Varoufakis on “post-capitalism”
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According to Varoufakis , we are living in a “post capitalist , techno feudalist dystopia”. Of course the basic premiss of his argument is nonsense – we are very much living in a capitalist, not post capitalist, society. However, if you can wade through the typical left wing imagery of “revolution” at the start of this video, it does make some interesting points later on which are worth discussing
Yanis Varoufakis: We are living in a post-capitalist, techno-feudalist dystopia
He should become a theoretician of the postmodernists. I think we had one of those theoreticians in this forum. Capitalism returning back to feudalism is like communism returning back to capitalism, like the propaganda made during the collapse of the Soviet Union
Varoufakis promotes his version of anti-capitalism
“Enough of their hypocrisy, their war-mongering, their financialization of lives, and the privatization of our commons,” Varoufakis declared. “Progressives of the world refuse to take sides on this new ‘cold’ hot war. We are instead building a new non-aligned movement to fight for humanity’s survival by working for peace, solidarity, and cooperation,”
To end “the tyranny of capital over people” and reclaim “plundered commons on land, in the oceans, in the air, and soon in outer space,” Varoufakis called for two key reforms.
The first is to ensure that “corporations belong to the people who work in them on the basis of one person, one share, one vote,” said Varoufakis.
The second is to deny “banks a monopoly over peoples’ transactions.”
Once that happens, banks and profits will “wither as society’s main drivers,” the political economist argued, “because the banks will be defanged” and the distinction between profits and wages erased.
“The simultaneous euthanasia of the labor markets and the share markets, along with the defanging of the banks, will automatically redistribute wealth and as a magnificent byproduct, remove the main incentives for waging war.”
I read his book, and his notion of a co-operative workplace where everyone just does the tasks they want to do is intriguing and a solid start for imagining a post-capitalist co-operative (I think, IIRC, there was a bit of a problem with the possibility of kibbutz style hiring in short term workers who would not get full membership rights).
Ah, yes, here’s the review
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