Yanis Varoufakis: 'Capitalism is dead. The new order is a techno-feudal economy' | Hacker News Reader

Yanis Varoufakis: 'Capitalism is dead. The new order is a techno-feudal economy'

english.elpais.com

43 pointsPaulHoule21 comments

Techno-supremacy is based on economies of scale and monopolies. It stands to reason a few massive players would emerge and they would have a lot of power. They can not only buy out the politicians, but do so in such a fashion that no one else could even come close to competing with them. Also, we have to factor in many of smartest people on the planet work for these tech-companies and they would figure out a way to dominate in one way or another.

But, that's just capitalism. The "tech" part has little or nothing to do with it, unless you're taking a very broad definition of the word "technology." That's just what happens when someone gains an infinitesimal advantage and is able to hold onto it in an environment of exponential growth.

Perhaps the techno part of it is the increased speed at which organizations can grow and the widening gulf between them and government’s ability regulate a market.

Or push regulation when it benefits them.

Related previous discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37729172

The Greek minister of finance who failed to oversee Greece's economical meltdown is not someone I'm ever taking advice from.

Nearly 15 years later, Greece still has extreme unemployment and poverty. What is the human cost to Greece?

Well said. The only reason Yanis gets any coverage is his deep voice, perfect English, left wing politics, and the appealing (to some) brand he’s nurtured (leather jacket professor).

Couldn't get past the privacy settings loop.

Its coming true already....

Please respect the article's privacy. It doesn't want to be read.

This man is a villain hiding in plain sight, I used to find the things he says interesting, I even read his book on game theory and learned a lot from it but the more I watched him talk in his pompous style the more I his malignant narcissism became clear.

He is very good at game theory but also does a lot of projection. Game theory is an incredible source of narcissistic supply, you can always argue in favour of some sub-game that can be exploited at the expense of the collective. So you either find one of those games and exploit it or you turn around and accuse the other of playing it.

Did this man not work for Valve as head of economics, and got rich, like you know a tech bro?

He has said in an interview that after he was kicked out of the government of Greece he never spoke again with the then prime minister, just ghosted the man. Like all the time this little personal conflicts with everyone because they don't agree with his communist worldview.

There are plenty of people with a big ego like Steven Wolfram or Nicolas Nassim Taleb, but I don't detect this kind of nasty hatred in what they do, they are just big nerds with a big brain.

Maybe he was not always like this, but the more I heard him speak the more I thought I was listening to a hate preacher.

I remember, in my late teens (mumble) decades ago, coming to the conclusion that this is the logical endpoint of capitalism on a finite planet.

Check out Progress & Poverty: it doesn't need to be. There are capitalist schemes that are far, far better than feudalism with some technology sprinkled on top.

Another tech-bro telling the world we need to allow them to become our overlords... just because.

How is this man a tech-bro? Did you read the same article I did?

So... communists were right about things?

Um, the "techno-feudal economy" he describes is capitalism--at least as long as people refuse to exercise their market power by not doing business with companies that treat them like expendable resources instead of customers.

It is and it isn’t. Capitalism comes in many flavours, and the flavour that has emerged right now is the same which emerged around the 17th century - that is to say, absurd wealth concentration and states being powerless against their elites - which generally resulted in revolution, or the mass export and mollification of would-be revolutionaries through colonialism.

Part of the problem was, is that serfs, sorry, consumers, do not have market power in the face of vast monopolies which have achieved regulatory capture. They eventually realise, when sufficiently pissed off, that they do have power, en masse - but now more than ever we have an endless mire of distraction, and mass learned helplessness - are you with the People’s Front of Judea, or the Judean People’s Front? Oh, who cares, they’re bringing the lions out.

> vast monopolies which have achieved regulatory capture

I agree that this is a key issue, but the solution is simple: don't give governments the powers they would need for regulatory capture to work. Unfortunately, this solution is vilified by the very same monopolies who don't want to give up their privileged position, so it is extremely difficult for it to get traction. (And as far as the leftist ideas of Varoufakis are concerned, they make this problem worse, not better: in the kind of system he envisions, the entire economy is regulatory capture.)

The playbook of many tech giants has been to treat their users like customers while burning through VC funds to obtain a dominant market position, then start treating them like expendable resources once it's time to cash in. I'm not sure how I can exercise my market power to avoid this strategy as I'm unfortunately not privy to the long term business plans of every company I interact with.

> I'm not sure how I can exercise my market power to avoid this strategy

That's easy: don't be misled by "free" services which obviously aren't actually free because they obviously require significant costs to produce. That's how tech giants like Google and Facebook actually got their dominant market positions: not just by using VC funds to build the infrastructure needed, but by deliberately not charging their users for the service and instead going for the ad-supported business model.

In terms of market power, this is (or at least should be) obvious: if you aren't paying for the service, you don't have any market power, and that's not a good position to be in.

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