People were so eager to hear the former Greek financial minister, Yanis Varoufakis, speak about democracy and capitalism in the Tishman Auditorium that The New School had to set up a special overflow room to accommodate everyone.
Varoufakis, who stepped down in the course of the Greek debt row negotiations, is touring the world to promote his new book “And The Weak Suffer What They Must?” On April 25, Varoufakis visited The New School to talk to students about “The Future of Capitalism,” as the event was called.
The Tishman Auditorium, where the event took place, was filled to the brim. The expectations for the size of the audience was so big the school even set up an overflow room in the basement. People were excited to see a former politician, infamous for flipping off Germany, speak about his view on things. “I just really want to see him speak in person,” Silviu Guiman, a German exchange students told me on my way to the event.
Varoufakis has always been a man of big words, he was not called ”a political rock star” by German television and various publications by chance. He started his lecture by going back to the very beginning of democracy, in Athens, ancient Greece, where democracy started out as “a constitution in which the poor and the free… controlled the government.” Varoufakis took his time to describe the early, uninfluenced by capitalism, principles of democracy, including “Isegoria,” a concept granting equality of all in the freedom of speech to ground his view in ancient credibility.
When he got to our modern, liberal democracy he became more negative. According to him back in the time of the Magna Carta our democracy arose as a result of the newfound capitalism by “merchants with raw economical power forcing themselves onto the barons.“ Varoufakis notices the necessary connection between democracy and capitalism:
“Democracy without Capitalism is like Christianity without hell, It does not work” Varoufakis said.
The audience laughed.
But following he lamented the constant advance of power from the political sphere shifting to the economic sphere resulting from this structure. The idea of democracy bends towards capitalism as it depends on it. Varoufakis sets the problem straight:
“Efficiency has replaced the need to consult voters“
While thinking about democracy and capitalism he talks about the European Union. Apparently he built himself a strong opinion about them during his time as a greek minister and he really wants to do something about the drawbacks.
“Saying there is a deficit of democracy in the EU is like saying there is an oxygen deficit on the moon,” Varoufakis said.
He ended the lecture and the following panel discussion with a short stay at the edge of the stage to talk to some people and sign copies of his book until he was dragged away by one of his companions.