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Yanis Varoufakis, former Greek Finance Minister and author of Technofeudalism, argues in an interview with New York Times reporter Eshe Nelson that post-2008 quantitative easing has ended capitalism, ushering in a rent-driven "technofeudalism" dominated by Big Tech, complicating central banks' inflation fight.
Capitalism, defined by markets channeling activity through owners of machinery and profit replacing feudal rent, has ended, replaced by a system where Big Tech extracts "cloud rent" from transactions.
Post-2008 financial crisis, G20 nations printed $35 trillion via quantitative easing, flooding financial sectors with liquidity while imposing fiscal austerity, leading to low investment demand.
Traditional corporations like General Motors allocate about 85% of revenues to wages, recirculating money in the economy, whereas Meta pays less than 1% to workers, extracting funds from the circular flow.
Big Tech's algorithmic machinery, such as Alexa or Siri, functions as means of behavioral modification, training users to maximize cloud rent extraction, bypassing traditional markets.
The 2008 crisis response created asset price inflation alongside consumer price deflation, with the only significant investment in "cloud capital" like server farms in the US and China.
Central banks' money printing inadvertently boosted Big Tech, as financiers funneled liquidity into share buybacks rather than productive investments, due to austerity-squeezed aggregate demand.
Technofeudalism degrades job quality, shifting employment to precarious gigs like Uber or Amazon warehouses, making workers unable to plan for major expenditures and heightening crisis vulnerability.
Low interest rates post-2008 resulted from excess liquidity supply outpacing investment demand, not deliberate policy, creating a feedback loop that empowered Big Tech's rent extraction.
Quantitative easing turned into tightening by halting printing before raising rates was misguided; central banks should raise rates sharply while redirecting printed money to green investments via public banks.
Cloud rent extraction by platforms like Amazon skims 20-40% from sales, forcing central banks to continue printing money to sustain economic activity, exacerbating inflation and fiscal stress.
Capitalism's triumph appears total, yet it has quietly morphed into technofeudalism, where Big Tech lords extract rents like medieval landowners, powered by post-2008 central bank bailouts.
Algorithms in devices like Alexa don't just recommend; they modify behavior in addictive loops, turning users into unwitting serfs who train the system to harvest more data and revenue.
The $35 trillion quantitative easing flood created a bizarre duality: financial liquidity boomed while real-economy demand crashed under austerity, channeling funds solely to tech's cloud empires.
Traditional profits recirculate via wages, but Big Tech's rents vanish into vaults, starving the economy of energy and forcing endless money printing to prevent collapse.
Escaping technofeudalism by ditching smartphones is futile, akin to rejecting machinery during the Industrial Revolution; the system embeds itself as both tool and trap.
Central banks, constrained by charters, couldn't direct funds to green projects, instead inflating asset bubbles that now bind them in a doom loop with Big Tech's market dominance.
Intangible cloud capital fosters a "winner-takes-all" world of low marginal costs, concentrating wealth and stifling productivity, far beyond what demographics or policy alone explain.
Inflation today stems not just from pandemics but from technofeudal rent extraction, making central bankers' rate hikes ineffective without replenishing demand through targeted investments.
A "cloud tax" on Big Tech could reclaim extracted rents for societal needs, countering the zero-profit illusions created by accounting tricks in places like Ireland.
Technofeudalism's rise mirrors feudalism's end, but reverses it: power shifts from land to algorithms, rendering markets obsolete as platforms like Amazon become fiefdoms.
Technofeudalism reveals how central bank rescues, meant to save capitalism, instead birthed a rentier elite whose algorithms erode human agency, turning everyday interactions into feudal tribute.
The post-2008 liquidity paradox—abundant money chasing scarce investment—highlights capitalism's fragility, where austerity and tech rents create self-reinforcing stagnation beyond traditional fixes.
Behavioral modification via AI isn't mere convenience; it's a novel capital form that addicts users to platforms, extracting psychic and economic value in ways feudal lords could only dream of.
Extracting 99% of revenues as rent rather than wages fractures the economic circular flow, compelling perpetual money printing that inflates crises while degrading job security and future planning.
Low interest rates emerged as an unintended consequence of mismatched liquidity and demand, empowering Big Tech's monopoly not through conspiracy but systemic inertia and regulatory voids.
To combat inflation without recession, central banks must pair aggressive rate hikes with directed quantitative easing into public green investments, breaking the technofeudal doom loop.
"It sounds absurd to hear somebody like me saying that capitalism is finished because wherever you look what you see is a Triumph of capital over labor over politics a wholesale capitalist Triumph and yet here I am saying that capitalism is already gone."
"Every time you buy something on amazon.com anything between 20 and 40% of the price is skimmed off by Jeff Bezos from the capitalist who actually sells whatever it is that you're buying... I call it Cloud rent because it is the money that capitalist vassals have to pay to Big Tech to gain access to you."
"These things [Alexa, Siri] are pieces of capital right but they are not Capital like steam engines or indeed industrial robots because they not produced means of production they produced means of Behavioral modification that has never existed before in the history of capitalism."
"Of every one pound that they extract from the market they pay 85 in wages and that money that 85 pounds circulates in the economy do you know what the percentage is that Mr Zuckerberg pays his employees in Meta less than one less than 1% goes to workers."
"I'm not prone to moralizing I don't like to tell people oh you know you naughty boy or girl you know you should not be addicted to the machine I'm addicted to the machine these machines are extremely useful."
Embracing technology for personal research and enjoyment, such as using Spotify to access childhood songs, without rejecting its utility despite systemic critiques.
Avoiding moral judgments on tech addiction, focusing instead on structural issues like algorithm design to maximize rent, while admitting personal reliance on devices.
Recommending practical escapes like using cash and old Nokias only as metaphors, not prescriptions, to highlight the inescapability of technofeudal integration.
G20 nations printed approximately $35 trillion in central bank money post-2008 through quantitative easing to bail out the financial sector.
Traditional large corporations allocate about 85% of revenues to wages, recirculating funds in the economy, while Meta allocates less than 1%.
Amazon skims 20-40% of transaction prices as cloud rent from sellers accessing its platform.
Post-2008, the only significant real investment occurred in cloud capital, including server farms and algorithmic machinery in the US and China.
European Central Bank rates were at minus 0.7% before recent hikes, complicating inflation responses amid technofeudal dynamics.
Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism by Yanis Varoufakis.
The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, referenced in the context of feudal-to-capitalist transition.
Mad Men TV series, cited for its portrayal of advertisers like Don Draper contrasted with AI-driven behavioral modification.
European Investment Bank, proposed as a vehicle for channeling quantitative easing into green investments.
OECD efforts on taxing Amazon, dismissed as ineffective due to accounting loopholes.
Recognize technofeudalism by auditing personal tech use: track how platforms like Amazon extract rents from your purchases and limit exposure to addictive algorithms through mindful consumption.
Advocate for policy reform by supporting public investment banks that direct central bank funds to green projects, ensuring quantitative easing fuels societal needs rather than asset bubbles.
Implement a personal "cloud tax" mindset: prioritize direct purchases from independent sellers to bypass Big Tech rents, redirecting economic energy back to local circular flows.
Combat inflation's impact by pushing for rapid interest rate hikes to 3-3.5% while maintaining money printing targeted at productive investments, as Varoufakis recommends for central banks.
Build resilience against precarious labor by unionizing gig work in platforms like Uber, demanding wage recirculations that stabilize aggregate demand and reduce crisis vulnerability.
Technofeudalism's rise demands redirecting central bank liquidity to green investments and cloud taxes to reclaim rents from Big Tech.
Central banks should swiftly raise interest rates to 3-3.5% to curb inflation while continuing quantitative easing, but channel funds exclusively into public green investment programs.
Governments must establish a global cloud tax on Big Tech revenues to recapture extracted rents, earmarking proceeds for replenishing aggregate demand and societal investments.
Regulate algorithms as behavioral modification tools, mandating transparency in addictive designs to protect user psyches, especially among youth.
Promote public investment banks in regions like the EU to direct liquidity toward climate-resilient infrastructure, avoiding private financiers' asset inflation traps.
Encourage collective action against precarious gig labor by legalizing unions for platform workers, ensuring wages recirculate to foster economic stability.
In the shadow of the 2008 financial crash, Yanis Varoufakis argues, capitalism didn't just survive—it transformed into something far more insidious: technofeudalism. Speaking from Athens to New York Times reporter Eshe Nelson, the economist and former Greek finance minister paints a picture of an economy no longer driven by market competition and profits, but by digital overlords extracting "cloud rents" akin to medieval ground rents. Platforms like Amazon, he explains, skim 20 to 40 percent from every transaction, not as profit from production, but as tolls for access to users' attention and data. This shift, Varoufakis contends, stems directly from central banks' desperate response to the crisis: printing $35 trillion in quantitative easing to rescue financiers, while austerity crushed everyday demand.
The unintended consequence was a torrent of liquidity with nowhere productive to flow. Traditional firms, facing squeezed consumers, hoarded cash for share buybacks, inflating asset prices amid deflationary pressures on goods. Only Big Tech—American giants like Amazon and Meta, alongside Chinese counterparts—invested boldly in "cloud capital": server farms, algorithms, and AI that don't produce goods but modify behavior. Varoufakis likens devices like Alexa to feudal serfs' tools, training users in addictive loops that bypass markets entirely. "When you enter amazon.com, you exit markets," he says, highlighting how these systems turn recommendation engines into automated advertisers, delivering desires straight to doorsteps.
This new order starves the economic circular flow. Where old corporations recycle 85 percent of revenues as wages, Meta disburses less than 1 percent to workers, siphoning billions into vaults that fuel no broader activity. The result? Central banks, trapped in a doom loop, must keep printing money to offset the drain, even as inflation surges. Varoufakis ties this to today's crisis: pandemic disruptions ignited price spikes, but technofeudal rents make forceful rate hikes impossible without tipping into recession. Governments, fiscally strained, offer no relief, leaving precarious gig workers—Uber drivers, Amazon warehouse staff—unable to plan for homes or durables, amplifying systemic fragility.
Yet Varoufakis, no Luddite, refuses to moralize against tech addiction—he admits his own reliance on Spotify for nostalgic tunes. The peril lies not in devices' utility, but in their ownership by rent-maximizing few, fostering winner-takes-all monopolies that concentrate wealth and stifle productivity. Demographics and low rates, he argues, are symptoms, not causes; the real driver is this intangible capital's low marginal costs, empowered by post-crash policies.
Looking ahead, Varoufakis urges action: central banks should hike rates sharply to deflate bubbles while redirecting easing to public green banks for half-a-trillion-euro annual investments in renewables—ideas he pitched before Russia's Ukraine invasion. A robust cloud tax, impervious to accounting dodges, could reclaim rents for demand-boosting programs. In an era of greenwashing at COP28, he warns, ignoring these shifts risks escalating crises. Technofeudalism may feel abstract, but its effects—eroding jobs, inflating costs—hit neighbors hardest, demanding we rewire the system before it fully ensnares us.