Technofeudalism and Cloud Capital: A Conversation with Yanis Varoufakis
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- čas přidán 9. 07. 2022
- Is a new economic model toppling capitalism? Yanis Varoufakis, the former Greek Minister for Finance and current leader of the MeRA25 Party, discusses the future of capitalism, his theories of technofeudalism and cloud capital, and the invasion of Ukraine. This event was hosted on April 4, 2022 by Stanford in Government member Ryan Cieslikowski.
Stanford in Government (SIG) is Stanford's preeminent organization for students dedicated to public service and civic engagement. To learn more about SIG, follow us on Instagram (@stanfordingov), Facebook (Stanford in Government), and Twitter (@stanfordingov). You can also visit our website: sig.stanford.edu.
Professors should've cancelled their classes so that they could attend this great lecture.
hahaha well said!
Must have been political pressure that made them choose so
Professors should’ve canceled classes so they, themselves could attend this fascinating (now future)!
This is the only guy in the world who knows what the hell is going on and the elites vilify him for it. Much respect.
Still behind on the solution wbich is taking over
This is the guy who closed the banks in Greece and inflated the national debt. I bet if you lived in Greece you would get off the cloud. Greece suffered from the Varufakis financial experiments when he was the position of Minister of Finance
@@sunnyperka5791 Greece was the victim of predatory lending by German banks with German government collusion. The whole crisis was engineered to get German banks out of their spot. Yanis is quite popular in Greece and he blew the whistle on the German ponzi scheme.
@@rogersmith7396 it is not exactly like this. Apart from the financial debt that already existed the way that Yanis handled the whole situation was catastrophic. I am from Greece and I can assure you Yanis is not at all popular in Greece. People think of him as a joke. His party (Mera 25) has an insignificant percentage.Where do you get your information from? Perhaps you should read Greek articles from Greek reporters in English otherwise you get misled.
the only person who has challenged these global satanists in reality, and not just in words, is Vladimir Putin, not this Greek ex-minister
Yanis is an important and very necessary voice, and is getting more important all the time. Also, his book Another Now is great and I think would go a long way to opening the eyes of the average person (especially here in the US) in terms of what is politically and economically possible. Thanks so much for this video!
Man, he really gets the macro picture!
He was also a professor in economics before he was finance minister of Greece.
Well done from both. Its always refreshing to hear Yanis break away from the conventional economics theories with thoughts of his own. Brilliant.
Heya alchemist, I think we are witnessing a new important relevant and gifted Theorist and logically grounded communicator. His views and observations make my day ( and disturb me incredibly) Regards.
@@joeadams1225 Agreed 💯
I appreciate that Dr. Varoufakis is willing to present in various venues. Really of the people.
The gap in power, wealth, political influence (etc) between present day techno-feudal lords (Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, the Google gangsters, etc).....and an ordinary human being that has to work for a living.....that gap is so big it makes the original feudal lords and the serfs they lorded over look like brothers.
The abuse that took place between lord and serf is magnified many times over by the abuse (actual or potential) that the modern day techno feudal lords can inflict on society.
But you heard the student say he and his cohort don’t mind giving up data for convenience. Therein lies the problem.
Wait till they control the food supply. They are working on it. At some point I expect them to raise mercenary armies for their protection. Maybe build castles.(Probably in the National Parks).
They will blame those calling for a more Peaceful Society for lackof ‘Security’ and they will blame the Environmentalist for destroying the eco-nomy. The Citizens are already doing the work for the Dividers of Society,,,,by blaming the opposing PoliticAl party, time to Declare Independence.
6 corporations control 80% of all the grain traded globally. They already own all our food. @@rogersmith7396
They know the world is overpopulated and plan to eliminate anyone that will not directly benefit them.
Is this guy brilliant or what...? His knowledge and intelligence just bursts out from the screen... a true greek (economic) philosopher of the 21st century... much love and respect!
Excellent interview. There’s a cancel culture in governments and corporate governance against those who know and speak the truth. Conformity rules the roost. I have myself suffered this fate and understood how “fate” flitters off people like Yanis. But truth is a prevailing paradigm in evolution, even economic evolution.
I think that Truth ultimately wins out, but not always at a time-scale for it to positively impact those living amongst multitudes of lies.
My father was a CBS ad man.
My brother is a Big Pharma C-suite exec.
My son is an AI PhD research developer for Google.
My daughter is an anesthesiologist doing a fellowship at Johns Hopkins.
These trends affect our lives directly... and certainly mine.
I was an academic in the applied arts... I seem to have been born rejecting the entire system... its political ideologies, its religions, its social arrangements & norms, its narrow, limited & constricting economic structures.
I don't know how other born critics & misfits do it... I've been drowning all my life. I've never been able to accommodate myself to any of this.
I've had moments of ecstatic happiness in my life, but most of it since about age 12 has been a long slog swimming against a riptide that has become a whirlpool.
Since about 1999, I've been haunted by the vision of what I saw as inevitable... fascism, authoritarianism... totalitarianism.
Dystopia.
Since 2007, nothing has surprised me until the plandemic.
I predicted the manufacturing of war & rampant inflation, but the exploitation of a "leaked" bioweapon was farther than I thought they would go.
I started using the term "neo-feudalism" -- though I had never heard it elsewhere -- in about 2008... people like Yanis reassure me of my sanity, at the very least.
Thank you, Prof. Varoufakis.
Frankly, I prefer the idea of a bucolic, low-tech, ecologically balanced life free of computerized, globally networked technology.
I would happily go "back" to a way of life that is less easily centralized, financialized, militarized & surveilled.
"Giving up" Siri, Alexa & Google to get there is a no-brainer.
I'll volunteer to be the executioner, if no one else can bring themselves to do it.
Pull the plug!
I am not certain that it was "leaked" but, the idea that SARS-CoV-2 is a natural occurrence is beyond silly. Every natural virus has a lineage that can be traced back... Not this one. Like it fell out of the sky. 🙄
The tide rises, the tide falls,
The twilight darkens, the curlew calls;
Along the sea-sands damp and brown
The traveller hastens toward the town,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.
Darkness settles on roofs and walls,
But the sea, the sea in the darkness calls;
The little waves, with their soft, white hands,
Efface the footprints in the sands,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.
The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls
Stamp and neigh, as the hostler calls;
The day returns, but nevermore
Returns the traveller to the shore,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
@Julie Ann Myers, I hope it won't sound horrible, but it is comforting to know that there are other "misfits" that are "drowning", because they just cannot adjust to the system. It feels so lonely sometimes.
Finally a kindred spirit! I feel very much the same.
I also think slavery has never disappeared and today more than ever we are being slaved and poorer.
This guy always has accessible but insightful observations on history.
Truely one of the good and brilliant guys.
This is excellent--Yanis needs to talk with Alison McDowell--she has done a fantastic job laying the groundwork for how this technofeudalism is unfolding in USA.
I enjoyed Another Now and think Yanis did a very good job of showing one possible way of implementing and alternative system. The left can be pretty light on alternatives for the future and I think this needs to be addressed by us
A necessary voice for today!!!! American Have lots to learn from the world beside self center!!!
Many are too intellectually lazy to learn. They just want a banner to follow.
I live my life based on three simple, clearly observable principles: 1. The essence of human history is circular not linear, and while the particular circumstances of history may change, the essence of those circumstances do not. 2. What goes up must come down. 3.The bigger you are the harder you fall - and, based upon Principles 1 and 2, you WILL fall! These three principles, when combined with risk-reward analysis, has guided my adulthood lin a most postive direction. I factor in failure and disappointment to my equation of life, but once they occur - and they WILL occur - their effects are immediately ameliorated. The idiots whose favorite phrase is "I don't factor in failure!" are walking on a tightrope without a net and, when they fall, they usually fall like an egg falls, not like a rubber ball.
always worthy to listen to this man
People like Yanis, Jeramy, Lula and Bernie should rule the world in my opinion m
I don't consider myself left by any stretch, but this guy makes sense.
Very well done; good job!
We could call this period "rentierism" I suppose, because it entails rentier extraction of profits whether production takes place or not through tolls on everything.
44:20 - people are not privileged enough to be able to talk about technofuedalism they want to come home crash out and get lost in Tik Tok it’s so true , insanely true - heads down exhausted
wonderful conversation. great host and yanis articulates things from a real, boots-on-the-ground type of energy. Bless you both.
Fascinating talk! Yes I was also wondering if there are any readings or other resources that might be inspired by or point to the ideas mentioned in the conversation. I would find it useful to draw on these ideas beyond the live stream. thanks
Thank you Ryan. Thank you Yanis for helping us see with more depth and clarity the economic model.
When he explains as far as all those conglomerates being able to scale and grow without the need of having to have a profit, this is what hes speaking of when saying that capitalism has changed, morphed into the chimeric situation it is in our present Day.... that actually is powered upon the values that are placed upon a product deemed essential or able to be deemed essential. Unto the people who are converted into mere consumers as opposed to needy humans.
A brilliant and (as usual) original perspective
Thank you
If we don’t wisely organize the means of exchange, organizing the means of production will likely be impossible
good analysis!
This is a very intelligent person! It's like when he talks, you Shut UP and listen!
Yep.
Yanis is the answer to the question. Where have all the philosophers gone?
as long as the unit of account is owned, the discussion regarding ownership will have little effect, ie if the media of exchange was created as a public utility the orientation of the economy would move more towards common ownership,
ON POINT AGAIN YANIS!
I love how Yanis has sort of fashioned himself into a sort of neo Arthurian Merlin.
Yanis needs to be the leader of our new world federation! 👽💪
thank you
Awesome. Extraordinary.
Simple: The business model of the planet is Debt.
Debt underlies every part of our society - law, peer science. etc. Our reality would be different with Debt. Think about this: It looks like we have had debt and interest since the Code of Hammurabi. Its the only institution that survived to today.
Yanis, thanks for the talk. I suggest perhaps a few modifications and updates. It is more inclusive and descriptive if you refer to it as the "Centralized Cloud Based Capital (web)" controlled by the super computer "farms" of Technofeudals as you have put it, that is a feature of Web 2.0. On the works and coming soon to the computer near you is the "Decentralized Blockchain Based Web" controlled by pear to pear network of personal computers, that is a feature of Web 3.0. This is going to create an alternative "Another Now" worth studding and analyzing.
All the best.
The block chain is a scam to sucker people like you into thinking massive energy waste is worth speculating on.
Zabrakło mi wzmianki o 2 "małych szczegółach": 1) ze bigtechy sa zblatowane ze swiatem finansow [ kompleks cyfrowo-finansowy za Ernst Wolf], oraz2) ze bigtechy były ofromnymi beneficjentami drukowanych pieniedzy od 2008r- Yanis Varoufakis.
Maybe it's in my head, but I did not understand what Mr. Varoufakis wanted to say. I listened him speak non-stop for 40 minutes, and I am confused. What does he want to say? Is he saying that he doesn't like how things are today?
If he is concerned about people he doesn't like, better get rid of them right? Take the bull by the horns.
Summarization from chatGPT:
In this video, the concept of technofeudalism is discussed as a force that is undermining and replacing capitalism. Technofeudalism, a centralized system driven by cloud capital and algorithms, is considered worse than capitalism. It is said to have emerged due to the manufacturing of desire for overproduced products through advertising and the rise of the techno structure.
Free-to-air commercial television and cloud-based algorithms like Alexa and Google Assistant are forms of capital that can influence and control our behaviors. Cloud capital, a new form of capital connected through the cloud, grants its owners immense power over society. It is not driven by private profit and markets but by central bank money and algorithms.
Yanis Varoufakis critiques capitalism and proposes a more democratic and decentralized economy through breaking up large corporations democratically, implementing universal basic income, and adopting a one-person one-share one-vote system. He also emphasizes the importance of pursuing passion-driven careers.
The current techno-feudalistic system is said to be destroying lives and exacerbating inequality. Change will come when people recognize the system's flaws. Solutions include a bill of digital data rights to ensure individual data ownership and payment for services.
Who runs the world ?
Money runs the world. At the same time the biggest religion ever on earth ?, Servitude to money went global.
In essence, the difference between aristocracy and what we have is that any asshole can claw their way to the top. You don't have to be born to it (but it sure as hell helps).
The idea of owning your data seems obvious to me and then having to pay for the services you use shouldn't pose a problem, unless you use a lot of services, that you don't at all value. Everyone getting a vote and having a bank account at the fed directly seem very logical too, although it would be good for these two things to be options and not things you're forced to do, because it would be nice for everyones vote to be equally valued, but sometimes it would be beneficial if there is that one guy to guide a big decision, weighing in heavier. For example it is highly beneficial how as the legends suggest at toyota everyone can stop the production line without precautions if things are spotted that could be improved or that are not working correctly, but when times get tough it's nice to have a caption on a ship that is responsible and if anything were to happen would go down with the ship as only he alone would be responsible
❤❤
Volume too low
But wait! There is more! Those are not the only two requirements of the free market. Full information, for instance, is another requirement which has never been satisfied. Also, the story of marketing starts earlier than that. Ralph Borsodi covered it in his book "The Age of Distribution", back in the 1920s.
Market Fundamentalism is a religion that gives me nearly as many headaches as Christian Fundamentalists do!
Best wishes mister Nelson Guedes,
Matt Erbst
@@merbstbetter than any religion .
I really really want Yanis to have a long sit down yarn with author Michael Lewis. Hopefully if I comment this in enough places it will come to fruition
Michael Lewis is a trust fund brat with old money attitudes towards women.
He definitely wouldn't like Yanis.
👏👏👏
👌👌👌✌️🤞✌️
A collective gain share, that correct
bit hard to follow with jumpy sound. Bretton Woods as New Deal ?- what's that about.? Should I ask Prof Wolff?
He went from Bretton-wood to "Techno Feudalism", as he names it, without touching neo-liberalism, the actual bridge.
Capital never overthrew rent completely. Indeed, in the periphery (which provides key natural resources without which capital wouldn't exist), the logic of rent is arguably dominant.
The biggest failure of the French revolution is they never went after the landlords.
Landlords are one of the last holdovers of feudalism.
I think the point that he makes at 4:47, about capitalism overthrowing itself is very poignant, and may in fact be the exact thing that Marx was saying from the very beginning. Now, I am not super versed in Marx, but my understanding is that he was not so much calling for the workers of the world to start a revolution, but rather predicting that one would come. The time scale may not have been what was anticipated by anyone, but society may very well be steadily marching along to that very drum.
Did Yanous just explain “eat da bugs”?
Summarization from chatGPT:
In this video, the concept of technofeudalism is discussed as a force that is undermining and replacing capitalism. Technofeudalism, a centralized system driven by cloud capital and algorithms, is considered worse than capitalism. It is said to have emerged due to the manufacturing of desire for overproduced products through advertising and the rise of the techno structure.
Free-to-air commercial television and cloud-based algorithms like Alexa and Google Assistant are forms of capital that can influence and control our behaviors. Cloud capital, a new form of capital connected through the cloud, grants its owners immense power over society. It is not driven by private profit and markets but by central bank money and algorithms.
Yanis Varoufakis critiques capitalism and proposes a more democratic and decentralized economy through breaking up large corporations democratically, implementing universal basic income, and adopting a one-person one-share one-vote system. He also emphasizes the importance of pursuing passion-driven careers.
The current techno-feudalistic system is said to be destroying lives and exacerbating inequality. Change will come when people recognize the system's flaws. Solutions include a bill of digital data rights to ensure individual data ownership and payment for services.
Noice
It depends of the mental clearness of the * leaders* what is going on right now, a sort of * old boys* end- gaming..a true pity..😒🥴😔
I quit wearing clothing with visible/prominent logos in the 80s because I refuse to advertise for these companies unless I am being paid for my labor (as a model). Clearly, my protest did not work. Billions of people are still doing the work of advertisement for the companies who produce their clothing.
I like Yanis' assessment but there are dangers insit in there too, just like capitalism devolved to this, the main issue is that the one worker one share idea works wonderfully until you realize the danger. What happens when you don't work because you are automated? I am afraid it could be even more dangerous than the current system in the face of upcoming automation if introduced without deep thought about how automation might relate to it. Because a 1 vote 1 share system has an already built-in tendency to love downsizing and splitting itself based on function but it risks to create a series of caste systems within each company with non-workers being casteless. There are serious concerns here. Many of the concerns I have with his system I share with ours mind you, that has its own special ones as well. I think that in order to prepare for automation we need to come up with a system that is flexible to the idea that work should always go unrewarded and simply be a choice, something you do for yourself or for others but that doesn't get you much more than expressing yourself and in which capital doesn't result into power. I know such a system clearly isn't compatible with right now, and I wouldn't even consider it desirable right now, but we need to transition towards systems that can more easily transition into it when the need arises because all indicators in our future tell us that we either have a way to get there or the danger for dystopian outcomes in the future is tremendously high.
how broken are we as a society when people imagine a post-work, automated society as excluding from the wealth anyone that doesn't have a jobby.
the whole drive of human existence should be driven towards sustaining itself, exploration, and fucking leisure time.
I like Yanis very much. His ideas are good if you happen to be on the left.
They're good period.
He just said the left is irrelevant.
💪💪💪🎉🎉🎉🎃
🎉🎉🎉
All the professors had classes??? Wow. One would suppose: a) professors should know priorities, b) professors should have some courage or c) professors should at least be honest with their students. Very classy from Yanis to not comment on that.
Starts at 1:30
the host looks like how an AI bot would be, act, and conduct themselves, like a universal bot and example of all tech mixed together in one package
Lol
just a quick note that not everyone has voting right. we make a collective decision about what age people are eligible to vote. That is no different to make a decision, a collective decision. about at what age they lose the right to vote, or what sort of education or tax status or qualification etc you need to have to be able to vote
What happens if the Cloud goes down? Lack of investment in the Web infrastructure, as the quality of this video proves, has been a symptom since 2008. What happened to 5G?
Telecom companies lobbied to make 5G a meaningless propaganda term.
If you think 5G means faster internet for you. That's your mistake.
When the cloud goes down you lose all the info the companies forced you to put in the cloud. Simple as.
5:00
"Professors are busy"
27:40 capital
Party politics: When the USA is your Bartender and Dj, because you don't want to discuss with your peer parties.
Wizard Oz
I dunno why but Sometimes I feel like Yanis will turn into a vampire and go on a rampage! Lol
Communists need to come to terms with the idea that new classes can emerge and seperate from existing classes due to technological changes and that each change in system doesn't necessarily reduce the number of classes.
If by "classes" you mean Marxist's definition I am not sure you understand the concept. He divided society into those who sell their labour and those who extract the surplus that the first class creates. There are many groups in society today but it remains true that there are only two classes. Those who sell their labour and those who profit from the labour of others.
I've been giving much thought since Yanis first made this argument regarding eroding profitability and it does not seem to hold any merit. The "system" is not hoooked on QE, the most important businesses still make profits and their profit margins have not been eroding - Google, Apple, Microsoft, Visa, telecommunication firms, etc. all make money. Just because many services are currently provided with discounted prices thanks to cheap investments into these businesses (like Fintech payment alternatives offering cheaper services compared to banks) does not constitute a break in the "system".
Although the identified problems posed by platformisation of the economy ("tech fiefdoms") are very interesting!
@@arvindparthasarathy2862 how are you supposed to break up a platform?
Besides, even if you break up Amazon e-shop into 5 ecommerce platforms, let's say, they would still have sectoral interest, meaning they would unite under some association and lobby anyway.
Source: am lobbyist
But the only companies you mention that make profit is, according to him, Technofeudalistic. Isn't this his point? The new economy is profit for owners of these fiefdoms and we are the serfs. So for the rest of the system to function outside of these fiefdoms, we are hooked on QE.
@@iwonder1216 That is factually wrong. Corporate profits are at historic highs in the recent decade. That's not only the "fiefdoms". Not to mention that many of these digital platforms - such as Uber - are exactly the ones that are not making profits. Either way, profit margins are increasing across the economy.
@@Haganenno121 I'll do a bit of digging and get back to you.
@@arvindparthasarathy2862 where did I say anything about the reason of the profit margin increases? Go be a bad faith schizo somewhere else thx.
In different
'21:37 Advertising is about propaganda'
Has anyone calculated how much tech companies have made from selling our data? Lets boil down to in one year.
I would like to know that.
The average person's data is worth about $2 total. Certain niche demographics can go as high as $5. That's 2022 figures.
how can we can resolve the major flaw of socialist alternatives? central planning is the weekest link within such alternatives.
Central planning is a strength. As seen by the people's republic of Walmart.
brilliant #YanisVaroufakis 👌
Would love to see this guy debate peter schiff.
Talk about covid 19 and the Christmas profits motivates in china,usa,and the world 🌎 😳
Don't like shy
Academia salary
ECOFASCISM. In or dead.
Best Bitcoin advertisement ever!!!
Lol Bitcoin is a scam
Prop players
the usuary is over
All governance will descend into oligarchy, plutocracy and fascism at rates that are determined by the quality and stability of its consensus seeking strategies, the tolerance of bad faith actors in its processes, its best practices policies and the documentation of data that goes into the making of its policy choices. They cannot be compared outside that framework in regard to speed of that descent. Consensus seeking strategies are what create the possibility of a society. Anything less creates a war zone. As such these are the foundational topics of establishing a healthy society.
Jesus
Employees voting on company direction?
I don't see how that works.... WELL.
I recommend reading about the Mondragon Corporation in Spain.
Get rid of the Alexa (the CIA told Amazon to give it to you)
Recorded damage
Ak to nezmeníte padnete do 18.storočiav čom už ste teraz po krk😂
Vacuum please cleaning be, not good at cleaning person..
If you trust an employee with a vote and a share only for a menial task how is that fair to thinking, selling, producing, and more highly trained individuals in a company. I love his analysis, but the solution is not very well thought through. It's missing a maxim.
Are you sure you think? 😂
It's fair because despite all this high skilled people doing the brain work you can't do everything by yourself you need to leverage the "unskilled" labor to provide the advantages of scale for large enough revenues. If you could have done it by yourself you would have. Fact of the matter the brains need the menial brawn...they need each other, dependent origination of sorts. Also, AI is coming for the "high skilled" labor too. Robots already do some surgery, AI does legal research that used to be done by paralegals and lawyers, self driving trucks, ect ect multiplied by Moores law soon all tasks will be menial...the point is one person one vote...some people are not more equal than others.
@@patrickdaly3628 You are describing equity, and it is not fair. Although men are equal under the law, they vastly differ in ability, and intellect, such is the nature of the world, and the cream rises to the top. However, if you do not reward this yearning for betterment then you end up with a mediocre society, case in point, current American culture.
@@patrickdaly3628 your argument works in reverse too, at least arguably. Like if the menial labor had other options and could do it without the brains, then they would do it! Menial labor needs brains!
What sorts this out to some degree is supply and demand such that labor enters into agreement with capital management over the price of the exchange. I don't think this universally applies or is not often gamed. I think we need better than that. A better system of feedbacks and incentives that preserves some level of decentralization while correcting for some of the unpalatable game theory and bad incentives.
I think the answer is in part spiritual, but something adapted to modern conditions while connected with being human. Not an easy thing
@@jtzoltan well put...it does have a spiritual or philosophical component that was I was hinting at with dependent origination...I do wonder how free the exchange of labor for wage is really, Like u said gameable...it's basically both employer and employee has skin in the game so both should have a say, and I think that the system we have largely privileges capital over labor, it's just gotten too lopsided.
Self interest
Capitalism in itself is not the problem, the problem is we dont have real Capitalism anymore. Normaly taxes are used for the common good and to redistribute some of the welt. This way theorecticaly there can be no monopolies or oligarchs. In modern Capitalism wealth has influenced politicians to wright the laws in favor of oligarchs, wallstreet and big company's. In Americas "golden age" there was a 90% rich or wealth tax. Every profit over 1 miljon dollars was taxed at that rate. Now they pay no tax, but take the money of the taxpayers to bail them out. In Europe its the same but the people at least have good healthcare and social systems in place.
Fantasy
You have exactly "real" capitalism. This is what it looks like late stage.
@@Shadowman4710 exactly! People that bemoan the loss of ‘real’ capitalism are oblivious that what we have is capitalism in its late stage.
This is #LateCapitalism.
@@adriyk So Stalinism was just middle Socialism?
No yanis you were the load balancer, please sit down. Sincerely Africa 🌍
Exploitation