Between US President Donald Trump continuing to empower billionaire Elon Musk and the tech ‘broligarchy’, and far-right parties gaining more and more momentum across Europe, it’s clear that progressives and small-d democrats across the world are on the backfoot.
In fact, some of those small-d democrats may be to blame for the far-right’s rise in power. At least, that’s what Yanis Varoufakis, former finance minister for Greece and renowned left-wing public intellectual, says to Mehdi in this exclusive Zeteo town hall.
“The center-left is responsible for the rise of fascism. It was the case in the 1920s and 30s. It is the case again today,” Varoufakis tells Mehdi.
Varoufakis explains to Mehdi multiple examples of how centrist politicians created “discontent” among their citizens, including when Democratic US President Barack Obama bailed out Wall Street – not Main Street – in 2009, despite the big banks causing the financial crisis and Great Recession.
Mehdi asks Varoufakis – the author of, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism – for his take on the US’s “tech broligarchs,” including Musk, who has been described as the US’s "shadow president” under Trump.
"I think that Musk is the least interesting and least influential of the tech lords,” Varoufakis tells Mehdi. “Peter Thiel is a more dangerous individual than Elon Musk… He [Thiel] wants capitalism without the democracy, which means perhaps fascism.”
Varoufakis also takes questions from Zeteo’s paid subscribers, including one who asked why big tech leaders like Musk are so invested in anti-Palestine and pro-Israel speech.
“Just look at their roots. They come from the white supremacist South African apartheid regime. There's nothing new there,” Varoufakis tells Mehdi. “When they hear you and me talk about equal political rights from the river to the sea, they get really scared. Because for them, equality is the most potent and threatening word in the English language. Why? They know that they live on stolen land.”
If you’re a paid subscriber, watch the full conversation above to hear Mehdi and Varoufakis discuss big tech’s political power, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and why Democrats in the US failed so badly in the last election.
Free subscribers can watch a 9-minute preview. To watch the full interview, consider upgrading to a paid subscription.
