BOOKS: VAROUFAKIS: "Thoughts for the post-2008 world"

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BOOKS By Yanis Varoufakis, New Finance Minister of Greece Information on four of seven books which can be found on his
Blogsite : Thoughts for the post-2008 world

[ http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/books/ ]

Prepared by Janet M Eaton February 16, 2015

1. Foundations of Economics: A beginner´s companion

[ http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/books/foundat ... companion/ ]
This book was published in 1998 by Routledge and is the culmination of ten years of teaching introductory economics at Sydney University. It started life as a set of lecture notes, the purpose of which was to engage the student in a critical discussion of the models residing in standard textbooks.

The idea was that the economics textbook, contrary to widely held belief, contains a great deal of philosophically and politically interesting assertions. Moreover, I was convinced that an otherwise boring course (economics is usually reviled by a large majority of students) could be enlivened if the student is allowed a glimpse into these hitherto unexplored parts of economics. The end result of exposing students to a critical assessment of the
textbook would be, I claimed, beneficial not only for students but also for the profession.

PREFACE

This book is written with the conviction that the economics textbook, contrary to all evidence, contains delightful mind-teasers, philosophically exciting questions and lots of intriguing politics. It is also written in the conviction that beginners who are usually dismissed as insufficiently sophisticated to get involved with these higher order issues, are perfectly up to the detective work necessary to bring these delights onto the surface. Additionally, I embarked on this book with the certainty that pursuing these discoveries promises not only to enliven an otherwise dull course but also to help students do well in it. Who knows; it may even inspire us, the teachers of this all-conquering but prosaic discipline, to lift our game. --snip--

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2. Modern Political Economics: Making sense of the post-2008 world

[ http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/books/modern- ... economics/ ]

by Yanis Varoufakis, Joseph Halevi and Nicholas Theocarakis (Cover photo by Danae Stratou)

Once in a while the world astonishes itself. Anxious incredulity replaces intellectual torpor and a puzzled public strains its antennae in every possible direction, desperately seeking explanations for the causes and nature of what just hit it. 2008 was such a moment. Not only did the financial system collapse, and send the real economy into a tailspin, but it also revealed the great gulf separating economics from a very real capitalism. Modern Political Economics has a single aim: To help readers make sense of how 2008 came about and what the post-2008 world has in store.

The book is divided into two parts. The first part delves into every major economic theory, from Aristotle to the present, with a determination to discover clues of what went wrong in 2008. The main finding is that all economic theory is inherently flawed. Any system of ideas whose purpose is to describe capitalism in mathematical or engineering terms leads to inevitable logical inconsistency; an inherent error that stands between us and a decent grasp of capitalist reality. The only scientific truth about capitalism is its radical indeterminacy, a condition which makes it impossible to use science´s tools (e.g. calculus and statistics) to second-guess it. The second part casts an attentive eye on the post-war era; on the breeding ground of the Crash of 2008. It distinguishes between two major post-war phases: The Global Plan (1947-1971) and the Global Minotaur (1971-2008).

This dynamic new book delves into every major economic theory and maps out meticulously the trajectory that global capitalism followed from post-war almost centrally planned stability, to designed disintegration in the 1970s, to an intentional magnification of unsustainable imbalances in the 1980s and, finally, to the most spectacular privatisation of money in the 1990s and beyond. Modern Political Economics is essential reading for Economics students and anyone seeking a better understanding of the 2008 economic crash.

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3. The Global Minotaur: America, Europe and the Future of the Global Economy

[ http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/books/the-global-minotaur/ ]

Screen Shot 2013-02-15 at 12.02.46 PM

America, Europe and the Future of the Global Economy, is the subtitle of the new edition (cover on the left above). The original, 2011, edition´s subtitle was America, the True Causes of the Financial Crisis and the Future of the World Economy (cover on the right above).

In this remarkable and provocative book, Yanis Varoufakis explodes the myth that financialisation, ineffectual regulation of banks, greed and globalisation were the root causes of the global economic crisis. Rather, they are symptoms of a much deeper malaise which can be traced all the way back to the Great Crash of 1929, then on through to the 1970s: the time when a `Global Minotaur´ was born. Just as the Athenians maintained a steady flow of tributes to the Cretan beast, so the `rest of the world´ began sending incredible amounts of capital to America and Wall Street. Thus, the Global Minotaur became the `engine´ that pulled the world economy from the early 1980s to 2008.

Today´s crisis in Europe, the heated debates about austerity versus further fiscal stimuli in the US, the clash between China´s authorities and the Obama administration on exchange rates are the inevitable symptoms of the weakening Minotaur; of a global `system´ which is now as unsustainable as it is imbalanced.

Going beyond this, Varoufakis lays out the options available to us for reintroducing a modicum of reason into a highly irrational global economic order.

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4. ECONOMIC INDETERMINACY: A personal encounter with the economists´ peculiar nemesis

[ http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/books/economic-indeterminacy/ ]

By Yanis Varoufakis

This book is about consistent theoretical failure feeding, consistently, into immense social power.

The theoretical failure in question is that of mainstream economics and concerns the neoclassical economists´ fundamental incapacity to tell a logically coherent story about how complex economic entities evolve through real time.

Theoretical failures are neither surprising nor shameful. What is both startling and scandalous about economics is the surreptitious conversion of the economists´ theoretical Waterloos into discursive triumphs, which then unashamedly prop up toxic economic policies and toxic financial `products´.

But how is this astonishing conversion of failure into power realised? Based on the author´s own modelling experiences, and drawing from a range of different theoretical fields (from bargaining theory and labour economics to experimental economics and attempts to model history by means of evolutionary game theory), this book illustrates a sequence of theoretical moves, The Dance of the Meta-axioms, by which economists, with the panache of master magicians, prevent their audience from noticing the crucial obfuscating move.

The book explains why attempts at modelling both complexity and time are bound to come up against the economists´ reliable nemesis: radical indeterminacy. At that point, younger scholars come up against a hideous ethical dilemma: Will they acknowledge that the rules of indeterminate processes are themselves indeterminate? Or will they perform the Dance of the Meta-axioms, violating logic but, in the process, succeed in `closing´ their models and securing tenure? If they refuse to comply with the Dance, they will be ejected from the profession. If they dance to its tune, they will be helping economics reproduce its power by ruling themselves out of any serious engagement with the logic of really-existing capitalism.

Quite possibly, never before has intellectual history fashioned an ideological triumph of this magnitude out of a sequence of sorry, yet powerfully motivated, theoretical failures.

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Prepared by Dr. Janet Eaton
Wolfville, NS