Capitalism is dead. Welcome to technofeudalism.

 

In his boldest and most far-reaching book, the visionary economist and number-one bestselling author Yanis Varoufakis shows how the owners of big tech became the world's feudal overlords -replacing capitalism with a fundamentally new system that enslaves our minds, defies democracy and rewrite the rules of global power.

But as Varoufakis also reveals, technofeudalism contains new opportunities to thwart and overturn it, bringing into focus more clearly than ever the revolution we need to escape our digital prison.

About the Author

Yanis Varoufakis is an economist, political leader and the author of numerous bestselling books- Talking to My Daughter- A Brief History of Capitalism; Adults in the Room, a memoir of his time as finance minister of Greece; an economic history of Europe, And The Weak Suffer What They Must?; and Another Now- Dispatches from An Alternative Present. Born in Athens in 1961, he was for many years a professor of economics in Britain, Australia and the USA before he entered politics. He is co-founder of the international grassroots movement DiEM25 and a Professor of Economics at the University of Athens.Industry ReviewsWhat an amazing piece of work this is. Ground-breaking, thought-provoking and highly accessible. Everyone should read it. This is where we're going. The dark, scary, exciting song of our age. 100 out of 100 -- Irvine Welsh

An important new book ... that describes what is happening in terms of an epochal, once-in-a-millennium shift ... in Varoufakis's telling, this isn't just new technology. This is the world grappling with an entirely new economic system and therefore political power -- Carole Cadwalladr * Observer *

Arresting ... an ambitious thinker and a lively writer ... Varoufakis is right that we are in thrall to digital platforms, who hold our data hostage and prevent us from switching to "a competing cloud fief" * The Times *

Varoufakis is a remarkable combination of analyst and dreamer... as always, Varoufakis makes his readers think... an important achievement * Financial Times, *Books of the Year* *

In his characteristically enthralling style, Varoufakis guides the reader through some of the most significant trends in the modern economy, showing clearly how the big tech giants have built an economy that works for them - and how everyone else can take power back -- Grace Blakeley https://www.booktopia.com.au/technofeudalism-yanis-varoufakis/book/9781529926095.html?  SEE ALSO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tarA8PNo24  MEANWHILE: 

This thesis, by undertaking a detailed, empirical analysis of the role youth and student wings play in the recruitment of national legislators of the German Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands and the British Labour Party, contributes to our understanding of how the social democratic party family has changed in the decades since the early 1980s. It does so by utilising three research questions. Firstly, it investigates the changing role of the youth and student wings in the recruitment of social democratic legislators. Second, it explores the dynamics of this process. Finally, the thesis unpacks the manner in which this shift has led to a ‘gentrification’ of centre-left Parliamentarians and thus changed the nature of social democratic parties. The study engenders new insights via the combined use of a large, new quantitative dataset and qualitative elite interviews. The study demonstrates that the recruiting ground for Parliamentarians for these parties has shifted. The quantitative date shows that as the trade union movement declined in influence the parties faced a functional need to replace them as a source of qualified electoral standard bearers and the vacuum was filled by affiliated party youth and student organisations. The evidence presented here suggests this means that most individuals are now politicised into the parties at university, not in the workplace. This has coincided with a rise in a political ecosystem of party employees, representatives’ staffers, NGOs, journalists, charities and think-tanks and a wider sphere of politics-facilitating professions, both of which recruit out of these youth wings. Individuals working in those fields have an advantage in developing the political capital required to push for selection as a Parliamentary candidate. The qualitative data provides prima facie evidence that these two factors lead to a gentrification effect, resulting in a shift in the balance between the working class and middle class within social democratic parties in favour of the latter and that this changes the culture and the nature of these parties. This is ripe for further research. The results of this study contribute in particular to the literature on political recruitment and the professionalisation of politics. Both of these fields have often dealt with the class nature of Parliamentarians but have hitherto lacked the empirical evidence to place the party’s youth and student wings as a factor driving this dynamic.

 

 

Chapter 1: Introduction.

1.1: Introduction.

 

The question of legislative recruitment, that is who becomes a parliamentarian and therefore makes decisions on government policy and the allocation of public resources, plays a key role in the lives of citizens in modern democracies. Accusations of a gentrified and/or professional class of legislators out of touch with ordinary citizens have formed a key component of much of the populist rhetoric seen in the second decade of the 21st century.

The distinction between gentrified and professionalised parties is crucial in this thesis, with the former being more affluent individuals crowding out their less well-off comrades in the halls of power and the second being an increasing sophistication in the way in which politics and political campaigning are performed.

Both of these processes have been present in political parties in recent decades.

This has been particularly acute for the centre-left, the traditional bastion of working-class political representation and has formed part of both academic discussion and the public debate.

Strangely however despite this there has been comparatively little investigation into the actual mechanisms by which this has come about. We therefore do not have a fine-grained understanding of how more middle-class individuals are out-competing their less-affluent comrades. One of the processes by which this happens, and with which this study concerns itself, is the role youth and student organisations associated with social democratic parties play in recruiting activists, providing them with a political education and giving middle-class individuals advantages which carry on through their political career to the point of selection. What little research there has been has focused on their role in allowing for youth political participation and activism.

Literature focusing on the youth wings and the individuals within them as individual party units is comparatively rare.

Most individuals come to politics in their teens and twenties and as such party youth wings shape much of their early formation as activists. They often provide activists with their first key training in the skills required to achieve political outcomes and offer unparalleled opportunities to network with existing legislators and party elites. It would be strange indeed if those experiences did not have an impact on the journey an individual undertakes to be in contention to be selected as an election candidate. But what role exactly do these youth wings play in that process and in what context? Social democratic politicians, at least in Western Europe, used to do their apprenticeships in the trade union movement.

It is beyond doubt that the trade unions have been in decline; If youth wings bear some responsibility for an increase in ‘career politicians’ on the centre left, then did they do so by replacing the unions as training grounds and if so how did that process happen? How and why does this affect the individuals moving through the political parties to the point of becoming a Parliamentarian? Crucially, what does all this mean for our understanding of the nature of contemporary social democratic parties? These are the key questions which this study seeks to answer. It will do so via a comparative investigation of the youth organisations associated with the German Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (Social Democratic Party of Germany, SPD) and the British Labour Party (Labour). This introductory chapter will first introduce the topics definitions, concepts and the categorisation used in the research. Secondly it will detail the research questions and their linked hypotheses which will then be used to frame the research throughout this study. It will then detail the background to the study, in particular explaining the relevance of this research. Finally, the chapter will give a detailed outline of how the thesis will proceed. 

 

1.2: Topic definition, concepts and categorisation.

 

READ MORE:

https://publications.aston.ac.uk/id/eprint/42466/1/DAVIES_LUKE_JOHN_050461228_2020.pdf

 

READ FROM TOP.

 

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.