‘Capitalism is dead. Now we have something much worse’: Yanis Varoufakis on extremism, Starmer, and the tyranny of big tech::In his new book, the maverick Greek economist says we are witnessing an epochal shift. At his island home, he argues it’s now the ‘fiefdoms’ of tech firms that shape us
He’s not saying that we don’t still have capitalism, he’s saying capitalists are basically all now paying rent to people who produce zero value.
Yes, we’ve always had some of this. But the scale means people like Jeff Bezos have generated so much power via capitalism, that they’re now more like feudal lords renting space to the capitalist class.
If you think of society through the view of class hierarchy, Jeff and people like him have created a class of power above capitalist. As far above capitalist as the boss is above the worker.
That’s what he’s meaning.