasible?” Geneva Lecture Series, video & a review by Marie-Christine Ghreichi
Organised by Prof. Anis H. Bajrektarevic as part of the University of Geneva Lecture Series on ‘Contemporary World of Geo-economics’, I was honoured with an invitation to deliver a long lecture on the pressing need for new international financial institutions to address crushing global imbalances and inequalities. Watch the video and also read a review […]
“Global Trade & Capital Imbalances imperil Global Stability” – Redaction Politics reviews my Holberg 2020 debate with John Bolton
Redaction Politics published a review of my Holberg 2o2o debate with John Bolton on Global Stability. Their review is reproduced below. To watch the debate click here. Yanis Varoufakis lamented economic equality and pushed for global co-operation while John Bolton urged diplomatic confrontation as the pair battled over the question of “global stability” last week. […]
In conversation on the postcapitalist vision in my ANOTHER NOW – JACOBIN interview & DISSENS podcast
State socialism has failed because of its authoritarian excesses, but the idea of socialism still offers the only alternative for a viable future – says Yanis Varoufakis. In 2015, in the midst of the Greek sovereign debt crisis, he became finance minister under Alexis Tsipras until he resigned after the referendum. In the meantime, he has […]
On CHANGE MAKERS discussing personal drive, happiness, capitalism, socialism and… Star Trek
Our guest today on Change Makers is former finance minister of Greece, economist and author, Yanis Varoufakis. His view on the current world order may be critical, but this is as much a story of romance as it is reproach. Yanis believes happiness, like love, can only truly be found when you are not seeking […]
Designing a postcapitalist future in the midst of the pandemic – The Saturday Paper
Doubts that our world is morally indefensible become unforgiveable when even the bankers of the ultra-rich, along with the bailiffs working diligently on their behalf, are panicking about excessive inequality. UBS recently reported that, between April and July 2020, as the pandemic’s first wave was surging, the collective stash of the world’s billionaires grew by […]