Support my team and I to make more videos like this at: https://patreon.com/tomnicholasCapitalism is dead. Killed by its own biggest fans. That's the thesis ...
In the first minute, Dude says capitalists are now acting like capitalists and declares that because of that, capitalism is dead.
I stopped watching.
What has died is socialist controls on capitalism. The public has forgotten the destruction that capitalism causes which required those socialist controls.
Na, the “dude” (Varoufakis, a well known leftist economist) is just using “capitalist” in a stricter classical definition. The observation he is making is correct in so far as there is a shift in the prevalent economic model and classic capitalists are not the ones in charge anymore.
The classical definition is “worse” than what he thinks doesn’t make someone capitalist. Child labor is capitalism. 6 day work weeks are capitalism. Company towns are capitalism. His argument is based on the indoctrination that everything good is capitalism and if it isn’t good it can’t be capitalism.
“These companies are engaging in rent seeking monopolies so it isn’t capitalism.”
GTFO. That’s the definition of capitalist behavior.
People have been living under socialist controls for so long that they forgot what is socialism. They have been taught that all socialism is bad. It’s like the conservatives who have been living under the benefits of vaccines for so long that they forgot reasons why they are given.
The interviewer is just rephrasing what Varoufakis wrote in his book. It is a bit provocative on the side of Varoufakis, sure. But he explains what he means by that in the interview (and the book of course).
So I read the transcript and Varoufakis says some wrong things. Like he says a shopping center is a market because you can buy things from shops but Amazon isn’t because Amazon takes a cut of sales without producing anything.
But shopping centers take rent. They also get paid for product placement in their open spaces. Grocery Stores take a cut of all sales. You not only have to pay them just to put your product in a store but you have to pay more if you want it easily viewable on a shelf and not at the bottom in a corner of the store.
He also said that capitalism is dead because of so few companies dominating the market which ignores the Robber Barron era of capitalism where a small group of companies like Standard Oil and Carnegie Steel dominated the market.
So no, capitalism isn’t dead. It’s returning to it’s more pure form of unrestricted abuse.
You misunderstood the argument about shopping malls. Obviously a rents arn’t a new thing, and Varoufakis explicitly says so. The difference with Amazon is that you can not browse it like you can do in a regular shop or in a mall, as everything you do is filtered through a personalized search algorithm that opimizes for maximum rent extraction.
Same for the rest of your argument. He doesn’t say capitalism is dead because of monopolies alone, but due to how these monopolies shape and restrict the market access.
The difference with Amazon is that you can not browse it like you can do in a regular shop or in a mall, as everything you do is filtered through a personalized search algorithm that opimizes for maximum rent extraction.
Which is why I made the Grocery Store comparison. Grocery stores are filtered for maximum rent extraction. Grocery stores do not place products based on what the customer want but on maximum rent extraction from each and every product on a shelf.
He doesn’t say capitalism is dead because of monopolies alone, but due to how these monopolies shape and restrict the market access.
Which is wrong because Capitalism has always attempted to restrict market access. Cartels, interlocking Directorates, Trusts, and other collusions were all busted by socialists policies to control the fundamental aspect of capitalism- which is a single company gaining total market control. 150 years ago companies not only monopolized their market but owned the town where the workers lived and stores where the workers shopped. That’s the Capitalism that Marx wrote against.
In the first minute, Dude says capitalists are now acting like capitalists and declares that because of that, capitalism is dead.
I stopped watching.
What has died is socialist controls on capitalism. The public has forgotten the destruction that capitalism causes which required those socialist controls.
Na, the “dude” (Varoufakis, a well known leftist economist) is just using “capitalist” in a stricter classical definition. The observation he is making is correct in so far as there is a shift in the prevalent economic model and classic capitalists are not the ones in charge anymore.
The classical definition is “worse” than what he thinks doesn’t make someone capitalist. Child labor is capitalism. 6 day work weeks are capitalism. Company towns are capitalism. His argument is based on the indoctrination that everything good is capitalism and if it isn’t good it can’t be capitalism.
“These companies are engaging in rent seeking monopolies so it isn’t capitalism.”
GTFO. That’s the definition of capitalist behavior.
People have been living under socialist controls for so long that they forgot what is socialism. They have been taught that all socialism is bad. It’s like the conservatives who have been living under the benefits of vaccines for so long that they forgot reasons why they are given.
You are arguing something entirely made up. Varoufakis is a marxist and not in any way an apologists for classical capitalists.
Tom Nicholas, the interviewer, opens with this:
“Capitalism is dead. Swept aside by gargantuan monopolist tech platforms which seek not just to dominate markets but to own them.”
Varoufakis didn’t say that, the interviewer did.
The interviewer is just rephrasing what Varoufakis wrote in his book. It is a bit provocative on the side of Varoufakis, sure. But he explains what he means by that in the interview (and the book of course).
So I read the transcript and Varoufakis says some wrong things. Like he says a shopping center is a market because you can buy things from shops but Amazon isn’t because Amazon takes a cut of sales without producing anything.
But shopping centers take rent. They also get paid for product placement in their open spaces. Grocery Stores take a cut of all sales. You not only have to pay them just to put your product in a store but you have to pay more if you want it easily viewable on a shelf and not at the bottom in a corner of the store.
He also said that capitalism is dead because of so few companies dominating the market which ignores the Robber Barron era of capitalism where a small group of companies like Standard Oil and Carnegie Steel dominated the market.
So no, capitalism isn’t dead. It’s returning to it’s more pure form of unrestricted abuse.
You misunderstood the argument about shopping malls. Obviously a rents arn’t a new thing, and Varoufakis explicitly says so. The difference with Amazon is that you can not browse it like you can do in a regular shop or in a mall, as everything you do is filtered through a personalized search algorithm that opimizes for maximum rent extraction.
Same for the rest of your argument. He doesn’t say capitalism is dead because of monopolies alone, but due to how these monopolies shape and restrict the market access.
Which is why I made the Grocery Store comparison. Grocery stores are filtered for maximum rent extraction. Grocery stores do not place products based on what the customer want but on maximum rent extraction from each and every product on a shelf.
Which is wrong because Capitalism has always attempted to restrict market access. Cartels, interlocking Directorates, Trusts, and other collusions were all busted by socialists policies to control the fundamental aspect of capitalism- which is a single company gaining total market control. 150 years ago companies not only monopolized their market but owned the town where the workers lived and stores where the workers shopped. That’s the Capitalism that Marx wrote against.
You say dude, this is s Yanis Varoufakis, an ex Professor of Economics, and ex finace minister for Greece etal Not some random…dude
I was referring to the interviewer.