Friday, November 20, 2015

The World Weekly — Interview with Yanis Varoufakis

Earlier in his life, Dr. Varoufakis was a much more orthodox Marxist, but his thinking has evolved over the years. “The exuberance of youth often goes together with dogmas,” Dr. Varoufakis told Aaron Bastani at Novara Media. “I believed a lot more in central planning than I do now. I believed a lot more in the wisdom of a political party that is hierarchically created. I was less aware and sensitive to the capacity of humans to abuse power – even power that is created in the pursuit of good causes.” 
Today, Dr. Varoufakis characterises his own brand of Marxism as “erratic” and libertarian. It draws on the humanistic work in Marx’s early career. As Dr. Varoufakis explains to The World Weekly: “Marx’s quarrel with capitalism was not that it was unjust but that it was inimical to human freedom and particularly inefficient at pressing our magnificent capacity for technological innovation into humanity’s service”. 
He goes on to say: “He got capitalism right but failed to predict how his disciples, the left, would exploit the power of his ideas to build political power structures that proved detrimental to human freedom and particularly inept at harnessing technological innovation”. Much like the British economist Paul Mason, the former Greek finance minister seems to view technology as a force that will overthrow capitalism with or with the help of the left. The question that occupies his thinking is not whether capitalism will be overtaken by technology but what kind of society will emerge as a result. Will it be the good society that has so far eluded us or some dystopia?
Weekend reading.

Yanis Varoufakis
The World Weekly — Interview

Also
Echoing the call for innovation by new prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, Varoufakis said Australia should redirect its economy from “rent” in the shape of selling commodities to “entrepreneurial profit” in the form of greater innovation.…
“It was Paul Keating who said Australia needed to move from being the lucky country to being the smart country. But the government didn’t help that and Australia still has a problem taking ideas to the next stage.”
Note: Yanis has dual Greek and Australian citizenship.

THE GUARDIAN: Australia is a ‘plaything’ of world economic forces it cannot control

3 comments:

Matt Franko said...

The guy is hopelessly stuck in a 200 y.o. framework fashioned under gold and no longer applicable ... Along with all the left (and right)

NeilW said...

There's an awful lot of them. And for some reason they've got it in for nation states.

Matt Franko said...

"Dr. Varoufakis characterises his own brand of Marxism as “erratic” and libertarian."

Its erratic due to his cognitive dissonance when faced with the reality that it is no longer an applicable framework and his libertarianism prevents him from understanding what is really going on.... present arrangements being VERY anti-libertarian just ask Bob Roddis...

"the former Greek finance minister seems to view technology as a force that will overthrow capitalism "

He will never admit to or define a point where this would occur... facts are it already HAS occurred via technology and it is marked at the point when we trashed Bretton Woods he just cant admit it....

Here:

“Nothing short of a new Bretton Woods can make a long lasting difference”.

Right! ... a difference for YOU lol!

He of course wants us to go back to the Bretton Woods type system so all of his Marx mumbo-jumbo applies again and he can re-gain relevancy..