Name: Techno-Feudalism
ISBN: 9781847927279

Yanis Varoufakis

The Demise of Capitalism and the Rise of a New Power

Techno-Feudalism

Soham Dasgupta

You may well ask: when the bubble finally burst, why did we not let the bankers crash and burn? Why weren't they held accountable for their absurd debts? For two reasons.

First because the payment system - the simple means of transferring money from one account to another and on which every transaction relies - is monopolised by the very same bankers who were making the bets. Imagine having gifted your arteries and veins to a gambler. The moment he loses big at the casino, he can blackmail you for anything you have simply by threatening to cut off your circulation.

Karolina

With every day that passes, some cloud-based corporation, whose owners you will never care to know, know, owns another aspect of your identity.

Every time we go online to enjoy the services of these algorithms, we have no option but to cut a Faustian deal with their owners. To use the personalised services their algorithms provide, we must submit to a business model based on the harvesting of our data, the tracking of our activity, the invisible curating of our content. Once we have submitted to this, the algorithm goes into the business of selling things to us while selling our attention to others.

No one noticed when capitalism died. Perhaps we were too distracted by the implosion of global finance, or the rise of populism, or the demise of the planet - or all of those cute cats on Instagram. But gradually, quietly, a yet more exploitative new system has taken hold- techno-feudalism. Written in the form of a letter to his late father, who first taught him about the power of new technologies to shape human history, Yanis Varoufakis explains how Big Tech has effected an invisible but fundamental transformation in all our lives. Drawing on stories from Greek Myth and pop culture, from Mad Men to Karl Marx, he explains how the key ingredients of capitalism - profit and markets - have both been replaced. And he exposes the hidden connection between your personal data and the transformative power of 'cloud capital' which means that without our realising it, we are all working every day for the tech giants, for free.

Techno Feudalism

Great vision, but I wish it was more accessibly written.

The views of a self-designated liberal Marxist of our world's socio-economical development. Sometimes a little hard to follow his anologies and terminlogy.

Sven Schmidt

Mark Wolzak

Bilal Bayrakdar

Ashley Johnson

Martin

Alyssa C Smith

Tiago Mota

Ian Mason

Sergiu Mara

Clara

Erich

jami welch

The #1 bestselling economist shows how capitalism has been replaced by a more exploitative system, technofeudalism, in which the owners of big tech have become the world's feudal overlords. * A GUARDIAN BEST FORTHCOMING BOOK OF 2023 * THE TIMES BIGGEST BOOKS OF AUTUMN 2023 * ‘What an amazing piece of work this is. The dark, scary, exciting song of our age. 100 out of 100’ IRVINE WELSH In his boldest and most far-reaching book yet, world-famous economist Yanis Varoufakis argues that capitalism is dead and a new economic era has begun. Insane sums of money that were supposed to re-float our economies in the wake of the financial crisis and the pandemic have ended up supercharging big tech's hold over every aspect of the economy. Capitalism's twin pillars - markets and profit - have been replaced with big tech's platforms and rents. Meanwhile, with every click and scroll, we labour like serfs to increase its power. Welcome to technofeudalism. Drawing on stories from Greek Myth and pop culture, from Homer to Mad Men, Varoufakis explains this revolutionary transformation: how it enslaves our minds, how it rewrites the rules of global power and ultimately what it will take overthrow it. 'Utterly accessible, deeply humane and startlingly original' NAOMI KLEIN on Talking To My Daughter

Techno-Feudalism The Demise of Capitalism and the Rise of a New Power