Politics and Economics
The State of the Global Economy under the heavy burden of twelve lost years – Keynote (audio + text)
, 21/01/2022
A keynote summing up my view that, since 2009, the world has wasted enormous resources in a bid to re-float finance and at the expense of our capacity to look after each other, and the planet, at a time humanity is facing existential threats – from climate catastrophe to war and toxic politics. My discussants […]
A prediction for 2022, plus two book recommendations – Happy New Year everyone!
, 30/12/2021
No impending New Year deserves to be unaccompanied with predictions that it, the New Year, will then proceed to ridicule. So, to tempt fate, here is my prediction for the 2022. Plus, two eye-opening books I recommend to people kept up at night by concerns similar to mine. Happy New Year to all, friends and […]
Why Croatia should NOT adopt the euro PLUS European politics, technofeudalism, US & China – Interviewed by Vecernji List
, 27/12/2021
In an exclusive interview by Nataša Vlašić Smrekar for Croatian media Vecernji List, I explained why it would be a grave error for non-eurozone EU member-states, like Croatia, to adopt the euro. We also talked extensively about European politics, Technofeudalism, my novel Another Now, and the US-China stand-off. Here is the original English language version […]
Defining wealth in 65 words for SPEARS magazine
, 27/12/2021
Spears asked me, and three others, to define WEALTH in fewer than 70 words. Their rationale was that, at the time of Spear’s founding, in 2006, there were fewer than 1,000 billionaires world-wide; their combined net worth a little under $3 trillion. Today, there are 2,755 billionaires, according to Forbes, and they have a collective […]
How should self-managed enterprises work in a postcapitalist setting? Follow the ongoing M. Albert-Y. Varoufakis debate
, 24/12/2021
Tragically, most people take bosses for granted. Capitalist firms have them by construction, by design. But, what of cooperative enterprises that are owned by everyone working within them? Do they also need bosses? A managerial class that tells the rest what to do? Or can we envisage boss-less firms? If so, how do things that […]
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 […]
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. […]
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.
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 […]
Is Universal Basic Income a good idea? My debate with Daron Acemoglou on Pairagraph
, 11/06/2021
Pairagragh hosts structured debates between pairs of scholars, politicians etc. taking opposing views on some issue. In this one, Daron Acemoglu and I are debating Universal Basic Income – Daron opposing it and I defending it. Enjoy! Daron Acemoglou’s opening salvo We need a better and stronger social safety net. We need ways of combating […]
Where is Global Capitalism Going? My discussion with Ammar Ali Jan on the occasion of the 1st Anniversary of the Progressive International
, 27/05/2021
Honouring the one-year anniversary of the Progressive International, Council members Yanis Varoufakis and Ammar Ali Jan engage in a wide-ranging debate about the direction of global capitalism in a turbulent age of crisis, pandemic, and political unrest. Ammar Ali Jan is a historian and member of Haqooq-e-Khalq Movement in Pakistan. Yanis Varoufakis is Member of […]
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, […]
8 Answers to 8 Questions on Economic Theory, Economic Policy, Humanity & Capitalism – interviewed for The Age of Economics
, 16/05/2021
In this extensive interview, for the good people at The Age of Economics, I try to answer eight large questions ranging from “Why does economics matter?” and “What are the differences between economics and natural science or engineering?” to “Is capitalism a natural system, given human nature, for serving humanity’s purposes?”. 1. Why does economics […]
From the peculiar failure of economic theory to capitalism’s transition to technofeudalism: A discussion with Ilan Pappé
, 16/05/2021
We met to discuss economic theory’s curious failures, how they relate to neoliberalist ideology, the manner in which the Crash of 2008 gave rise to the transition of capitalism to technofeudalism, and the prospects of international solidarity to give humanity a chance to escape both technofeudalism and the climate emergency. However, we spent the first […]
Debating the EU with Douglas Murray on UNHERD – video
, 16/05/2021
“The EU has had a difficult pandemic. A slow procurement of vaccines, followed by a botched rollout, and blame-shifting by its leaders has drawn together critics from all politics stripes. Two of unlikely bedfellows from very different political traditions, Douglas Murray and Yanis Varoufakis, joined Freddie Sayers for a discussion about the bloc at an […]
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 […]
‘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 […]
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 […]