How Techno-Feudalism Killed Capitalism w/ Yanis Varoufakis

Guest: Yanis Varoufakis is an economist and former finance minister of Greece. Currently, he is Professor of Economics at the University of Athens, and the Secretary-General of Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DEM25).
He is the author of many books, including Talking to My Daughter: A Brief History of Capitalism, Adults in the Room, and his latest, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism.

[@DrayseSchneider]

When Yanis started talking about how US Dollars act as IOUs that could only be invested in US stocks, made me think of "Super Imperialism." Remarkable how these sorts of things all tie together.

[@toriverdin3692]

This is quite freaky! Thank you so much; we need to know who and how we´re being exploited. It never stops: masters and servants (or worse). Thank you for sharing these think tanks, and their important discoveries! Much appreciated 🌟

[@witHonor1]

We returned to feudalism before the internet, in the late 70's. Do you own your home, or pay a mortgage/rent? A mortgage isn't owning for 20-30 years and you won't dent the principal for 8-10 years and statistically people move every 5-7 years. You'll never own a home in feudalism AND the land you rent isn't making income, just filtering your wages from landlord to landlord. Newish car without a lease or car payment? Never own it. To the point that Uber/Lyft drivers rent from Enterprise/Budget to be a gig worker. They are renting the means of production AND paying a technofeudal lord for the digital opportunity. You're getting shafted two ways now.

[@Praisethesunson]

Exactly. Americans own basically nothing these days and are too alienated to think to do anything about it.

[@chickenfishhybrid44]

​@Praisethesunson 40 percent of Americans own their home outright. Apparently, that's a record high. A lot of that is boomers, I'm sure, but still.

[@johneverett2271]

And more so, employment-feudalism: for most people in the US, your health insurance ties you to your job just as a medieval peasant's place of birth tied them to the land.The real value of the Exchange is giving people an option to break free, which is the real reason conservatives are opposed to it.

[@Aveeguides]

You’re very right on this. The way I see it, we had this very short period of time between feudalism and now where there actually _was_ potential for the poor to move up in class and actually own property/capital. Unfortunately that window closed probably around the 60’s/70’s. I have a million things I could say on _what_ caused that opportunity to die, but I’m sure you can already guess some of them. It’s almost comforting in a way. Humans have always had these unfair hierarchies. We’ve always lived in divided classes with little to no mobility. So really, whats happening is we’re waking up from the _dream_ of class mobility; and it’s our decreasing quality of life that’s causing us to wake up. We had a better quality of life before, but not necessarily the democratic and capitalist life we thought we did. Let’s be real-most of us were never capitalist and never had capital (means of production). Most of us have always been laborers. We just have less money now, and thus a lower quality of life.

[@paulbuschman8318]

Excellent discussion.

[@nightoftheworld]

8:21 *behavioral modification in cloud capital trap* “Now behavioral modification has always been with us. I mean what you do Mitch, with your program, is you try to modify the behavior of people to inform them, to educate them, to influence them-because that’s what we do whenever we open our mouths, we try to modify people’s behavior. This is part of human nature, it’s part of society, it’s the discourse-Orators, philosophers, priests, revolutionaries, you know anyone who opens their mouth has tried to modify the behaviors of others. But this is the first time ever that we have a machine, a piece of capital, a produced means, that modifies behavior.”

[@lnarachi]

thanks for this Mitch - it was super interesting today

[@joeldwest]

Love love love you Yani

[@PNNYRFACE]

Good stuff

[@abrambadal8997]

Few points that escaped Mitch to ask Yanis : When & How & who created the FED : ( FED owners after 1913 are Imperialists of Finance Capital dominating the world markets ( N. America plus Europe was 80% of Wprld Market then) before Cloudists come around ) ? When did the Cloudists took over the power ? When Yanis explains how Kissinger asked his '' intelligent '' question ( how to get out of USA deficit ? ) & Paul Walker answered it : make the other capitalists German Japanese French Italians .... pay for it ! from 36 min on Yanis explains that FED owners ( that Kissinger is working for FED owners , Rockefellers--J.P. Morgan--Rothchieldes--B.A.--City Gr. etc.... ) due to their unintended results of Quantitative Easings gave rise to Cloudists ??? The question is how when there is no Internet and the networks start to be extended & Internationalized after 1990 ? .......

[@hazelwray4184]

2:52 "CUT" - Yanis was momentarily startled by something. What happened, was it a cat? Lol

[@jackfromm]

The enshittification is real. It’s happening on dating apps, which have become something people rely on

[@Praisethesunson]

Dating apps can't make money if you find your life partner after two weeks.

[@Fireball4511]

Under capitalism, the extraction of profits supercedes all other motives. Under feudalism, the extraction of rents supercedes all other motives.

[@chriswong9158]

Saudi Arabia ends petrodollar agreement, 9th June 2024.

[@UserName_no1]

He's right. Sellers sold their goods on the side of the road in order to capture the attention of travellers. After the Advent of the printed page newspapers could reach a larger audience, as was the case with TV. The problem was that it didn't target consumers with pin point accuracy. Once that was achieved they could then manipulate consumers into buying any given product. Based on the mega data gleaned from this comment I made and whether or not you liked it. Subliminal advertising run amuck.

[@comment6864]

Russia has yandex, VK, telegram and more

[@indycoon]

Wildberries, Ozon , Sberbank with their tools and services , 1C, MIR payment system etc

[@michaelmullenfiddler]

Enshitification. Chef's kiss. Lol

[@llavatrice]

I think excellent assessment. We can see with our eye what is happening. I disagree that Chinese capitalists want $ to prevail. I don't think Mister Yanis understand how much Chinese have contempt for USA. Even if they got good profit from US treasury bond they will sell if Chinese government want them to 😊

[@nightoftheworld]

1:04 *technofeudalism* “My argument is that capital killed capitalism.”

[@kyledrums]

**Trump voice/hands** CHINA!

[@ReedMyresDavid]

How do most of you guys still make profit, even with the downturn of the economy and ever increasing life standards

[@KN0852]

Well, I picked the challenge to put my finances in order. Then I invested in cryptocurrency, stocks, through the assistance of my discretionary fund manager

[@KN0852]

Mrs Nancy Williams Laplace

[@ann-ie4hc]

This is correct, Nancy's strategy has normalized winning trades for me also and it’s a huge milestone for me looking back to how it all started..

[@OwenMaureen]

Nancy is considered a key Crypto Strategist with one of the best copy Trading Portfolios and also very active in the cryptocurrency space.

[@Cindy-sy8fw]

The first step to successful investment is figuring your goals and risk tolerance either on your own or with the help of a financial professional but it's very advisable you make use of professional

[@ahmuqasim7540]

Yanis Varoufakis is great. However I do not think that techno feudalism is sustainable for any considerable time. It will be there but at a much reduced scale. Technological and institutional changes will reduce the power of techno feudals.

[@ChrisCleg]

This is a very optimistic view of economic history

[@ahmuqasim7540]

@@ChrisCleg I am thinking about the response of the ruling class to techno feudalism. They know a stark class differences can bring an end to the system. They will save it by making the system at minimum fair for more capitalists. Bourgeois democracy is flexible and ready to learn from anyone when need be. During the 2008 crisis German capitalists invited Marxists to tell them what is wrong with the system. They of course were not interested in Marxist solutions. But knowing what is wrong is half of the answer. It helps them think of own solutions. I like Yanis's solution of democratized ownership of companies. But that requires a strong and successful political movement which is unlikely. Most likely we will end up with a reformed techno feudalism that will allow some competition and fairness among all types of capitalists. So, I guess I am sort of pessimistic!

[@Praisethesunson]

Sustainability has never been the goal of any tech industry

[@siamakgarmroudi4779]

The interviewer clearly is not intellectually up to task to comprehend the subject matter.

[@comment6864]

ok wait a minute.. owning the electric grid is way different than owning a bunch of tractors or industrial robots that YOU BOUGHT to make something you invented, for example

[@Praisethesunson]

Being different doesn't change that their method of getting profit are both the same. You own something and use your ability as a mandatory middle man to extract maximum wealth for yourself. Except it's never yourself. It's an institution that has access to more capital than your entire bloodline will ever have.

[@comment6864]

@@Praisethesunson Extracting wealth from something you built and own is basically being allowed to keep what God provides. What you do with it is on your conscience, but nobody's right to take away. Do not steal.

[@comment6864]

@@Praisethesunson The problems in this country are not related to capital or owning and producing, but rather to the laws favoring speculators and speculation and to the fact that you can become wealthy through financial manipulations while producing nothing, also to the economy being not market driven but rather marketing driven.

[@rogueherbalist]

What is the solution for the common man? Do you buy hard assets like gold and build up your own capital?

[@KoIossov]

The solution is for the working class to take state power for themselves, so that the state is a tool for the benefit of workers, providing safety and stability for all, rather than a weapon used by the ruling capitalist class to hold everybody else down. It may be a long road, but it must begin with working people reading, engaging each other in discussion, educating themselves, accepting the reality that they live in, and that they themselves hold the power to change this reality, but only if they all stand together and work towards their goal as one

[@kerryf9399]

Wouldn't the definition of capitalism easily include techno fuedalism? "an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit." I'm not convinced, and anyway so what? Does he want to replace Marx or something?

[@Ahng_Noying9574]

The difference can be made with one word: rent. Capitalists (supposedly) take risks to earn profits. Lords extract rents merely for existing.

[@papi5377]

+tania bezużyteczna edukacja [zachodnia] I to tu utkwił problem.

[@ericgendell8874]

There is no debate that Yanis is a brilliant guy, however, he is off base. Feudalism is an outgrowth of the alpha-dominant instinct which has a series of checks and balances in nature, primarily, time as the alpha-dominant male ages out of the competition and younger, stronger alphas knock him out of the seat of power. The beta types who could not compete with alphas at the level of brute force exploit changes in conditions of heirarchies of power where the alphas "age out" of the competition. The betas who were forced to develop powers of cunning in order to be in the competition manage to transform their physical disadvantage at the level of brute power to predatory cunning to forge alliances with competing sub-alphas who cannot compete with the true alpha for primacy by themselves. By forging alliances the betas gather and coordinate strength in numbers through psychic manipulation which provides them with the advantage of developing effective strategies to exploit weakness in the dominant alpha through strategically devoloping beneficial alliances with other sub or secondary alphas to sieze and maintain the reins of power long after the expiration date of their vitality and ability to maintain dominance through their own powers. Betas, adopting and masquerading with alpha traits are able to manipulate others to maintain their place and relevance in the heirarchy to impose their will by pressuring others to exert brute force through military alliance. The shift in power from feudalism to capitalism to techno-feudalism is essentially the shift from psychopathy to higher functioning sociopathy. Feudalism is an outgrowth of the alpha dominant instinct and capitalism is an outgrowth of feudalism, regardless of the transformation or transmogrification, the alpha dominant instinct which is also present in betas is the driving, motivating foce that adapts to respond to changing conditions, of which the development of technology drives the evolution of the alpha dominant instinct. The transition from feudalism to capitalism to tec hno-feudalism is in essence, the alpha dominant instinct reinventing itself to adapt to changing conditions.

[@Praisethesunson]

Lol your comment was peak beta thinking. All that alpha beta nonsense was disproven years ago.

[@nightoftheworld]

Zizek always makes the point about no ethnic cleansing/genocide without poetry. As he likes to quote of Chesterton’s Father Brown detective character: _”’The ordinary detective goes to pot-houses to arrest thieves; we go to artistic tea-parties to detect pessimists. The ordinary detective discovers from a ledger or a diary that a crime has been committed. We discover from a book of sonnets that a crime will be committed. We have to trace the origin of those dreadful thoughts that drive men on at last to intellectual fanaticism and intellectual crime.’_ As cultural conservatives would have put it today, deconstructionist philosophers are much more dangerous than actual terrorists.” -Zizek, Hegel - Chesterton: German Idealism and Christianity, _The Symptom_ (2006, issue 7) Alpha is not mere physical force, it is poetic and ideological. Like Chesterton says of God as ultimate alpha- “Christianity is the only religion on earth that has felt that omnipotence made God incomplete. Christianity alone felt that God, to be wholly God, must have been a rebel as well as a king. Alone of all creeds, Christianity has added courage to the virtues of the Creator. For the only courage worth calling courage must necessarily mean that the soul passes a breaking point -- and does not break.” -G.K. Chesterton, _Orthodoxy_