Yanis Varoufakis on the death of capitalism, Starmer, and the tyranny of big tech
The world is witnessing an epochal shift, according to Greek economist Yanis Varoufakis: from the now-dead capitalism, to “technofeudalism”.
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In his latest book, the former Greek politician - who in 2015, at the height of the Greek debt crisis, was catapulted from academic obscurity to Minister of Finance - argues that insane sums of money that were supposed to re-float our economies in the wake of the financial crisis and the 2020 pandemic have ended up supercharging big tech's hold over every aspect of the economy. And capitalism's twin pillars - markets and profit - have been replaced with big tech's platforms and rents; while we, the “cloud serfs”, increase these companies’ power with every online click and scroll.
Today on Ways to Change the World, Yanis Varufakis tells Krishnan Guru-Murthy how the world is grappling with an entirely new economic system and therefore political power, and why Britain and the EU are “irrelevant” compared with the “fiefdoms” of US and Chinese tech firms.
Produced by Silvia Maresca
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The way Yanis explains things, it makes you almost addicted to learn more. You don't want him to stop talking because he keeps unveiling truths one after the other. He does it in a way that makes sense to the average person, whilst in an intelligent way that reinforces his expertise and mastery of economics. One of the best modern economists of all time.
I agree. He is one of my favourite political commentators - always hit the nail on the head.
I LIKE YANIS HE'S STRAIGHT FORWARD AND TELL THE TRUTH
He a lying communist he screwed Greece
I’ve lost so much in the past 8 months from failed economy and banks,Real estate crash,depressions,stocks,dividend,you name it What a terrible year it is...
That is why I work with Samuel Peter Descovich, who introduced me to a better Financial community, a verified agency where I learned how money works and how to create it, as well as free books, courses, and daily lectures. You also get to meet new people, which was the best decision I ever made.
Yanis is a speaker of the truth. Big respect. We need world leaders like this.
Yanis Vafunculu is a lizard-man alien trying to distract from his failings as some greek ex finance minister who panders to the C C P. If he wants to get bonked up the butt, that's his business, he should not be preaching to you about it
26:59 "TRYING to tell people what we THOUGHT was the truth" lol
LOL
SNEAKY he's after DIGITALID'S....
'Cloud Serf' and 'Cloud Capital'. I know what I am. This is an amazing lecture. Yanis has given me a framework in which to understand my economic reality in the 2023 world.
The only mistake is that he assume the store is what the rent is. It isn't. Amazon don't make a profit from their store. They make their money from webservices. The rent is companies paying Amazon to hosts their website and cloud services. Digital land makes sense in that way. Just like it's too pricey and difficult for a workers to buy machines and start a factory under capitalism, it's also too expensive for a small business to build their own server and maintain their own infastructure, so renting it is.
SNEAKY he's after DIGITALID'S
A good interview: Guru-Murthy did not try to win an argument but instead put questions that allowed Varoufakis to elaborate.
Yes,that's normal in podcasts but extremely rare in mainstream media , methinks .
SNEAKY he's after DIGITALID'S
@@honestjoe7940?
@@chillyoil528 !
He's spot on about Starmer's spinelessness.
"Spinelessness" implies he isn't brave enough to be left-wing. He never wanted to be left-wing. He's a pure establishment creep.
and Rishi's spinelessness too!
@@Salsa_SoulsESPECIALLY RISHI'S
Starmers work in Ireland exposes this latest smear for the bull it is.
Agreed
Went to school, learned history, said to myself: I'm so lucky I was not born in feudal times! *Decades later* Me: Ouch!
Yes, you live like in feudal times and that’s why you are a literal slave of your lord and can’t leave his land without permission. What an overdramatic crybaby
HAHA :)
Funniest comment on here. Thank you for giving me a laugh today 👍🏽
Thank you Yanis for being on the side of truth and justice for all mankind.
@@GeleNikolovYou're misinterpreting..
@@GeleNikolov Yanis and his supporters are not liberal by any stretch of the word 😂😂 Get your US politics outta here!
@@fedoralexandersteeman6672 Liberal can be a meaningless fetish. In the way its often interpreted .. Instead of Extreme views & policy prescriptions.. its best to remain flexible, moderate & allow for differences in views, tastes etc - as long as it is not damaging or highly offensive or aggressively hurtful to others in the general community. BUT some discipline is Required. A Framework. to keep to the general plot.. or outline of range of possible, permissible actions to adhere to.. without offending the overall members of society. Who should be tolerant, accepting of differences. etc habits, thinking, cultural differences values, priorities etc IMHO
Thank you for the interview with Yanis, such an intelligent & honest human being
Varoufakis is the ONLY political figure I admire. He has integrity abounds. He was beaten up by thugs in Greece recently and we all condemned the attack. Im glad he appears to be fully recovered, though the anxiety of being a truth teller in this world must be constant. I joined Diem25 (a pan European political movement) as a direct result of his involvement. Godspeed to Yanis. I wish we could clone the man.
That was a disturbing incident, glad he's back on it.
Greece is a failed country with dumb and/or corrupt people. Animal abuse and abandonment is plenty sadly and it's basically a third world country
lol, he’s gaslit you into thinking he’s actually intelligent. The man did damage to the Greek economy tantamount to what WWII did. Not exaggerating, the economy was at that level within months of his tenure.
He tell bullshit????
The man who destroyed Greece in a day...
I will never give up believing in Yanis' message. This treadmill of wealth inequality cannot last forever, the people will wake up, it's only a matter of time
..And yet only a few years ago, we smeared Corbyn as a racist, kicked him out of politics and elected a racist, sexist, homophobe as pm.
Hope so
Longer than we thought however. Even a deadly pandemic didn’t give us universal health care!
Not sure people will wake up, the oligarchs will collapse the entire system with their greed and that is when thing will change.
I LIKE YANIS HE'S STRAIGHT FORWARD AND TELL THE TRUTH
I love when he said of Sunak and Starmer, "they're not in power, they're in government".
During the Greek crisis I couldn't get enough of this great Greek then. Now I can even hardly get enough of this guy. He's a gem!
where are you from, munguci? I am asking, because i hope that you are from any African country, and I say ANY, because I would be happy to hear political, social and economic views from ANY of them - because we are isolated here in Central Europe, politicians, media do not care to cover African continent, and of course there is a languague barrier too, because unlike the Portuguese, English, Germans, or French we usually do not and tie with African countries and local media, that usually publish wildely also in some of these languagues. Maybe there are some great African economists that I should be interested too! Greetings from Czech Republic
@@ujfalusik1 I'm a Ugandan working in Kenya, both in East Africa.
Όλα αυτά για τον Γιάννη ????😮
He sold his people out! He gets a pass because he's smooth
Vanis is constantly excellent. Highly intelligent, clear-headed, highly analytical, intuitive, courageous, compelling and charming. A highly important thinker and speaker.
he is an academic but he did not present any alternatives. Plus none of his party people had an influence to the Greek society. He is just a good speaker
@@yannos2007 He consistently spoke of alternatives throughout the interview.
@@robgrainger5314 thats what I'm talking about. He is good as a speaker but not really understanding how politics work in real life. Believe as a Greek, he did not have such an impressive record in the parliament
@@yannos2007 What are you even talking about. Everything he criticizes is paired with an alternative. MeRA25 produced more suggestions than most parties with like 5 people when others repeated EU's plans. You're like 16, wtf do you know "as a Greek"
back under your rock. Pay your taxes.@@yannos2007
It doesn't matter which side of the great divide you're on. This man speaks a lot of truth!
What great divide, liberalism vs conservativism? Two sides of the capitalist coin? There's another way.
@@Rodrifuuuwhich way is that?
Even if the tech becomes better organised as per YV's idea, the lack of fertile soil/nutrient dense food/clean water combined with sedentary online lifestyles soon to be virtual is the nuke that threatens all of us.
The ideas he is talking about are nothing new - a concept of public digital infrastructure can be an answer to this predicament. In India, the UPI is a payment platform that can be utilised by any payment system private players to base their payment apps on; this even makes cross app payments possible because the underlying platform is government owned and operated on no profit no loss principle, infact WhatsApp has a payment feature in India allowing people to transfer money using WhatsApp contact only. Another "platform" is ONDC that allows consumers to be agnostic towards digital sellers like Amazon, Flipkart etc I hope I have delivered a gist of things happening in "public digital infrastructure" in India without being too boring/too technical. P.S in India you do own your digital ID and that is how the COVID vaccine certificates were disbursed and maintained as well as verified, not paper certificates but those stored in public cloud and made available to anyone who wishes to look them up via APIs.
however, those who are on the wrong side of the class-war dominance, will always seek to control the narrative in order to suit their agendas, and urgencies: now is time to take Marxism seriously and put aside doubts 💯%🤓.
Varoufakis is one of the few politicians/economists, who talks any sense. There's no way to get around his absolute logic. 😎
Yanis is the only teacher who can simplify complex ideas elegantly in short period of time!
That is the sign of an intelligent man.
@@user-hq8wd2lm7t Even if you're right. that doesn't make him wrong. The pain of the cure for the Greek debt problem was to painful to bear...
ABSOLUTELY SIMPLISTIC AND IN NO WAY "complex"
So , Yanis 6 month as Greek economy minister was the the reason why Greece after 13 years of crisis is getting worst ? Greek people have suffered troika and imf policies for the past 13 years and its just getting worst by the year.
Yeah....that's why voters in Greece booted him out ? Obviously they didnt appreciate his " genius "...?
Yanis you are too. damn honest and straight forward. How are you still alive? People like you should lead Greece.
sadly, greek big media and the political opposition have him completely demonised in greece. Also, the communist party is against him, cause they say he ain't anti-capitalist enough... which results in demonisation by half of the radical left as well...
He failed putting any policies during his period in the parliament! Just a good speaker no substance
putting policies with a gov of more than 50% seats? there was noone in the parliament doing a better critic than mera. Not to mention the policies they were proposing @@yannos2007
@@tthhhhuuuu You know what I mean. He did not have any substance. None of his MP made an impact. Of the 9 MPs he had one left the party, another one went to be a candidate with a far-right mayor, another was MP with other two parties before going to Varoufakis with a history of money fraud when she was in the Greek Athletics Federation and an actor who is the laughing stock in Greece. In the last election he lost one-third of his voters. If he cannot control his small party..... something must not doing wrong
no he was rolled by opportunists get a new line @@yannos2007
Yanis is a master economist. He once said that Thatcher is the worst thing to happen to England since the great wars because she sold all of our highly lucrative nationalised industries to other governments, hence why the French government receive most of the profits from our energy bills.
And Tsipras is a coward. There was a referendum in Greece, and Tsipras ignored the result. Why do you think the UK left the EU ?
@@lewisbrand They left because the population were fed lies and the gullible believed them
Yes, it is pretty basic logic.....
The Tory carried it on. now Everything has been Sold Off..No Assets left...and our Waterways and Sea's are Toilets in UK .. because Privatised Water Companies have Paid Shareholders..IE Govt ..who have them..and literally Shat on us .
This dude is fascinating. Love the way he speaks, even krishnan was enamoured. The concept of techno feudalism 🤯... He is so so right. History really does repeat itself and we really do have a generation of techno surfs feeding their narcissistic overlords. Parasitic wealth accumulation is the mantra of today's financial elite.
these turds of late capitalism including Starmer and Rishi Sunack still believe in economics, endless growth and money. What a bunch of jackass people make these programs and less watch them.
EUROPEAN ERM is dominated by Germany's productive superiority. Selling weapons to Greece. Thus Greece was unable to set it's own currency.
words words words ! this man is socialist so thinks like a socialist: an irrealistic world ! humans are made as such since ever richiers powerful men existed 5 k years ago like now .. we accuse today and we forget that past existed and ruled the same way
@@Andrew-su7vd well its not only germany..its france and USA too. Also its a geopolitical issue we in greece control the door of the mulsim world/ chinese to the west. Civilisation started in the Mediterranean sea after all .
they are publicly owned companies you idjit. you can own them. i do own parts of some of them. the notion of a financial elite in a world where all the relevant companies are publicly owned is the delusion of a bitter old marxist. sounds good, but is another sorry attempt to take power, just like your garden variety commie.
Thank you for this interview, appreciate Channel 4 letting Yanis speak on this
I am French and I sometimes had difficulty understanding what he was saying but I constantly went back to make sure I understood all his thoughts...because I was convinced that I was listening something important.Thank you Yanis....and well done Channel 4!
Respect to you for being bilingual my friend, 99% of us Brits struggle to speak our own language competently!
@@TomNoles007 Maybe, but you have a great sense of humor and the best music, that's not bad! For many people this is enough motivation to learn your language...Thanks for the compliment!
@@TomNoles007ahh yes..attack the british, spoken like the true middle class left wing.
Well.... thank You for trying to understand the world you live in and/by trying to understand someone else's point of view, two things that may seem fairly basic but are sorely lacking these days. Cheers *8 )
yeah, I did the same. In the end, I understood everything. and i think it will be interesting to read some of his books.
One of my favourite political commentators. Read two of his books and will be reading this new one
Same here, his books are brain food. Make your own mind up, but super reading.
The ideas he is talking about are nothing new - a concept of public digital infrastructure can be an answer to this predicament. In India, the UPI is a payment platform that can be utilised by any payment system private players to base their payment apps on; this even makes cross app payments possible because the underlying platform is government owned and operated on no profit no loss principle, infact WhatsApp has a payment feature in India allowing people to transfer money using WhatsApp contact only. Another "platform" is ONDC that allows consumers to be agnostic towards digital sellers like Amazon, Flipkart etc I hope I have delivered a gist of things happening in "public digital infrastructure" in India without being too boring/too technical. P.S in India you do own your digital ID and that is how the COVID vaccine certificates were disbursed and maintained as well as verified, not paper certificates but those stored in public cloud and made available to anyone who wishes to look them up via APIs.
That makes four in his world.
@@togawearer2799 He doesn't have to buy it, he could borrow it from a library. And make his own mind up.
@@SuzanneO707 ! Well that begs the question why the author sold the rights to be published for his profit, instead of some other business model he knows better?
Congratulations to channel 4,this was great program,and yanis is truly inspiring ,his clear thinking and honesty is a credit to the Greek people.The only problem is honesty and equality doesn't work in politics.
"The only problem is honesty and equality doesn't work in politics." That's exactly why he quit the minister of finance position.
Just another deluded lefty who thinks it's still May 1968.
No delusion, far right populism and fascism perform so well because lying, misinformation and ineuqlity are mu h stronger forces in politics.
@@2msvalkyrie529in your world it is always 1933
I wish many more people would read and listen to him. He is a clear explainer and not condescending.
"cloud serf", brilliant observation. I find Yanis to be a voice of reasoned progressive thought.
This man is an absolute genius
Unfortunately even fewer people have voted for him in the last Greek Elections. He has some great and democratic ideas that are against this post-capitalistic dystopia we are heading at.
The media in Greece is run by oligarchs and trashes him. Unfortunately the people believe the legacy media just like in the UK
Is he? Or is he just another grifter who failed in Greece and now panders to people wanting to hate the capitalism
He certainly feels that very strongly
@@user-hq8wd2lm7t Can you explain how?
I WISH I HAD HIM AS A TEACHER WHILE STUDYING ECONOMICS. I WOULDN'T HAVE QUIT MY STUDIES!!!!! HE IS AN UNBELIEVEABLE SPOKESMAN,SIMPLE AND CLEAR THOUGHTS, SIMPLE WAY OF EXPLAINING . I LIVED IN THE ONLY COUNTRY THAT HAD A SYSTEM HE'S TALKING ABOUT. WE CALLED IT " SOCIALIST SELFGOVERNING"... WE ALL HAD SHARES IN PUBLIC COMPANIES AND WERE INVOLVED IN DECISION MAKING IN COMPANY. IT WAS IN EIGHTIES IN YUGOSLAVIA. EVEN BACK THEN I THOUGHT IT WAS REALLY COOL SYSTEM. THIS WAY THE WORKERS WERE MOTIVATED TO WORK HARDER AND MORE EFFICIENT. THIS MAN IS A GENIUS. I LIKE HIM VERY MUCH . IF HE WASNT SO INTO LGBTQ THING I WOULD SURELY VOTE FOR HIM. HE IS A VERY DANGEROUS MAN THOUGH. DANGEROUS FOR THIS SYSTEM AND I WONDER SOMETIMES HOW THEY STILL LET HIM BREATHE...❤ I THOUGH IT WAS REALLY
I can't get enough of Yanis ever since I heard him discussing the world crisis for the first time in a couple of months if not a few years. He's IMO the David Icke of economics. I know many will disagree or even be crossed with me but he's very awake and conscious but very "professional".
but david icke is a con man...
Yes , he's almost as deluded as Icke !
I'm not sure it's a compliment to compare someone with David Icke... Apart from anything else Varoufakis seems a lot more rational.
@@paulthecaffeinated7549 it depends on how you see the world. It's a whole different world from yours out there.
@@2msvalkyrie529Its YOU who are Deluded ❗
I could listen to Yanis all day, he has such a lovely voice. Happily some brilliant ideas too.
He's a babe
Yanis nailing it. Excellent interview Krishnan.
I loved all the thoughts and propositions made by Varoufakis. I was also amused with Guru-Murthy's discomfort at his remarks about the spinelessness of both Starmer and Sunak; that it now makes no difference who is in government. Yanis Varoufakis is one of those rare people in politics - a truth teller. The powers that be don't like that, an example being perhaps the spurious accusations made by a gang of hired thugs who beat up Yanis in Athens earlier this year.
in my country Czech the situation is very similar, even worse: we have right wing coalition in government and the opposition is a party, whose populist leader is one of the biggest agro-oligarchs - the 4th richiest person in my country :) In Slovakia or Hungary is even worse: their prime ministers are nationalists and even fascists and even support Putins occupation of Ucraine... Perhaps because they got paid from Russia or Russia covers their dark past, the russian agents are everywhere, so any politician can be blackmailed and the stories of bancrupcy, murders and privatisation frauds can become public if Russians decide...
@@ujfalusik1 I mean, the US does the same too and even worse. The key thing is not to get drawn into great power politics and allow your country to be a battleground. The Ukrainian elites sold their country down the drain.
Yanis clearly knows his business because he explains it so clearly that the average chap can understand. Will be buying his book.
An amazing interview with one of the best thinkers and economists out there!
But completely wrong with open borders Globalisation
People in Greece don't care for him.
He makes such a good point. Something we all know but struggle to out into words, he's really nailed down a great framing of it. Also, the simple observation he made about Facebook spending 1% of their revenue on employees vs 'old' companies spending 80% is a great one.
It's misleading. A glance at their financials shows that they outsource a lot of their activities.
What. Heard Yanis say is that it’s people like you and I, our kids, addicted to FB commenting, or tik tok, etc, we generate an income for FBook but we are not employed nor paid for, except the few businesses which would get around 1%! Obviously the people FB actually employ to run their systems would be paid as employees!!
@gerryburntwood9617 Except that would also be wrong. Providing a facility for you to comment and post pictures for free is part of Facebook cost. On its own, that activity raises no revenue, it only costs them money for installing the servers and broadband data connection to provide that free service. Facebook financial are readily available on the Internet, and you will see that almost all their revenue comes from advertising. So the money comes from advertisers, not people posting comments. Potential customers presumably click on some of these adverts and make purchases, and then the advertisers find that this is so effective for them that they are willing to pay big money to have access to Facebook's users.
A concept of public digital infrastructure can be an answer to this predicament. In India, the UPI is a payment platform that can be utilised by any payment system private players to base their payment apps on; this even makes cross app payments possible because the underlying platform is government owned and operated on no profit no loss principle, infact WhatsApp has a payment feature in India allowing people to transfer money using WhatsApp contact only. Another "platform" is ONDC that allows consumers to be agnostic towards digital sellers like Amazon, Flipkart etc I hope I have delivered a gist of things happening in "public digital infrastructure" in India without being too boring/too technical.
@@PGHEngineer which means they underpay people for part time gigs instead of employing them for fair wages and benefits?
Yanis is so interesting to listen to - the way he explains things, his in-depth and wide breadth of knowledge, the subject matter and I love his voice. It's probably listen to just about anything he talked about.
In my view, he is the only person who explains what is going on today in a way that is easy for everyone to understand. I love his explanations and they should be heard by everyone.
Simpel does not mean correct. If you want complex matters served in easy bites, buy a childrens book.
@@henkvandervossen6616 _Simple_ doesn't necessarily mean correct, no, but neither does _complex._ A complex answer can easily be conceited or obfuscated.
This is a man with a great intellect and vision.
Always love to hear from Yanis. One of the GOATs.
What is a goat, for anyone not 12?
I’m guessing it’s ‘greatest of all time’.
😂@@dave8323
Great interview! I never attempted to understand anything about economics. Will have to let it sink in. Varoufakis is a very clear thinker. Thank you.
Respect how he is honest and admits he failed in what he was trying to do, makes me able to take him more seriously
This is why “getting the message” is important. We should never have ceded the public and commercial spaces to wealth, so they became yet again all things.
15:48 it makes perfect sense when you understand who supplies software, infrastructure and cloud as a service. AWS, Microsoft Azure. Once you understand this, you’ll get what Yannis saying.
Many people use it without full knowledge of what it actually is and the structures behind it, Yannis is very good at enlightening people to look beyond the things that are taken for granted and be aware of the downs as well as the upsides, a true democrat. He comes across as progressive not destructive. Its good to have people like that around.
A concept of public digital infrastructure can be an answer to this predicament. In India, the UPI is a payment platform that can be utilised by any payment system private players to base their payment apps on; this even makes cross app payments possible because the underlying platform is government owned and operated on no profit no loss principle, infact WhatsApp has a payment feature in India allowing people to transfer money using WhatsApp contact only. Another "platform" is ONDC that allows consumers to be agnostic towards digital sellers like Amazon, Flipkart etc I hope I have delivered a gist of things happening in "public digital infrastructure" in India without being too boring/too technical.
I ❤ this guy!!! Worth listening all his interview / podcasts
One of the few people who understands, and articulates so well, that Eurozone members can go bankrupt (and have already, in the case of Greece). Those with sovereign currencies cannot, because their debts are denominated in their own currencies, which they can print to meet their obligations. The Euro was created to eventually force the EU into a debt crisis where making it a federal state is the solution. However, any country attempting to be in the EU without being in the Eurozone will be at a competitive disadvantage that will increase as time passes. The focus on immigration and blue passports during Brexit was all nonsense. This is absolutely the most important reason why it was the right decision, regardless of how our low-calibre politicians mess it up.
A very very engaging, interesting, informative and charismatic man. I've a lot of respect for Yanis.
I'd sit on his face
Great views, it's really sad he is not in the Greek parliament. Domestically he is ridiculed by the media and other politicians, while internationally he is esteemed. As a Greek/British it is so sad to see how he is treated in Greece
Internally esteemed?
@@aristocraticrebel internationally *
@@QwertinooThe ideas he is talking about are nothing new - a concept of public digital infrastructure can be an answer to this predicament. In India, the UPI is a payment platform that can be utilised by any payment system private players to base their payment apps on; this even makes cross app payments possible because the underlying platform is government owned and operated on no profit no loss principle, infact WhatsApp has a payment feature in India allowing people to transfer money using WhatsApp contact only. Another "platform" is ONDC that allows consumers to be agnostic towards digital sellers like Amazon, Flipkart etc I hope I have delivered a gist of things happening in "public digital infrastructure" in India without being too boring/too technical. P.S in India you do own your digital ID and that is how the COVID vaccine certificates were disbursed and maintained as well as verified, not paper certificates but those stored in public cloud and made available to anyone who wishes to look them up via APIs.
@@user-hq8wd2lm7t thanks for proving my statement
@@user-hq8wd2lm7t it’s ok to be brainwashed by the media. Won’t try to convince you otherwise best of luck
Grateful to have come across this interview. Greetings from Sydney Australia. Be stoic , healthy and wise. Most importantly stay free as possible.
I love and admire this man. He talks in a sophisticated way but with heartfelt dedication. You know he uses his enormous intellect to produce ideas for the benefit of the common folks. I hipe that sooner or later his ideas take hold. Capitalis. Must die or we must kill it if humanity is to survive.
Bloody brilliant! that was so inspiring, the world needs big bold revolutionary thinkers like Yannis !
But Unfortunately he never gets anywhere… A Perennial loser!
@@user-hq8wd2lm7tthanks for your comment you drone..
I’d argue this is also happening in the property market, with corporations like Lloyds and John Lewis in the UK buying up properties to rent them out instead of allowing people to buy them. So we end up paying ‘subscriptions’ for everything including housing, not very different from feudalism as Yanis argues. Once AR/VR takes over, you technically just need a room with a bed / somewhere to sit down and eat, and then live most of your life virtually by either projecting amenities into the empty room via AR or just disappearing totally into VR, giving tech corporations total control over all our lives.
We will live our lives in a holodeck
Great comment. It is all pervasive and Yannis is doing a good job of enlightening people to this, & highlighting the downsides, in a progressive way.
I'm already doing this... 😁
Agreed and transport will go that way too.
Probably the first intuitive comment I've seen on this entire video. Apart from the bit where you had to invoke the greek. And then you went off into fantasy.
Never heard about Yanis before, but amazing insights, captivating interview. I will look into his book. Of course nations to fail and corporates to rule paradigm is long discussed but laying out in this structural manner was very enlightening.
Great discussion, appreciated the transparency and truth from Mr Varoufakis.
Very insightful and interesting conversation. His analysis of Starmer is very accurate.
A Corbinite's views - really, he's worse than that. That knighthood, that eerie similarity to Blair.....
Yannis was, and still is, a voice of sense and inspiration
yeah but he still refuses to acknowledge that immigration is a big problem, which it is.
He's a moron and a hypocrite. He enjoys the life of a multimillionaire while advocating for neo-Marxism.
except for greeks peoples..
A problem which we all need to be united in addressing, not shutting all borders and preventing@@stayhungry1503
@@stayhungry1503immigration is about to be a massive problem for every first world country in the world as third world areas become uninhabitable due to climate change.
Excellent interview. I like Varoufakis very much, he isn't like 99% of our (corrupted) politicians, and is thus free to come-up with solutions that will work for the people, not the big corporations.
@@user-hq8wd2lm7tAnd maybe he was in an impossible position when he took his position? He says what they wanted to do was denied to them at the time; Germany and the EU imposed upon them limits to their actions. Anyway, it was the fools who got Greece and the EU into that position who were the bigger enemy of the people, -and they're effectively still the people running the EU! Good jb the UK left it...
this Greek Yanis is easy to listen to. he is on point and more .I cannot have enough.
Yanis is a genius.
He is very smart. His genius is in conveyance
Smart communists are the most dangerous ones.
he's cool talking head nothing more.
Varoufakis is so clever and knowledgeable! I'm impressed and thirsty to learn more about fair economics.
Go and buy his book then!
Then you can tell me about it. And I will pity you.
To be fair - he doesn't pretend to predict the market, he just pretends.
Yanis does an easy-to-follow description, and explanation of the mechanisms changing our monetary, economic and political environment. Well done!
Thank you Yanis and thank you Krishnan for the great questions and hosting!
I remember reading schumpeter and his predications about capitalism’s survival and it seems as if his conclusion was slightly close but that Yanis has figured it was actually capital to limit itself through cloud capital and rents (turning into ‘technofeudalism’) instead of a intellectual socialist class. By far the most interesting insight to our modern context that I could never quite grasp myself until now. It seems - like with landlords - similarly there is also a freehold and lease system. For example certain stores for applications may use AWS to serve a storefront which charges commission (rent) to other digital creators etc. etc. so quite literally a lot of tech stems from a centralised freeholder of land that leases and leases and the money returns to the top. (Like that triangle they show everyone in school) While it is true that with our current context a centralised big tech world is indeed feudalistic in its distribution of funds what is potentially missed is differing web models. With the introduction of blockchain technology web 3 could potentially mean a decentralised system where commissions for transactions are dispersed instead of aggregated to one large central entity. (Surprised interviewer didn’t mention this point). But still the issue of cloud serfs would exist with advertising models and data collection like Yanis mentions. A dispersed model may give people more web sovereignty but still many voluntarily would waiver their ‘labour’ for whatever services they are addicted to. And I do think in this sense considering these are realms of public communication the web should be more democratised and policy should make sure so. I think tech is so profitable because the marginal cost of one extra user is next to nothing yet the rent gained is massive. In this sense big tech should have a special regulatory framework. Just rambling along Yanis really got me thinking. Haven’t heard something quite this revolutionary in a long time. Thank you Yanis!
The ideas he is talking about are nothing new - a concept of public digital infrastructure can be an answer to this predicament. In India, the UPI is a payment platform that can be utilised by any payment system private players to base their payment apps on; this even makes cross app payments possible because the underlying platform is government owned and operated on no profit no loss principle, infact WhatsApp has a payment feature in India allowing people to transfer money using WhatsApp contact only. Another "platform" is ONDC that allows consumers to be agnostic towards digital sellers like Amazon, Flipkart etc I hope I have delivered a gist of things happening in "public digital infrastructure" in India without being too boring/too technical. P.S in India you do own your digital ID and that is how the COVID vaccine certificates were disbursed and maintained as well as verified, not paper certificates but those stored in public cloud and made available to anyone who wishes to look them up via APIs.
😊😊😊😊o😊 of the m P
The intellectual socialist class, or the managerial class, are only interested in promoting either "socialism" and "capitalism" if it furthers their interests
This guy always hits the nail on the head
How long was Yanis in government, Starmer is trying to get elected for more then 7 months!
He's a communist.
Bankrupt Greece as minster
What points did he nail on the head? I listened to what he's saying but I find he's alot of mystery statements and hot air.
@@PhillCurtis Like what mate?
A true thinker paying credit to his Greek origins. Thanks a million, Yanis, for being a light in this dark era.
Yanis is fantastic thinker. Love his take on big tech. His willingness to talk about his time in politics and tell it as it did transpire is refreshing. The only time he looses me is when he talks of his ideas on solutions specifically the democratisation of corporate decision-making.
Wow, I could listen to Yanis forever. If only all politicians and business men were like this. Educated, reasonable and fair.
He screwed of the people of GREECE. You don't know much do you????????
Please explain how he did
@@ralphamdar because he's a Marxist theoretician and a moron. During his ministry of finance he enforced capital controls, made people stand in lines, tried to take the country out of the Euro and get the money printing press back to his dirty hands. It'd be the end for Greece. Then he and the other clown Tsipras, his boss, organized a pretentious referendum which, it didn't matter what you voted, they'd handle the result in one and only way - which is exactly what they actually did! The referendum, thus, was 100% hypocritical and vague in wording and meaning (no one knew exactly what it meant and what to vote for) and while the Greek people voted "NO" their government essentially adopted the "YES" (what was thought as "YES") in actual policies. I refused to vote as I immediately detected the hypocrisy and glad I'm so glad I did. Basic rule: when someone in a position of power sounds complicated, is trying to deceive and exploit you. If not he's a moron! I believe that Varoufakis somehow combines both properties.
As a Greek I find this offensive
@@chrismidgeton5213 i am sorry, obviously I only know one side of the story. It is probably the same everywhere, I will find out more. What he said here made sense and I am a sucker for a greek accent. I didn't mean to offend you. Any pointers on where I should look, I don't read Greek but I don't like being uninformed, so anymore info on why you're offended would be good. I don't trust any man wearing a suit.
First became aware of Yanis in 2015 when Greece economy tanked, such an articulate man where I learn something every time I listen to him. Just wish he was involved in UK politics!
He sold a lot of harbors to China. Capitalism for Communism. They are so similar 95% of people don't even notice it.
A man with a backbone
@banzobeans like a Chinees chopstick.
@@markvanderknoop131 pray do explain?
@@banzobeans he sold the harbors to the CCP. Most of the money he got was bij selling harbors. And he refinanced a lot of loans as well by CCP.
Wow .. even I, an ageing artiste, understand that this man was ahead of his time in Greece, but probably right on the money today. Thank you for introducing us to h8m.🌹🌹
Well done Yanis Yaroufakis. You explain the current world economy situation in a clear and concise manner. I learnt a lot from you. Thanks, mate.
Fascinating ideas. Never looked at Jeff Bezos as the owner of a marketplace collecting rents but this is actually a fascinating idea. And explains in part why China wanted to regain control on tech. And why people should worry when Elon Musk wants to make X a super app. a super app fits so well into this analogy. Anyway, always good to hear ideas from this intelligent man
As a new X user, I can neutrally observe there's a lot of disinformation and low-quality posts. There are some great posts too among a lot of noise. Unfortunately, the new X user payment program may worsen the flood of mediocre-to-low value posts...
@@user-hq8wd2lm7tHow did he do it exactly?
@@mackiej i left X as soon as Musk bought it and the terror against the employees who in fact created the company by their own heads and hands started. I recommend you to do the same, my collegue.
I don't trust Elon Musk..one bit.
"Rents"....distort an economy because money is collected for doing nothing, without adding value. Rents only make the owners richer at the detriment of society (wasted capital). "Rents" have existed way before the internet and Jeff Bezos. Some examples of "rents" are; land rents (landlord collects rent money above cost of property), monopoly rents (monopoly company can charge whatever they want for a product), patent rents (restricts innovation and collects money for the life of the patent) and financial penalties rent (interest charges for late payments etc..).
One of my favourite commentators: a clear, informative and interesting analysis
For everyone asking, the company which he is mentioning is Valve. Yanis started to work for Valve in the Year 2012.
Yanis’ podcast interviews with the likes of Sam Harris and Joe Rogan are always incredibly interesting. Find myself listening several times 👍
Excellent and fascinating interview. I was suggesting the idea of the "users" being shareholders of cloud platforms back in 2014 but I was laughed at and ridiculed. Therefore this interview comforted me somewhat. To hear someone of this calibre explaining the |dire] situation we find ourselves in so succinctly and bringing up that idea as a solution quite took me by surprise. Sharing in the ownership of a cloud platform would not only release enormous sums of capital to the individual but would help solve the coming unemployment crises due to Ai replacing millions of jobs and careers. I really hope Govts start to listen to people like Yanis Varoufakis so we [collectively] can begin to create a more fairer future for our children and grand children. However I don't hold much hope for that ever happening in my lifetime. But if we don't start somewhere, then not only are we going to live in an ever more stronger form of techno feudalism but something even more horrifying, something like a technologically driven totalitarianism of which will be so powerful that any form of individual freedom will be vanquished from civilisation for the foreseeable future. One last thing; the fact that Yanis Varoufakis distrusts Kier Starmer only made me like him even more. When Starmer won the leadership I wrote in a Labour FB group that he was a "spineless fraud and back stabbing traitor who is only it in for himself." Again I was laughed at and ridiculed by the majority people in that group who said: "give him a chance!" Now the same people who ridiculed me are disgusted with him. I don't expect an apology.
Excellent comment, thank you!
great input, thanks
Beware "stake holder" capitalism.
Well said!
In America, we say that if you’re 1 or 2 steps ahead of the herd your lauded a genius, if 4 steps ahead, you’re admonished and pilloried the crank. Anyway, this interview was extremely engaging until the last sentence - handing over more power to central banks to hold the accounts for everyone?? This is the inverse of democratization, the opposite of promoting personal agency of independence. It’s a rather shocking statement. He doesn’t seem to realize that democratizing cloud, AI, compute & big tech provides solutions for banking/payment processing that isn’t controlled by the central bank from cradle to grave.
Fantastic interview with a fascinating man. I love everything he says and, what’s more, I agree with everything he says
me too
Yannis is full of knowledge, wisdom and intelligence, he’s an academic marvel. It’s so inspiring and educationally satisfying to hear this guy speak and explain complex economic matters in an easy to digest fashion. The firm grasp that he has of the global economic framework from Corporate down to the individual level and its evolution is amazing. I could sense Krishnan was struggling a bit to hang in there as Yannis, opened one interesting door after another on how the global economy has changed and why. I feel we are luckily to have such a gifted educator and intellectual with his heart in the right place. It’s funny to believe he was technically an Essex boy as an undergraduate in the 1980s 😂Not exactly an area of England or finishing school background I envisaged for a world famous economic and political figure. But then maybe my mind is poisoned with the negative ‘chav’ social stereotype of the area that many English people are aware of. These stereotypes can even overshadow the good academic reputation of the universities and institutions in the area and their famous alumni.
Essex people are Great Entrepreneur's...
Listening to Yanus is so therapeutic and refreshing. I can be a student for his analytical skills.
Just wanted to comment on the exceptional technical quality of this interview. sound quality, lights and colors are just perfect.
Whilst much of what Yanis says makes a lot of sense and is obviously the product of a great deal of thought and contemplation on his part, and i congratulate him for that, He still ends the interview pushing the idea of digital ID as the answer, he wants us to take control of our digital personalities whilst i myself think that the digitization of people is incredibly dehumanizing and a very dangerous tool for malfeasant governments. I love technology and i am certainly not a luddite but i think it is a fatal move for humanity to simply lie back and allow ourselves to be sucked into a non tangible make believe world of ones and zero's. Many people think AI and the digital future is going to save humanity i think it's going to destroy us and those countries and or cultures who decide to step back from it all and maintain their connection with culture and nature and live mainly in the tangible, physical analogue world i.e. The real World, will be the ones that survive
100%
Yes I think that is his economics brain that struggles to compute with these other aspects
I don’t think it’s necessarily that he wants the world to go down that road of digitalisation, most of us don’t. I think he’s coming from the view that whether we like it or not this is way things are heading, and Europe needs our own platform for the sake of competition, or else we are all subject to American or Chinese corporations platforms. Personally, I would feel a lot more comfortable if my data was with a European corporation that was regulated by EU law as opposed to anything American.
True and those Countries are not the West but Muslim ones..who will still have their Traditional and Family Life and a little of the Modern World..
I don't think the concept of digital I.D. is the inherent problem. The problem is our complete lack of faith in the corrupt and criminal systems we exist under. Just like medicine itself isn't malevolent, but Big Pharma pushes whatever makes a profit. It makes me laugh watching the ads for smartwatches and fitness bands - the idea that the solution to being unfit and overweight is BUY MORE gadgets when the real issue is one of self control and consistency, and no gadget will ever create that.
Yanis is the only person making any sense right now. He is truly extraordinary, thank you for the interview Krishnan.
"Why is Capitalism so difficult to understand, Minnie?" "So that we don't, Mickey." 🤔(Green Fire, UK) 🌈🦉
Superb interview and not what I've come to expect from channel4 (or any equivalent). This is the content, that we should be broadcasting to make us think about different ways of seeing the world we are in today. I hope it continues and includes conservative thinkers as well as more like Yanis.
Conservative thinkers?
Facts
The very definition of conservative thinking is to conserve the society as it is. And you can not shift back to oldtime capitalism, the same whay conservative feudalists couldn't shift back the model to theirs when capitalism took over.
@@gustavoflorio5383 technically yes but "conservative" the political term includes a lot of extra nuance, there's lots of concepts people associate with the word you have to keep in mind. The literal meaning of words is important, but so is understanding how and why people use them, even if they use them "wrong"
Always a pleasure to listen to Yanis.
'if you're not paying for the product, you are the product' Yanis is a good fella to learn from. no matter if you are right or left. and especially if you are neither right nor left
When Yanis speaks people listen. It is difficult to find capitalism unravelled as expertly as he does in a way that your average person will get - but don't be under any doubt, his intelectualism in the way he explains is superb. Efharisto Yanis.
This kept me watching until the end. Yanis speaks alot of truth, technofeudalism is what we are living in. I think rather then have the central bank create a digital account (that they can track and control) a better solution would be to de-capitalise the banks and turn them into not for profit organisations that help individuals and businesses flourish (which is what we actually need them for).
Exactly this. Banks essentially provide utility, just like gas and water companies, and that's how we should treat them.
Makes you wonder why he didn't do jackshit about all that when he was in the goverment of Greece. Probably because he is a clown! And now rightfully so he isn't even in the parliament cause people realized what he is...
since banks loan capital, how do you de-capitalise it?
perhaps the Islamic banking gets more along with this idea, but i am not 100 per cent sure, maybe the toll for it is that they are even more plunged into someones private life...
If only. 👍
On top of Yanis excellent ideas, I'd tax corporations on global group profit and global assets on a sliding scale but with punitive top rates for the biggest companies, tax global wealth similarly, and apply additional taxes to companies that specialise in fossil fuels, weapons and advertising/data (social media and online markets). We need a global arms race on tax of the most wealthy. The power of corporate monopolies needs to be broken.
yeah, but unfortunately goverments are too easy to corrupt, no matter who you elect.
All you'd do is push up prices for the consumer. If you want to emancipate the working classes, you want to promote successful capitalism. Not punish it.
@@proselytizingorthodoxpente8304 internal contradictions of capital accumulation. There is no solution. I just like the idea of removing the incentive aggressively because I'm an idealist. Power will always change the rules to suit itself despite the systemic risk. Game theory all the way down. Makes no sense, makes prefect sense.
@@ex-cursion If you want innovation, progress, and the ability to really change lives and societies for the good, there is no better system than capitalism.
@@proselytizingorthodoxpente8304 I'll take 'idealogical frameworks' for 200 social credit points Alex. I think it's, 'What is capitalist realism?'. 😁
Thanks to Yanis I am cancelling my social media, including his KZhead videos.
Thanks for another lovely analysis of the current situation. I like personal transport and hope to retain access to it for as long as possible. Keep the faith mate.
100% agree with this fella. Does he have a podcast anywhere?
Yes
Yes. Its top. Just search on his name, think he has a website.
You won't regret becoming a fan of his. He's very active online with interviews etc. His books are great too. Some he recorded the audio book versions of himself. The Adults in the Room book is fantastic
@@joemunkey It is a great book. You have to concentrate big time but its an eye opener. For sure.👍
This is a quality take by Yanis
his analaysis is good, but proposed solution would never work at scale. the reason jeff bezos developed amazon was pure greed and ego, it could never have been done if everyone was voting.
@pondeify yeah that's why Amazon benefits just him, the companies Yanis proposes don't prosper on oppression and don't have a need to be as huge as Amazon
@@theop2746 bingo. Amazon, Facebook, Google, Gmail/Outlook, KZhead/Instagram/Tiktok, Whatsapp/Telegram are de facto public services. They're not publicly owned, but everyone is on them and used by so many businesses and organizations that they might as well be. Especially in the digital landscape, these companies pretty much decide what you see, what you do, where you earn and spend your money and offer a very carefully curated experience to each and every user - therefore we'd all be better off if each country had their own version of those, or subsidiaries that were Public Sector Undertakings or Co-operatives with large memberships. They don't even need to be super privacy invasive then, or constantly push more and more insidious content to drive engagement and ad revenues.
@@pondeify Yannis does suggest that Bezos' model is however, probably not sustainable. I kinda disagree with you when you say Bezos developed Amazon for pure greed and ego reasons. Back in the mid-1990's I was managing editor of a marketing journal and one day a press release landed on our desks announcing this thing called "Amazon". I got a chance to interview Bezos when Amazon was barely a year old (over the phone) and his key take was that commerce would shift to this new channel called "the internet". Everything would come down to satisfying the customer and making it easier to purchase stuff. In that sense, Bezos' vision panned out - but it nearly didn't. For over ten years Amazon was on a knife-edge and almost went bust several times. Where Bezos was wrong is how long it would take (coupled with advances in technology that drove the processes). He assumed human behaviour would change quickly - but it followed the classic exponential "S" curve so typical of technological advancement. When it did take off (around the time of the advent of the smartphone) Bezos' tenacity paid off (go look at Amazon stock prices from day one to the present). Bezos is "arrogant" because he can be... I don't approve of it, but that's just what it is. On the "greed" front I would put it more in the context of "selfish"... Bezos could be far more philanthropic and could certainly afford to pay his workers much more (his reluctance to do so may hasten Yannis's hypothesis).
@@brunosmith6925 regardless of his motivations (ultimately only he knows), my main point was this collectivist approach is also not sustainable - it encourages those with maniuplative tendencies to rise to the top, just like in politics and is a big reason why western democracies are failing.
Yanis has a wonderful understanding of history and our mental state and our place in context. Brother welcome 🙏.
Wow, 5 minutes in but it is super late and I have an early morning - I look forward to finishing this talk and seeing more from Yanis.
I LIKE YANIS HE'S STRAIGHT FORWARD AND TELL THE TRUTH.
Excellent interview. So well informed. Thank-you
Mr Varoufakis is so brilliant, noble Greek man
The divide between work and “play” has been dissipated. You talk to anyone and either the things they viewed as hobbies or interests have been transformed into side hustles to generate capital or they have cut out relaxation, hobbies, and interests to maximize their time usage for capital
Very true. Its a rabbit hole. Surfing the net, to make a few more bucks. So others make bigger bucks. In feudalistic societies, the peasants paid a tythe, not sure its the right spelling to their masters.
@@SuzanneO707 Serfs paid about 1/3 of land's value in taxes to their landlords. Tithe (1/10) was paid to the church.
@@maxdetrickster6524 Cheers👍I remember that now. It was collected by church. Doesn't seem a lot put that way. But both together, oof.
At the beginning of the pandemic, I started thinking about this subject when reading Shoshana Zuboff's book. But what caught my attention most was the other aspect of this new feudalism. In the feudal period, especially in William the Conqueror's England, society was completely divided. The nobles of Norman origin who had power over the land spoke a different language from the language spoken by the feudal servants. The owners of Big Techs master a very special language, which is that of the algorithms that empower their platforms and that cannot be seen by users when they are extracting data, refining profiles and distributing targeted advertising. The common language that platform users use is economically irrelevant, because wealth is produced and accumulated through that other background language that is the private property of techno-feudal lords.
Nice try to explain. Still there´s a very striking difference that helps: In feudalism, the value is in a vault, on the ground or other precious things that are barely mobile. In capitalism, the value is "on the way" to the next fast investment, and not in a "place" (the value is in the new technic of profitmaking, through very fast and continuous re-investments). That´s the big advantage of capitalism, allowing much higher profit. Luckily, the rise of capitalism stirred thing in so far up, that it even allowed for a bit of social mobility, that made many people rich, that were otherwise damned to stay poor ( 2 different phenomena, one aiding the other, but rather independent still, cause capitalism doesn´t connect mainly to social mobility, but only to higher profits, social mobility has been a coincidense, and this trend won´t always go hand-in-hand with capitalism, while profits for the already wealthy surely will). In this moment, we notice that investment is dying, cause the superwealthy have found another way of raising their profits, and that´s via technofeudalism, and it´s not just far more effective than traditional feudalism, but just as good as capitalism, and additionally it´s more secure and relaxed (for the superwealthy), and so it gets chosen by them. In the meantime, their lacking investment-interest is felt everywhere, cause till not long ago, we used to rely on their investments, while now they just earn, without really parttaking in the economy. Capitalism was a huge progress, but it also led to the existence of those superwealthy people, who now gather the money, without anything being produced or anybody getting paid. capitalism was maybe just an intermezzo, that will go away as it came.
@@klausbrinck2137 Another idea that occurred to me at that time was legal. In the Middle Ages, feudal lords had the power to dictate law and impose justice on their fiefdoms. The power of the Kings was very limited and they only resolved the most serious disputes between the nobles and even then they sometimes did not have the power to impose their decisions that contradicted the most powerful feudal lords. This characteristic of the Middle Ages is reproduced today, as States let the feudal lords of Big Techs dictate the law within their own platforms. Any conflicts between users and internet platforms can be resolved by the Judiciary, but the result is doubtful because of the inequality of arms between disgruntled users and the immense and powerful companies capable of shaping the politics of entire countries.
@@fabiodeoliveiraribeiro1602Not entirely as such today. Governments have the ultimate power. Companies or big corporations have the power to 'buy' individuals from the government to pass favorable laws for them or unfavorable for competitors. But governments have or gave themselves powers that they use to coerce companies into compliance (ex: passing and revoking licenses, initiating IRS investigations, antitrust laws...) and can weaponize such methods against any corporation at will, regardless if the government individuals were previously bought.
yeah, in 1919 in Czechoslovakia, shortly after becoming an independant Repbulic, the president T.G. Masaryk and his minister Švehla had a great idea of nationalisation of the feudal owners of land: the superrich aristocrats, the supeerrich land owners and Church. Masaryk and Švehla knew, that the countryside and small towns were incredibely poor and terribely underdeveloped and that it would create a revolution similar to that one like in Russia. They cancelled aristocratic status and they nationalised the lands. THey sold it at very reasonable price to small peasants. By this, they created a powerfull middle class. People were so happy to work on their own land. Crafts and little manufactures and little factories and little business started to flourish hand in hand with it in small town across the all country. They nationalised the Oligarchs of their time, who used to harvest the rent... 1919-1921 The Great Land Reform, Czechoslovakia. Unfortunatelly, 30 years alter, comunistis came to power, and made another nacionalisation: they took everything from the people who worked on their own little businesses and farms and state became the only owner. It was devastating. and we have not recovered yet.Czechoslovakia used to be one of the most deveoloped countries of the World. THey called it "little America" of Europe...
Sounds like something David Icke would say
This guy is one of the greatest minds in the world right now
A brilliant thesis, articulated in a coherent (if somewhat reductive fashion) by a humanitarian and intellectual. The fine distinction between the rent-generating economy of the internet (and cloud service platforms) vs earlier generations of capitalism , is remarkable & important for understanding the direction of the global economy. And it already up-levels the discussions from the simplistic, and often reductive/inaccurate debates of the "America is capitalist, China is communist" kind.
China are communist hypocrites ,they want the political power of communism ,and the economic benefits of capitalism but none of the freedoms that go with it, and the west has enabled it
"Rents" have existed way before the internet and Jeff Bezos. Some examples of "rents" are; land rents (landlord collects rent money above cost of property), monopoly rents (monopoly company can charge whatever they want for a product), patent rents (restricts innovation and collects money for the life of the patent) and financial penalties rent (interest charges for late payments etc..).
For anyone wondering what company he worked for. It's Valve.