Technofeudalism

What Killed Capitalism

By: Yanis Varoufakis

Narrated by: Yanis Varoufakis

Brought to you by Penguin.

Capitalism is dead. Welcome to technofeudalism.

In his boldest and most far-reaching book, the visionary economist and number-one bestselling author Yanis Varoufakis shows how the owners of big tech became the world's feudal overlords – replacing capitalism with a fundamentally new system that enslaves our minds, defies democracy and rewrite the rules of global power.

But as Varoufakis also reveals, technofeudalism contains new opportunities to thwart and overturn it, bringing into focus more clearly than ever the revolution we need to escape our digital prison.

‘What an amazing piece of work this is. Ground-breaking, thought-provoking and highly accessible. Everyone should read it. The dark, scary, exciting song of our age. 100 out of 100’ IRVINE WELSH

‘An epochal, once-in-a-millennium shift . . . this isn't just new technology. This is the world grappling with an entirely new economic system and therefore political power’ Observer

‘An urgent demand to seize the means of computation’ CORY DOCTOROW

A FINANCIAL TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

©2023 Yanis Varoufakis (P)2023 Penguin Audio

A shallow dive into techno capital

book offers a critical take on capitalism in the tech age but falls short with its simplistic approach and narrow perspective. Discussions lack depth, and the rushed conclusion feels unsatisfying.

The audiobook version further detracts from the experience with its challenging narration. While the topic is compelling, the book fails to deliver the insight or engagement one might hope for.

Insightful, worrying, worth your time

Thanks for this book, the research and the insights. It’s always better to be informed than not to be and this book gifts you knowledge. Would have loved to join some of the conversations between author and his dad. The reflection of the dad’s time versus the now is a nice juxtaposition.

Interesting view of the future and the present

The most of the book, about the history and the actual times, are pretty accurate but the last part of the book describes a complete utopia… also the English of the author is terrible… The written version is more appropriate. Anyway is a good book with lots of interesting information and insights.

Amazing book, horrible narration

Why didn't Penguin get a professional voice actor to record this? I love Varoufakis but listening to him mispronounce every single word for hours gave me a headache. It makes the book much less accessible to ESL speakers.

Good ideas. Overwritten, and overperformed

Some good ideas here. But it is way overwritten. The author coins the term "technofeudalism" , which is brillant , yet as the book proceeds he uses it to mean different things. Ideas get more convoluted and confused. The whole section on China is a non sequitur.

To further complicate things, the book is narrated by yhe author and written in second person, two factors that adds to the excessively performative style of the author that some people, like I, find irritating.

The last chapter for capitalism

Author points out that we have moved to a new chapter in economics, namely technofeudalism. In this new world, capital is concentrated in the hands of few who own digital land (Facebook, amazon, google) and exploit everyone (people who are selling on their sites and people who are visiting their sites) for their own profit. I am not sure that he had a good answer on how to solve this new technofeudal world.

Biased, Marxist - storytelling low on facts

A good storyteller, but determined to propagate a Marxist perspective. Limited factual references and that that are used are one sided and selective.