Welcome everybody to this latest in the University of Buckingham faride virtual great minds great lives talk and what a great great mind we have tonight in janisar farus who is going to be talking to us about a whole range of uh of topics about economics and politics and
And life and even maybe a bit of vonstein thrown in who he’s just been uh talking about about Vicken Stein now uh if you have any questions please uh type them in uh and if you are on a system whereby you can’t type them in make a note of this address matthew. Thompson
Buckingham ac.uk matthew. Thompson with a p bingham.com I’m now going to hand over to the um uh incoming Vice Chancellor uh who is Professor James Tuli at the University of Buckingham who is going to be your host uh tonight uh and I will be back at
The end to pick up the questions so over uh to Professor James Tuli uh my successor uh who is going to be an absolutely marvelous Vice Chancellor here at this very special University James uh welcome thank thank you very much indeed Anthony it’s such a huge honor for me to be
Introducing and welcoming Professor yanis far fakas thank you so much for agreeing to come on and talk to us here at the University of Buckingham for the fireside chat so imagine we got to imagine you’re around the Roaring fire in the 15th century fireplace in onchi whole just where where Anthony is
Actually now warming ourselves against the Chill of this uh Autumn evening so so yanis everyone knows the former Finance Minister of Greece co-founder and figurehead of the international movement DM 25 for many years professor of economics in Britain Australia and the US before entering government and now a professor of Economics at
University of Athens so like many of our listeners today um I first came across you when we were totally gripped in the in England in the UK by most daily briefings on your negotiations with the European troa when you were a finance minister in the cus government in
2015 and that then grip to is you dead gree to the refer referendum on your settlements which you won but then paradoxically it seemed to us resigned your position and then like so many others I was spellbind by your Memoir adults in the room my battle with Europe’s deep establishment many of your
Books like that one have been bestsellers um we’ll be exploring these tonight no doubt talking to my daughter a brief history of capitalism and hot off the press um this inspiring utopian sci-fi Greek mythology economic treaties of a book another now dispatches from an alternative present they all come with
Glowing praise no CH Chomsky has written you’re an outstanding Economist and political analist Martin wolf from the financial times says you’re a very very clever person he’s right so well what I’m want to do this evening then we’ve got 40 minutes or so I want to go through some of the
Key moments in your life probably some of the key books um I’m not assuming any particular economic Knowledge from listeners and not least not for myself either um so I want to talk much more about Janis what formed you the Genesis of your ideas what forms you now what
Angers excites you inspires you and so on so let’s Ki kick off with your latest book just to take you back to the past and we’ll come back to this book later on but you begin this book don’t you with the protagonist yango varu perhaps also somewhat similar to you because he
Was in Essex at Essex University doing a PhD in economics in the early 80s and he has this ambivalence it comes across the first few pages with one Margaret Thatcher was that there is leftwing activist hating everything she’s about but then also admiring her character and
Leadership and then in 1987 she wins her third term in office and everything goes quiet and dies down for them in 1987 when she won her third election Victory it was Game Over You left the UK were the two connected well by the way uh let me be
Begin by thanking you profusely for this wonderful introduction and for the warm of uh your and your colleagues uh um introduction and and and overall um reception straight to the question um she was magnificent wasn’t she and I was saying this as an opponent every time she Rose in the house to confront
Whoever it was you know Michael foot or you know uh the two Davids from the Liberals and the Democrats uh uh her own grandes in the Tor party uh she would wipe the floor clean with them and I was always thinking to myself oh my goodness
If we our side you know the left had a leader like that you know we would be in business and also you know she was a conviction politician it that doesn’t mean that you know she did what she said um a lot of sauge was involved in her
Government but that’s politics isn’t it but I do believe believe that whenever she said something she actually believed in it and she had the capacity to go beyond you know the usual calculation of political cost and to speak her mind even her philosophy you know when she
Said famously in that interview uh for women’s own I believe was the magazine that there’s no such thing as society and she was lambasted even by people from her own side yeah she was taking a very interesting idea not one that I agree with but she was taking it to the
Logical conclusion and it’s the idea that um um if you assume that individuals are well formed in their preferences and desires uh then it is impossible to synthesize uh on the basis of their selfish private interest what Society wants in that case there’s no such thing as Society because we cannot anthrop
Anthropomorphize it so you know I disagree with her but you know she had a very solid philosophical uh perspective that she was pushing through uh what other politician does that I mean Tony Blair doesn’t do this you know John Major never did that David Cameron my
Goodness it was just leemon um H and you know today today’s politicians you have a prime minister you know who um um just trades ideas depending on the way the wind blows and leader of the opposition in Britain today who um you know it’s um it’s just so dull and
So fabricated that um I just can’t watch him more than 10 seconds so yeah I do miss ster uh in the same way I think I’m going to miss Angela Merkel you know who I consider to be the person who actually destroyed the chances of Europe to unify but nevertheless whatever comes after
Her is going to be worse than her so you know I have this this this predisposition towards um eulogizing and appreciating strong women politicians who in the end wasted fantastic opport unities with and the political Capital they that they had yeah well that’s interesting to say that about um about
Margaret Thatcher of course because we we are closely connected with her here um she was our Chancellor you know the figurehead um for some years when she retired from government and she actually gave the very first matriculation address here at Buckingham where she gave a speech she would love actually
She was talking about freedom and Independence and she said this is um freedom is not something government gives you it’s our Birthright and we got to grasp it um so you know we we we’re great fans of hers here as you are but were your political idea how how formed
Were they when you were there as a left-wing activist at ess6 and so on I mean and did she help form them I mean did she push you in certain ways did you understand more about Society through listening to her and so on look my years in England were formative of course
Because I arrived when I was 17 I believe but nevertheless I was fully formed politically not because I’m smart but because I come from Greece and Greece uh the Greece I grew up in was um it was as if it it was like a cauldron of politics
That was helping all of us my generation uh develop politically very very quickly because James Ley put it this way imagine that when you are six right the secet police break down the door in the middle of the night to to your father for political reasons and then he
Disappears for a few weeks and then after a while you discover that your mother’s brother has been arrested tortured and he’s on death row so you know at at that tender age of 67 89 um suddenly you start ask questions why is this happening that’s the beginning of
Politics so by the time I came to Britain in September 1978 I believe it was um I was fully formed politically uh of course you thatcherism because you remember that was a this was a beginning of the winter of discontent yes so the of discontent followed by Thatcher’s um Victory general election
Victory followed by everything that came after that the you know the failed monetarist experiment the huge Unemployment uh Peak uh the minor strike the whopping dispute uh later on um uh well through through all this the big Bank in the city of London all those
Things uh helped me develop but I I did come fully formed if anything however I think that what Britain did was it allowed me to look much more kindly onto the arguments of my political opponents it taught me how to be uh a liberal not a liberal
Lefty but a liberal not in theory but in practice uh I recognize the strength of the argum of the other side and I’ve actually you know I enjoyed a lot more arguing with Libertarians and thatcherites than with people from my own political background I found that quite boring because you know I knew
What they were going to say yeah I I wasn’t sure what you know Libertarians would say well I suppose as a Libertarian thatcherite I I Echo that I find it very boring talking to libertarian thatcherites sometimes you because you know what they’re going to say I mean you mentioned your father
There and there’s that this very moving passage isn’t there in your adult in the room um quite early on in the book there where you talk about um um your father yuros name and how he George because he anglicized George when England you can call him George George yes I mean before before
Obviously you were thought of and he he’s um beaten up and put in prison for four months by by the uh the military for years not four years yeah sorry four years for not denouncing communism and there’s some great lines there you put in there I mean your how he said he
Wouldn’t denounce Buddhism he’s not a Buddhist but he wouldn’t denounce Buddhism and so on you it’s a very moving passage there but uh so so so he really influenced you I mean tell me about your your family influences there on your ideas oh both my my my parents
Influenced me uh my dad and my mom as well as other people it was a very interesting period back then in Greece uh look my father influenc me because um he came to Greece when he was in his early 20s from Egypt uh as a kind of UFO that’s what he called himself
Because um he grew up in Cairo in Egypt his father interestingly was that’s something I haven’t written about there was no reason I should but maybe you’d be interested in that yes he was um he he was a character you know Cosmopolitan character of his era of the 1920s and
30s um I recently discovered some of his letters in English and he writes almost Shian English so his English was remarkably good and I didn’t even know that because he died was eight uh and he was the head of Thomas Cook in Egypt so he was organizing for you know the English
Aristocracy effectively those death on the Nile um you know tours um that you know ero ero yes I was going to say yes has marked in our memory and um common understanding of that era uh so it was an interesting background in which my father grew up he grew up his
First language was French uh he spoke English because that was a language of authority in Cairo um and he spoke Arabic and of course he spoke Greek because of his father’s native tongue um so he arrived in Greece as a you know English and French educated Greek
Expert um of of a great you know a true liberal and he landed in the middle of the worst polarization it was the beginning of the Cold War the cold war did not begin in the streets of Berlin it began in the streets of Athens in December 1944 and he tried to
Maintain um a kind of equidistant attitude toward the two extremes the Communist on the one hand and the fascist on the other there was very little in between at the time and um to the extent that because he was coming from a different place you a different planet as far as the natives
Were concerned when he landed at Athens University at the school of chemistry um that was a time an internum a kind of Theon between the the extreme right and extreme left and representatives from both sides came to him and said would you be willing to serve as uh the leader of
The students union because both sides could accept him so he said yes and then at some point when the authorities doubled tuition fees in the middle of a famine in 1946 a real famine and they double tuition fees right students could not afford to buy bread and they double
Tuition fees so he he thought it was his duty that’s what he know a student leader does very politely wearing his tie he s he he’s nothing like me he’s you know very um elegant uh bourjois figure um so he went to the director you know to the person playing your role in
The University uh to complain but very politely in so on the way out he was picked up by secret police he was beaten up and he was asked to sign a declaration denouncing communism the result is that he ended up in a concentration camp in a prison camp camp
With Communists and he became a member of the Communist party but and this is the education that I got from my dad I do say this in the book somewhere uh but I think it’s important for those who haven’t read it to me mention it uh
Because this is this this was a pivotal moment in my upbringing when he realized that I was becoming politicized later on in I was 14 15 something like that and pol politicized on the left on the Marxist left uh he sat me down as a Marxist himself he never abandoned his
Marxist Marxist position and he said listen y uh I need to tell you this when I was in the prison camp as a communist I knew deep in my bones that if our side had won the Civil War I would be in the same prison camp with communist guards because unfortunately
This is how politics works so beware and at that moment um and I tried you I think you can even see this in my latest book another now yes a book about envisioning socialism um I’m exceptionally fearful of the Revolution I’m exceptionally fearful of socialism I’m exceptionally fearful of all those
Things that I advocate and I think it is you know it is common sense and the sign of a liberal disposition constantly to beware that crimes against humanity that your own side can perpetuate yeah that’s that’s really fascinating it’s fascinating that so your father influenced you so you didn’t
Rebel against his Marxism as some might do you know you you actually you you you you you went along with it you you you immersed yourself in it but you’re very worried about Revolution the revolution eats its children doesn’t it that is what we used to say at that time yeah
And I I mean I’m wondering whether we should no let’s let’s do this chronologically I want to get onto your last book at the end but it is it is This brilliant vision of the Poss possibilities and horrors of socialism I think but anyway so you left England
Let’s let’s go back to that you left England and um I was trying to think get that you left it because of 1987 and the third that term so let me just uh speak to this just briefly yeah um thatcherism for me was um painful it was painful
Because uh of the um divisions that it was causing within British society and particularly because you know I love University life and since this is a university discussion let’s bring it onto an academic uh kind of terrain um I I got my first lectureship in 1984 I
Believe at the University of East Anglia and then after that you know I moved around a little bit but you know that period I don’t know whether you remember it was an awful period we had deep Cuts in universities every year a 10% cut in the budget of every University um I’m
Sorry I have to somebody’s calling me and we take it if it’s urgent I’m not taking I’m not taking anything um I thought that I had put the I switched off notifications anyway I did but it didn’t work so anyway sorry about so um being a young young young
Lecturer I was very cheap for the University and that was the time when you had Vice chancellors and Deans calling up tenur lecturers professors the oldest who were expensive pressurizing them in an inhuman inhuman way to resign to take early retirement so you can imagine you
Know I would be in the lift with one of those people who would look at me as the devil incarnate because you know I was the kind of youngster that was taking that job and and some of them are people that I really thought very very highly
Of and they were looking at me with Venom and understandably not all of them but some of them did so this this atmosphere in the university in the department in the departmental board meetings yes of fear of division and of discontent um when ther won the third term and
Announced further cuts to the university I thought no I’m that’s it and and also you know my salary was a joke I remember my my final salary was what £10,000 gross uh I just couldn’t make ends meet I yeah I could never accept a position in London because even with a London
Allowance I could I couldn’t rent a place to to live decently so um you know I received out of the blue um an offer of a you know my position at the University of Sydney in Australia initially I said no I mean why would I
Want to go to Australia uh but then six six days later I thought perhaps I should go you know uh just try that out and and I never regretted it because Australia at the time was a very good place to be yes okay so you are I I do
Remember the the early 1980s 1983 I think I was on a anti folk fand’s demonstration and down White Hall and and so so I remember those times very well and and uh all the demonstrations the Discord that there was there um but also maybe progress too but so you went
To Australia maybe we won’t talk about that too much except again you got disillusion with a conservative government the conservative with a small SE the John Howard government and is that again disillusionment with what a conservative with a small government was doing that prompted you to leave a
Australia I think you were there until 2000 and then you went to te University of Texas Austin was it again the sort of political disillusion or was it other things look politics is not enough to cause me to migrate politics you know big picture politics uh but when political change that is stifling
Shps into your everyday life right that is something that can um you know motivate one to think of moving on uh so again just like in Britain in the 1980s it was in Australia in the mid to late 1990s that this Ultra conservatism a certain a certain degree degree of
Bigotry and racism Nar of xenophobia started sipping in through the cracks of the University walls and I could see it in the university in a university which was when I arrived in Australia 1988 was um um you know it was an oasis from all that stuff suddenly I could see the
Commercialization the worst combination of the private sector and the public sector so we had you know part privatization of university life without the good things of the private sector so we had the worst of the public sector and the worst of the private sector and simultaneously we had this you know the
The the this um um xenophobia primarily an anti- Aboriginal ethos that John Howard was cultivating purely for um um you know small-minded uh political purposes this is how he was um harnessing more support amongst the right um and add to that that life in Australia is just too easy
And too nice right you know after a while it gets a bit boring you know don’t say so sbly Bor then you moved to America and that’s when you wrote the book Texas I mov I moved to Greece in 2010 I moved to Greece I took a position of the University yes that’s
Right yes yes and it’s when the whole thing started going pair shaped in Greece because of the you know wholesale bankruptcy of of the country um once that you will understand I was um uh head of a PhD program that um I had put a lot of effort to create
Internationalizing and and building it up that collapsed because of funding then uh the people that I had managed to recruit into the department from England from America from Germany uh who had come to the University of Athens accepting a major pay cut but just because we were creating you know a good scholarly
Community they suddenly had to suffer a 550% pay cut during the you know the tra policies and they just couldn’t make ends meet some of them had accepted huge pay cuts you know I had a a colleague from the bank of England a researcher from the bank of England he was making
Back then £6,000 a month and he came to Greece for 1,200 and that 1,200 then was cut to 700 right so he had to go back to England so I helped them go back to where they came from and when the last one that I had recruited the last person
I had been responsible for luring back into Greece had gone um I moved together with my partner to Austin Texas okay and that’s where you wrote the global minor tour in 2011 or published in 2011 and that’s actually the title of your talk tonight so that must be significant so
The minor tour let’s remind ourselves is part man part bull it’s in Greek mythology eventually the minor tour gets slayed by the Athenian hero Theus yes and um so tell us how you use the the metaphor of the minor T what relevance it has maybe for today because
I think maybe you linking it with stuff today and of course answer the question are you the modern day thesis of course oh no no no certainly [Laughter] not I’m not that significant in broader scheme of things no um look the reason why I wrote that book
You see if you look at my research speaking now as academics there’s a discontinuity in my work up until 2008 2006 2007 I was involved in totally esoteric mathematical modeling of things that have absolutely zero practical significance but which are great fun to do and you know they they they sharpen
One’s analytical capacity so Game Theory to put it bluntly which I don’t think has any real life applications unlike other game theories game theories don’t like me because I say that but for me you know it’s a bit like being a chess player um it has no practical applications except that it is
Fascinating and it does sharpen your mind um and then suddenly I you know when I I I could see around 2004 2005 I could see that the world was heading for the rocks and I’m now referring to the 2008 financial collapse I could see it even though this was not my research
Interest it was my interest as a political animal as and as an economist who cared about the world um and I and I came up with the term Global minitor actually quite a long way before that 2003 to explain why I thought the world was heading for the
Rocks uh and where did the mineral come from when I was explaining to people what I think was wrong with you know the Global Financial architecture and trade imbalances yeah their eyes would glaze over and I realized that I have to come up with a story with a metaphor that helps common
Folk understand you know I was invited to give a talk at a Sydney Pub in Australia to explain this politics at the pub it’s it’s called but you know in Australia you have you have a a 10minute window of opportunity before there is too little blood in their alcohol so so
You have to to get your your your idea in in 10 minutes so it was then that I I I I thought okay okay now I’m not smart enough to come up with a fantastic Parable I’ll just take a readymade one and off the shelf
Parable and I use the Minot uh and if you want me I can explain how that fitted with the theory that I had of the global economy and why I thought it was all going to end up in years yeah so so why don’t you do that and and maybe you
Can you know link link that then into you know with the move back to Greece and the 2015 Ministry of Finance finding you the power to sign the documents negotiation with the troa so link the minor to yeah link it in there because again or not to sign the
Do it was your power your discretion not the prime ministers that’s interesting so yeah link the minor in with then the whole crisis that you were then involved with in 2015 which so riveted the world I think okay now the story I was telling in that book the global minor is this after
1971 up until 1971 the West had the same currency it was a dollar the pound the exchange rate between the pound and the dollar was fixed for years and years and years it never fluctuated so we had the fixed exchange rates and you had the American economy operating as the shock
Absorber of you know all the trials and tribulations of global capitalism that was severed on the 15th August 1971 by Richard ni Nixon and suddenly everything went haywire the price of oil shot up uh the the value of the pound went up Vis A the the dollar the German Mark went even
Further up so there was this chaos of the 1970s which caused the stagnation stagflation that actually didn’t thater you know our friend thater is the result of that period and of this dismantling of that system and what happened after that equilibrium a very funny kind of unbalanced equilibrium or should I say
Uh balanced disequilibrium was reestablished in the early 80s around 1980 and it happened as follows uh the American economy went into massive massive deficit trade deficit Vis the rest of the world so the American economy was operating like a huge vacuum cleaner that was sucking into itself the net exports of the
Germans of the Japanese okay the Saudis and of course later very importantly the Chinese and how were they paying for this deficit because Britain cannot do that Greece cannot do that well they were paying it because of the exorbitant power of the dollar and Wall Street which was attracting almost 70% of the
Profits of the Germans of the Japanese of the Chinese so this was a fantastic recycling mechanism okay the trade deficit was creating demand for the German Japanese and Chinese factories okay those factories were having profits but the profits were then sent back as tribute to Wall Street to
Close the cycle and that’s when the minator idea comes back because in the original story of the Minon peace you know the PX ketana of the Archaic Period the idea then that’s that’s a myth behind the minitor as well creit was a superpower and it had um subjugated Athens and
Other cities and in exchange for providing peace and prosperity and trade the Athenians would have once a year to send a number of young boys and young girls uh over to cre to be devoured by the minor the minor was the the guilty secret of the Minon uh
Court uh because he that creature that Beast was a result of um it was it was the son of the queen who had actually um slept let’s put it mindly with a bll and this there the secret was hidden inside the basement of the palace and could only be nourished
By human flesh and as long as that Beast was alive PX Kitana was alive so this was a fantastic metaphor because for me you the the minor you know was the American twin deficits the trade deficit and the government deficit that was creating the circumstances for PX Americana and for uh you know
Globalization globalization was built on the back of this amazing recycling recycling mechanism on what I call the global minor okay and when that crashed and burned in 2008 we have a Cascade of bankruptcies we start with Wall Street then we move to the German and to the
British and to the Dutch and to the French banks they stop lending then countries like Dubai which was first and Greece which was second that had unsustainable debt which needed refinancing by those Banks well they went pair shape too because those Banks stopped lending and my country became
Utterly insolvent and that’s when in 2010 around the time that I made the transition to Austin Texas uh the reason why we had this massive depression which we still have to this day in Greece is because the powers that be in Brussels in Frankfurt in Berlin and in aens decided
To cover up this bankruptcy by means of gigantic loans that were given to the Greek state so that the Greek State could repay the French and the German banks on conditions of austerity that destroy the private sector and Society in this country and you know I kept
Saying that and at some point a young man who was going to be prime minister he said I agree with everything you say and I agree that we need to do what you’re saying so will you put your money where your mouth is and be my finance
Minister right that’s when I thought oh my God why didn’t I my mouth shut and I was perhaps trying to get you to say there’s this therefore the European minor minor that that was the troa was in a sense doing the same to to Greece as the minons were doing to at so
That’s too far so that’s that’s too no that’s being too polite to to to the tro and to the European Union so let’s not be polite let’s not be polite tell us a bit about tell us a bit about this negoti like America cre like America we’re providing yeah a stable global
Environment aa ketana aa Americana um you know an unbalanced growth but nevertheless an environment in which countries like Germany Japan China could grow Britain and so on um the tri never did anything of the sort it’s simply transferred cynically huge losses from the books of the banks onto the
Shoulders of taxpayers that’s not a great contribution to humanity no and and actually you you you you tell some beautiful stories and um and you’ve already talked about politics of the pub which I really like that and the twoo little blood in their alcohol I thought
That was very nice but there’s a lovely story in here about two men in a barrel of whiskey adults in the room um the Irish story um and the two art and con the uh the two drinkers there that was what it’s all like wasn’t it where they were just conning each
Other everyone was conning each other there was they were going to help Greece they wering each other I think they were conning the public right okay yeah uh the Greek oligarchy the Greek government wasn’t being conned by anyone they were in cahoots with the central bank with do
Bank with soci General uh you see there is there is another part Parable that I I like to invoke only in order to uh deconstruct it’s a parable of ESOP Smith you know the Ant and the grasshopper because this is how things have been portrayed in the European Union that you
Have the ants of the north working away you know parsimonious Lutheran Protestant um saving and you have the The Grasshoppers of the South singing and dancing in the Sun and and you know just borrowing and borrowing and borrowing uh and then winter comes and and and they perish and they knock on
The door of the ants and they ask for money now the the the problem with big with with huge lies is that they are founded on small truths there are small truths in the story but it’s a big lie because what really has been happening
Is that the ants of the of the north the German Workers the Dutch workers the people who are actually producing the stuff were always being short changed along with the ants of the South there are people in this country and in Italy and in Spain who work really really very
Hard and they have always been short change during the good times and during the bad times and it is the oligarchy of the North and the oligarchy of the South that we’re always collaborating beautifully in order to ensure that the producers the innovators or the maintainers both of the north and of the
South um just you know keep them in luxury without them actually doing anything right okay so so I don’t know how much you want to focus on all that all that the negotiations and you but let’s let’s let’s go to the referendum of course which a lot of us you know
Libertarians thatcherites or whatever we were we were really gunning for Greek Greece to vote to get out of the Euro you know we thought this was the great the grexit moment and and there was a certain disappointment amongst many of us um from here that actually the people
Didn’t want vote get now why didn’t they vote together they they vote 62% said no to the trer no to the trer but then they to stay in the the EU and the Euro and hang on a second let’s you explain it to me explain it to me yeah uh look since
I’m speaking I’m addressing a British audience mostly yes uh it is important to draw a line between grexit and brexit not the same story uh and and the difference is the c if you had the Euro if Tony Blair had had his his way and he had convinced
Gordon Brown remember back in the 1990s that Britain should enter the Euro and you had entered the Euro there would have been no brexit now or even if there was a brexit then there would be no European Union the whole thing would would have come down
Like a house of cards because you see it remember back in 1991 when my friend Norman Lamont was uh ch of V Checker and you got out of the European exchange rate mechanism and that was a big trauma you know the John Major government never recovered from that well that was a walk
In the park compared to leaving the Euro because all you had to do then was just to sever the exchange rate between uh the pound sterling and the Doge Mark and still it was very painful if you had the Deutch Mark which is the Euro the euro
Is you know the Deutsch Market in drag right if you had the euro how do you get out because you know it is not as if you have a currency that needs to be unpegged from another currency if if if in your pocket you had Euros right and
The Euros are printed in Frankfurt you know how does Britain get out of it because you see it takes 12 months at least at least at best to print a new currency put it in ATMs you know recalibrate the whole monetary system to accept it so effectively you are cond
Ding A people into penury for a year it’s a major shock to the system so but my position was this and I think this was the position of the 62% who voted no in the referendum the Trier was threatening me and the people of Greece that unless we
Do as well told told they are going to throw us out of the Year firstly I didn’t believe that this was a credible threat but even if it were a credible threat I would say to them to them do your worst because um uh bondage and dead bondage forever is
Not something I’m prepared to tolerate I prefer penury for a year and then we recover we regain our sovereignty we get out and do our thing but this was not my first choice it would be um it would be a the elction of Duty to say this is my
First choice to condemn a country into a year of massive massive depression but I was prepared to go along with that if this was in the end the condition for staying in the Euro Zone the but we accept permanent dead bondage and the people of Greece were exceptionally mature you know what they
Said we should not have gotten into the EUR it was a mistake now that we’re in we don’t want to get out but if they demand of us that we hand over the keys to the state to them Stu it we’re out okay and my prime minister on that night when
62% magnificently and courageously took that nuanced mature you know logical common sense iCal position uh my colleague and prime minister said it is time to surrender and when I heard that I thought oh no oh no he got these people out there yeah you know he empowered them he pumped them up and
Now he’s going to disappoint them and there’s no worse fate than a democracy for um the overturning of a referendum this is why even though I was against brexit in your referendum the day after the brexit referendum I turned against my remainer colleagues uh who wanted the
Second referendum and I would say to them hang on guys we are Democrats you know we fought against brexit we lost where it it’s finished yeah well that’s really interesting you should say that and I I sorry I mischaracterized the Greek people I was meaning the Greek
Government and of course some some some people are still talking about brexit not happening still even though it’s happened you know but that’s yeah now look we’re going to run out of time and I’m want to I do want to just well let’s mention this beautiful book a
Letter to my daughter um talking to my daughter brief history of capitalism a really wonderful book just let’s do a quick question I mean was she convinced by it is she persuaded is she a Marxist like you and your father is she no uh well you know that’s very healthy
It’s a very healthy answer yeah uh no but she’s um you know one of those youngsters that participates she lives in Sydney she’s growing up in Sydney Australia she participates in the climate uh emergency Fridays for future Extinction Rebellion demonstrations um along with kids of her age uh she’s very
Skeptical of every of everything and anything I ever say and uh more recently we’ve come closer together um for one reason some of her friends in her own group um have been influenced by things I’ve said or written so they come to her assuming that she knows more about it
Than she does and she comes to me and says oh my God you know why do why do I have to have you as a father you know but but please tell me what did you mean in chapter three you know only to convey to her friends not for any other reason
I can assure you well she’s she’s a very very lucky young woman I’m sure but okay so let’s get to this one then another now I mean it’s absolutely gripping it’s this utopian uh part sci-fi as I say Greek mythology uh economic Treatise um I love the way you describe the uh developments
In Quantum biology if I if I’m reading them correctly that allow the protagonist to go down this Wormhole into the parallel universe where he comes across markets without capitalism spontaneous order I know notic that the hayekian phrase and coros coros syndicalism no bosses no wages no
Problem so is is this your treaties of then you know is is this of where we should be heading where we can go lots of warnings I know but tell tell tell us about this book I it’s a fantastic read well look um in let me give you the
Brief answer the answer is yes um for decades I have avoided answering the question as Lefty okay mate if you don’t like capitalism what’s the alternative yeah because it’s certainly not the Soviet Union I would be the first to be in the gulag my father convinced me of
That a long time ago um and it’s not social democracy social democracy is too tired for Words um it’s it it has had its day in the era of globalized financialization it is impossible um is it possible however to imagine a post- capitalist World which is liberal where markets flourish
Where there is genuine participatory democracy of an ancient Athenian style not in other words completely um embedded in the electoral process which is very oligarchic as we know but also with uh stition with a jury system a Citizens assembly kind of setup um at some point I decide I’m going to to try
My hand at writing such a book but if I was going to write an essay of what this Market socialism post Capital would look like you know it I didn’t I I just couldn’t bring myself to write this because I disagree with myself on a number of things as you can
See since you’ve read the book so I decided that the only way I could motivate myself and I could be honest to myself in writing you know a blueprint for how Society could have been without labor markets and share markets with profit sharing and one share one vote
And with without Commercial Banking you know but fully fledged market system uh was if I had characters that represented different parts of me so I have you know I have a neoliberal Libertarian Economist because you know I’ve been very much influenced by F mes and haek you know I’m not great friends
With normal Lon for no reason right I have a Marxist in me a feminist in me um I have part of me who is a tech Enthusiast and also another part was a technophobe phobe so I have these characters in there to represent a different Ides of me and I allow them to
Argue with one another about this now the way we are and also the other now the way we could have been and by letting them fight it out amongst themselves I actually learned from them because after you know the halfway point in writing the book suddenly it was
Beginning to write itself and this was this was an intoxicating moment for me it’s an intoxicating reads and it’s been such a pleasure talking to I’m going to hand back to Anthony now for the questions from the listeners but it’s been such a pleasure thank you so much
Anthony James thank you very much indeed and here from another part of the University of Buckingham by the Fireside James is out there in the sun notice it always uh shines at the University of Buckingham yanis you have a a mega audience uh here we can’t we can’t quite
Uh number it but it’s over 6,000 and the first question is coming in from a famous educational institution called Wellington College um and they brought there you can’t see that but but that there is a game of Monopoly it says Monopoly socialism and winning is for capitalists they brought
That today in your honor the question is yanis how do we persuade people to vote for politicians who will genuinely promote the interests of Labor well first you have to have them on the ballot paper uh and they’re not everywhere to be seen in every constituency look the the laboral party
Is um a remarkable institution uh it’s a very uh frustrating institution at the same time it’s it’s it has Progressive parts and it’s got exceptionally aggressive aspects of it I don’t know look I I’m a friend of Jeremy corbins and John McDonald’s as you probably know
Um I was appalled by the toxicity in the labor party on both sides during their reign in the labor party but at least there was a you know in Jeremy Corin you had a conviction politician you had you had a decent man uh who actually said what he believed and believed what he
Said that you know not since ster have we had such a conviction politician in British politics and uh because he was not confrontational and conflictual um he’s bit the dust and now what we have is um is is a labor party which is no longer capable of articulating a radical
Position for for Britain and I think Britain needs a radical uh change in the same way that it probably needed it in 1979 it needs it now it’s not coming from this conservative party um and it’s not coming from the labor party so I don’t have an answer to the question I’m
Very sorry about that Matias says who is a distinguished Economist um how uh do you think that Greece do you think that Greece will ever be able to pay the EU back it won’t you see the the tragedy happen he saying it’s not it’s not going to pay it back
But you see it was never meant to pay back um when James was asking me fleetingly about the negotiations that I was involved in with with the European Union institutions and the international monetary fund right um the the the sheer pain I was feeling during this period was due to a paradox
I was negotiating with creditors who didn’t care about getting their money back they cared about how to do other things like how to you know uh impose their will on the French government or maintain a semblance of discipline but they were not interested in getting their money back because they knew they
Were never going to get their money back uh the only way that they could get more of their money back would have been to agree with what I was proposing because what I was proposing was you know the standard practice that takes place in the city of London or Wall Street all
The time when you have an insolvent entity saying to the banker listen if you want to maximize how much money I pay you we need to restructure my debt and you have to you know to to become a partner in my in the Enterprise of lifting up my boat and they were simply
Not interested in that they did not want to be seen to be negotiating with me I was negotiating for the right to negotiate so Greece is never going to pay its debts back but this this is part and parcel of how the European Union manages its crisis they are using the
Gree’s unpayable debt in order to maintain the debt bondage of the Greek political economy Emmy says what does it look like in practice Janis to hold Marxism with libertarianism you see for me the reason why I I I liked Marx was because he was a Libertarian uh he he would be the first
Person to be in the gulak too in the Soviet Union there’s no doubt about that right because if you read I mean I recently discovered a text in which he describes um Barracks communism uh as a place where everything is um decided by a cabal of bureaucrats uh including
Prices and quantities and he describes this as a nightmare and when he was asked what should happen with the state under communism he said I want the com the state to wither so he you know his his his critique of capitalism was that it was illiberal so this is a liberal critique
Now he’s not responsible for his disciples like KES po kanes was not responsible for you know for the keynesians that followed um no great thinkers are responsible for the people that usurp their thought in order to do exactly the opposite or terrible things with it so I think that you know for me
Covering liberalism in the context of fighting against authoritarianism the authoritarianism of the state and the authoritarianism of big business because you know if you if I don’t know whether you’ve been to the campus of Google in California I’ve been right or you know enter any Microsoft huge building you
Know do you realize the moment you enter into one of those buildings you exit the marketplace there’s no Market in there there is a Soviet Union in there go plan there there there are no traits you know there is a hierarchy there are you know there’s the Stalin at the top there is
The police Bureau and there is even the comall you know they even sing the company song they even have an aesthetic you go into Google they have an aesthetic and everybody eulogizes Google if you work for Google and you dare criticize Google you’re in serious trouble you know there’s a Google
KGB uh which is much smarter that the the Soviet KGB because they don’t need to do anything to you they just look at you as if you’re a strange animal if you criticize the great company so you know for me to be a genuine liberal you need to resist hierarchies and
Authoritarianism whether it comes from the state or whether it comes from corporations there’s a great uh 75 minute uh documentary on about social media companies on Netflix at the moment uh which people should see if you haven’t already uh Amelia says why did Greece not increase the pension age H
Bit Niche that question could uh James by the way is is laughing away um as we’re talking do go for that or leski is saying coming back to why did you resign and Greece accept the debt do you want to take either of those and then I think
We’ll move on I resigned I resigned because when you when a minister of finance disagrees with the Prime Minister either he does what he’s told in the end or he resigns and I was not not going to surrender okay so Emma is talking about Angela Beth they’re all on uh about all
Of all of that here’s a different one Carol uh says I really think that uh Donald Trump has done a great deal for America and the world why are you saying otherwise well you know what I’m not saying otherwise I’m I’m challenging 50% of it um he hasn’t done anything good either
For the world or for America but he’s not done anything terribly terribly awful to the world he’s the only American pres president in my lifetime that has not started the war and I think that’s a pretty good thing you know um because you know Hillary Clinton would have started one against Iran uh
Definitely uh she would not have withdrawn troops from you know different theaters uh so I think you know not having a war is a pretty good good thing but I think he’s been pretty atrocious for the United States T is coming straight back at you yanis and say says
Yanis how can you say that I mean this is a great talk but how can you say that uh that Donald Trump has done no harm when he has set the global warming agenda right back this is true he has set it right back but you know the
Global war anti the anti you know the the agenda of mitigating climate change was never in a very good uh state of health um look at what the previous administration was doing nothing under Obama you had huge investment in fossil fuels huge sub subsidies for f for fossil fuels including the most
Polluting variety which is coal and um oil so um I abore the fact that he withdrew the United States from the Paris agreement but let’s face it the par Paris agreement you know was not much to write home about uh we are as a species responsible for not holding our
Governments um you know in front of the on top of of a fireplace you know grilling them as a result of the fact that they’re doing nothing to stop you know global warming uh Paige is asking about oil there and specifically yanis oil in the Eastern Med with both Greece and Turkey
Uh claiming it uh might Greece and Turkey go to war if not there where is the next war going to start and will it start over resources or water you know we we very close to um a hot incident let’s put it this way during the last
Few weeks in the aan uh I’m I’m leading a political party in Greece and I have to tell you that I’ve had sleepless nights over the possibility of the stupidest war in the history of the world because if something like that happens between Greece and Turkey it
Will be the stupidest war in the history of the world why stupid Wars it it would be about oil that no one no one really in their right mind wants to extract you know Exon Mobile total BP would not want to extract it because it’s very
Expensive at a time when the price of oil is going to zero right it’s it’s falling and falling and falling so if we would be fighting over something that has zero economic value right and which should stay in the guts of the earth now that is my definition of a stupid War
Okay and uh Pablo is asking there about uh Cyprus when you throw Cyprus into that uh mix I’m GNA go though on to Beth who is coming back on was Britain right to leave the EU um what do you think well I I campaigned very vigorously against
Brexit uh and but even while I was doing this I was uh disdaining the project fear of the treasury of the government of the IMF of V of all those people are pointing the finger at you saying don’t you dare get out uh for me you know
Um Europe would be a better place with Britain in it and what I was saying to you know people like George urn for instance when we were in echofin together in the in the Council of Finance ministers I was I said to him once once I said look George why don’t
We band together to veto everything in here and and and to transform the European Union by using Collective V power I said no no no no no no we’re not going to be doing this you know it will only V to anything that affects the city of London
So I thought I thought that we could transform Europe together with Britain if we took a radical position you know thater banged uh her Feast on the table or her bag whatever it was you know to get the um some money back um this severing of ties University ties of
Arasmus um the the end of the freedom of movement I believe that the freedom of movement is a very important uh psychologically and culturally aspect that we won um the hard way across Europe uh economically I was actually wrong because you know one of the things
I used to say I remember I I gave a speech in Newcastle and I said that think of what you’re doing to yourselves the moment you sever uh the links between you introduce checks in in do right the supply chains of Nissan go and then you’re going to
Have mass uh layoffs in in Newcastle why do you want to do this to yourself and I was wrong Johnson says it’s going to be absolutely marvelous and the best thing ever and if Boris Johnson says it’s got to be true uh last question of all here is from be terrible either
From Sarah says I don’t get economics what’s economics ever done uh why has it been such a dismal academic uh subject um is that is that a fair commentary about about the value of economics in in failing to live up to the expectations Sarah you’re absolutely right um economists are part of the
Problem not part of the solution and economic theory while it’s Splendid and beautiful and aesthetically very pleasing uh if you try to apply it uh to the real world to the really existing capitalism you end up with enormous damage being done on societies but Sarah you have no right not to study economics
Why because it is the Ling of franka of power all discussions about politics and the things that affect your life are couched in the language of Economics it’s a bit like being in the Middle Ages and not knowing your Bible because even back then all politics was couched in
The the language of the Bible even if you were an atheist you had to know your Bible because otherwise you could not improve the lives of those who deserves your support what a brilliant answer and then this is our thank you to you and James Tuli is going to make this uh
Possible I’ve hand it over the uh the budget for the University to you we are flying out to you on Saturday night your favorite uh politician uh your favorite Economist and your favorite philosopher care of University of Buckingham uh to go and I don’t know about the the the
Restrictions but we’re going to do it who is your politician you would most have want to have dinner with living or dead I think it would have to be Winston Churchill Winston Churchill your favorite Economist he was a great fun to talk to right yeah if I to speak to
Lenin it would be just exceptionally boring your favorite Economist it would have to be Marx okay that’s good and marks and your favorite uh philosopher I think we need a woman in there so so it can’t be it was going to be a woman and it’s it’s a woman that
You might not have associated with philosophy but she was a lecturer in philosophy and her first writings were very s significant philosophical writings Iris murdog the nor uh H and let me James has read my new book uh Spill the Beans something I have not revealed in public my Iris in another
Now is inspired by Iris m a wonder I guessed I guessed I guessed a wonderful writer who sees the Power of the present uh moment uh in her uh last uh collection published in 1975 now uh tomorrow night we have Robin catwell of Cambridge University uh the senior
Astronomer at the Royal Observatory at Greenwich talking about uh the universe a biography so uh that is all within one hour um Janis uh thank you for a powerful intellectual broad ranging uh talk James and I have loved having you on as our guest uh tonight and thank you
Very much from everybody and uh over 6,000 people who are still out there it’s it’s great it’s a grim time out there but you know what you have brightened our life tonight thank you Janis I very much appreciate this invitation I enjoyed it I loved it my
Best to all the staff and students of beckingham and everybody else who’s watching
1 Comment
Indeed a Very, Very Clever Person. Thank You Mr.Varoufakis.