Former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis Talks Techno-Feudalism, Upcoming Book, and European Politics at Cambridge Union
The left-wing intellectual and politician, Dr Varoufakis, addressed topics including Brexit, the future of European integration, the war in Ukraine, and answered several questions asked by students at the Union.
By Jonathan Marrow
On Tuesday, the Greek economist, politician, and academic Yanis Varoufakis spoke to a packed chamber of students at the Cambridge Union, addressing topics including Brexit, the future of European integration, and the war in Ukraine. Varoufakis served as Finance Minister of Greece in 2015, achieving international renown for his attempts to defy European mandates during the Greek debt crisis and his advocacy of social democratic economics as a leader in the left-wing political party, Syriza. He remains a member of the Greek Parliament as the founder and leader of a new left-wing party, MeRa25.
Interviewed by Union President Christopher George, Varoufakis addressed the economic and political impacts of the war in Ukraine, suggesting that despite superficial appearances, the conflict had made European integration less likely, calling it a “complete disaster for the EU.” Varoufakis criticized the importance of the European Union, arguing that it tends to lurch from crisis to crisis and is now “geo-strategically irrelevant within the continent of Europe”. In response to questions about Brexit, Varoufakis called himself a “soft Remainer”, criticizing both “hard Remainers”, whom he said “stupidly pushed for a second referendum”, and Brexiteers who need to explain with substance, the ambitious but vague slogans for a post-EU Britain like “Singapore on the Thames.” Varoufakis suggested that the UK needs a concrete strategy for managing Brexit, including an effective investment program for British industry, abandonment of the North Ireland protocol and the region’s exclusion from the single market, and forsaking misguided attempts to replace European countries with “insignificant” trading partners like New Zealand or Australia.
Varoufakis achieved prominence in the 2010s for his blunt rejections of austerity policies in the aftermath of the financial crisis, representing a new wave of left-wing politicians after the centrism of the 1990s. In the Union, Varoufakis discussed the political failures of the left in recent years. He suggested that Labour’s leader Keir Starmer is not a left-wing politician and has brought the UK political system back to a point where the two major parties lack substantive differences, calling them “cartels of two parties.” He suggested that the 40 years of British politics and economic growth were built on a “housing Ponzi scheme” initiated by Margaret Thatcher in which an industrialized economy was replaced with a system built on financial capital in the City of London, ultimately representing “capitalism with hot air.” Subsequent social democratic campaigns, like the Labour Party under Tony Blair, have been funded by bankers and, therefore, have neither the political nor the moral power to “clean out the bankers” after financial crises like that of 2008.
Varoufakis — who received his undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in the UK — joked that he enjoyed being back in a university setting where he could speak in theoretical terms, whereas “Things are thrown at me when I try to be too theoretical in parliament!” He critiqued infighting among left-wing advocates, suggesting that people eager to change the world often think of themselves as saviours, like in the classic Monty Python film Life of Brian. Varoufakis contended, “We left-wingers who want to change the world have to take ourselves less seriously and not think we have a monopoly on all the right answers!”
Students in the audience asked questions ranging from his stance on his oft-quoted concept of ‘techno-feudalist’ future careers, Greek debt, and Eastern European politics. Varoufakis said that he “never moralizes” and accepts that “people know what’s best for them” but suggests that going into banking or similar careers does provide “a good life.” On the Ukraine conflict, Varoufakis opposed responding to Russia’s invasion with Russophobic stands, calling it “the best gift you can give to Vladimir Putin” and argued that we should instead “think how we can best help democratic Russians held in Putin’s prisons.”
And Varoufakis prefaced his forthcoming book, Techno-Feudalism, which he has only “6 pages more to write”, and promised it will “annoy left-wingers more than anyone else!” The book argues that if 1991 was the “Waterloo for communism”, then 2008 was the “Waterloo for capitalism.” Despite the failures of state socialism, and the apparent triumph of capitalism, Varoufakis argues we are actually seeing a new phenomenon he calls “cloud capital” in which companies like Amazon, Alibaba, and Apple are invested more in “behaviour modification” than in actually producing and selling products. Ultimately, tech giants are no longer producers or even open marketplaces, but modern feudal lords, charging rent to online creators for the digital land like the Apple Store or Amazon marketplace that they run.
In an age when governments are so beholden to financial capital, Varoufakis said he doesn’t know how best to encourage democratic governance but suggested that the Chinese system — despite its authoritarian control — may provide a kind of economic model for the West. On his infamous attempts to end the Greek debt crisis, Varoufakis suggested that although it is no longer front-page news, as it was, the problems have not gone away. Instead, other European countries have continued to lend Greece money they will never be able to pay back while pretending this is not the case. He warned that Greece is turning into a kind of European Hawaii, a beautiful locale with 5-star hotels for tourists, where the local inhabitants live in almost slum-like conditions.
Varoufakis closed with a movie and a book recommendation; Citizen Kane, which contains themes that speak to today’s “broken politics of the west”, Rupert Murdoch-type characters, human fallibility, and beautiful acting; and the collected works of Shakespeare, the “one key text to bring with you to a desert island!”
Written by Jonathan Marrow. Jonathan is an MPhil in American history student at Homerton College, University of Cambridge.
Edited by Neelkabir Varsha Kapil.
