English
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 […]
On Merkel’s Legacy, European Politics & the “Sordid Arms Race” on the Seas – On Democracy Now, with Amy Goodman
, 11/10/2021
The centre-left Social Democratic Party in Germany has narrowly claimed victory in an election that marks an end to the 16-year era of Angela Merkel’s conservative chancellorship. We look at what this means for Europe and the world with Yanis Varoufakis, a member of the Greek Parliament and the former finance minister of Greece. The […]
George Varoufakis (1925-2021)
, 30/09/2021
Shortly after midnight, on 29th September, George Varoufakis died. He was born in Cairo, Egypt in June 1925 where he finished his high school studies at the Ambetio School. After graduating, he worked at a branch of a Greek bank in Cairo before coming to Athens in 1946 to enrol in the Department of Chemistry […]
Merkel’s tenure condemned Germany to wealth-fuelled decline & the EU to debt-fuelled stagnation – JACOBIN
, 28/09/2021
Angela Merkel’s tenure will be remembered as Germany’s, and Europe’s, cruelest paradox. On the one hand, she dominated the continent’s politics like no other peacetime leader — and is leaving the German chancellery considerably more powerful than she had found it. But the way she built up this power condemned Germany to secular decline and […]
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 […]
Hypatia: my choice of a great life to re-visit and celebrate – on BBC Radio 4’s Great Lives
, 27/09/2021
When I was still in primary school, I sought my mum’s help in countering a friend’s bigoted assertion that “women are useless”, which he had based on the fact that our teachers never mentioned a single woman mathematician or scientist. My mum’s reply came immediately: Hypatia! So, when the producers of BBC Radio 4’s Great […]
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 […]
My farewell to Mikis Theodorakis – Der Freitag
, 09/09/2021
I must have been 6 or 7 years-old when I got whiff of the significance of Theodorakis’ music. It was around 1968 when my parents warned me not to tell anyone at school or in the neighbourhood that they owned records of his – and certainly not to admit that we listened to them. “Even […]
Remembering Mikis Theodorakis – BBC Radio 4, The World Tonight
, 03/09/2021
My first inkling that his music was significant was when my parents warned me – I must have been 6 or 7 yrs old – that merely whistling a Theodorakis tune was an arrestable offence – such was the fear that his music caused in the minds of our fascist rulers during the awful dictatorship […]
Star Trek versus Imperialist Doctrine – Common Dreams & Project Syndicate
, 31/08/2021
America’s liberal imperialist doctrine has been responsible for appalling carnage in places like Vietnam, Iraq, and Central America. But America has also produced a liberal anti-imperialist doctrine that remains ensconced in a TV series that has been captivating US audiences since 1966. ATHENS – On February 9, 1967, hours after the US Air Force pounded […]
Lessons from this summer’s calamitous Greek forests inferno – The Guardian
, 31/08/2021
After the second world war, Greece’s countryside experienced two debilitating human surges – an exodus of villagers, then a most peculiar human invasion of its fringes. These two surges, aided by a weak state and abetted by the climate crisis, have turned the low-level drama of naturally redemptive forest fires into this summer’s heart-wrenching catastrophe. […]
Barcelona City Council’s fight to shield flamingoes from rent-seeking flights of fancy: An excellent case study in municipalism vs corporate greed
, 05/08/2021
Covid-19 forced billions of humans to re-assess the way we live, work and travel. Monstrous wildfires (from British Columbia to Greece and Croatia) and murderous floods (e.g. Germany) have confirmed that which we should have known: We, humans, have damaged the planet, possibly, beyond repair. Against this background, it is heartbreaking to observe how our […]
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 […]
A central bank cryptocurrency to democratise money – Project Syndicate & Jordan Times
, 02/08/2021
The history of money has been the history of the struggles to control the payment system and the money tree. Today, with control over both resting in the hands of bankers, central banks’ efforts to boost business end up amplifying inequality while failing to address either economic stagnation or the looming climate disaster. The time […]
What political lessons can we learn from football? A lively chat with Brian Eno, Ken Loach & Roger Waters (plus a short text on the politics of football)
, 16/07/2021
On this, the 6th edition of LET’S TALK IT OVER, the whole gang (Brian Eno, Ken Loach, Yanis Varoufakis & Roger Waters, chaired as always by Frank Barat) is on stage – to chat about lessons progressives must/can learn from… football. It turned out a fun, and possibly, insightful, hour. Whatever the quality of our […]
From the creation of DiEM25 to Technofeudalism’s takeover during the pandemic – in conversation with The Cambridge Journal of LAW, POLITICS & ART
, 10/07/2021
To read the interview pdf form, click here Click here for the Journal’s site.
Central bank independence is a myth. What about green central banking? – op-ed in Green Central Banking
, 10/07/2021
Last week the ECB announced its new policy of ‘going green’. How can a conventional central bank do this? Only by discriminating against bonds and equities issued by companies damaging the environment that it accepts as collateral, or which it buys, in return for loans ‘greening’ its purchase/acceptance policy. Is ‘green central banking’ a move […]
Open Letter to Joe Biden by 95 Greek MPs: “Drop all charges against Julian Assange!”
, 07/07/2021
As part of the international mobilisation to apply pressure on the US government to end the persecution of Julian Assange, MeRA25 invited members of Greece’s Parliament to co-sign the letter below, addressed to President Biden. The letter reminds the US President that, as Obama’s Vice-President, he took the decision not to prosecute Julian. Indeed, the […]
Techno-Feudalism Is Taking Over – Project Syndicate op-ed
, 05/07/2021
This is how capitalism ends: not with a revolutionary bang, but with an evolutionary whimper. Just as it displaced feudalism gradually, surreptitiously, until one day the bulk of human relations were market-based and feudalism was swept away, so capitalism today is being toppled by a new economic mode: techno-feudalism. This is a large claim that […]
Discussing books by Atwood, Balchain & Reid with Harriet Gilbert & Patrick McGrath – On BBC Radio 4’s A GOOD READ
, 05/07/2021
In this episode of Radio 4’s THE GOOD READ, I found myself choosing Margaret Atwood’s treatise on debt (Payback: Debt & The Shadow Side of Wealth) for discussion with presenter Harriet Gilbert and author Patrick McGrath. In Payback, Atwood examines money lending throughout the ages and how it has been portrayed in classic literature. Meanwhile, […]
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 […]
Who is afraid of Julian Assange? Why are they so determined to suck the life slowly out of his body?
, 03/07/2021
My dear friend Julian continues to waste away in Britain’ Guantanamo, the victim of ruthless Western governments determined to suck his life slowly from his body as a cautionary tale to anyone who dares expose inconvenient truths. DiEM25, the movement that Julian co-founded, is moving heaven and earth to stop them. Today, Saturday 3rd July, […]
Revisiting the causes & effects of Brexit – New Statesman video interview
, 24/06/2021
Here I am conversing with New Statesman’s George Eaton, reflecting on five years since the EU referendum, Scottish independence, a UK progressive alliance, and whether the EU can stay relevant post Brexit. Lest I be misunderstood, viz the New Statesman’s title: Given the EU’s post-2008 trajectory, & its behaviour more recently, if I were a […]