How Big Tech stole $35 Trillion from the public | Yanis Varoufakis

Quick Overview

Yanis Varoufakis argues that modern capitalism, particularly since 2008, functions as a form of techno-feudalism where massive cloud capital owners extract wealth equivalent to $35 trillion (or 35,000 billion) from the economy by not paying salaries for services rendered, effectively creating a system of voluntary slavery for the lowest-paid workers.

Key Points: Traditional terrestrial capitalist companies (like aerospace or Ford) spend an average of 85% of their revenue on salaries, from the board down to the lowest-paid worker. In contrast, Big Tech firms like Google pay only about 1% of their revenues toward employee salaries. Following the 2008 crisis, major financial centers like Wall Street, London, Paris, and Frankfurt were bailed out, and central banks effectively paid them to take money at zero interest rates, which they then lent out, making more money. The CEOs of these conglomerates took this 'free money' and used it to buy their own shares, artificially inflating stock prices, which subsequently dictated their bonuses. The speaker asserts that 35,000 billion (or $35 trillion) is siphoned off globally by these cloud capital owners, which is equivalent to 35% of global GDP, by not paying salaries for the labor that generates that value. This process creates 'bullshit jobs' and results in a situation where even users of services like Nokia phones are subjected to techno-feudalism, as their labor (data/attention) is exploited. The worst form of slavery is voluntary slavery, which occurs when people happily and voluntarily work without receiving fair compensation for the value they create.

Context: Yanis Varoufakis, a prominent economist and former Greek Finance Minister, discusses the structural economic shift from traditional capitalism to what he terms 'techno-feudalism,' focusing on the financial mechanisms employed by large technology corporations (Big Tech) and the financial sector following the 2008 crisis. He contrasts the historical wage distribution in traditional industries with the modern practice of retaining revenue by minimizing labor costs and leveraging central bank policies.