A friend recently sent me this link to a Times Radio interview with Greek economist Yanis Varoufakis in which he discusses his contention that traditional capitalism, and social democracy, are dead.
It is being replaced by what he describes as 'techno-feudalism'. The rise of the online giants Amazon and Facebook see a massive rise in the incomes that economists describe as 'rent' ("In neoclassical economics, economic rent is any payment to the owner of a factor of production in excess of the cost needed to bring that factor into production." Wikipedia), an accumulation of wealth that is not affected by the output of goods and services in a traditional sense, an income that rises (and falls) with no significant impact on operating costs. The net result is the accumulation of increasing levels of wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer people, and the rise of a new economic elite which he thinks of in much the same way as we might imagine the feudal lords of the middle ages and the era of feudalism.
We seem to be seeing increasing evidence of the use of this wealth to influence political outcomes that benefit that elite (it seems difficult to believe that these donations are made for purely altruistic reasons) while ignoring the remainder of society. Surely if people in general are well cared for, then even the wealthy benefit? The OECD refutation of the trickle down effect, and their view that higher levels of economic inequality reduce potential economic growth, support that contention.
I am not a political analyst, but it does seem to me that in some parts of the world (including in Aotearoa New Zealand) we are seeing the pundits of neo-liberalism, those who believe that our wealth and wellbeing are the result of individual effort only, gaining political power. Some of that support comes from those who will only ever work for someone else, who will only ever work for a living. That feels a little like the metaphorical turkeys voting for an early Christmas.
What are the rest of us to do? Apparently we don't work hard enough; the catch cry is 'if you only worked harder, you too could be a millionaire'. Try telling that to the nurse who pulls 60-80 hour work weeks, or the teacher who regularly does 70 hours in a week, with no weekends.
How do we cope? What can we do in the face of such seemingly unassailable economic power?
Perhaps our ultimate act of rebellion is to indulge our creativity, to find our creative voices, in whatever field we need in order to feel more fully human. I wonder if in doing so we gain sufficient separation from the techno-elite to be able to shrug them off, to exist in a world not dominated by Amazon or Facebook, or our iPhone or laptop (yep, I see the sublime contradiction in me typing this on a laptop, and posting it on a blog connected with a 'tech giant'). The question is, can we use the technology in a way that liberates rather than enslaves? Can we crawl out from beneath the power, the command, of our techno-feudalistic overlords?
What a fascinating thing to try and think through. Good luck!!
