Books
Welcome to the Age of Technofeudalism – interviewed by WIRED magazine
, 22/04/2024
The tech giants have overthrown capitalism. That’s the argument of former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, who became famous trying to defend debt-laden Greece from its German creditors. Varoufakis has never quite regained the notoriety of 2015. But he has remained a prominent left-wing voice. After a failed campaign for a seat in the European […]
NEW YORKER magazine: Has Capitalism Been Replaced by “Technofeudalism”?
, 01/04/2024
“I never planned to be a politician. Never. Not in my wildest nightmares,” the economist and former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis said the other day. He was fighting his way toward the exit at Columbia University’s Alfred Lerner Hall, where he’d just spoken at a conference on sustainable development. A man blocked his path: […]
Greece, EU elections, Palestine & the International Order – JACOBIN interview with David Broder
, 01/04/2024
Yanis Varoufakis’s new film series explains how elites used the financial crisis to terrorize Europe’s populations into submission. In this interview, he tells Jacobin why the anti-austerity movement failed and why the center is converging with the far right. Debt is to capitalism what hell is to Christianity: unpleasant, and essential.” Speaking in his new documentary […]
“It’s hard to read this book and deny its power” – WASHINGTON POST review of TECHNOFEUDALISM
, 01/04/2024
In the not-too-distant past, many Marxist philosophers were weighed down by a shared despair. Capitalism, they feared, had become so totalizing, so all-consuming, that there was no longer any possibility of overthrowing it. “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it,” Karl Marx famously wrote in 1845, […]
TECHNOFEUDALISM reviewed by Geert Lovink
, 01/04/2024
A meme is spreading: capitalism is dead. We’re toiling around in its carcass. Nothing appears as it seems in this zombie state of affairs. But why didn’t we notice? There’s confusion all over. Climate, Covid, Ukraine, Gaza. Is history accelerating, or, rather the opposite, stagnating, even regressing? In his latest book Techno Feudalism, Yanis Varoufakis states that […]
Does Australia know what it is getting into viz. the US-China New Cold War? GUARDIAN AUSTRALIA podcast
, 01/04/2024
Does Australia really want to become entangled in a war (Cold or Hot) between the US and China motivated by the clash of the world’s two super cloud fiefs?
Two reviews of TECHNOFEUDALISM by Conservative Publications ‘Free Beacon’ & ‘The European Conservative’
, 01/04/2024
In this age of self-referential bubbles, of performative mutual demonisation and of siloed ideological camps that make debate impossible, it was a breath of fresh air to spot two reviews of my TECHNOFEUDALISM by conservative publications: The Washington Free Beacon and The European Conservative. Disagreeing agreeably must surely be a major improvement to unreasoned, mutually […]
Reversing Europe’s and Australia’s slide into irrelevance & insecurity – National Press Club of Australia speech
, 14/03/2024
“Europe and Australia are facing a common existential threat: a creeping irrelevance caused, on the one hand, by our failure properly to invest and, on the other hand, by our ill-considered slide from a strategic dependence on the United States to a non-strategic, self-defeating servility to Washington’s policy agenda.” Yanis Varoufakis’s address at the National […]
Our Present Moment in History: a wide-ranging discussion with Aaron Bastani in a packed EarthH Theatre – 14th FEB 2024
, 02/03/2024
On 14th February 2024, I had the great privilege of a live discussion with Aaron Bastani in front of a marvellous audience at EartH in Hackney, North-East London. We talked about, of course, Israel-Palestine, but also about China and, in particular, the New Cold War being waged for control of what I call cloud capital. […]
PoliticsJOE interview on capitalism, technofeudalism, the Labour Party, Western Hegemony and Gaza
, 22/02/2024
Sat down to discuss the downfall of capitalism and Western hegemony, the Labour Party’s shunt to the right, and the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Also, we discussed Raoul Martinez’s documentary In The Eye of the Storm: The Political Odyssey of Yanis Varoufakis
The Politics & Letters Podcast – a (joyous) discussion on my TECHNOFEUDALISM
, 22/02/2024
What isn’t ending? What isn’t on the verge of extinction? It’s a short list of exemptions these days, and we, us human beings, aren’t on it. Neither are bees, bipartisanship, butterflies, coastlines, childhood, civility, coral reefs, democracy, elephants, empire, facts, families, frogs, gender, glaciers, God, higher education, humanities, love, male supremacy, manatees, manhood, men, morality, […]
Jacobin Magazine’s David Moscrop reviews my TECHNOFEUDALISM
, 22/02/2024
The idea that we are entering an era of techno-feudalism that will be worse than capitalism is chilling and controversial. We asked former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis to elucidate this idea, explain how we got here, and map out some alternatives. The controversial concept of techno-feudalism suggests we have transitioned from capitalism to something even […]
FORTUNE Magazine’s Nick Lichtenberg reviews my TECHNOFEUDALISM
, 22/02/2024
When I admit to my fandom as we sit down for a zoom interview, he immediately tells me off. (This is exactly what I wanted.) “I don’t want fans in life, you know,” he says. “Ever since I entered politics, I acquired two things that I never wanted to have: enemies and fans.” You see, […]
Why is Labour still using the self-defeating, discredited ‘maxed out credit card’ analogy? The GUARDIAN
, 22/02/2024
It is one thing to U-turn on a modest green transition programme. It is another to do so using mendacious Tory economic paradigms. Rarely has a lacklustre policy been abandoned for a reason so bad that it threatens to inflict long-term damage on a society. Independently of whether the £28bn green investment programme was the […]
Technofeudalism -a video essay summarising the book
, 04/02/2024
Wherever we turn, we witness the triumph of capital. Capital has prevailed everywhere: in warehouses, factories, offices, universities, public hospitals, the media – in space but also in the microcosm of genetic engineering. So, how do I dare claim that capitalism has been killed? By whom? The deliciously ironic answer is that capitalism was killed […]
The Two Faces of the Euro: Jacques Delors and Wolfgang Schäuble – Project Syndicate Long Read
, 03/02/2024
Of all European politicians who never led their countries, Jacques Delors and Wolfgang Schäuble had the greatest impact on Europe. Between them, the two men, who passed away within a day of each other in December, shaped today’s European Union, warts and all. ATHENS – Of all European politicians who never led their countries, Jacques Delors and Wolfgang […]
Q&A on Technofeudalism – interviewed by Lorenzo Tecleme for valori.it
, 13/01/2024
In our society, large companies wield a considerable amount of power, more inequalities spread within our systems, and lobbying pervades our democracy: how is it possible that capitalism is dying as you claim? My claim is that capitalism is being killed by a new form of highly toxic, highly concentrated capital (which I call cloud […]
Why Europe is not free to relate to China – China Daily op-ed
, 11/12/2023
As the 24th EU-China Summit concluded on Thursday, it is natural to want to look behind the declarations and official speeches to identify the deeper forces shaping the European Union’s relationship with China and its policies toward China. But to understand the nature of these forces, it is crucial to go back to the very […]
Review of TECHNOFEUDALISM – Christopher Pollard in ‘The Conversation’
, 12/11/2023
Yanis Varoufakis grew up during the Greek dictatorship of 1967-1974. He later became an economics professor and was briefly Greek finance minister in 2015. His late father, a chemical engineer in a steel plant, instilled in his son a critical appreciation of how technology drives social change. He also instilled him with a belief that […]
Discussing TECHNOFEUDALISM on ABC-tv THE DRUM with Ellen Fanning and panel
, 03/11/2023
Interviewed by Ellen Fanning on ABC-tv The Drum on my new book TECHNOFEUDALISM: What killed capitalism. A 20 minute-long discussion involving a diverse panel. Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism by Yanis Varoufakis is published by Bodley Head
The big idea: has the digital economy killed capitalism? – The Guardian
, 03/11/2023
Enter Amazon and you have exited capitalism. Despite all the buying and the selling that goes on there, you have entered a realm that can’t be thought of as a market, not even a digital one.” When I say this to people, which I frequently do in lectures and debates, they look at me as they […]
Big Tech Cannot Be Regulated – Project Syndicate op-ed
, 01/11/2023
Big Tech is so profoundly different from other industries that it cannot be regulated like the trusts, cartels, or conglomerates of the past. After all, if regulators tried to break up Facebook or TikTok, they would be confronted by enraged users for whom the universal nature of these platforms is the reason they use them. […]
El Pais long interview on my TECHNOFEUDALISM
, 20/10/2023
LONG READ by MIGUEL ÁNGEL GARCÍA VEGA in El Pais on my Technofeudalism. Miguel has interviewed me many times in the past but this time he did so exclusively for my new book TECHNOFEUDALISM: What killed capitalism which will shortly be available in Spanish also. Here is the English language version of Miguel’s piece, based […]
Cory Doctorow reviews my TECHNOFEUDALISM for truthdig
, 16/10/2023
Socialists have been hotly anticipating the end of capitalism since at least 1848, when Marx and Engels published The Communist Manifesto – but the Manifesto also reminds us that capitalism is only too happy to reinvent itself during its crises, coming back in new forms, over and over again. Now, in Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, Yanis Varoufakis – the “libertarian Marxist” former finance […]