'Technofeudalism' by Yanis Varoufakis – A New Lens on Power and Capital

Book Review

Title: Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism

Author: Yanis Varoufakis

Publisher: Melville House

Date of Publication: February 13, 2024

Purchase: Amazon (affiliate link)

---

Welcome to Vintage Cafe—a thoughtfully curated space for lovers of music, film, books, art, travel, and coffee. Each edition offers in-depth reviews, insightful explorations, and hidden gems you won’t find anywhere else. If you enjoy this content and want to support my work and independent writing, the best way is by taking a paid subscription. Your support unlocks exclusive content and keeps this space thriving.

---

Few contemporary economists have the intellectual reach and rhetorical flair of Yanis Varoufakis. A professor, a former Greek finance minister, and an outspoken critic of global finance, Varoufakis has built a career on challenging economic orthodoxy. His books—Adults in the Room, Talking to My Daughter About the Economy, and Another Now—each dissect capitalism from different angles. But Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism is perhaps his boldest thesis yet.

This book is not just an analysis of capitalism’s evolution; it’s a radical re-framing of what we thought we knew. Varoufakis argues that capitalism, as we understood it, is already dead. In its place stands a new system: technofeudalism, a world where the traditional structures of production, profit, and markets have been upended by digital platforms, AI, and algorithmic control.

At first, that might sound like an exaggeration. After all, markets and corporations still dominate our daily lives. However, Varoufakis argues that something fundamental has shifted. The world is no longer ruled by industrialists or financiers in the traditional sense. Instead, a new aristocracy—the “cloudalists”—controls vast digital platforms, extracting wealth not through wages or production, but through what he calls “cloud rent.” Companies like Amazon, Google, and Facebook don’t just participate in markets; they own the infrastructure where transactions happen. And unlike old-school capitalists, they don’t need to produce anything themselves. Their power lies in controlling access.