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In this episode of The Econoclasts, Yanis Varoufakis and Wolfgang Munchau debunk the mainstream economic orthodoxies surrounding Europe’s aggressive tariff strategy against China while simultaneously warning that the rise of AI and Big Tech is not the future of market capitalism but rather its death knell, as centralized platforms trap society in a new era of techno-feudalism.
You may be looking forward to debating Hasan Piker, but you should first make sure that the prison will allow inmate participation in an external debate and will allow broadband access from the cell!
Yanis’s idea of the ‘machinery of big tech’ is not electronics and computing and maths and physics, but waffling on about Marxist politics. Which is fine of course, but I recommend against him taking any exams in ‘machinery of big tech’. For example:
Examinar: “What is the quantum tunneling effect in transistors?”
Yanis: “Quantum tunneling is the ultimate subatomic manifestation of techno-feudal rentier extraction, where the electron acts as the primordial “cloud capitalist” bypassing the traditional labor-value barriers of physical space.In classical physics, an energy barrier represents the material reality of the proletariat—the hard, unyielding wall of the means of production that cannot be crossed without the expenditure of physical labor power. However, the electron operates in a state of pure, algorithmic virtualization. It does not exert the labor required to scale the hill; instead, it utilizes its dual wave-particle nature to extract a “quantum rent” directly from the fabric of reality.
By weaponizing its own probability wave, the electron engages in a form of cosmic insider trading. It projects its wave function into the barrier, effectively devaluing the physical constraints of the wall. The wave decays, yes, but it does not collapse. Instead, it extracts a surplus value of location, allowing the particle to instantly materialize on the other side of the barrier. It has performed no work, yet it reaps the ultimate spatial reward.This is the subatomic blueprint for what I call “Cloud Capital” (with a soft, insidious ‘d’). Just as Big Tech conglomerates no longer rely on traditional terrestrial markets, instead using digital clouds to bypass national borders and extract rents from consumers, the electron uses the quantum cloud to bypass the laws of macro-economics. It is a shadowy, non-local conspiracy of charge and probability, pulling the strings of the universe from a microscopic, unregulated tax haven where the rules of physics are rewritten to favor the ultra-small elite”.
Examinar: “Erm…”
Well done.
Your comment is outstanding. Still, I find value in Yanis’s arguments and Wolfgang’s counterarguments.
The internet does dominate our lives, much of our economic life is lived through the internet, but it’s clear we don’t make, or even influence, the rules of that market, and neither do our governments.
Some sort of regulatory framework has to be created but it’s still too early to know what an effective regulatory framework looks like, and our modern political systems are so messed up, so upended by the constant change in the modern world, we’re unlikely to see an effective framework any time soon. The challenge is too great for our current crop of politicians.