Op-ed
By continuing the persecution of Julian Assange, Biden jetissons the 1st Amendment – The Nation
, 11/12/2023
In early 2024, a new, grim chapter may be written in the annals of journalistic history. Julian Assange, the publisher of Wikileaks, could board a plane for extradition to the United States, where he faces up to 175 years in prison on espionage charges for the crime of publishing newsworthy information. The persecution of Assange is […]
Europe’s 15-Year Slump – Project Syndicate op-ed
, 22/11/2023
The European Union’s supporters celebrate the survival of the euro, the fact that public debt is no longer the threat it was, and, crucially, that their mercantilist business model remains intact. But it has come at a steep price: Europe’s permanent stagnation and continuing fragmentation. ATHENS – Europe is languishing in a long-term economic slump whose origins […]
On Europe’s historic responsibility for the war crimes in the ancient land of Palestine – Al Jazeera
, 18/11/2023
On UpFront, interviewed by Marc Lamont Hill on Europe’s historic responsibility and current role in the Israel-Gaza war.
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 […]
The NEW STATESMAN reviews my TECHNOFEUDALISM
, 07/10/2023
Socialists periodically predict the downfall of capitalism, but each decade the coffin remains empty. In his new book, Yanis Varoufakis – the former Greek finance minister, game theorist and “erratic Marxist” – offers a twist on this familiar narrative. Capitalism, he writes, has already died – we just failed to notice. By George Eaton “It […]
UNHERD interviews me on TECHNOFEUDALISM
, 05/10/2023
In his new book, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, Yanis Varoufakis, the Leftist economist and former finance minister of Greece, suggests that the capitalist age has already come to an end. He argues that a new global economic and political system has stealthily replaced the old order, with the emerging dominance of tech monopolies like Amazon and Google. He […]
Long interview with Carole Cadwalladr, for the Observer/Guardian, on my Technofeudalism
, 04/10/2023
What could be more delightful than a trip to Greece to meet Yanis Varoufakis, the charismatic leftwing firebrand who tried to stick it to the man, AKA the IMF, EU and entire global financial order? The mental imagery I have before the visit is roughly two parts Zorba the Gr eek to one part an episode of […]
The MONTHLY reviews my TECHNOFEUDALISM
, 28/09/2023
The economist and author’s latest book considers how 21st-century capitalism resembles feudalism, and offers an alternative Yanis Varoufakis – former Greek minister of finance, economics lecturer and prolific writer of books – has often admitted that the left is good at critiquing capitalism but not so good at suggesting alternatives. “When Margaret Thatcher coined ‘Tina’ […]
Christine Lagarde’s Gifts to Populists – Project Syndicate
, 27/09/2023
Since taking over as president of the European Central Bank in late 2019, Christine Lagarde has committed three major errors that play right into the hands of right-wing populists. Now, one can only hope that these parties’ own incompetence will sink them before next year’s European Parliament elections. ATHENS – Christine Lagarde’s three blunders as president […]
Why can’t the EU power ahead with green subsidies like Biden’s? It isn’t just political procrastination – THE GUARDIAN
, 14/09/2023
Inglorious procrastination is one of the European Union’s standard responses to major crises. This is not merely due to the difficulty of getting twenty-seven Prime Ministers and Presidents to agree. It is also because of their motivated tendency to ask themselves the wrong questions, thus heading slowly but inexorably to self-harming policy solutions. After the […]
What’s behind this summer’s unnaturally huge Greek forest fires – UNHERD
, 31/08/2023
My grandmother had the theory that, as we get older, our mind subconsciously cleanses our memories of a myriad misfortunes, leaving a sanitised version of the past for us to feel nostalgic about. The optimism of remembrance, she called it. Little did she know that her reasonable hypothesis would, one day, become the climate change […]
How the EU out-trumped Trump, plus what is killing capitalism: My last week’s Diary in The New Statesman
, 18/07/2023
The week started ominously with a French journalist asking me whether the Greeks have turned cold-hearted, alluding to the apparent apathy to the drowning of hundreds of refugees off the coast of the Peloponnese and to the murky role played in this tragedy by our Coastguard. Yes, I replied without a second thought. A population […]
New AI Germ Busters Can Also Bust Unions – Project Syndicate op-ed
, 18/07/2023
Humanity has now developed AI algorithms capable of fully decoding a killer bug’s proteins and creating an effective antibiotic. Was there ever any doubt that conglomerates like Amazon would seize upon this opportunity to shrink workplaces along their supply chain where AI predicts a higher probability of unionization? ATHENS – Last week brought a rare good-news […]
Austerity Ruined Europe, and Now It’s Back – Project Syndicate op-ed
, 17/07/2023
The United States is experiencing an investment boom, owing to industrial policies that grant enormous subsidies – including to European firms – for investing in America, largely in green tech. Europe, meanwhile, is responding with a return to the austerity policies that caused it to fall behind the US in the first place. ATHENS – […]
Who’s Afraid of Central Bank Digital Currencies? Project Syndicate op-ed
, 01/06/2023
Once upon a time, the greed of tobacco companies was channeled through libertarian outrage over the restriction of smokers’ freedom to choose cancer. Today, the outrage is serving the interests of bankers panicking at the prospect of central bank digital currencies. ATHENS – When First Republic Bank failed, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation organized a […]
The Strange Death of the Liberal Individual – Project Syndicate op-ed
, 01/06/2023
Only a comprehensive reconfiguration of property rights over the increasingly cloud-based instruments of production, distribution, collaboration, and communication can rescue the foundational liberal idea of liberty as self-ownership. Reviving the liberal individual thus requires precisely what liberals detest: a revolution. ATHENS – My father was the epitome of the liberal individual, a splendid irony for […]
La Stampa interview (English version) on Greek gvt refugee policy, Greece’s economy, MeRA25′ electoral setback, the euro, Italy’s PD and… Angela Merkel
, 29/05/2023
In this post you will find my original answers (in English) to La Stampa‘s varied questions (27/5/2023); from the Greek government’s shameful policy on refugees and MeRA25’s electoral setback, to the future of the Eurozone, my friend Elly Schlein’s leadership of Italy’s main opposition party, the PD and, yes, Angela Merkel! Almost all parties, on […]
On Al Jazeera, explaining what I mean when proposing that we blow up the banking system
, 09/04/2023
For a related article click here.
Time to Blow Up the Banking System – Project Syndicate, March 2023
, 09/04/2023
The banking system we take for granted is unfixable. The good news is that we no longer need to rely on any private, rent-seeking, socially destabilizing network of banks, at least not the way we have so far. This time the banking crisis is different. It is, in fact, worse than in 2007/8 when we […]
Europe’s latest illiberal democracy: Greece! – New Statesman
, 24/03/2023
“Like lambs to the slaughter” was how an elderly neighbour described the deaths of youngsters travelling on Intercity 62 which, on the night of 28 February, crashed head-on with a freight train in Greece killing 57 people. Many of the dead were students returning after a long weekend from Athens to their universities in Thessaloniki. […]
On the shameful deal Osborne-Mitsotakis are hammering out over the Parthenon antiquities – UNHERD
, 24/03/2023
From the very beginning, Elgin’s removal of the Parthenon’s statues and friezes caused something of a discursive British civil war. On one side were humanists, like Lord Byron; on the other were Empire apologists, who defend Elgin’s actions and support the British Museum’s inalienable property rights to the artefacts it, eventually, purchased from him. Over […]