Entering our peasant era

[@thatwasprettyneat]

Part of what upsets me about this economic strife is that it's so abundantly addressable, but the political class is acting like it's intractable, because it serves them.

[@adiq94]

You can also add some postmodern philosophy to get more complete picture. Baudrillard writes about simulation, hyperreality and sign value. Foucault and Deleuze&Guattari write about power dynamics.

[@jessicat6136]

Lol love the visuals at the beginning

[@fittlea8248]

I think another thing that we can do, is to start by changing things at our local levels first, instead of trying at huge national levels which makes people feels extremely powerless, however if people come together at the local level, we can begin to truly and maybe begin seeing change while we slowly climb up the politcal ladder. Glad you're back and Great Video as well.

[@P.Aether]

Think globally and act locally

[@jensboettiger5286]

peasants spent much less time working for their lords than we do (1-2 days per week). Also I think feudal manor lords were much less sociopathic than corporations, and serfs never got fired.

[@jensboettiger5286]

Most serfs anyway. Servii Casati worked for the manor every day, and lived and served the lord directly, so there was a segment closer to peonage

[@pauldruhg2992]

Yes, when it's sunny and it's a proper time you work for a lord. Then you work for a church. When it's raining you can work for yourself 😢

[@Black_pearl_adrift]

Yeah but they didn’t have like legal rights or political representation. They had no economic or social mobility and couldn’t just stop being peasants. They couldn’t own their land, they were one step away from indentured servitude

[@jensboettiger5286]

​@@Black_pearl_adriftSerfs had very specific rights as part of being serfs. They had usage rights to clearly defined plots of land for farming and homes, the right to physical protection from violence, and relief from famine and natural disaster. A noble who failed to provide this could lose his title and fief. Each individual fief also had local rights by traditional law that was kept by local peasants. That's why it is called the "Common" law. Europe did not move away from this until Napoleon.

[@Black_pearl_adrift]

@@jensboettiger5286 but these are not equal rights through the inferiority of their birth they were given unequal rights to their lord a hierarchy imposed by nothing within them. That isn’t a good system that’s why weve moved beyond it

[@cealvert_]

I'm doubtful there will be any change until a point gets reached where people actually start to physically feel the effects of wealth inequality. The populace is more comfortable buying fast fashion and experiencing fast luxery than facing the realities of being poor. In Europe perhaps the continent with the most financially literature populace most socialist parties are on the decline, which doesn't inspire me with faith of a change occurring anytime soon. I had heard of techno feudalism but never bothered to look deeper into it. Thanks for the book req.

[@mandrakeruth]

the people do love their leash, to paraphrase Emma Goldman

[@P.Aether]

Bread and circuses. I feel like whoever doesn't want change, wants people constantly on the brink of thinking that constantly informing themselves with the news and even being socially conscious, but without taking action. Just going through life, changing your profile description flag.. today is ukraine and Palestine, tomorrow is something else... and like that, the years pass and nothing really changes... I mean.. everyone and their granma know about Palestine... the word is out.. how more awareness do you want? And what is happening? Did you prevent anything? Did you stop anything? No.. just talk and talk and talk and signal and talk.. it's just like porn at this point. It's like we are addicted to social justice, but without actually going in the real world and fighting for it, getting it, we just spend our lives just educating ourselves until what? We make a video essay about the topic?... I guess it's better than nothing, but what's the point if everyone is an essayist when we're still peasant class

[@Black_pearl_adrift]

I really like your filming background!

[@mxvega1097]

Umberto Eco wrote some interesting stuff about the return of the Middle Ages - early 90s - it's in Chaosmos, and some articles. Odo Marquard, ditto, very insightful philosopher, German hermeneuticist. In Defence of the Accidental is great. Varoufakis has got target fixation on tech corporates - he was better talking about capital and financialization 10 years ago.

[@Rolfwar]

I find Varoufakis' argument about the role of technology and global techno-conglomarates dominating our lives fascinating. But I think technology is only one side of the argument. It is true that global (or at least Western/Anglo-Saxon) homogeneitization is a predominant factor especially when it comes to discourse: atomized individuals pick and choose their own lifestyle subcultures, but also political aesthetics. This reinforces social standing based on the global culture, not the local one, and therefore even people who would otherwise get involved in local and national politics have little interest in them. At the same time, this global culture restricts and dictates what are acceptable political stances, to the point that everyone not complying with the vaguest liberal terms is excluded on grounds of extremism. Think about left-wing and right-wing "populism": stances such as demanding a salary not solely imposed by market forces, a right to a home and free tuition (on the left), or the role of religion in public life, or issues regarding immigration and international institutions (on the right) are immediately deemed extremist and excluded. What is left is a vague Euro-American liberalism that is absolutely toothless in mobilizing anyone. But the most important thing in this future neo-feudalism is the fact that social and political rights have been essentially replaced with consumeristic rewards starting in the 1970s-1980s. As such, people have come to understand society as a forum of consumption; as a result, consumers are the only real class that is left - but it will never be able to organise as a common entity, since atomized consumers, by definition, have different interests and share little but their purchasing power.

[@rememberyoureawomble1816]

I agree,we are about to change government in uk,so voters, vote against conservatives as a protest,but the alternative labour can’t offer anything,because the property owning class and asset management companies own 80% of the wealth and power,so politicians just enrich themselves,not the voters.

[@koaps]

The intro 😭😭

[@filhanislamictv8712]

Excellent presentation

[@richardcrook2112]

Which part of the US are you from? I don't normally like the American accent much but yours is really nice to listen to..

[@tricokon7686]

I am very sympathetic to the perspective you present in the video. It does feel true. I do not have a deep understanding of the topic, but I have recently seen some newspaper articles about how Auten and Splinter have published findings questioning the severity of the rise in inequality. While there are always contradictory perspectives in a field of study this is quite a major issue, and they seem to be very well respected. Do you have an opinion on this? Also, I thought you are studying philosophy? Or is it some sort of combined degree with philosophy and economics / politics?

[@andrianah.]

can you make a video on some of the best philosophy (etc) books you have read?? i want to read such books but don't know where to start

[@Tj123-h4f]

I agree with you!

[@Pazzak13]

Great vid ❤😊

[@chhhhhris]

According to the _woman conception of history,_ in different economic modes of production, women get to wear different clothes.

[@Diplomastronaut]

At least I’m the most glamorous peasant ✨

[@UnbearableYT]

Det er ganske så lett å føle pessimistisk disse dager.

[@lightghost7524]

8:23 cat

[@berneymark]

Love this video! But there is no wealthy global North and poor global South. NZ and Aussie have massive economies even forgetting plenty of other nations. It is true that wealthy countries are rich off the backs of others but there is no clean equator line of wealth. That’s not real, not everyone outside of Europe, America and China is poor.

[@JubaHD]

Good talk

[@tomaccino]

Nice voice!

[@brendanryan6740]

read plato

[@czechmeoutbabe1997]

Not gonna lie, I think Varoufakis gets kind of distracted by the Tech industry giants, and that his concept of "platform capitalism" gets in the way of a much more pervasive critique of our current system. Everyone sees that what Amazon is doing is totalitarian, anti-free-market and dystopian but I would argue that Amazon isn't what's destroying the world right now. The ultimate financialization of everything is. The fact that literally every single decision made in the world has to be market-oriented to be viable, the fact that short-term gains can relentlessly undercut long-term gains without punishment or correction, the fact that companies are able to get away with far more because they can subvert legislation, etc. Even Amazon's insane control over the market, gained very gradually throughout the decades, (even as Amazon was unprofitable year after year after year, just like Uber, or WeWork, or countless others) was facilitated by incredibly deep pockets and access to endless stock market investment. I'm not saying that Varoufakis is wrong when he talks about "platform capitalism", just that he seems to ignore that the way platform capitalism seems to occur downstream from regular capitalism - which eventually subverts its own Liberal rules of the market.

[@davidtyer2373]

I really agree with your assessment here. I think I have felt what you are talking about in my mind as a kind of commoditization of everything. I hate economics so I don't know much about it, but I think by commoditization I mean that economic value has been whittled down to the point that any idea or good or service has no art left in it. If I guess, I might also suggest a connection to how patreon also has arisen in our times as a result of the feudalistic reality that varoufakis is talking about. He might disagree, but what I'm saying is first that content creators exist as a reaction to losing the creativity they previously expressed in their 9-5 jobs, and second it's rather curious that these creators are in many cases supported by something we almost call patronage, even though the patrons are not the wealthy and powerful like they used to be, but rather, in my mind, they are the regular people who are still on the payroll of what I sort of see as the system of dying late stage capitalism. And the latest trend I see is that everyone is going on everyone else's podcast, which can have some value in terms of cross pollination of good ideas, but nonetheless seems also like we all shouldn't make each other videos and call it an economy. Ive heard it said that the pandemic was a result of certain corporations seeking to extract more profits for investors who were growing unhappy with returns, or in some cases to pre-empt the predicted future where soon no more return on investment would occur. I remember feeling a sense beginning back in around 2018 that investors all over the place were getting frustrated with lack of returns. I used to think the answer to late stage capitalism was to replace its basis on growth with a basis on efficiency, but now I see how that will lead to a liberal policy gentrification process involving "my solar panels are bigger than yours type stuff." My recent thoughts are that social networking of the right kind can replace the growth basis in capitalism, perhaps involving a kind of benevolent tribalism, in which we each follow a set of leaders and live and die by how well they lead us and how well we follow. When I say die, obviously for it to be benevolent there shouldn't be much death going on...I mean we follow who we follow until we find our lives enriched or detracted from. In this system there will be an ecosystem of communities driven hopefully by real people that replaces the tyranny of the algorithm that varoufakis seems to abhor. The existing hyperglobalized just in time world can be run by algorithms, but we can pursue our freedom, meaning and capitalist incentives through social connectivity between real people in terms of a complex web of leadership and followers hip. Investors in the stock market are all just commodities traders now. That's my two cents anyway.

[@nocapproductions5471]

You are so pretty. I would love to be a peasant with you 🥰

You should maybe refer to the third estate instead of "peasants". No ? Have you read limits to growth a 30 year update ?

[@KevinInPhoenix]

The Pareto principle shows that throughout time 80% of the wealth is controlled by 20% of the population. There is no evidence that there has ever been an equal distribution of wealth among a population. Expecting an equal distribution of wealth is at best nieve and at worst a childish worldview. For example, while there are many book authors there are only a small number of top selling authors of many books. This is not a fair or an equal distribution of wealth among authors but it does seem to follow a natural distribution.