Books
At the Edinburgh Festival, in conversation with Jeremy Corbyn on reviving socialism, with Maria Alyokhina (Pussy Riot) on despotism, and with Shami Chakrabarti on liberty
, 08/01/2019
In 2018, the good people behind the Edinburgh Festival kindly invited me to host a series of discussions under the title KILLING DEMOCRACY? My remit was: Further to explore the question of whether the current form of financialised capitalism is devouring democracy, reflecting on my work with the Democracy in Europe Movement (DiEM25). In a series […]
Realistic Utopias versus Dystopic Realities – Oxford University, Taylor Lecture, 12/2/2019
, 22/12/2018
The Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, Oxford University, kindly invited me to deliver the 2019 Taylor Lecture on 12th February 2019. In my book was addressed to my daughter regarding the economy I tried to offer her a simple, though not simplistic, account on how capitalism works and how it fails. Critics, correctly, pointed out that the book’s […]
Behind the closed doors of negotiations with the EU? – The Guardian podcast, November 2018
, 10/11/2018
As the Brexit negotiations near crunch point, Theresa May is still battling to keep her party on side as she edges closer to a deal with Brussels. But is it possible to take on the EU in negotiations and win? One man who staked his political career on trying just that was the former Greek finance minister Yanis […]
DiEM25’s radical Europeanist political agenda – Interviewed by Jacobin’s David Broder
, 03/11/2018
Last Friday, Yanis Varoufakis was in Italy to promote European Spring, a list of candidates standing across the continent in next May’s European election. The former Greek finance minister visited Rome just days after the European Commission had struck down the Italian government’s budget, sparking further rows over Brussels’ authority to curb member states’ spending. […]
On Europe’s austerity drive and DiEM25 – an OECD podcast
, 15/10/2018
One country that symbolised the crisis of the last 10 years was Greece. Its insolvency embarked the country on a long regime of bail-outs and austerity. This August, Greece officially emerged from the crisis, with the OECD forecasting GDP growth again. So, did the austerity work? The former Greek finance minister and co-founder of the […]
The 5S-Lega Italian government is continuing the failed Renzi strategy of demanding the right to bend the fiscal rules without demanding a re-assessment of the fiscal rules – interviewed for AGI by Arcangelo Rociola
, 03/10/2018
This is the English language (original) interview with Arcangelo Rociola, published on the AGI site in Italian, on the Italian government’s clash with Brussels over its budget deficit, the plans for a flat tax (that is not flat) and a universal income (that will never be universal), the 5S Movement’s claim to the mantle of the […]
Discussing Europe, Brexit, capitalism, DiEM25 and almost everything in between with Ruth Wishart at the Edinburgh Book Festival, August 18, 2018
, 01/10/2018
2008 and the International New Deal we need for the post-2018 world – OECD Keynote, 14 SEP 2018
, 18/09/2018
2008 marked globalised capitalism’s near death experience. A decade later we have no right to be looking at those events as part of our economic history. The reason? We are still entangled in the crisis that the events of 2008 sparked off. They remain very much at the centre of our present. The […]
Is the world safer than it was in 2008? Ten Guardian writers think not
, 17/09/2018
Yanis Varoufakis: Risk has not been diminished, just taken out of sight Ten years after its near-death experience, capitalism is back to its old ways. Bailouts for the few and austerity for the many have caused global debt to rise 40% since 2007. Yes, British and European banks have contracted (as US authorities required Barclays, Deutsche […]
Lessons from 2008 for beyond 2018: Keynote this Friday 14th September at the OECD, Paris
, 12/09/2018
Before 2008 we could all see that global trade imbalances were growing inexorably, creating a glut of savings in surplus countries that flowed into deficit countries, causing house price, stock exchange and debt bubbles whose bursting would never end well. What few could see, however, was that, behind the dominant narrative of unfettered competition and […]
Ten Years After Lehman’s Collapse: What caused the Crash of 2008 is now shaping our post-modern 1930s – der Freitag
, 10/09/2018
In the autumn of 2008 events unfolded in Wall Street that the crushing majority of people around the world had been led to believe could never occur. It was the financial equivalent of watching the sun spinning out of control soon after it rose above the horizon. Humanity watched on in collective disbelief. The […]
Im Reich der Gier – der Freitag
, 10/09/2018
Mythos Der Kapitalismus ist entzaubert und bringt uns das größte Faschismusproblem seit den Dreißigern Was im Herbst 2008 an der Wall Street geschah, hatten die allermeisten Menschen bis dahin für unmöglich gehalten, schließlich hatte man ihnen jahrelang weisgemacht, dass etwas Derartiges schlichtweg nicht passieren könnte. Es war, als ob man dabei zuguckt, wie die Sonne, kurz […]
CRASHED: Long version of my Observer review of Adam Tooze’s new book on the Crash of 2008
, 13/08/2018
Every so often humanity manages genuinely to surprise itself. Events to which we had previously assigned zero probability push us into what the ancient Greeks referred to as aporia: a state of intense bafflement urgently demanding a new model of the world we live in. The Crash of 2008 was such a moment. Suddenly, the […]
On The Jolly Swagmen podcast, discussing economics, the economy, politics, Europe & Greece
, 26/07/2018
Joe speaks with former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, the man who defied Europe to save Greece – and failed. Yanis, the suave economics professor turned unexpected politician, has recently announced he will run for Prime Minister of Greece at the next national elections. He is the author of multiple books including And The Weak Suffer […]
L’autre Europe de Yanis Varoufakis: Radio France Culture
, 20/07/2018
Yanis Varoufakis, ancien ministre des Finances grec, auteur de Et les faibles subissent ce qu’ils doivent ? : comment l’Europe de l’austérité menace la stabilité du monde, chez Actes Sud. L’ancien ministre des finances grec Yanis Varoufakis lors de la manifestation internationale du 1er mai 2018 à Athènes. •Crédits : GIORGOS GEORGIOU / NURPHOTO – AFP CLICK HERE FOR […]
If Trump wants to blow up the world order, who will stop him? op-ed in The Guardian
, 19/07/2018
Even before Donald Trump drove to tears of dismay NATO’s leaders, Theresa May, the EU’s officialdom and Washington’s own ‘intelligence community’, the writing was on the wall: Trump is methodically dismantling a world order that he no longer believes to be in the interests of the United States’ ruling class. Mon 11 Jun 2018 16.23 BST Donald Trump’s early […]
A letter to my daughter about the black magic of banking…
, 19/07/2018
As you grow up and experience more of the ups and downs of the economy, you will notice a piece of mindbending hypocrisy: during the good times, bankers, entrepreneurs—rich people in general—tend to be against government. They criticize it as a “brake on development,” a “parasite” feeding on the private sector through taxation, an “enemy […]
AUSTERITY (in 144 pages)- A Vintage mini
, 17/07/2018
How do we choose between what is fair and just, and what our debtors demand of us? Yanis Varoufakis was put in such a dilemma in 2015 when he became the finance minister of Greece. In this rousing book, he charts the absurdities that underpin calls for austerity, as well as his own battles with […]
Why Germany neither can nor should pay more to save the eurozone – IFO Munich Seminar, 11 June 2018
, 17/07/2018
“I wanted a Germany that was hegemonic and efficient, not authoritarian and caught up in a European Ponzi scheme. That was in 2013.” Excerpt from the Munich Seminar. This CESifo group Munich seminar took place on June 11, 2018 in Ludwig-Maximilian University, in Munich, in the Grosse Aula of the Ludwig-Maximilian University. The euro crisis has highlighted […]
An anniversary to savour: the three days that shook Europe – 3rd to 6th July 2015 (Extracts from my ADULTS IN THE ROOM)
, 05/07/2018
Three years ago, today, the people of Greece staged a rebellion against their debt bondage. Though this rebellion was overthrown from within almost immediately, it remains a remarkable testimony to the power of a people to say No to the oligarchy, to wrestle control of the narrative of their circumstances from the inanely authoritarian elites, […]
Germany has been wasting its wealth in a manner that prevents the rest of the Eurozone from earning its keep – Video interview for Mission Money, Munich
, 26/06/2018
Er galt als der große Euro-Schreck während seiner Amtszeit als griechischer Finanzminister! Doch waren die Vorwürfe von Politikern und Medien gegen Yanis Varoufakis wirklich gerechtfertigt? Im Interview mit der Mission Money vertritt Varoufakis spannende Positionen. Deutschland dürfe nicht für Pleite-Staaten haften, fordert er. Und außerdem werde Deutschland aus dem Euro austreten, wenn ein ganz bestimmtes […]
The Globalising Wall: How Globalisation built walls and divisions. By Y. Varoufakis & D. Stratou, in the Architectural Review
, 20/06/2018
Our theme is a wall. A wall that is neither some ordinary physical structure at a specific site, nor a symbolic wall. It takes a material form in sites around the globe while transcending locations and leapfrogging whole continents as if in a strange quest to globalise itself, to infect our supposedly unifying world with […]
Live at ‘Politics and Prose’, Washington DC
, 03/06/2018
Yanis Varoufakis discusses his books, Adults in the Room and Talking to my Daughter About the Economy, at Politics and Prose on 10th May 2018 In his eye-opening memoir, Adults in the Room, Varoufakis, Greece’s former Finance Minister, recounts his frustrating struggle to resolve Greece’s debt crisis without resorting to austerity measures. His book give […]
New York Magazine – Interviewed by Felipe Ossa: “Yanis Varoufakis Has Some Ideas About How to Save the Future”
, 28/05/2018
Much of the world was introduced to Yanis Varoufakis in early 2015, when, as Greece’s bold new finance minister (he rode a Yamaha to work and tabloids touted his sex appeal), he led negotiations with the European Union, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund to restructure the country’s crushing load of government debt. […]