The FT has a review by Giles Wilkes of Yanis Varoufakis' new book, The Global Minotaur, this morning. It is headed:
Giles Wilkes would be wise to recall the advice of George Bernard Shaw:
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
Varoufakis may irritate for a reason.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
There are links to this blog's glossary in the above post that explain technical terms used in it. Follow them for more explanations.
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Buy me a coffee!
Anyone with intellectual capacity challenging the neoliberal concensus is ridiculed as out of touch with reality. We live in profoundly anti-intellectual times which is very worrying as we have now descended into a world where the immigrant and welfare claimant is seen as the drain on the (foul phrase) ‘hard-working tax payer.’ The public has not yet noticed the catheter and enema tubes attached to them by the financial system -will they ever wake up?
No sign of it!
Varoufakis has been successfully demonised so no one will listen, the ghastly failure of Greece buckling before the ECB tells us we’ve a long way to go before the Minotaur is killed by Theseus.
“Prince Theseus of Athens knew the importance of keeping your word. He knew that a deal was a deal. But, he was also quite sure that it was wrong to send small children to be eaten by a monster. Prince Theseus told his father (the king) that he was going to Crete as the seventh son of Athens. He was going to kill the Minotaur and end the terror.”
The task remains!
If you read the FT article to the end, you will find the last paragraph concludes the essence of Varoufakis’s arguments were actually correct!
I know…
They logically have to be
And he is a logical sort of chap
Must totally agree with this. Thinking outside the box is a rare skill and breeds ideas and inovation along with irritaion.
Varoufakis’ treatment by the ‘adults’ at Eurogroup meetings says it all…
“I try and talk economics in the Eurogroup, which nobody does…It’s not that it didn’t go down well — there was point blank refusal to engage in economic arguments. Point blank. You put forward an argument that you’ve really worked on, to make sure it’s logically coherent, and you’re just faced with blank stares. It is as if you haven’t spoken. What you say is independent of what they say. You might as well have sung the Swedish national anthem — you’d have got the same reply.”
http://www.newstatesman.com/world-affairs/2015/07/exclusive-yanis-varoufakis-opens-about-his-five-month-battle-save-greece
Most irritating man in the room indeed.
Stephen, thanks for this. It would seem Varoufakis performed a cognate role in Greece’s struggle to Jeremy Corbyn in the Labour leadership campaign, playing the unreasonable man, and being derided for it.
I haven’t actually decided who to vote for yet, and could vote for any one of the candidates, but I can’t help noting that rumblings are being reported along the lines that Corbyn is distracting the campaign away from discussion about the deficit!!
Thank goodness he is, given that, as Richard has continually maintained, the deficit is a symptom, not a cause, when the need is to address the causes – poor growth, unequal rewards and lack of social justice and cohesion – all of which Corbyn is addressing.
Clearly, the obsess about the deficit is to make the mistake Bonnie Prince Charlie made at Culloden, which was to remain on the marshy open space, within range of Cumberland’s superior weaponry, in luring artillery, and not to retire to higher ground, and fight later, after the Scots troops had rested, and on ground of their choosing.
As far as I can see, Corbyn is proving himself to be the superior general, by choosing the themes and grounds on which to do battle.
Seems to me there are two choices. The spadocracy or Corbyn.
But why oh why is he against PR? Such a hark back to ‘dinosaur’ Labour tribalism to me makes the ‘he’s so 1983’ label stick.
Commitment to PR should be at the heart of any truly radical re-invention of Labour. Without that Labour is doomed.
It would also be wise to remember that just because progress depends on the unreasonable man, it doesn’t follow that all unreasonable men are contributing to progress.
As Carl Sagan explained with regard to a similar bon mot.
“But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.”
Accepted!
I see the PM will be giving a speech today and will say “For all our successes as a multiracial, multifaith democracy, we have to confront a tragic truth that there are people born and raised in this country who don’t really identify with Britain and feel little or no attachment to other people here.”
Now you could be forgiven for thinking he is talking about non-doms and other neoliberal followers who have no attachment to those who strive to make this country a better place through working, and helping others. But that would not be a speech made by a tory PM about his backers, who by his definition are reasonable people.
He is of course talking about those who do not hold the same views as him and the rest of the country, and are unfortunately led to a path of violence against their fellow citizens. I just wonder if the violence shown through financial power is any less destructive.
I like Corbyn but the way he handled Guru-Murphy on Channel 4 showed that he is too easily wound up by stupidity and therefore vulnerable. He could have done much better there.
I was hoping that Varoufakis would turn up as a candidate for the Labour leadership because if he did I would join Labour just to vote for him.
Varoufakis is one of the most impressive public figures in politics and economics that I have seen on the world stage in a long time. He is also humble but he has a scalpel-like wit and intelligence in dissecting neo-lib bollocks and putting forward sensible alternatives.
Unfortunately I have to agree, that was an eye-opening interview. The criticism that he is unelectable will hit home because of his vulnerability in this area; not because of his policies. The more media-savvy alternatives…. ugggh!
I have to disagree
I think passion is fine
And Krisehn Guru-Murthy is not a good interviewer: he was bating, not interviewing
Hear, hear!
I agree that all too often ‘bating’ is what qualifies as ‘interviewing’ these days. I find Channel 4 news increasingly cynical towards politicians – even those who purport to be different and even potentially better than the current crop.
However, I stand by my opinion that Corbyn actually ‘lost it’ against Murthy (spelling correction noted). With so much of the media set against him, Corbyn has to tread carefully if he is to win or influence the future of a party that could actually be on the verge of being defunct anyway.
I wish Corbyn well.
Completely agree, i remarked in another post that there isn’t a single politician in the UK of the stature of Varoufakis. I’d vote for him in a heartbeat. If the England football team can have a foreign manager why not the government ?
Or, as Chomsky put it: “If you are not offending people who ought to be offended, you’re doing something wrong.”
So George Osbourne is doing a good job then eh?
JANIS VAROUFAKIS ON GREECE AND ITS DEBT 07JUNE2015
http://livestream.com/dmake/zukunft/videos/89664402
For the English language go to the following points on the timeline:
00 12 25
01 15 35
01 29 37
01 44 15
01 58 40
02 13 30
You will find the German language question formulated in the English replies.