Is Capitalism Broken? by Yanis Varoufakis

Author:Yanis Varoufakis
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Oneworld Publications
Published: 2022-01-13T11:20:29.997228+00:00

Summary: The pre-debate vote was 47 percent in favour of the motion, 53 percent opposed. The final vote showed 45 percent in favour, 55 percent opposed. Given that more voters shifted to the team against the motion, the victory goes to Arthur Brooks and David Brooks.

Post-Debate Interviews with Moderator Rudyard Griffiths

DAVID BROOKS AND ARTHUR BROOKS IN CONVERSATION WITH RUDYARD GRIFFITHS

RUDYARD GRIFFITHS: Up first will be David Brooks and Arthur Brooks for a quick conversation to figure out how they saw this debate unfold.

DAVID BROOKS: I’ve been part of four debates in my adult life and this was by far the best. Substantively very rich and very strong.

RUDYARD GRIFFITHS: Well, thank you. The question I always like to have debaters try to answer is: Was there an argument on the other side that caused you to change your mind or rethink one of your core assumptions or propositions?

ARTHUR BROOKS: You know, I wish I were thinking more seriously about the predations that people are suffering from. And the argument I wish I’d made was actually made by the people on the other side, which is that we need to expose people at the very top to more competition. Because they’re correct that there’s a lot of socialism at the top and a lot of capitalism on the bottom. I want capitalism all the way through. It’s a great point, and I’m going to think about that more, and next time I’m going to make that point.

DAVID BROOKS: I was struck by the way non-capitalism has evolved. I think that before, when you looked at the Soviet Union and so on, it was the state that ran everything and there was complete nationalization, and it was the same throughout Latin America. And so socialism was really a public-sector thing.

As for Yanis’s idea, where every worker gets a share and controls the company collectively, well, I don’t think that would work. I don’t think they could make decisions at that level, and I don’t think the companies could attract investment. There’s a history where people don’t invest in their futures as much in that situation, because we are human beings. And if everyone faced a recession at the same time, you would have an economic catastrophe.

But nonetheless, I do think there’s a policy kernel in there to get more people invested in capitalism. And we somewhat have a national shareholder economy, including through pension plans, but not enough, so that would be a way to get people to have skin in the game. A lot of people don’t feel like they have an investment in society; they think it’s a rigged game. And that’s a genuine problem.

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