Books
The causes of inflation and what to do about it – Keynote at Banking Conference, Sofia 2 DEC 2021
, 26/01/2022
Invited by the Bulgarian Central Bank’s Deputy Governor, here is a keynote I delivered in Sofia, on 2nd December 2021, in which I offer a historical explanation of the nature and causes of our current inflation – as well as a proposed policy response that would help (but which vested interests are impeding).
Interviewed by Azeem Azhar (Harvard Business Review) on tech, economics, and the future of democracy – audio
, 27/12/2021
In this podcast, I join Azeem Azhar EXPONENTIAL VIEW to discuss my novel Another Now (click here for the English and here for the US versions). [Click here to listen on their site and here for Spotify) We discuss the book’s vision of a world where mass organization, technological progress, and an overhaul of companies and markets have made […]
The Economic Model of ANOTHER NOW, by AFTER THE OLIGARCHY: Video plus interview
, 27/12/2021
In my novel ANOTHER NOW (click here for the English and here for the US versions) I put forward a blueprint for a socialist, decentralised, market society in which the profit-wage nexus, share markets and commercial banks have become extinct. AFTER THE OLIGARCHY were kind enough to produce a 40′ video explaining the economic model of ANOTHER NOW […]
Russell Brand interrogates me on my novel ANOTHER NOW. Sparks fly and fun is had as we discuss what we can replace technofeudal capitalism with
, 27/12/2021
Can the system ever change or are we stuck? Are we condemned to live as modern peasants in a technofeudal order? Or can we create a postcapitalist system that utilises technology to revive socialism as a realistic, attractive, freedom-enhancing prospect? Is my novel ANOTHER NOW (click here for the English and here for the US […]
LA STAMPA interview on the Italian edition of ANOTHER NOW: From Marinnetti & the Sex Pistols to Hephaestus & favourite books
, 17/11/2021
On the occasion of the publication of my ANOTHER NOW in Italian (Un Altro Presente), La Stampa put to me some quirky and irreverent questions. Just in case you wanted to read them, and my answers, in the English original, here they are. Have fun! Marinetti and the Sex Pistols are milestones for Costa: is […]
Talking to the Bunker about ANOTHER NOW
, 16/11/2021
Renowned economist, politician, and author Yanis Varoufakis stopped by the Bunker to talk about his latest book, Another Now, which is an alternate history in which our world developed into a post-capitalist world after the economic crash in 2008. Yanis shared the story of how he was politicized early after the Greek civil war and his father’s imprisonment, […]
Can capitalism be fixed? An Intelligence Squared debate between Gillian Tett (Yes!) and Yanis Varoufakis (No!)
, 06/11/2021
Gillian Tett, the Financial Times Chair of the Editorial Board & Editor-at-large, believes that capitalism can be fixed, through copious regulation and institutional interventions. I, on the other hand, not only think that capitalism cannot be fixed but, additionally, that capitalism has made itself irrelevant through a surreptitious transformation into a new version of the […]
Star Trek vs The Matrix: Chatting with Briahna Joy Gray about my ANOTHER NOW on BAD FAITH
, 06/11/2021
Truly enjoyed this chat with Briahna Joy Gray which began with a discussion of my novel ANOTHER NOW, and the question of what a non-capitalist world could look like in the here and now, and drifted nicely to our favourite show, Star Trek – the ultimate depiction of a liberal communism worth working towards; which […]
ANOTHER NOW: Socialist Alternatives to Capitalism Explored in New Novel – On Democracy Now!, with Amy Goodman
, 11/10/2021
In an extended interview with Yanis Varoufakis, member of the Greek Parliament and former finance minister of Greece, we discuss his new novel, “Another Now,” and why he chose to write fiction after years of nonfiction. “All my life as a lefty, I had to find ways of escaping the poignant question: ‘If you don’t like […]
Angela Merkel’s austerity condemned Europe and Germany to decline – The New Statesman
, 28/09/2021
At the height of the eurozone crisis, one of Angela Merkel’s close advisers explained to me her driving ambition: to bequeath to her successor a stronger chancellery than she inherited. If so, as Merkel prepares to retire, she should be delighted. Germany’s trade surpluses, and thus political clout, are far greater now than when she took office […]
ANOTHER NOW – Interviewed by Radio New Zealand
, 27/09/2021
A well-known critic of the neoliberal world order, economist Yanis Varoufakis believes capitalism has become ‘techno-feudalism’ – with tech companies and Covid making the rich even richer and the poor poorer. But he also believes there is a democratic socialist alternative, which he presents in his 2020 novel Another Now: Dispatches from an Alternative Present. Varoufakis asks […]
Gillian Tett & Yanis Varoufakis, through their books Anthrovision & Another Now, revisit capitalism – An IQ2 event, live and in situ, Union Chapel, London, Monday 4th Oct 2021
, 20/09/2021
SPEAKERS Yanis Varoufakis: Greek MP & former finance minister of Greece and author of Another Now: Dispatches from an Alternative Present Gillian Tett: Chairman of the US editorial board and U.S editor-at-large at the Financial Times Gillian Tett is the pioneering columnist who has spent the last decade documenting the rise of ‘conscious capitalism’, a movement led […]
What is money, really? And why Bitcoin is not the answer (even if blockchain is brilliant & potentially helpful in democratising money)
, 02/08/2021
Recently, I argued that a central bank cryptocurrency can be a useful tool in the struggle to democratise money. Such a tool is, of course, not enough. The main task in democratising money is first to democratise the central bank – before deploying useful instruments like a central bank cryptocurrency. As many readers (correctly) pointed […]
Square of hope and glory : On the 6th anniversary of the magnificent OXI rally at Syntagma Square
, 03/07/2021
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 […]
Austerity’s hidden purpose – Project Syndicate/Katmandu Post
, 20/05/2021
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
, 16/05/2021
“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
, 09/05/2021
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
, 16/04/2021
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
, 01/04/2021
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
, 12/02/2021
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!
, 28/01/2021
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
, 23/01/2021
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
, 05/01/2021
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
, 30/12/2020
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 […]