Yanis Varoufakis - erratic marxist?

Yanis Varoufakis, the Greek minister of Finance, is not a member of Syriza. This ex Essex and Birmingham University student has written that some of his ideas, particularly about the EU, came from his experiences in Thatcher's Britain. He has now risen to international prominence in the battle with the EU over Greek's debts. As recently as December 2014 he recomposed a version of an earlier talk that he had given about his views on marxism and the future of the EU, and wrote it up in a blog. The title of the piece started 'Yanis Varoufakis, Erratic Marxist...' It was a 'confession' (his word) that he had been intellectually formed by Marxism, but that he had to amend Marx in order to resolve mistakes that Marx had made. Perhaps more significantly for Greece and Europe's future, he also used his article to lay out his surprising, Thatcher-influenced, policy on the EU.

There is no intention here to engage in a theoretical tussle with Yanis Varoufakis over Marx and his 'errors'. The minister has a fairly traditional critique that any interested people might have first encountered when the post 1968 'New Left (as opposed to the traditional Communist Party cannon) began to argue about the younger, more Hegelian, versus the older, more deterministic Marx. For example Yanis Varoufakis focuses on how a mistaken Marx elaborated a mathematical formula to 'prove' the labour theory of value in Capital Vol 3 which mistakenly attempts to quantify the inherently creative and dual nature of labour under capitalism. He also spells out his policy on the EU which is perhaps more pertinant to study in current conditions. His complete essay is short and clear and might be read here.

Yanis Varoufakis proposes that it is necessary to defend the EU, including against itself, in order to protect European civilisation. Although he is opposed to a capitalist EU in principle, he is convinced that any collapse of the EU in the foreseeable future will usher in a reactionary disaster for Europe. This lesson (to which we shall return) he draws from his experience of Thatcher. In fact he does not believe he will see any radical 'humanistic' transformation in Europe in his life time, but a civilised and progressive arrangement might be salvaged which would at least defend us from a carnival of reaction. The main political tactic that emerges from Yanis Varoufakis's schema is that wide ranging alliance needs to be built across the political spectrum, for a more succesful, more progressive, more innovative, capitalist EU. He has spent some years trying to construct such a bloc, most famously in the UK in his 2014 London meeting with Hedge Fund managers. Their collective reaction is so far unknown.

Returning to his brush with Thatcherism, Yanis Varoufakis tells us that at first he welcomed Thatcher's election, not because he supported her in any way. Her attack on organised labour he thought would shake up the politics and the ideas of her opposition and, in due course, reorganise and strengthen radical forces that would go on to make a big step forward. Instead he discovered that the labour movement and the left was progressively beaten down by Thatcher. Her legacy was not a new radicalism among her enemies but the establishment of Tony Blair! His 'lesson' from this experience was that recession and a major offensive to squeeze more profit out of labour does not creat conditions for a shift to the left, but rather it builds the right in politics. He sees the UKIPs and worse as the natural inheritors of a busted euro-zone. Therefore he sees its dismantling as a defeat. Therefore he wants to become 'the man with a plan' for a new euro-zone.

Sadly for Yanis Varoufakis the leaders of Europe do not want to play. Whatever his theories about potentially progressive capitalism, the strategic aim of big capital in the west is to reorganise the ever mounting debt in their favour. The US is attempting to reorganise the Pacific rim accordingly. The main economic power in Europe uses the Euro to do the same in Europe. Even the remaining Keynsians in the world now argue for the conscious anihilation of international debt as the only way to get new growth in capitalism. Yanis Varoufakis has things turned on their head. Today, escaping from the Euro is the only means by which Greece will be able to repudiate its debt burden - the volcano that permanently smokes and rumbles and threatens devestation across its economy.

And today popular opposition to the debt and its sister, endless austerity, opposition to our traditional rulers in Europe, to 'the way things are', is stronger than at any time since the 1960s. The left has reorganised and, unlike the 1960s, come in sight of government already in three important countries. The convulsuons of 2008 have not had the Thatcher effect. Of course radicalisation does not come out of the mouth of defeat. There is despair and reactionary moods sweeping through wide populations. But what has emerged since 2008 is a polarisation. 'Them and us' has never been clearer. If the left acts boldly and well they have a tremendous opportunity.

Buck up Yanis. You will see radical, 'humanitarian' transformations in your lifetime. Start by preparing  the repudiation of the debt and the defence of social conditions in the context of a Grexit.