Essays
Want to know why the recent ECB stress tests of the Greek banks had to be fraudulent? – Video interview on TheStreet
, 17/05/2018
To watch the video click on the photo above or click here.
Discussing Seattle’s Amazon Head Tax on NPR’s (KUOW NPR 94.9) ‘On The Record’ – 15 MAY 2018
, 16/05/2018
MONDAY – THURSDAY, NOON – 1:00 P.M. HOSTED BY BILL RADKE
THE NATION: Yanis Varoufakis’s vision for a more democratic Europe – a review of ‘Adults in the Room’, ‘Talking to My Daughter About The Economy’ & ‘And the Weak Suffer What They Must?’ by Atossa Araxia Abrahamian
, 15/05/2018
The idea of a unified Europe didn’t always elicit the current mixture of exasperation, boredom, and rage, in politicians and ordinary people alike. In fact, there was a time when the European Union seemed like a great initiative, especially on a continent ravaged first by two hot wars, then broken in half by a cold […]
EL PAIS: COMPORTARSE COMO ADULTOS: El exministro de Finanzas griego ha publicado un libro sobre las entretelas de la política europea
, 15/05/2018
Polémico. Atractivo. Brillante. Controvertido. Los seis meses de Yanis Varoufakis(Atenas, 1961) al frente del Ministerio de Finanzas de Grecia lo convirtieron en una celebridad global, en una suerte de estrella del rock de la política económica. Sus detractores lo caricaturizan como un extremista medio chiflado de izquierdas —según su propia definición—, enamorado de las motos potentes, de los […]
Marx predicted our present crisis; and points the way out – The Guardian, LONG READ, 20 APR 2018, print and audio versions
, 15/05/2018
For a manifesto to succeed, it must speak to our hearts like a poem while infecting the mind with images and ideas that are dazzlingly new. It needs to open our eyes to the true causes of the bewildering, disturbing, exciting changes occurring around us, exposing the possibilities with which our current reality is pregnant. […]
Turn the Brexit page and let’s move on by uniting progressives in the UK and in the EU: Interview in BIG ISSUE NORTH, 22 APR 2018
, 15/05/2018
Progressive people and politicians in the UK should end the “idiocy” of wishing for a second referendum on Brexit and instead turn to what can be salvaged from leaving the EU, according to Yanis Varoufakis, the former Greek finance minister. Even though the UK is likely to leave the EU with a bad deal, it […]
Liberal Totalitarianism – Project Syndicate op-ed, 30 APR 2018
, 15/05/2018
LISBON – It used to be an axiom of liberalism that freedom meant inalienable self-ownership. You were your own property. You could lease yourself to an employer for a limited period, and for a mutually agreed price, but your property rights over yourself could not be bought or sold. Over the past two centuries, this […]
Yanis Varoufakis: “Italien ist zu groß, um schikaniert zu werden” – Der Standard interview 12 MAI 2018
, 12/05/2018
Yanis Varoufakis galt für wenige Monate als der streitbarste Politiker in der Eurozone: Nach dem Wahlsieg der linken Syriza war er zwischen Jänner und Juli 2015 Finanzminister Griechenlands in der Regierung unter Premier Alexis Tsipras. Varoufakis versuchte vergeblich seine Amtskollegen zu einer Lockerung der Sparvorgaben für Griechenland zu überreden. Sein provokanter Stil stieß auf heftige […]
At home with the Financial Times – by Bruce Clark, 11 APR 2018
, 15/04/2018
Yanis Varoufakis is full of teasing paradoxes. As a radical economics guru, he expounds on the state of the world with a mixture of burning grievance and brimming, almost imperious, self-confidence. Aged 57, his personal baggage includes a keen sense of the wrongs of recent Greek history, which overshadowed his parents’ lives, and the glories […]
Our new European party can unite Britain’s feuding Remainers and Leavers – by Yanis Varoufakis, Benoit Hamon (Generation-s), Luigi de Magistris (mayor of Naples), Rasmus Nordqvist (Alternativet); Rui Tavares, former MEP from Portugal (Livre); & Agnieszka Dziemianowicz-Bąk (Razem), op-ed in The Guardian
, 15/04/2018
The European Union and the UK are on a cliff edge. Left to its Brussels-based establishment, the EU continues to turn against most of its people who, as a consequence, turn against Brussels. Meanwhile, facing an immensely damaging Brexit, the people of Britain are becoming despondent. This is the moment for British and continental progressives to forge […]
Internationalism vs Globalisation: Why progressives across Europe and beyond must forge a common internationalist movement – Talk at the Royal Festival Hall, accompanied by Andreas Gursky’s images and Danae Stratou’s ‘The Globalising Wall), 9 APR 2018
, 13/04/2018
Ladies and Gentlemen, my heartfelt thanks for your presence here tonight. Thanks also to the good people at South Bank who honoured me with the humbling idea and invitation to combine my own musings on globalisation with the remarkable images of Andreas Gursky – images which have, over the years, done so much to enlighten […]
Why we founded new political party MeRA25 to challenge austerity in Greece – The New Statesman, 5 APR 2018
, 07/04/2018
After successfully quashing Greece’s 2015 debtor’s prison break, Europe’s deep establishment has embarked on a mission to declare the country’s economic and social crisis over. To recall Tacitus, “they make a desert and they call it peace”. Since 2015, the Greek state has paid its creditors a sum equal to the aggregate pre-tax revenues of […]
INTERNATIONALISM vs GLOBALISATION, at the Royal Festival Hall, London, in association with the adjacent Andreas Gursky exhibition at the Hayward Gallery – this Monday 9th APR 2018, 19.30
, 07/04/2018
Join economist and Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25) co-founder Yanis Varoufakis for a keynote talk on the economic force that has shaped our world: globalisation. This South Bank talk is punctuated by images from acclaimed German photographer, Andreas Gursky, whose iconic photographs have documented global capital and its effects for three decades, and whose […]
No Brexit for a Eurozone Britain? Project Syndicate op-ed
, 04/04/2018
As British Prime Minister Theresa May is finding out, disentangling a member state from the EU is an arduous and complex undertaking. But how much harder would Brexit have been had the United Kingdom adopted the euro back in 2000? ATHENS – “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.” […]
Support the Stansted 15: When solidarity becomes a terrorist-related offence liberty and democracy die
, 22/03/2018
Last March, 15 activists chained themselves around an aircraft that was being used by British authorities to deport asylum seekers from Stansted Airport, many of whom had legitimate reasons to fear for their lives if returned to countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan. While at first the Stansted 15 were charged with aggravated trespass, the charges were soon […]
SHAKING THE SUPERFLUX: Shakespeare, economics, and the possibility of justice – 6th Annual Shakespeare Rose Lecture, 19th March 2018, Rose Theatre, Kingston
, 22/03/2018
Full script of my lecture at the Rose Theatre on Shakespeare: Since brevity is, indeed, the soul of wit, let me begin by stating the obvious: I am as qualified to deliver an annual Shakespeare lecture in this splendid theatre as an ant that walks in wonder on an iPhone is able to explain the mystery […]
The Guardian previews my Annual Shakespeare Lecture, tonight (19 March 2018) at the Rose Theatre
, 19/03/2018
Mark Lawson, in today’s Guardian, previews my Annual Shakespeare Rose Lecture, ahead of tonight’s delivery. He begins with its title ‘Shake the Superflux’ and the statement: ‘The beauty of King Lear is that it encourages us to think about inequality’. Is Theresa May Macbeth? Might King Lear agree with Jeremy Corbyn? On Monday night, one of Europe’s leading […]
Trump and trade tariffs: big lies founded on small truths – The Guardian, 18 MAR 2018
, 18/03/2018
Donald Trump is perhaps the US president best equipped to understand that some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall. His personal business plan always involved racking up enormous deficits and debts, before finding a way to unload them on to others – his employees and creditors mostly. Last week the US president imposed tariffs […]
‘Shake the Superflux’: Yanis Varoufakis to deliver the 6th Annual Rose Shakespeare Lecture, Monday 19th March 2018
, 18/03/2018
Yanis Varoufakis has emerged not only as an embattled finance minister, iconoclastic economist, and co-founder of the Democracy in Europe Movement (DiEM25), but a life-long lover of Shakespeare. He called the Greek debt crisis ‘a Shakespearean tragedy’, reported that observing the European Union is ‘like watching Othello’, and compared the world’s Deep Establishment to Shylock and Macbeth. Those […]
LA STAMPA interview on the Italian election result (the original answers in English) – 9 MAR 2018
, 09/03/2018
In this interview LA STAMPA sought my views on the outcome of the Italian elections. My original answers (in English) appear below. The gist? Italy’s election result is yet another example of the political centre’s implosion as a result of the establishment’s perseverance with failed, austerity-based policies, pretending that they were the solution to our […]
Was defeat inevitable? A review of Adam Tooze’s meta-review of ‘Adults in the Room’ [1]
, 07/03/2018
To read one excellent review of one’s book is a joy. To read an engaging and deeply thoughtful review of different categories of reviews of one’s book is a rare privilege. Normally, I should have left matters there, enjoying the diversity of opinion that Adults in the Room engendered. But this is not an academic book […]
How Europe’s Band-Aid Ensures Greece’s Debt Bondage – Project Syndicate op-ed, 26 FEB 2018
, 04/03/2018
ATHENS – Greece’s never-ending public-debt saga has come to signify the European Union’s inept handling of its inevitable eurozone crisis. Eight years after its bankruptcy, the Greek state’s persistent insolvency remains an embarrassment for Europe’s officialdom. That seems to be why, after having declared the euro crisis over in the rest of Europe, the authorities […]