Absurd, idiotic headline. Apart from being pure slander of the Soviets, the whole premise vulgarizes socialist economic theory and what economic planning even means. The more i read from Varoufakis the more i’m beginning to think he’s really a moron.
He thinks he’s so clever coming up with these comparisons, with nebulous concepts like “neofeudalism”, as if he’s just discovered something completely new that no one discovered before, when all it is, is just monopoly capitalism. All to avoid applying a good old fashioned Marxist analysis which is more than enough to explain these phenomena without resorting to estoteric theories about a new “feudalism”.
The more you read him and others like him the more you start noticing the conspicuous, Marxism-shaped hole in their analysis. Because of course we can’t be seen to be talking in Marxist terminology and applying dialectical analysis can we? That wouldn’t be respectable, our liberal academic peers would call us names…
The result of this Marxism-phobia is that he has to vomit up onto the page sentences like:
So, just as the Soviet Union generated one kind of feudalism in the name of socialism and human emancipation, today, Silicon Valley is generating another kind of feudalism — technofeudalism, I have called it — in the name of capitalism and free markets.
No, you pretentious wannabe, the Soviet Union was not “feudalism” and neither is monopoly capitalism.
Idk why anyone ever thought this guy, who is clearly an anti-communist radlib, had anything intelligent to say.
So there we have it, at last. Varoufakis has outed himself as an anticommunist. I waited for this. Anticommunists are but fascists in a complicated dress.
I’m acrually glad he has outed himself as another fascist sympathizer. It takes another diversion out of the game.
The quote “Social-Democracy is objectively the moderate wing of fascism” keeps aging like fine wine.
I think we should distinguish between social democracy in the imperial core and in the Global South. The first will inevitably capitulate to reactionaries, while the second is objectively pushed into revolutionary actions (even if they are completely unprepared for them and usually fail).
I’m actually glad he has outed himself as another fascist sympathizer.
I mean, he celebrated when Al Qaeda took over Syria. I think that qualifies as already outed.
I actually only today heard of this. To me it wasnt that much of a clear sign as i dont have deep knowledge of syria. But anti sovietism is a very clear sign. Even maoists arent that brutal.
Saying the Soviet Union was feudalistic is really one of the dumbest things a “leftist” would say. Alas, performative leftism it is. Going through the motions, critisicing this and that capitalism, coming up with new terms like “Technofeudalism”.
I agree he would openly turn against communists if it came to that. Maybe that’s why “Diem25” and “Mera25” are not Marxist parties, but “anti-capitalist”.
The French economist Cédric Durand. In German-language discussions, for instance, Durand’s 2020 book titled “Technoféodalisme” is sometimes said to have first operationalized the idea
Good point! We should have someone analyze those from a marxist perspective. That would probably help people like me to not always forget them and have an analysis ready once asked.
Rent still exists within capitalism. The dominance of rent doesn’t automatically overturn the mode of production. You can have rentier capitalism without feudalism.
From strict Marxist criteria, feudalism is defined by: • serfs bound to land • extraction of surplus labor through extra-economic coercion • personal legal dependency ties
Platform users are not legally bound, nor biologically tied to the land, but they are structurally dependent on platforms for access to markets, communication, and social reproduction.
Thus the debate: Is dependency “as if feudal” enough to change the mode of production, or is this metaphorical inflation?
Even if sovereignty is fragmented, all these platforms remain capitalist firms, operating under capitalist competition, dependent on global capital flows, and hiring wage laborers. So the base looks more like monopoly capitalism than feudalism.
However, Durand’s supporters argue that: • platforms have become para-state entities, • capable of enforcing rules through algorithmic governance, • exercising non-democratic authority over economic life.
That is reminiscent of feudal personal authority, but technologically scaled.
Some Marxists argue that “technofeudalism” mystifies: • the role of global finance, • the extraction of surplus value from labor, • the capitalist structure enabling platforms.
Others argue the term clarifies: • the intensification of dependency, • the privatization of governance, • the enclosure of the digital commons.
Durand’s contribution is thus politically charged: “technofeudalism” is not a neutral descriptor but a theoretical weapon to highlight domination, enclosure, and monopoly power.
Varoufakis always part of the “consumable left” breadtube sphere. People just jump on everybody that uses a certain number of marxist shibboleth.
Yeah. Thats a recent thought of mine as well.
Instead of asking “what are communist/marxist dogwhistles i can use” we should ask “who would use especially communist phrases at all?” and “can we even identify marxists by their wording reliably” to which i would answer “probably not”.
People who use dogwhistles are usually demagogues who try to communicate to an audience they are not openly working for, which recently has been described with the word " crypto" as in cryptical communist ot cryptical fascist.
I would argue that there are no “cryptocommunists” in a capitalist regime. It just goes against historical precedence. But there are tons of cryptofascists. I would even argue that there are cryptolibs in “communist” groups.
But i might be missing something here. Probably there is someone who can explain this in a materialist way.
I am hence very distrustful of people who use marxist language alongside non marxist language. Because it is easy to use “working class” and “bourgeoisie” while not committing to dialectical materialism which is what we need to not get backstabbed.
Feel free to criticise and suggest different or more developed ideas.
Rather than “cryptocommunist” or “cryptolib”, I think “pseudocommunist” works better. They’re not necessarily similar in their hidden beliefs (there’s a whole range of reactionarisms), but instead for what they pretend to be.
Yes of course. Both are correct. There are no cryptocommunists but a lot of pseudocommunists or opportubists use communist language.
I would even argue that there are cryptolibs in “communist” groups.
I’m wondering if more cryptolibs are because of intent or lack of education?
Good question. I would argue that a lot of people are libs in their heart because its their whole identity. There is such a huge variety of issues where liberalism creeps in. Asking someone who has lived like this for 30+ yrs to pretty much accept that they have been living a lie and unnecessary took responsibility for everything is probably very dangerous. If you break an identity like that, it may become life threatening. Thats why I think that we all hold some lib thoughts here and there and some are dedicated at eradicating such thoughts in themselves at any cost and others think they need to be marxists because its what is expected of them or it helps them atm. And even worse, some might think they are the former but their subconcious will make them the latter at the earliest chance.
Just a bunch of thoughts though. Feel free to work with them.
Ego death is real and most people will fight the collapse of their identity as if it’s a physical threat, maybe harder. There is a point where that becomes inevitable, for a great many of us. That would be the place to introduce Marxist ideas, I think. But forcing the subject too soon will almost certainly be counterproductive and more than a betrayal to communism, a betrayal of the individual.
I’m a little sleepy, yesterday was long and exhausting, but I finally took melatonin to get to sleep; I’ve never heard of a melatonin hangover, so I guess I either slept too much or not enough.
Good point. i recently witnessed someone living through a cruel breakup and they broke down. dialectical materialism helped a little but liberalisms foothold was very strong.
With liberal tendencies I catch with my own thinking, I shudder to think how many I don’t catch.
I think it’s sarcasm
How do you figure?
The more i read from Varoufakis the more i’m beginning to think he’s really a moron.
If shit isn’t going okay, Western economists have to mentally contort up their own ass: Capitalism would be great if only those mega capitalists would stop doing stuff (that was apparently learnt from Marx).
Now “Planning” is evil too? So capitalists can’t even make plans. Checking your supplies? Bad. Monitoring if there is customer demand? Bad. It’s imitating the Gosplan from the USSR! Markets just magically make decisions without plans in true capitalism. You can’t use an “algorithm”. That would be a form of planning! That’s like Communism (I mean feudalism)!
helps Valve design a system for kids to spend thousands of dollars gambling
spends career demonizing socialist projects
oh yeah, it’s european leftist time
He designed what?
Yep. Sounds unbelievable but it’s true. Look it up. He helped design their so-called “virtual economies”, in-game trading systems and the Steam market place. Basically helped them sell fake virtual items for real money to vulnerable, addicted people (mostly kids).
After that he got appointed as Greece’s Finance Minister, which now in hindsight explains a lot about why Syriza failed so badly…
oh thank god it wasnt tf2 (which has the most moral child gambling in the world)
oh thank god it wasnt tf2
It’s funny you mention it, because…
And here he is talking about in-game trading as if it was a real life economy
It’s actually hilarious to read the whole thing, it’s truly peak economist brain. And you know why this topic of fake digital economies is so attractive for economists, right? It’s because their theories only work in an artificially constructed reality.
idk if i’m about to make an ass of myself but i kinda see tf2 as the platonic form of the imperial core economy, in that it’s all fake bullshit nobody needs, with all the remaining issues of production and food security and whatnot abstracted away
I completely agree.
“techno feudalism” isn’t a mode of production; we live under capitalism
He doesn’t understand feudalism, capitalism, or technology
Capitalism does something capitalisty so it must be socialist, and that’s bad because we all hate Russia. It also sounds like feudalism (it has bosses and minions) and the solution I propose is markets because of all this scary technology! Proudhon? Operation Gladio? Never heard of them, sounds Greek to me. Anyway, I’m one of Europe’s most famous and serious socialists and please listen to my amazing new concept of Techno-Feudalism.
And that’s why he get the talking gigs he gets
corpos do centrally plan a lot, and they eat shit (sears) when they don’t.
would be much better to bring that up as a defense of doing central planning on a nation-state level. calling the SU feudal is bonkers.
How it’s even debatable that large systems benefits from planning is mind boggling.
And I do think he actually believes that capitalism would be better without central planning given that’s a big part of the Valve flat hierarchy myth. The obvious insight is that Valve is not a large systems, it’s hugely profitable by extracting surplus value produced by workers in other companies. There there is less need for planning at Valve.
fellow people’s republic of walmart head
He is nothing more than a serious slavok zizek, never been a fan of his but i started to despise him since his vocal support for HTS takeover.
Oh no, why do all the ‘leftists’ who shit on wokeness and anti-racism also turn out to not give a fuck about materialism?
This whole “technofeudalism” nonsense he keeps spouting is very convenient for reformists like him, because that way they can keep selling capitalism as a solution.
It’s been obvious that he’s not capable of doing serious material analysis ever since he started peddling the whole tech feudalism thing. It’s been a transparent attempt to sanitize capitalism by claiming that what we’re seeing is somehow a deviation from the way capitalism functions as opposed to just the natural progression of the system. Here we’re seeing more of the same, except now he’s mixing in some red scare as the mask finally drops.
I said it yesterday and I will say it again, yanis is just another zizek.
At least Zizek was entertaining.
I will say Varoufakis is at least listenable. I cannot listen to Zizek for more than a minute because he’s really self important, and the guy really needs a tissue to blow his nose with.
My personal favorite is Chomsky though. Not politically, just that I like listening to him. I know he’s slow foe a lot of people but idk I’m fine with it
At least Zizek was entertaining. @[email protected]
I will say Varoufakis is at least listenable. I cannot listen to Zizek for more than a minute because he’s really self important, and the guy really needs a tissue to blow his nose with.
That’s by design. They are the same “product” tailored to different audiences; Zizek if you want “edgy and funny” analysis, Varoufakis if you want a “respectable” one. Both will tell you that the problem is we are doing capitalism wrong but at least we’re not USSR.
“So, just as the Soviet Union generated one kind of feudalism in the name of socialism and human emancipation, today, Silicon Valley is generating another kind of feudalism — technofeudalism, I have called it — in the name of capitalism and free markets.”
Alright this logic has clearly gone off the deepend.
I think is issue is a market first analysis of society. And some if this stuff is critique of the Gotha Programme level stuff. I.e, he describes Amazon as a feudal fief because they control the market place through which other Bourgeois producers sell their products. This really bugs me because in his book he has this really long and winding explanation to why he calls technofeudalism feudalism and not capitalism. He goes on and on about “oh well if you would have looked at society in the 1800s then you would’ve called it “market feudalism” instead if capitalism.” But he’s literally the one doing that. I mean, from Marx himself, “In England, the capitalist class is usually not even the owner of the land on which his factory stands.” I get it’s not a 1-1 example but I feel like it’s apt. What’s even more apt is a quick explanation of how marxist economic analysis actually works by an economist with more than two braincells, Cheng Enfu.
“these ownership forms, under the definite and distinct conditions of Chinese society, are not necessarily the same as their formally identical equivalents in Western society, in exactly the same way that land ownership in 18th-century England, though formally the same as that prevailing in the French ancien régime of the same date, had already assumed capitalist characteristics far removed from those swept away in the revolution of 1789.” [Edit: -Cheng Enfu, the creation of value by living labor]
So I really don’t understand how Amazon, Facebook, Google, etc. Have “technofeudal” characteristics, outside of just focusing on rent. Which was already a big part of society. I mean, why not call banks a “money rent.” If I can extend it, banks don’t provide a service or good, they simply rent out money for a fee. Considering that basically every big company has needed to get loans and pay a money rent, presumably we have been living in Banker-feudalism forever.
I’m 2/3rds of the way through the book rn. Maybe he answers more questions, and I’ll make a post if he becomes more coherent, but I think it’s telling that he has talked more about Adam Smith’s vision rather than Marx’s.
He says a lot of decent things. He was banned from Germany for being against genocide in Gaza after all, but occasionally he just absolutely has to ruin it, by e.g. cheerleading for ex Al Qaeda taking over Syria and throwing out completely unnecessary and typical western „leftist“ anti-Soviet tropes…
Oh well…you take the useful stuff and discard the rest…
Getting bogged down sorting the wheat from the chaff with these broken-clock socialists can be an exercise in discernment for those who already have some basis in theory and practice; but for beginners it slows their development at best - and at worst, prejudices them so that they’re diverted toward liberalism and national-socialism.
It doesn’t seem accidental to me that the algorithm serves this homeopathic socialism up so readily.
Another huge L for Western Marxisists. He’s trying everything to say anything except capitalism. I’m sure that those rats sponsored and funded by the foreign intelligence.
