Op-ed
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Η ανοσία στη Δημοκρατία ως η ρίζα των αστοχιών της ΕΕ – The New Statesman
, 14/02/2021
Το άρθρο πρωτοδημοσιεύτηκε στον New Statesman την 3η Φεβρουαρίου 2021 και παρουσάζεται εδώ σε μετάφραση της Ασπασίας Φεγγούλη. Προέκυψε από πρόσκληση του αρχισυντάκτη του New Statesman να σχολιάσω το εμβολιαστικό φιάσκο της ΕΕ . Από την άρνηση της πραγματικότητας στην απρόθυμη αποδοχή, από την απρόθυμη αποδοχή στις σημαντικές παρεμβάσεις και από κει στην πανωλεθρία: αυτή […]
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 […]
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 […]
In conversation on the postcapitalist vision in my ANOTHER NOW – JACOBIN interview & DISSENS podcast
, 17/12/2020
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 […]
Designing a postcapitalist future in the midst of the pandemic – The Saturday Paper
, 10/12/2020
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 […]
A chat on ANOTHER NOW with The Guardian’s Zoe Williams – The Guardian Live
, 04/12/2020
‘Another Now is structurally, ideologically and linguistically an extraordinary work’ Zoe Williams
A free Central Bank account for all would be a good start for a revamped monetary system – WIRED
, 27/11/2020
Imagine that the Bank of England were to create a free bank account for everyone. Overnight, it would be far better placed to regulate the money supply in the public interest. Moreover, to stay in business, commercial banks would have to seriously raise their game. In times of trouble, such as the current pandemic, the […]
Today, Black Friday, we are boycotting Amazon, globally – Damien Gayle in The Guardian
, 27/11/2020
The economist Yanis Varoufakis has called for a one-day boycott of Amazon on Black Friday as trade unionists, environmental activists, privacy campaigners and tax justice advocates plan coordinated actions against the company’s sites and supply chain. Amazon’s success during the coronavirus pandemic – at one point the company was reported to be making sales of $11,000 (£8,200) […]
Live discussion of ANOTHER NOW with Zoe Williams – A GUARDIAN LIVE event this Monday at 19.00GMT
, 21/11/2020
In Another Now, Varoufakis imagines a post-capitalist democracy. Set in 2025, through three contrasting characters – a banker, a feminist and a technologist – he paints a radical and thought-provoking blueprint of how democratic socialism could work today, in a world without billionaires, stock markets or tech giants. Can we truly critique capitalism without genuinely considering the […]
The op-ed that The Guardian would have published had Trump won: Compare and contrast
, 11/11/2020
Before the US Presidential Election the Guardian kindly asked me to write two articles: one in case of a Biden victory, one in case of a Trump victory. I was happy to write them, only to be startled by how similar the two articles ended up being. Interested readers can read here the article that […]
Hoping for a return to normal after Trump? That’s the last thing we need – The GUARDIAN
, 11/11/2020
Normalcy and the restoration of a modicum of decorum to the White House: that is what many elite supporters of Joe Biden hope for now that he has won the election. But the rest of us are turned off by this meagre ambition. Voters who loathe Trump celebrate his loss, but the majority rue the return […]
ANOTHER NOW reviewed by Luke McCarthy in The Monthly
, 24/10/2020
Politics in a time of pandemic are grim. In the face of such global catastrophe, one that has only exacerbated the extractive, sclerotic nature of our existing economy, those on the left are burdened with the question: is there an alternative? And, if there is, how can we get there? These are the very questions […]
How progressives could still win the 21st century – The Correspondent
, 06/10/2020
Our era will be remembered for the triumphant march of authoritarianism in whose wake the vast majority of humanity have experienced unnecessary hardship and the planet’s ecosystem has suffered avoidable climate destruction. For a brief period – a period the British historian Eric Hobsbawm described as “the short 20th century” – establishment forces were united in dealing with challenges […]
Diary entries on Brexit, defending refugees & writing postcapitalist fiction – THE NEWSTATESMAN
, 28/09/2020
Reading the newspapers last Monday, I was reminded that negotiations with Brussels are always an occasion for second-rate theatre. Ultimatums are usually issued by EU negotiators facing UK governments that talk enthusiastically of red lines and sovereignty. But now, if the Telegraph is to be believed, it is Boris Johnson who has given the EU […]
ANOTHER NOW: My political science fiction novel depicting a fully-fledged socialism we could have had – THE GUARDIAN
, 05/09/2020
When Margaret Thatcher coined “Tina” – her 1980s dictum that “There is no alternative” – I was incensed because, deep down, I felt she had a point: the left had neither a credible nor a desirable alternative to capitalism. Leftists excel at pinpointing what is wrong with really-existing capitalism. We are good at demonstrating that […]
The EU coronavirus Recovery Fund will take Europe another step towards disintegration – The Guardian
, 25/07/2020
During the early years of the eurozone crisis, I remember gauging its depths by the rapidly diminishing half-life of the celebrations that followed every European Union summit. Premature proclamations that the crisis was over inspired hope, which caused the money markets to rebound. But then, at some point, gloom would unfailingly return. As the years of […]
While EU leaders squabble, the Elephant in the Room remains unnoticed
, 18/07/2020
While the media are reporting the news of the deadlocked EU Summit negotiations over the so-called ‘Recovery Fund’, an eerie silence prevails regarding the Elephant in the Room: The huge wave of austerity the Eurozone is sleepwalking towards. Let’s look at the facts. Even if the Dutch Prime Minister, Mr Rutte, and the rest of […]
The Eurozone’s grappling with crisis, class war & the North-South divide – Berliner Verlag interview
, 16/07/2020
What did you think when the Euro-group elected its new leader last week? At least this was not the outcome Frau Merkel had wished? My first thought was that it spelled the end of any possibility of harmonizing corporate tax rates across the Eurozone, an issue that I am on Mrs Merkel’s side. The second […]