Yanis Varoufakis: The Future of Capitalism | The New School
Sponsored by the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis (www.economicpolicyresearch.org) at The New School for Social Research (www.newschool.edu/nssr), Yanis Varoufakis will deliver SCEPA's annual Robert Heilbroner Memorial Lecture, "The Future of Capitalism."
We all know Varoufakis as the former Greek Finance Minister and media sensation who stood up to Europe in the fight against austerity. His lecture will discuss themes from his new book, "And The Weak Suffer What They Must?," including the origins of a crisis that has affected not only Greece, but all of Europe.
The lecture will be followed by a panel discussion featuring New School Professor of Economics Mark Setterfield and economics student Ebba Boye.
Department of Economics | www.newschool.edu/nssr/economics
Varoufakis’ career has spanned academia, public service, and the private sector. After three decades in academia, he was elected to the Hellenic Parliament in 2015 as a member of the Syriza Party and became Minister of Finance in Alexis Tsipras’ government. He currently serves as professor of economics at the University of Athens and as a consultant for the Valve Corporation.
The Robert Heilbroner Memorial Lecture on the Future of Capitalism: The Heilbroner lecture honors the work of Robert Heilbroner, who was both a student and a professor in the economics department of The New School for Social Research. This event is dedicated to understanding questions of economic justice and how the profit-seeking activities of private firms might also serve broader social goals. To use Heilbroner’s words, “capitalism’s uniqueness in history lies in its continuously self-generated change, but it is this very dynamism that is the system’s chief enemy.”
THE NEW SCHOOL | www.newschool.edu
Location: John L. Tishman Auditorium, University Center
Monday, April 25, 2016 at 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm
People often say that Varoufakis was a complete failed economics minister. I am a Greek musician and i watch an economy lecture in a great USA University ....Thats the success of Varoufakis He inspires people.
This is very true. The other thing that should be remembered is that if Greece had followed his policies the country would be in a far far better place. Of course he was going to fail, they were being made an example of.
+Kostas Spiliotopoulos now he is really powerful...much more then before as Minister of Finance.
Evidentialist Yes because he is not a glue headed leftist .....He is open minded and pragmatic. He is not dogmatic !! I see you have Dawkings on your pic ....Varoufakis is also Atheist
could you elaporate that? i mean the fact that we can watch this, has to due with the spread of the internet. Not Varoufakis polices alone.
You can´t make policys to defend against neoliberalist sharks.That´s why his ideas might have been brilliant,but powerless in the context he was in.
I have never seen a speaker combine history, economics, sociology, and anecdotes in such a masterful and insightful manner.
Mr. Varoufakis is a major inspiration. He showed strong critical mind, devotion to his people and integrity. He was just back stabbed by thugs from the EU HQ.
Omg Varoufakis just summerized my years of thinking in two sentences.
1:00:00 At that point humanity will be facing a junction. where either we move to a star-trek like utopia, where technology becomes our slaves, and we manage to utilize its worth-creating capaticy for the purposes of the commongood, which will be democratically determined and not technologically, or we are going to move towards a matrix-like dystopia, where humans independently whether they are the owners of this magnificent maschines, or the masses who are miserable and completely cut-off productive society, will all become sevants to the maschines.
Most people don't even understand the severity of the financial system . In this world, their vote is been bought through deceivement or discounted beer. Do you really think Those types should have equal right to determine future when they need someone to care for their own interest?
ArseneGray
Yes?
'Varoufakis just summerized my years of thinking in two sentences.' ha yes - he's good at that.
It is a physical relief to listen to Varoufakis.
Varoufakis is a legend. He started out studying economics, then went on to write a blog for Valve about the economics of TF2 hats, after that became Greek minister of finance for a couple of months, lost that position because he was too good for it, and now goes around the world trying to revolutionise the EU, with amazing success. What the fuck?
How our leaders should be.
Varoufakis fucked up the negotiations with EU and left Greece in a worst state than the one it was before. Everyone here in Greece has him to thank for the current capital controls. Idolize him all you want, but know this: He is a fraud.
"If our nation can issue a dollar bond, it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good, makes the bill good, also. The difference between the bond and the bill is the bond lets money brokers collect twice the amount of the bond and an additional 20%, whereas the currency pays nobody but those who contribute directly in some useful way. … It is absurd to say our country can issue $30 million in bonds and not $30 million in currency. Both are promises to pay, but one promise fattens the usurers and the other helps the people." -- Thomas Alva Edison Commenting on Henry Ford's currency plan in ”Ford sees wealth in Muscle Shoals”, New York Times (6 December 1921), p. 6
No, they did not listen to his advice and 'sold out' instead of fighting. He saw that they were capitulating and parted ways with them.
He is a soros puppet
I truly enjoy listening to Prof. Varoufakis as I enjoy listening to Chris Hedges and Noam Chomsky. These are the great thinkers of our time and listening to them is a delicious experience.
Mr. Varoufakis is obviously a brilliant historian, economist, and humanist.
Yanis is simply the honest about how the power elite operate. Those in the lower economic classes are not allowed to decide how the rich will rob them of their minimal value.
Rational and evidence based critique of capitalism and the current problems of liberal democracy. What is surprising these days is that he is being considered radical when this was just common sense and moderate left 30 years ago.
The New School one of the few institutions doing valuable work.
wish this had 22 million views #FeelTheBern
why not 23 million?
apsarator
wow.... he is like the EMS called to the scene of a heartattack victim. you can't blame the EMS for causing the heartattack
You clearly have absolutely no fucking idea what you are talking about. The Greek economy imploded years before he got in. He wasn't even allowed to implement his ideas you moron.
economics isn't a natural science. there are no physical absolute truths. its all completely contrived by the legacy white ruling class. economics and its theories are and will always be speculation supported by anecdotal, circumstantial data and evidence
Such an insightful discussion. Yannis is a rock star of economics. Ebba Goye held her own amongst her very accomplished seniors with much aplomb.
people like him, needs to be helped to be able to reach out for every body say thanks to those, who uploads all this. He is a great person.
The problem is most people are idiots who don't have the attention span to actually learn anything. Right-wing talking points that involve comparing states to households or saying things like "socialism doesn't work because you eventually run out of other people's money" hold more sway because they are simple and appeal to a false intuition called "common sense". Talks like this just go in one ear and out the other for them.
Wow I am so happy and thankful of seeing thing video at the opposite side of the planet for free. I really feel the same too of the last saying of the Yanis' sole lecture about the techniques and the democratic power as a decision maker for our future. And I hope that the example of myself having the chance to see the vivid lecture and getting inspired by it would be a part of a democratic power for dragging the present for better future. Thank you Yanis, and thank you New School. I really appreciate it.
...democracy began in Athens... 24:38 - 29:28 “It is usually, and for good reason, said that democracy in ancient Athens was so severely circumscribed by racism and by sexism - by the exclusion of the metics. The metics were the migrants, the foreigners, of course the slaves, and women. But it would be a mistake - and I think Alan Wood has made a very good case for this - it would be a mistake to dismiss ancient Athenian democracy on the basis of whom it excluded. It is much more interesting to look at ancient Athenian democracy on the basis of whom it included. Because the 70 or so years - 70- 75 years during which this fragile flower flourished - before it was trampled by the Macedonians, later by the Romans, and so on - during those 70-75 years we had a very interesting regime in Athens, in which the majority ruled. The majority being the poor - the working poor citizens, mainly - but nevertheless, working poor. Now all the great and good ancient Athenians, whose names still resonate, hated democracy. Plato was a committed anti-democrat. Aristotle was not so committed, but he was also an anti-democrat. And he actually gave the most interesting definition of democracy: it is a constitution in which the poor and the free, courtesy of being in the majority, control the government. So, democracy is a highly politicised, very left-wing concept - in Aristotelian belief. A system of governance in which power lies with the poor - who happen to be the majority. This was indeed only possible because of scale being such that it permitted for direct decision making. And to the extent that democracy was also interwoven with another concept - a much less well known concept - which to me is or ought to be highly significant - I’ll spell - I’ll pronounce it in Greek - it’s isogoria - the concept of isogoria. What it means is the right to have your views listened to on their merit, independently of who is speaking the words articulating the view - independently of whether the person who is speaking those words that articulate that view is rich, poor, articulate, rhetorically accomplished, or a nothing. This is very interesting - so much so, that if you were too articulate, in your rhetoric, you got ostracised. Ostracised meant, that citizens, during the end - the last, final stages of the assembly, they would take an ostrakot, which was a shell, a seashell - and write the name of the person they wanted to expel from the city for being too articulate - too influential, thereby subverting isogoria. - stopping those who less articulate from having their views listened and judged on their merit, not on how beautifully and flowery their speech was. They went to such extremes. And indeed, in the final stage of degenerate Athens - after the end of the Peloponnesian War and the defeat of the tyrants - they went so far as to argue against elections. Elections are deeply undemocratic towards the end of the Athenian democratic period. Why? Because through competition they create a false dynamic - a competitiveness which usurps the essence of the exchange of ideas. And they replaced elections with random draws, which is where the jury system comes from - or the concept of it.”
11:30 Yanis starts
1:01:00 Humanity will be facing a juncture...We'll either move to a star trek like utopia, where we manage to use technology for the common good....Or we're going to move towards a Matrix like dystopia...
my toughts too . He Nailed it
nope. either we move to a star trek like utopia focusing on combating climate change, or in 50-100 years civilization collapses, and in 300 years humanity is extinct due to climate change.
Yup. I wouldn't say it's like the Matrix. What will happen in the future is that the super rich will convert whatever cities are left into luxury fortresses where they can survive while the rest of us will be left to rot outside the city walls in a barren, dying world.
again, someone had to mention the climate change bullshit again.... Maybe not the Matrix, but definitely an Elysium dystopia.
this is something to love about the 21th century - I can sit at home on my fat ass, not move an inch and listen to people far, far away...
yannis starts at 11:20. the beginning is all fluff.
+mrzack888 Thanks dawg. I only saw this after wasting six minutes ...
+mrzack888 thanks
thnx man
What? You wasted a total of 6 minutes!!!!!! That's terrible dude... Six minutes is wasted... OMG!!!!
thank you!!!
Yanis' interpretation of the Impossibility theorem, reminds me of the halting problem in computation as formulated by Alan Turing.
Brilliant presentation. I would like hear what Yanis thinks about the creation of money as debt and usury. Even the capitalists are slaves to the creditors.
+Proletariat Films He once mentioned in an interview that he supports public money creation. But he never publicly discusses it. I think he is trying to find ways to achieve the goals of a debt-free system within a debt-based system. Playing it safe, perhaps?
financial simplification
Working Class it does serve puropse as well. It wasn't done like this for no reason. It ensures that there always enough currency available to fascilitate economic activity. It also ascociates a cost to currency to make sure no more is actually created then strictly nesesary. And it asures that investment is done rationally as the debt taken on has to make a profit to repay the interest. These are very important measures that make a fiat system viable and provides some safeguards to abuse. We simply need a financial system and we need acces to credit, and a lot of it in order to make long term investments to grow the economy to keep giving the same service to a growing population. In a fixed currency model all investment needs to be saved first. Taking a lot of currency out of the economy crushing demand. Basicly ensuring that you have to shrink the economy first in order to make investment to recoup the lost economic activity. And with a growing population that creates scarcity and thus higher prices. Exactly the reason we said goodbye to the gold standard. The problem is that a lot of regulation that ensured the system functions correctly went out the window during the 80's. Opening it up to abuse. I'd love to hear about a better way to do things that has better build in potections though if you can share one.
It took me a while of listening to him speak, but I eventually realized that he's the former minister of Finance who was described as being famous for riding something like a motorcycle around Athens and getting off this bike to talk with local discontents/dissidents. He has the makings of a rock star economist -- or maybe entertainer.
Aristotle made many wrong conclusions in physics ....But he promoted the scientific method.
+Kostas Spiliotopoulos you didn't get the point.
+yutuboslaven No i absolutely get it .....Aristotle made many wrong conclusions is science !! The reason he is the most influential person in human history is because the promoted clear thinking and the scientific method....Not because of his results.
@@MrCostiZz Yes you are perfectly right. The moment his teaching was rediscovered was essentially the ending point of dark ages. Christianity in people like St Thomas integrated this and saved Europe rebuilding it's culture into future greatness. Today we forgot it and we slide back to dark ages - whole scientific world is so biased and binded with media, politics, indeologies the whole european cyvilization is rotting becuase of it, including religion.
I am an great admirer of the mind set of Yanis Varoufakis . He appears to have a unique knowledge of history, economics & humanity . He admits thet he (& I are) merely little boys with ideas.I intend to invite him to challenge the youth of Abergele,North Wales . I have many princesses & princes who may become enchanted by a modern Greek with wisdom.
simply fantastic!!!!!!
Such a brilliant mind. New age Chomsky
Parabéns! Congratulations!
Yanis Varoufakis is my spirit animal
A REAL LEADER in today's diminishing world
Thanks Yanis!!
The words are our light and our darkness! Yanis, "aries" at the very beginning, is like every aries, beautiful, charming and - like almost every aries - benevolent. And like every aries - he is in such a hurry, with so much optimism and energy, that his work will be necessary to correct for years afterwards. But at least, as with each aries, his action will start the thing from the dead end in an attractively short time. Economics is not a science! Yanis emphasizes this, sometimes decisively, sometimes with conidtions. Yanis is an economist. What do economists economize with? When Yanis sucsesfully answers to this question himself, he will cross to my side. And in order to respond to himself, he must first answer himself - what are the politicians doing? What is their duty? And he must compare the duties of politicians with the duties of economists. Yanis is wonderful to hear, even in this tragic time.
Yanis starts at 11:19
Love this man,laughed all the way , truth is so beautiful ,wake up,people ,the world needs your good intellectual.lol
Amazing stuff.
Thanks for watching & becoming self educating !
Firstly all humanity requires a basic living wage to meet their basic needs ...shelter, water, food, clothing, healthcare & education....Secondly each divinely created human soul has its own personality and its own desires & passions to contribute to a meritocratic economy; to be true self empowered to gift the value of their skill ,service or product......Thirdly all services and products are non-abuse of animals, humans and environment obviously....this is the alignment to a loving regenerative based system ....not for profit ,greed, elitism and corruption though for abundance regeneration
You lost me at "divinely created human soul".
Wages are unnecessary Abolish money
Ought vs. is.
Por favor podrían ponerle subtitulos en español gracias!
That was amazing. Entire degrees of thought were summed up in less than 45min; some even less so.
Another thoughtful & invigorating presentation by Mr V! One of the more interesting (ex) politicians of modern times - very enjoyable stuff! .....Buuut, the intro / interview-robot is awkwardness incarnate! Good _GRIEF!_ O__O
the irony of his physics example is that Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is almost exactly what he is talking about.
When you sell or buy junk bonds, there are consequences. The question then becomes who and how will the resulting payment schedule be negotiated. When a bank lends money, it cannot claim that it does not understand the risk. When a nation borrows money from a bank (as opposed to its own people) it cannot its promise is extracted under duress.
I would love to see/listen to a debate between him, a historian of the weight of Mark Mazower and a sociologist (I don't have a name for this part) and see what comes out of it. The next and even more important step would be to include to the conversation an engineer, someone who's coming from the production. I do think, things are going the wrong way. I don't necessarily agree with him, but i got to listen and combine opinions.
11:15 for the speaker
Institutionalize by-passing the banks....what a creative idea that deserves to be done...
Assuming that a machine could ever pass a Turing test; why is there no mention of the (actual and realistic) breakthroughs happening in genetics, with new technologies such as CRISPR/cas9?
So true......so true. Brilliant Mind, so thank ful :)
If only the cretins I am unfortunate to be stranded on this island with had listened to the inspirational words of Yanis.
Wow, that's interesting , learnt something new :)
May I ask, is there any governance in the world, 'fit for purpose' to work democratically?
Teach me Life please! School: the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. Thats All? School: Yep
KZhead: np bro, we've got you.
This man is fantastic! With ease, humour and astonishingly clear eloquence, he explains to us why and how, the road we're on is a dead end. Thank you, Dr Varoufakis, first for trying to break the economic monopoly of the Euro-fat-cats, and secondly, for giving this highly enlightening talk and continuing to inspire and educate. We need many more like you and Noam Chomsky!
And his professed (and I believe him) intellectual insecurity proves his deep intellectualism and sharp intelligence!
Starts at 11:00
37:00 Capitalism without State is like Christianity without Hell. It doesn't work.
lol?
ok
No, he's right. He just seems to frame it as a bad thing. Capitalism is based on the idea of private property. State provides means to enforce that property is actually private. Socialism also cannot exist without a state, but instead of protecting private property, this time around there is no private property - all of it belongs to state, which then redistributes it to people as it sees fit.
Theoretically property under socialism is distributed democratically allowing businesses to be run democratically, think co-ops and credit unions. This would be preferable to the soviet model.
+NobodyHasThisNick for sure thats the reason probably there has never been a totally-totally-non-state-capitalism. It's a question of approximatiom, not so much the extremes. On the other hand, there's methodologies to enforce property without state force, and they've been put in practice many times when the state or kingdoms weren't able or interested in enforce it. State is nothing more than people.
What's the name of the guy he cites at 35:10 ? Kanitaro?
Kenneth Arrow.
1:44:00 he is campaining against Brexit but provides some of the best arguments i have heard FOR Brexit - confusing
His position (as I understand) is that countries should not join EU (as they will loose the power to control money supply and also because the EU is not an elected/representative of the will of the people). But once they join, the pain and suffering the indebted countries (like Greece, Spain) would face after exiting would be great (the loans are already dominated in Euro and defaulting on that loan unilaterally would mean the lenders would be more inclined to punish you more (in the forms of no investments and market access))
Interesting to note that the means to production are again changing irrevocably towards a wageless future in which AI intelligence and robotics replace almost entirely human labour. Corporate globals will be forced to rethink as the consumer falls through the floor and corporates start to fall like dominoes stacked end to end on a table surface. Basic guaranteed income at adequate levels is the only way forward for the consumer and for the corporate that must shift product.
Hey! It's the New School! The New School's apparatchik all want a shot at introducing the guest. Over 11 minutes! Why? Because the New School is the center of the universe. Aren't the people in the audience aware of that???????
I like that the second speaker from Norway failed to mention the oil.
Anybody else watching in 2017? Setterfield was prophetic AF in his presentation re. the Democrats going with the right wing shift instead of the progressive candidate thereby forcing the disenfranchised to go for the knuckle-dragging Trump vision
I'd love to work at the New School one day (I wrote a PhD on Hans Jonas, who taught at the New School)
45:07 who is the person mentioned here?
brilliant truth
Where are subtitles?
I don't believe in the 3D printer revolution. I never hear anyone arguing about the raw materials logistics problem involved.
23:30 - 23:07 what did he say?
Wow, ~130 he deals so well with stupid comments.
Yanis was fantastic as ever, but my the other three were weird (as was the format of the event).
I think this guy - is th e epitome of professionalism. Though, I would like to see a more business demeanor I can understand fully why he does not want to represent that. I follow his ideas and believe in pretty much everything he says. Here is the reality though. Survival of the fittest is an innate mechanism noted in the human psyche. Business- is an extension of that ideology - when banking evolved and lending evolved a beast was created.......many are able to slay this beast and come out on top. But, most of us are unable to slay this beast. But, what if - society as it is needs this beast and some of us have to be sacrificed? Who will be our hercules? do we really need him? All I know is that to date- no political system, no country, no person can change our system...it develops out of chaos....therefore, whether we like it or not we can only "reform the system we have at this moment in time".....we need a Lutheran reformer! We had him and his name was Voelkner....but, we insulted him when we elected an actor to the highest position which was the presidency.
How anyone could be aware of the Athenian system and unironically use the oxymoron "liberal democracy" is beyond me.
Oh great, an hour in and he's going on about how we should just sit back and let the machines bring communism to us again. The fact that this Menshevik is the best modern "Marxism" has to offer should give you an impression of the sheer scare of capital's global victory.
Wonder how Trump would get on in a discussion of the finer points of economic theory with Varoufakis...
He would kick over the chairs, smear shit on his chest, and scream about illegals.
Kim Runic trump doesn't have the intellect or intellectual honesty to have a discussion with Varoufakis.
Altered Beast He doesn’t have the intellectual ability to discuss with a two year old.
Thanks---worth every minute, and more power to the Diem25 international party so that the people who do the daily work lay claim to their own essential value and power. I hope YV becomes next PM of Greece so that courage and creative solutions can begin again---so that "a groundswell of democratic participation brings Europe to a Green New Deal" (said at very end). Btw, YV's summation of capitalism-vis-a-vis-democracy rings true with the Native American historical experience of the beginnings of modern economics in the Renaissance. That is---for colonizers, outside peoples who are happy with the simple essential things they have must be "reformed" to want unnecessary things, so that business makes profit; and, that the true "ideal" of business is slave labor. Whoops, I'm an Indian!
The are profundities to be garnered from Aristotle or Hegel's theories of nature
A useful information which would illuminate many shadows for the understanding of what is happening to the EU project, is how the whole € currency was designed to create surpluses to the industrial North and mainly Germany, and deficits to the South. The South / North issue is not Geographical or an of anthropological/social nature issue (*some racist demagogues speak about the **_laziness_** of the South*). This was created by design, in the sense of the €'s architectural design. *When Varoufakis said*: _"...because you have a large fat welfare fund made of Olive Oil..."_, *this contains a truth*; The North constantly absorbs ANY CHANCE the South has to create surpluses. *There's a saying* in Europe which describes this issue too among other issues: _"Germany's surpluses are_ [nowmore] _the deficits of all other Europeans"_. This began as a North / South issue by design, and nowadays (*only recently* the last 4-5 years) exactly because of this crisis Germany dominates the whole South and largely the North. This discussion is huge, and I believe it should be part of any discussion taking place about EU.
11:10 Start of talk.
these university people look so silly on stage with the YANIS.
At 1:52:22 she is wrong! There was a crowdfunding campaign for Greece that raised around one million dollars by the time my friend convinced me to donate to it.
What does he mean by "This tradition" at 35:19?
Around 55-62 minutes - Varoufakis explains how the singularity may cause the collapse of capitalism as we know it.
Anyone know if there is a transcript?
+Marsie Welch One of his Ted Talks with similar thematics to this talk has been transcribed: www.ted.com/talks/yanis_varoufakis_capitalism_will_eat_democracy_unless_we_speak_up/transcript?language=en
Marsie Welch how about you learn a little bit of English language? For a start...
This starts Varoufakissing at 11:15.
Aside from New School, what other universities are so called "bastions of subversive thinking in economics"? As he mentioned there were about 2 or 3 other places in the world that teaches economics in an unconventional way.
+Jose Miguel Javier University of Missouri at Kansas City (Stephanie Kelton, L.Randall Wray, Bill Black, Michael Hudson) and Univ. of Mass, Amherst.
+Jose Miguel Javier in the wrong way, Grove City College in the US focuses on the Mises/Hayek sort of pure free market theory
+AA2 Thanks for the reply, i was however looking for left-leaning/"progressive" ones
I just had to say this most of the stuff he talks about makes conspiracy theory true, but very nice lecture I enjoyed.
why does this conference not have millions of views? Please, everybody share this
1:58:00 Here it is clear he gets his information from activist journalism... it's fair to support the SNP but then to dislike UKIP despite being the same bar the EU membership issue. EUrophile wants his one vote to have a say in a room of hundreds, which coincidentally happens to be the key argument the SNP oppose on a national(EU provincial) level. I guess I don't understand him...
Democracy aligns to ethics, love, equality and regeneration to progress humanity...the will of humanity is rehabilitated to the above.
habitat acquisition regard duplicity wine and winery time shares . Perfect conditions .
Varoufakis starts at 11:29
The problem is world wide now when finance has been hijacked by private sector over time of capitalism development to its stage of today. If you can't pay your house debit you have to give it to the Authority that provided you with the loan ( The next kings and Queens will be BANKERS ) which is given to you on your own deposit with fractional ratio of 9:1 . Basically if any loan needs %10 deposit, That loan legally can be created from noting which added to money circulation in a society which in turn contributes to create inflation That boosts the amount of loan needed for next development and this thing has been perceptual as long as it has been existed and always ends to economical crisis because it is never possible that income can catch up with it.
i agree VAR is a legend.I remind y the proverb:A prophet is never recognised in his country(something similar)
Add subtitles please. It's easy. KZhead will generate them automatically for you. Please. Thanks.
11:20
A most pressing issue of economics is sea-level rapidly increasing to a minimum rise in 80-years of 1m/3.3ft, it never goes back down the point and seeing nothing done by Paris at all in emissions thus pushing that estimate beyond 2m/6.7ft instead by the fact that Antarctica has gone from 10-20B tons/yr in a century to 280Bt/yr today and its melt rate is constantly accelerating. Where is formal recognition of forced relocations to already inhabited lands by the economic system in place? How will economics value properly the risks of a fossil-fuel oligarchy free to wage wars with the majority of global "discretionary income" on humanity's needs versus criminally derived profits? Wall $treet and the Bankster$ with the zillionaire$ lead the cartel$ in putting inflated zeroe$ on paper as profit$ off$hore with ea$e now. Like Rome, it wa$ $uch a$ milk alway$ co$ting more that had the mo$t to do with it$ ruin from a hi$tory not con$idering hear$ay on their ri$e and fall.
learn from those who failed first. "follow the god that failed" - metallica
For 100 years power shifted from the political sphere to the economic sphere which is a democracy free zone. And only after power left the political sphere was the political sphere democratized. (At 50.50) Which after 1970 even that was set aside. Of course obvious only after it is pointed out.
And the Democratic Party thinks it is having a "serious policy debate?" I'd love to see Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton respond to Yanis' exposition of the past 216 years of capitalism and "democracy." Have either mentioned the impact of IT driven "automation" the very notion of which drives conventional economists like Paul Krugman up the wall...I'm nominating Yanis to replace Krugman for deeper insights into what is going on...
+William Neil Senator Sanders might be more classical in perception than Hillary, but I suspect he would be more open minded and less narcissistic in position, lol.
+Kenneth Slayor I don't know about "classical," that's a dangerous term in economics, right now, the foundation for neoliberalism, even though Marx is usually included in it, along with Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and a number of other Brits and Scots, but certainly Bernie understands the depth of the troubles better than Mrs. Clinton. It's just that I still have a memory of the some of the "old" socialists, Harrington and George Lichtheim are two I cite regularly, who were prolific writers who were fluent in all matters of political economy and beyond...Sanders has done very well, so how hard can one be on him, yet he has too often recited and and not put the script down to elaborate. Once a month, he should have given a more free flowing speech, "here's where I'm coming from..." like the one at Georgetown. Varoufakis caught my attention from two essay he posted at Naked Capitalism and the sources he listed included books I've valued but which no one in America cites, for example, James Morone's "Hell Fire Nation." Yanis also was reading M.I. Finley, "Democracy: Ancient and Modern" and several other of his works. Finley studied at Columbia under Karl Polanyi before being forced out at Rutgers, leaving for England and later becoming "Sir." I'm asking too much of American politics, I know, but once one has heard great and wide-ranging speakers, like Varoufakis, I hope American politicians understand that there are benchmarks which exist beyond their "realm."
I used classical in more of a colloquial sense, meaning: something with an education longer than soundbites and twitter feeds - or when people could actually read and write with a fifth grade education and not use a spell checker to make mistakes for them. While my personal interest is more in the nature of man and the implication of that nature on the necessity of political reality, I see economics as a part of the ecosystemic action of the animal under consideration. Like all epic philosophers my views are from the macro level of that discipline rather than micro. As to Sanders, I think he is a rational individual, who has survived the passions of his youth to attain the wisdom to be circumspect in older years. One must know when casting pearls before swine will get a return on the investment beyond getting the pearls cracked up and crapped out. At the moment I fear the people of my nation are as illiterate and ignorant as the proletariat of the early USSR. The ripples from the Concert of Europe still drown the towers of academia and the union of students as enemies of an entitled elite richesse whose blood is as thin as Bourbon.
William Neil krugman is just as useless as almost all of them in the end. He still views economics as a entity that exists in it's own realm that functions on it's own and reacts to economic conditions. And therefor tries to monitors it trough economical statistics. Economics is completely intertwined with society and government. And any changing condition in any one of these 3 things has an effect on all of them. Changes can have a percieved positive effect at first, but it usually also changes something else fundamentaly in the other 2. Long term things that seem easy fixes can have nasty consequences. Advertising seemed like a good idea. It enables business to let people know what they have for sale and will promote growth and keeps cirrency circulating. But now we have a society that is completely driven on and manipulated by advertising. Making people misrable, depressed, feeling insufficient. That feeds all sort of social problems. Like violence, substance abuse, suicide, family issues. Plus it created a system in which a lot of things are solely build to bring advertising money. All media only exists now to serve ads and get eyeballs on to them and needs to be ever more extreme and provoking to get people that where looking at something else and someone elses ads to look at theirs instead. There is a reason tv only contains conflict and absurdaty nowdays. And that while we see media as our sole source of information, which explaines why most people are oblivious to what happens in the world. None of these things are never connected to eachother. A social problem needs to be solved with social measures. An economic problem only gets economic changes put forward to solve the problem. The lack of inovation and monopolising mega corperations aren't really an economic problem. It is a lack of regulation that enables corperations to just keep doing what they have figured out is the most efficient in this situation and have the big ones push out or take over little ones making them even bigger. Want less plastic waste? Don't try to recycle it, tell corperations they can't use them anymore. Make them find another less wastefull way or material to pack the shit they want people to buy. If they can't do business if they don't find a cheap solution, a solution will be found one way or another. Imagine how much money that would save .. No expensive sorting plants, Less garbage trucks that need to be run, less fuell used, less inciniration and landfilling, a cleaner environment, less oil use, less oil tankers, less health problems, a more productive workforce etc. So many social and economic issues bennefit from one little regulation. Yet we don't do it because waste is a social issue and we try to solve it with social measures like recycling. It isn't that hard people.
A true free market does not allow corporations and regulates itself through competition.
31:48 - 33:00 = The importance of Sociology
The only way out it seems to me is to convince corporate business to stop financing a political system which will eventually lead to its own downfall. Political support of parties.
Ah, Alexis how could you not stand behind him ?
Because the EU were threatening to force Greece to leave. Varoufakis told Tsipris that it's a bluff and they wouldn't do it but Tsipris wouldn't take that gamble because it would have had catastrophic consequences, so he caved.