Questions and Answers There are few people with the expertise, life experience and conviction that empower them to challenge the current economic system that is called capitalism. Yanis Varoufakis is one of them and he goes a step further than most by proposing reforms – not just for his home Greece, and the European Economic Union of which Greece is part, but for the banking systems that dominate the world these days.
Yanis Varoufakis was already an internationally known economist and academic when he was elected to the Greek parliament as a member of the Syriza party. At the height of the Greek debt crisis he served as Minister of Finance from January to July 2015.
Varoufakis denounced the troika of lenders for forcing Greece to accept bailout loans that then were used to bail out the banks that had lent to Greece. Varoufakis said that this was a transfer of losses from private banks to Greece’s and Europe’s taxpayers – similar to the 2008 bailout of banks in the US — and he resigned as finance minister.
Varoufakis argues that in 2008 the capitalist system received a mortal blow that is slowly becoming apparent and will lead to another crash. One consequence of economic inequities is the rise of fascism in Europe and in the US. Donald Trump is not unique to the US, Varoufakis says, he is everywhere.
But there is another positive legacy from the US that might protect democracy from capitalism. Varoufakis is an expert on the American New Deal and he proposes that a new New Deal for the European Union, and ultimately the world, can protect democracy from capitalism.
In the previous TUC Radio program you heard Varoufakis’ May 2018 speech at Town Hall, Seattle. In this program he answers questions from the audience beginning with: What is the role of economists in empowering people.
Varoufakis spoke at Town Hall in Seattle, WA, on May 15, 2018 and was recorded by Mike McCormick of Talking Stick TV.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:00 — 19.9MB)
