English
mέta – DiEM25’s & MeRA25’s Centre for Postcapitalist Civilisation premiers tonight, 13th May, at 19.00CET
, 12/05/2021
Imagine the world anew, together. Thursday 13 May 2021, at 19.00CET (17.00GMT, 20.00 Athens time), streaming at mέta’s YouTube channel and at facebook.com/meta.cpc. Through a sequence of intensifying crises, capitalism has already morphed into a dystopian postmodern, hi-tech version of feudalism. Postcapitalism is, thus, already here. Through art and research, argument and poetry, mέta, the […]
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 Eternal Marx: Reviewing Shlomo Avineri’s KARL MARX: PHILOSOPHY & RELIGION
, 04/05/2021
Shlomo Avineri’s recent biography demolishes the charge that Karl Marx was a self-hating anti-Semite. And by dragging Marx, kicking and screaming, back into the Rhinish Jewish community that shaped him, Avineri yields new insights pertinent to today’s global challenges. Shlomo Avineri, Karl Marx: Philosophy and Revolution, Yale University Press, 2019. The problem with egotists is that […]
Football Takes Capitalism Out of Bounds – Project Syndicate
, 04/05/2021
Europe has discovered its moral Rubicon, the frontier beyond which commodification becomes intolerable. The line in the sand that Europeans refuse to cross, come what may, has just been drawn. We bowed to bankers who almost blew up capitalism, bailing them out at the expense of our weakest citizens. We turned a blind eye to […]
Listen now to the Communist Manifesto, including the new introduction of the latest Penguin edition
, 24/04/2021
Penguin’s recent edition of the Communist Manifesto is now available on audio here and here. (Meanwhile, here is an extract of my introduction to the Manifesto – as it appeared in The Guardian. For a manifesto to succeed, it must speak to our hearts like a poem while infecting the mind with images and ideas […]
Another Now Beyond Technofeudalism – in conversation with Giuseppe Iannaccone, Professor of Electronics at the University of Pisa
, 18/04/2021
A conversation on the vision in my political science fiction novel ANOTHER NOW for an alternative world, beyond the present version of capitalism – which I call Technofeudalism. Here is a statement by Giuseppe Iannaccone on ANOTHER NOW before we had our discussion (which you can watch above): Another Now is a fascinating book. It […]
‘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 […]
A Covid-19 counterfactual for Europe – Project Syndicate
, 10/04/2021
Imagine that the coronavirus pandemic, rather than undermining confidence in the European Union, had strengthened it. Imagine that Covid-19 had persuaded EU leaders to overcome years of acrimony and fragmentation. Imagine that it had catalysed the emergence this year of a stronger, more integrated bloc to which the world looked for global leadership. Imagine. It […]
Everything Must Change! DiEM-TV’s lockdown interviews now available as a book
, 05/04/2021
As the pandemic placed capitalism in suspended animation, dividing us between the privileged who could afford to quarantine ourselves and those who risked life and limb keeping the world’s wheels turning, DiEM-TV went into action. Srecko Horvat and I began a series of livestreamed discussions with one aim in mind: to keep alive the hope […]
What Europe Must Now Do – DiEM25’s Progressive European Policy Agenda for the 2020s
, 01/04/2021
Covid-19 has unveiled the EU’s lack of institutions that can address a public health crisis. It has also confirmed that the EU continues to lack the institutions necessary to reduce the economic imbalances which undermine the Union, suppress investment and cause preventable economic failures that undercut the life prospects of the majority of Europeans. Lastly, […]
Draghi’s outrageous deployment of McKinsey, Europe’s predicament, DiEM25’s proposals – La Stampa
, 15/03/2021
Last week, upon hearing that Mario Draghi, as Italy’s new PM, employed McKinsey to advise the government on how to spend the billions of the EU Recovery Fund, I tweeted, in anger and frustration: So predictable, so sad: Mario Draghi hired McKinsey to ‘organise’ Italy’s distribution of the Recovery Fund monies. What next? Get the […]
Transcending Technofeudalism is necessary but insufficient. To shape postcapitalism progressives need a feisty, autonomous feminist movement
, 10/03/2021
Crises affect women more than they do men. Every crisis, economic or environmental, weakens women and the cause of defeating patriarchy. DiEM25 policies bolster women by tackling the crises which weaken them. But, these policies are not enough. Without an autonomous feminist movement that tackles power everywhere, patriarchy will not be defeated. To this purpose […]
The Goldilocks Stimulus Myth – Project Syndicate, The Kathmandu Post
, 09/03/2021
Both supporters and critics of US President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus plan assume that there is a dollar amount that is just right. In fact, no such figure exists: every possible stimulus size is simultaneously too little and too big. ATHENS – US President Joe Biden, facing the great challenge of stimulating his country’s […]
Is the EU Recovery Fund a step toward integration or further fragmentation? Moderated by Kevin Featherstone, organised by the German & the Hellenic Societies at the LSE
, 23/02/2021
Capitalism has become Technofeudalism | UpFront interview on Al Jazeera
, 21/02/2021
A recent Oxfam study found that since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the world’s richest 10 billionaires have seen a wealth increase of half a trillion dollars – enough to pay for every person on the planet to get a vaccine. In this UpFront special, Marc Lamont Hill discusses with economist and former Greek […]
‘Trumpism after Trump’ – Premier of LET’S TALK IT OVER, co-hosted by Roger Waters & Yanis Varoufakis
, 21/02/2021
In the premiere of LET’S TALK IT OVER, Noura Erakat and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor are the guests of Yanis Varoufakis and Roger Waters to discuss TRUMPISM AFTER TRUMP.
The Consequences of Capitalism – Guest Lecture at the U of Arizona, 16th February 2021
, 19/02/2021
Invited by Noam Chomsky and Marvin Waterstone, here is an audio of the lecture I delivered to University of Arizona students on ‘The Consequences of Capitalism”
In support of Ken Loach in the face of absurd accusations of antisemitism
, 16/02/2021
So, it’s come to that: Ken Loach is now the target of a character assassination campaign waged by those who will stop at nothing to shield the Apartheid policies of Israel. Their message to people of good conscience is simple: Unless you too want to be tainted as an antisemite, keep quiet about the crimes […]
The EU’s multiple failures are due to its immunity to democracy – The New Statesman
, 14/02/2021
From denial, to grudging acceptance, to substantial intervention, to debacle: that was the European Union’s trajectory once the storm that nearly consumed Wall Street in 2008 had crossed the Atlantic, starting the euro crisis. Twelve years later, the EU’s reaction to Covid-19’s arrival is following an ominously comparable trajectory. Eurosceptics take aim at the EU’s […]
Speaking of antisemitism… – A personal view as related to my DiEM25 comrades (video + text)
, 14/02/2021
On 4th February 2021, DiEM25’s coordinating collective held a discussion on how progressives can, at once, fight antisemitism and remain highly critical of Israel’s policies. You can watch a video of my speech and read an extended version of these thoughts below. Last week, while discussing competing identities, I argued that it is unacceptable to […]
Trumpism after Trump – NEWSWEEK magazine, interviewed by Basit Mahmood
, 12/02/2021
He’s been described as the George Clooney of the government, a rockstar politician who took on the EU and an “erratic Marxist.” Few politicians can hope – or fear – to achieve the levels of notoriety Yanis Varoufakis did in just six months while serving as finance minister of Greece. A world-renowned economist, Varoufakis now […]
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 […]
Was the GameStop episode a version of ANOTHER NOW’s Crowdshorters-in-action ? On Channel 4 (video)
, 30/01/2021
Further to this post, in which I compare my ANOTHER NOW‘s fictional Crowdshorters with the crowd that used Reddit to collude so as to defeat the hedge funds shorting GameStop, you can now watch my brief debate with Frances Coppola on Channel 4. Was that episode of broader interest? Is this a new phenomenon of […]