Skip to main content

Varoufakis: IT technologies will overthrow Capitalism


The former Greek Minister of Finance, Yanis Varoufakis, ended his recent speech on the Future of Capitalism, at the New School, New York, with some interesting remarks.

As he said:

The world we live in, is increasingly rudderless, in a constant slow burning recession, while at the very same time, the increasing concentration in the IT sector is creating the new technologies that will do that which the Left has failed to do: overthrow Capitalism. It is really very simple.

The moment machines pass the Turing test properly, and you pick up the phone and you do not know whether the person you are talking to is a human being or a machine˙ the moment we are going to have 3D printers operating as public utilities - you can send any blueprint to it and it can print from one pin to a motorcycle, or to a car - the moment that this happens, we have not just a process of Schumpeterian creative destruction, but we have a process where economies of scale and the whole logic of corporate Capitalism collapses.

And at that point we have a major rapture that the political system which has been completely depleted of any semblance of Democracy, will not be able to regulate. At that point, humanity will be facing a juncture: will either move to a Star Trek-like Utopia, where technology becomes our slave and we manage to utilize its wealth creating capacity for the purpose of the common good, which will be democratically determined and not technologically, or, we are going to move towards a Matrix-like Dystopia where humans, independently on whether are the owners of these magnificent machines or the masses who are miserable and completely cut off productive society, will all become servants to the machines.

The choice will depend on Democratic politics. The choice is everyone's.


*****

The ruthless elites are now breaking the social contract due to hyper-automation. They own the corrupted politicians and are using them to deregulate the system completely, according to their interests. The Greek experiment could be used as a model for this process.

One dangerous illusion of the elites is that they can go away, as always in the past, in case of a massive, ugly collapse. But, if there will be any Revolution in the 21st century soon, it will be done by those who became statistical figures of poverty, unemployment, inequality and social exclusion by this brutal system. People with no hopes and dreams, no better future to seek, no class consciousness. People who have nothing to lose. It will be bad, chaotic, unpredictable and rather doubtful that someone could call it "Revolution".

Their other dangerous illusion, is that they think they can escape from what actually Varoufakis implies here, that in a completely deregulated system, where the political power will be vanished and all the processes will be determined exclusively by the power of technology, even the elites will eventually end to obey the extremely advanced, hyper-automated machines. This is the road to the Matrix Dystopia for everyone.

We can only hope that things will end differently towards the "Star Trek Utopia" that Varoufakis describes. As mentioned in previous article: “The thirst for more power and profit may drive the biggest companies into a new cycle of fierce competition. Furthermore, it may not be that easy for them to keep the monopoly of technology too long. Eventually the technology of hyper-automated machines will escape from the monopolies, and a new sequence of small-medium businesses will become active in the field. Soon, we could see a similar scenario to that of the computers and the internet. However, in this case the impact to the societies will be much more profound. If hyper-automated machines become more and more cheap and accessible to millions of households, it could seriously boost the quality of life for millions of people into unprecedented levels.

However, the odds are totally against this perspective, exactly because the elites are using their increasingly concentrated power to pull societies away from it. We all need to fight in order to change this balance. We need to bring back the political process at the center of all critical decisions which will determine our future. To use the technology for the benefit of all. Otherwise, 'The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.', as Stephen Hawking, among other scientists, already warned.

Watch the whole speech:


Related:

Comments

  1. World is not ruderless people get the goverment they deserve. How many of americans yelled yeah yeah while bombs payed by them were killing inocent children!! now who cares if their backs break if they approved wars with their money don't they deserve to be poor?

    ReplyDelete
  2. 80% of human beings are greedy idiots. That is why capitalism cannot be defeated.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Even the greediest eventually has his fill. Capitalism is ending because we are automating work and trivializing access to whatever goods or services such work could be exchanged for. And this is hardly bad news Mehrdad - we may finally be rid of a primeval trade of apples for oranges.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

State surveillance and court cases: The lonely fight for press freedom of Greece’s independent media

by Alessio Giussani   Part 1  A new ecosystem of small, independent organisations is bringing a breath of transparent, in-depth reporting into the Greek media landscape but their work is being hindered by costly court cases and the threat of state surveillance. This comes as media freedom is continuing to decline in Greece. The country ranked 108th out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders’ 2022 Press Freedom Index — the worst-performing European country, triggering a furious response by the authorities. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis dismissed the ranking as " crap ", adding: “ We have a vibrant press, you can read everything you want in Greece ." Nikolas Leontopoulos, an editor at Reporters United, sees it differently: " We do have freedom of opinion, but there are some very sensitive issues that don’t even make it to the news ”. Until recently, at least. Source, links: https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2023/02/20/state-surveillance-and-court-cases-th

European antiwar protests gain strength as NATO’s Ukraine proxy war escalates

Europeans are storming the streets in unprecedented numbers to protest NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine and their own declining living standards. The Grayzone has covered demonstrations and interviewed protest leaders in several countries since the war erupted.   by Stavroula Pabst and Max Blumenthal   Part 1   This February 21, several thousand Greeks filled Athens’ streets to denounce NATO and the United States in the wake of Antony Blinken’s Greece visit, where the US Secretary of State applauded the Mediterranean country for being amongst the first European countries to support Ukraine, thus leading to way for “ the support of democracy. ” It was just one action among many protest actions across the continent as the NATO proxy conflict in Ukraine approached  its first anniversary. European citizens are growing agitated as their leaders appear set on extending the war at least another year: they’ve approved several rounds of sanctions on Russia, provided billions of euros in assistance t

State surveillance and court cases: The lonely fight for press freedom of Greece’s independent media

by Alessio Giussani   Part 2 - Greek 'mafia' and 'Watergate' Athens-based investigative outlet Reporters United disclosed in January that a high-ranking police officer had been promoted while being investigated in a corruption case called “Greek Mafia” – something journalists in the field had known for a long time, Leontopoulos claimed. It was not the only time a major story remained unreported for months. At the beginning of 2022, Reporters United revealed that a controversial change in the law on the privacy of communications had been made nine months earlier. The amendment, introduced last minute into a pandemic containment bill, prevented citizens from being informed if they had been placed under state surveillance for national security reasons. At the time, the wiretapping scandal that later became known as “Greek Watergate” was yet to emerge. “ Many jurists and well-networked journalists had known about the amendment for months, and we found out some had even info

Revealed: the hacking and disinformation team meddling in elections

     ‘Team Jorge’ unit exposed by undercover investigation     Group sells hacking services and access to vast army of fake social media profiles     Evidence unit behind disinformation campaigns across world     Mastermind Tal Hanan claims covert involvement in 33 presidential elections   by Stephanie Kirchgaessner, Manisha Ganguly, David Pegg, Carole Cadwalladr and Jason Burke Part 3 - ‘I will show you how safe Telegram is’ No less alarming were Hanan’s demonstrations of his team’s hacking capabilities, in which he showed the reporters how he could penetrate Telegram and Gmail accounts. In one case, he brought up on screen the Gmail account of a man described as the “ assistant of an important guy ” in the general election in Kenya, which was days away. “ Today if someone has a Gmail, it means they have much more than just email, ” Hanan said as he clicked through the target’s emails, draft folders, contacts and drives. He then showed how he claimed to be able to access accounts on T

West is out of touch with rest of world politically, EU-funded study admits

Geopolitical Economy Report   A study by the elite EU-funded European Council on Foreign Relations found that the West is increasingly out of touch politically with the rest of the world. Most people in China, India, and Türkiye see Russia as an important ally, and they want multipolarity, not continued “ American global supremacy ”. 

Revealed: the hacking and disinformation team meddling in elections

     ‘Team Jorge’ unit exposed by undercover investigation     Group sells hacking services and access to vast army of fake social media profiles     Evidence unit behind disinformation campaigns across world     Mastermind Tal Hanan claims covert involvement in 33 presidential elections   by Stephanie Kirchgaessner, Manisha Ganguly, David Pegg, Carole Cadwalladr and Jason Burke Part 2 - The undercover footage Given their expertise in subterfuge, it is perhaps surprising that Hanan and his colleagues allowed themselves to be exposed by undercover reporters. Journalists using conventional methods have struggled to shed light on the disinformation industry, which is at pains to avoid detection. The secretly filmed meetings, which took place between July and December 2022, therefore provide a rare window into the mechanics of disinformation for hire. Three journalists – from Radio France, Haaretz and TheMarker – approached Team Jorge pretending to be consultants working on behalf of a p

Day 1415: Julian Assange still in prison and under slow-motion execution by the Anglo-American imperialist criminals

failed evolution   On 11 April 2019, the Ecuadorian government of traitor Lenin Moreno, invited the Metropolitan Police into the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and they arrested Julian Assange . Since then, Assange is kept in Belmarsh high security prison in London, without actual charges.   The real reason world's number one political prisoner is still kept in this high security prison, is because he exposed horrendous war crimes carried out by the US imperialists and their allies.   The ruthless Western imperialist regime wants to punish the No1 real journalist in the world and make him an example for any Whistleblower or real journalist who will attempt to expose its big crimes in the future.   And the Anglo-American axis has now become officially a fascist coalition , framed by the rest of its Western pets. UK's Home Secretary Priti Patel, one of the most ruthless ever, decided to extradite Julian Assange to US. No surprise of course. The only question we had in mind is

US hegemony and its perils

Report by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China   Part 1 - Introduction Since becoming the world's most powerful country after the two world wars and the Cold War, the United States has acted more boldly to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, pursue, maintain and abuse hegemony, advance subversion and infiltration, and willfully wage wars, bringing harm to the international community. The United States has developed a hegemonic playbook to stage "color revolutions," instigate regional disputes, and even directly launch wars under the guise of promoting democracy, freedom and human rights.    Clinging to the Cold War mentality, the United States has ramped up bloc politics and stoked conflict and confrontation. It has overstretched the concept of national security, abused export controls and forced unilateral sanctions upon others. It has taken a selective approach to international law and rules, utilizing or discarding them as

Nordstream blame game begins

The Grayzone   Max Blumenthal and Aaron Mate discuss the controlled leaks aiming to deflect blame for the Nordstream attacks onto "pro-Ukrainian" elements, the failed attempt by Republican populists and Democratic progressives to withdraw US troops from Syria, and the dramatic congressional Twitter files hearing.  

How America took out the Nord Stream pipeline

The New York Times called it a “mystery,” but the United States executed a covert sea operation that was kept secret—until now   by Seymour Hersh   Part 3 - THE OPERATION   Norway was the perfect place to base the mission. In the past few years of East-West crisis, the U.S. military has vastly expanded its presence inside Norway, whose western border runs 1,400 miles along the north Atlantic Ocean and merges above the Arctic Circle with Russia. The Pentagon has created high paying jobs and contracts, amid some local controversy, by investing hundreds of millions of dollars to upgrade and expand American Navy and Air Force facilities in Norway. The new works included, most importantly, an advanced synthetic aperture radar far up north that was capable of penetrating deep into Russia and came online just as the American intelligence community lost access to a series of long-range listening sites inside China. A newly refurbished American submarine base, which had been under construction