m of care – apr 14 25
[https://museum.care/events/islands-in-the-future-apr14/]:
On April 14, the University of West Indies will host the final public event of the DGI April Gathering in St Vincent. Yanis Varoufakis and Michael Hudson will join us for a discussion on debt and its implications for Global South–North relations. Their conversation will be facilitated by Ann Pettifor.
ann: Ann Pettifor is a British economist who advises governments and organisations. She has published several books. Her work focuses on the global financial system, sovereign debt restructuring, international finance and sustainable development
then nika via fb share:
I think that these three persons remain, perhaps, the only ones who really understand what needs to be done to prevent the world from falling permanently into the abyss that we are rapidly approaching.
oi.. if only nika.. all three too deeply embedded in money ness.. ie: graeber rethink law et al..
can’t get to the root of problem that way..
legit freedom will only happen if it’s all of us.. and in order to be all of us.. has to be sans any form of measuring, accounting, people telling other people what to do
notes/quotes from meeting
michael: almost as if trump has read yanis’s articles.. to gain profits where he wants them.. info tech rents if other countries blocked from independent forms of this.. if going to free from econ feudalism need to take away rents.. so whole concept of econ rent.. didn’t succeed.. today fight parallels 19th cent fight against econ landlords
yanis: how could i not agree.. it’s not tech.. not info tech.. what i think michael is bringing into convo is what i call cloud capital.. what lives in google, fb, x, et al.. a new form of capital.. every form up till now.. first time have mutation of capital.. means of behavioral modification
yanis: 1\ cloud capital 2\ digital payment systems
ann: what we have the creation of credit relative to finite assets.. in relation to climate/biosphere.. how much more extraction till we collapse
yanis: on the dollar: it is the endgame.. i’d like to see diff currencies.. this is opp for that.. but let’s not forget.. nixon reduced value of dollar.. increasing bonds.. enhancing dominance of dollar.. trump is trying to do that to.. dependent on whether succeed in getting holder of dollars and not have other competing currencies.. china can do that now.. but would have to decide to take on power of the dollar.. greatest allie is china because haven’t decided yet to compete.. the dollar is a kind of iou
michael: to achieve this independence have to see large debts of global south.. trump has given big cue to breaking away form this debt.. tariffs make it impossible to obtain dollars to pay debt.. so has turned debt into debt that can’t be paid.. so would have to erase
yanis: i don’t think we should confuse the drop in exchange dollar with its dominance.. how to boost investment so don’t have to rely on us.. nobody in europe is having this convo.. stupid..
ann: can we just for a moment address the question of the biosphere.. ultimately that rent has to depend on something real
yanis: back in 2016.. i was particularly concerned past pt of no return in climate catastrophe.. if worried back then.. imagine how terrified i am now.. i see no evidence we are doing anything to stop that.. cloud capital is tale of 2 cities: ai vs deepseek.. ai extremely energy intense.. deepseek.. tiny proportion of energy.. why can’t deepseek do it? because have don’t no rent seeking.. not charging.. and rent seeking is tied w climate
yanis: (on changing property rights of cloud infra) some of working very hard on community owned cloud capital..
above was to rachel’s question.. then she posts – Rachel: Cory Doctorow, for example, can help you! If he reads The Global Minotaur and you read about the Four Freedoms, I think we can make the ICU happen today.. The communications infrastructure is part of the means of changing the superstructure (IMF/World Bank). Free software is the most important part of our arsenal as anarchists.
michael: whole focus of what david and i was doing was debt cancellation..
yanis: we live in a world that is founded on a major error...t
huge.. we need to try something legit diff.. not a diff version of that ‘error’
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question i posted – [via david: money/debt is made up.. quantification ness as violence.. ultimate truth could make it differently ..et al] couldn’t we do a sabbatical ish transition.. where legit needs met w/o money until people forget about measuring.. otherwise.. aren’t we just perpetuating just different degrees of assuming money as a given
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RachelThe communications infrastructure is part of the means of changing the superstructure (IMF/World Bank). Free software is the most important part of our arsenal as anarchists.. The state ought to be us, the people in it. The state should be comprised of all people. Then we need not be against the state.
monika hardy@Rachel – if we truly believe in ‘all of us’ ness.. we need to not have any form of measuring/accounting.. because that leaves some out.. and which even copyleft/eff et al perpetuate
Rachel@monika hardy I think it is helpful to think of the world as a house with a family. Everyone is equally important, even though the babies can’t cook dinner. Accounting is part of how we think.
monika hardy
@Rachel ‘ Accounting is part of how we think.’ is it..? or is it how we think we think.. how we’ve been conditioned to think
Rachel
@monika hardy The global south is not and should never have been deemed “poor” but should be equal members of the global union we all are, consciously or not.
Rachel@monika hardy I mean accounting need not be a tool of autocracy.
monika hardy@Rachel – ‘I mean accounting need not be a tool of autocracy.’ david wrote of quantification and violence being ultimately linked..
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be you. 