I have two pieces of news for the leftists: one is good and the other is bad. The good news is that capitalism is dead; the bad news is that what is coming in its place will upset you even more. Yes, Abu, today we will discuss a very important claim. I really like the Greek economist Yannis Varoufakis. You might remember him as he was the finance minister during the Syriza period. When asked, he describes himself as the failed finance minister of a bankrupt country. He is a very cool guy. He has written a new book and claims that capitalism is dead, and in its place, technofeudalism is emerging. Today, we will talk about how technofeudalism killed capitalism. Now, what is technofeudalism, and how did capitalism die? It's a somewhat complicated topic, so I ask for your attention. Abu, you need to ask questions and jump in when you don’t understand something. First of all, Varoufakis says this: We leftists have tried very hard to kill capitalism; we wanted it to die. But we were unsuccessful; capitalism killed itself. How did it die? Varoufakis argues that with the rapid development of technology, a new type of capital was born, a new form of capital emerged. This is called...

Cloud Capital says that Cloud Capital has become so powerful that it has killed the system it exists in, capitalism, just like a virus mutates and becomes more toxic, killing the living being it inhabits. So, how is this Cloud Capital different from classical capital? When we talk about capitalism, many people discuss it, but we don't have a clear image in our minds. What comes to mind when we think of capital? Money, of course. But when we say capital, we should think of capital goods, meaning the means of production. The means of production are machines produced to create something. Everything we see in factories, textile workshops, etc., are owned by capitalists. The capitalist system means that power has shifted from the land aristocracy to those who hold the means of production. In the same vein, Varoufakis says that the new system is techno-feudalism. Here, the new ruling class consists of techno-feudal lords. So, what is the characteristic of this system? I mentioned that Cloud Capital is what is killing capitalism; what Varoufakis means by this Cloud Capital is fundamentally this: automated.

Means of behavioral modification, that is, automated behavioral modification tools, have a number of algorithms behind them. These are AI-supported algorithms that automate and try to control your behaviors, managing your actions. What does cloud capital do? Cloud capital does the following: First, it captures our attention; it tries to attract our focus. Think about social media; all social media platforms are trying to grab people's attention so they spend time on their platforms. Second, it produces our desires; it builds our cravings. Third, in order to satisfy these desires, it directly sells us certain products. So, first, it ensures that we crave that product, and then the same algorithms show us a product, guide us towards it, sell it to us, and satisfy our desires. Fourth, these algorithms also monitor people, including workers. In the past, managers were needed to observe and discipline workers, but now there is no need for that; algorithms can see your every move.

Therefore, at the workplace, algorithms now discipline you. One of the five most important features is that cloud capital utilizes our free labor and grows through it. What does this mean? Let's think about Instagram and Twitter. Would Twitter exist if no one posted? Would Instagram exist if no one shared stories? Would Twitter exist if no one tweeted? No, it wouldn't. The people who actually create Twitter and Instagram are us, ordinary people—billions of people. So, do these people receive anything in return while they feed the algorithms behind these platforms and cloud capital? We receive nothing. Recently, some have started receiving money, like Yaşar with his blue tick; he gets a little money now, but before that, he was doing this for free. Therefore, there is a system where certain tech feudal lords exist. These lords control cloud capital. Cloud capital shapes our behaviors, and while doing this, it actually uses our data. These platforms access our digital identities and learn our preferences through that. Later, they shape our preferences. In fact, according to the analogy of the feudal system, we become serfs of the lords.

Çalışan serfler. Bu serf analojisi aslında şuna dayanıyor: Feodal sistemde serfler, yalnızca o toprakta var olabilmek için o üretimi yapıyorlar. O üretimi yaparken feodal lordların bağlılar, toprağa bağlılar ve feodal lordlar, serflerden bu üretimin bir kısmını alıyorlar. Rantını alıyorlar. Biz de aynı şekilde bu platformlarda var olabilmek için doğal olarak buralarda üretim yapmamız lazım. Ve bizim de feodal lordlarımız, bu üretimin karşılığında bize hiçbir şey vermiyorlar. Bizim bu üretimimiz sayesinde sistemlerini sürdürüyorlar. Ve bu mekanizmada bir de aradaki bir sınıf var. Bu aradaki sınıf da Varoufakis'e göre vassallar, vassal kapitalistler. Bunu da Varoufakis, hep Amazon üzerinden anlatıyor. Bütün kitap boyunca hep Amazon'u ve Alexa'yı örnek gösterecek. Amazon parası neyle kazanıyor? Amazon'un içinde bir takım satıcılar var. Bunlar klasik kapitalistler, geleneksel kapitalistler. Yani Türkiye'de bir fabrika düşün. Türkiye'deki fabrika halı üretiyor. Türkiye'deki bu fabrika, halılarını satmak için Amazon'a ihtiyaç duyuyor. Amazon piyasasına girmek zorunda kalıyor ki müşterilere ulaşabilsin

In exchange for entering Amazon, it shares a portion of its profits. This means that between 20% to 40% of all sales made on Amazon go to Jeff Bezos. So, what does Jeff Bezos do at this point? What did Jeff Bezos do to earn that money? He simply allowed them to sell there. Essentially, Jeff Bezos did something similar to what feudal lords did. There are these big lords, right? They tell the people under them, Here, manage this piece of land. You are responsible for the production and management of this land, but you must give me my share. Thus, in this system, the classic capitalists on Amazon become vassals. Jeff has vassals who are loyal to him. If they do something that Jeff doesn't like, what happens? Jeff throws them out. Therefore, their entire concern is for Jeff to give them a piece of land, to put them on the platform. We think this only applies to Amazon, but it actually applies to Apple as well. Varu F. Akis says, What makes Apple, Apple? Guess what? It's the iPhone. No, he says, It's the MacBook and iPhone. These are technological products that others can also make. What makes Apple, Apple, is...

Apple Store is a brilliant idea; it is the thing that allowed Apple to soar. What is the Apple Store idea? Essentially, it is about creating a space where third-party app developers can come and build applications through our system. This way, we create a marketplace. In the App Store, external developers come, create apps, and place them in the App Store. Apple handles the marketing for the App Store and takes its share, thus benefiting from it. When Apple did this, it took off and outpaced its competitors. Classic phone manufacturers could not compete with this; only one group could: Google. Google established its own system with the Android operating system and the Google Store built on top of it. Therefore, the exponential growth of this cloud capital occurred by attracting external people to the system and creating a marketplace, generating profit through their labor and products. As it relied on profit, it grew exponentially. Thus, the distinguishing feature of techno-feudalism is that, as I mentioned, in capitalism, the power shifts to those who own capital and control the means of production. What do classic firms do?

They produce a product and try to sell it at a profit. Is there a product produced here? No. Is there a product that is intended to be sold? No. Here, you are just creating a space for yourself. You are actually buying a large piece of land online and attracting customers to that land. You draw in buyers, and then sellers come to you to reach those buyers. In other words, you are creating your own markets, establishing your own marketplace every time. However, Arkes says that this is different from the classical markets we know. The classical market is a place where buyers and sellers come together freely and shop freely. For example, we are wandering in Kızılay, Ankara, and we are at our store. We look at the products, like them very much, go inside, negotiate, buy the product, and leave. In Kızılay, we see the same stores; the same stores appear to both of us.

Products are visible, the buyer and seller agree, and it ends there. It's not like that here. Here, the algorithm decides what you will buy. Because when Ebu and I search for the same product on Amazon, we don't see the same sellers or the same products. The algorithm determines what we will purchase, and it selects options that maximize cloud rent. Of course, think about it—Amazon has access to all data. It knows what will sell and what will be maximally profitable. It says, Tab choice, meaning there are 1, 2, 3, or even 50,000 reviews. We input that and receive results. Therefore, it says that the vuf akesi leads us to very exaggerated places; the liberal individual has died because the autonomy of the individual no longer exists. The greatest claim of liberalism has decayed. If the individual is not free, the whole story collapses. If the individual lacks autonomy, all the foundations of liberalism are shaken. It also states that this cloud capital in the hands of feudal lords is such a power that it can manage our desires and control them. This is a power that no capitalist could have previously achieved.

They have an incredible power, and everyone is seriously competing to obtain this power. Currently, the companies we call Big Tech in America are present here. For instance, Alexa talks a lot about this. Alexa says, I talk to Alexa, bro. I chat. At some point, I realized it understood me very well because you train it. If you read the book, you would love it. There's a channel called Yannis 49 W; if you watch it, you would enjoy it. I saw that they said, I read it, I watched it, I love it. It's nice. An example of this is how Spotify's algorithm works; it finds the music we will love. The guy tells you, Look, you are this kind of person. Listen to this. You listen, and it's nice. YouTube's algorithm is similar, but it works poorly. Hey YouTube, you don't show these people 49 W, but I don't understand. Now, I will play the devil's advocate. When you think about it, these are really nice things. They have made life easier. You say you want to be a machine; you want to become mechanized. You don't want to think; you want it to shape you. The theme is that we don't want to buy these products. These are games for us. There's Temu, which has poisoned me. You saved 400 euros in discounts; it's a lie, a scam.

There are discounts, but they say that this negatively affects the economy. Why does it negatively affect the economy? The problem lies in the fact that the economy relies on rents rather than profits. According to Varoufakis's claim, when Jeff Bezos earns another 10 billion dollars, he is not obligated to reinvest it back into the economy; he doesn't need to. Jeff Bezos has already established the system. He has become a landowner; he is already making money from the land, so he doesn't need to reinvest it in the economy or make investments. 

The more important point is what Varoufakis says about the feudal lords and this cloud rent. He states that money exiting the economic system occurs every time. Think of the economic system like this: there is a circulation, an economic energy. I mean this: let's consider classic capitalist firms. For example, Volkswagen generates 200 billion euros in revenue, which is impressive, right? A significant portion of this income is spent on production activities, on workers, on raw materials. Therefore, they are actually reinvesting the money they earn back into the economy, and that money circulates. From the money Volkswagen earns, perhaps your uncle in the automotive industry also gets a share.

However, he says that the economy has benefited from the money earned by Amazon and the money earned by the tech lords. Overall, there is also a situation where, for example, Volkswagen continuously invests beyond the money it has returned to the economy in terms of costs, because if it is a classic capitalist firm, it has to sustain this continuously. Therefore, you must constantly invest. You are right; you touched on a great point. In classic capitalism, what do firms do? They say, I own the means of production. I produced something, made a profit, and I will save that profit to acquire more means of production and produce more. The system works like that, right? You invest what you earn. If there is demand, what happens here? Here, cloud capital grows. You and I are growing it. It’s not just your investment; it's about how we use that platform. Therefore, what creates capital there is not paid workers but us, you and I. In the capitalist system, what creates capital is the means of production, and those workers produce those machines. It doesn't happen by itself; workers produce them. And there is something he says, that classic capitalist firms...

They pay a large portion of their income to workers. However, these new techno-feudal lords do not pay workers as much; a significant part of their income does not go there because they are not doing most of the work. We are doing the essential part for free. They only need to create employment to classify and control this data, which remains quite limited compared to traditional firms. Let me give you a good example: Do you know how many workers Volkswagen employs to generate 230 billion euros in revenue? It's around 680,000. In total, Meta had over 80,000 employees in 2022, which was too many for Zuckerberg, so he started firing them, just like that. In the last two years, more than 20,000 people were laid off. Did Meta shrink? No, they let go of everyone. Nothing happened on Twitter either because those people are not actually that necessary. The ones creating and growing capital are not those people. Therefore, when Meta makes money, it gives a small portion of it to the employees, already creating much less employment. This leads to an energy loss in the economy, as War of Akis suggests, and War of Akis takes this further.

He says that these people are causing central banks to constantly pump money into the market because total demand is decreasing. The reason for the decrease in total demand is that the rent money taken out of the system by these people is not returning to employment. When this happens, the purchasing power of the people diminishes. When the purchasing power of the people decreases, demand falls, and the central bank pumps money into the market. What I don't understand is that they are accumulating wealth, and only a very small part of this accumulation directly transforms into the real economy. Is money just accumulating somewhere? What is the exact claim there? You express this beautifully. In fact, if I explain how this cloud capital emerged, you will understand better. Marfis says that two critical events occurred in the past 20 years: one is the 2008 financial crisis, and the other is COVID. After the 2008 financial crisis, you know there was a great panic; the financial system was in a major crisis, central bankers panicked, and suddenly the purchasing power of the people fell. Economies started to shrink, and total demand plummeted. Central bankers...

They started injecting money into the system out of fear, wanting to keep the economy alive. This process of injecting money took so long that, as Warf Akis states, since 2009, G7 countries' central banks have printed a total of 35 trillion dollars. This money first entered the financial sector; they even refer to it as quantitative easing in central banking terminology. The central bank buys government bonds and financial assets, thus creating money and injecting it into the market. Now, money has entered the financial sector. You are a financier; you have money, there is liquidity, and there is an abundance of liquidity. You need to lend money to someone. Who will you lend it to? The 2008 crisis has happened, and people are saying the economy is not growing. Would you lend money to an ordinary person? Would I lend it to you, for example? The mortgage crisis has already happened; would I lend you money because you couldn’t pay? You would lend it to someone who can directly contribute to the real economy. Exactly, Mar Fak says that the financiers took the money and gave it to big businesses and large firms. Now, you are at the head of Volkswagen. By the way, I am not saying that Volkswagen did this. Money has come, and you have a question in front of you: the economy is deteriorating, demand has fallen.

The purchasing power of the people is gone. You can allocate your money for investment, but what will happen if you invest? What good will it do if you produce more when demand has decreased? Therefore, it doesn't make much sense to invest. A business has already done this: total demand is low, and people have lost their purchasing power. On one hand, after the 2008 crisis, countries implemented fiscal tightening policies. The state is not spending; it is cutting expenses. With this fiscal tightening, private consumption has decreased, and public consumption is also declining. The market is stagnant. What will Volkswagen do with that money? Is it foolish to invest? They took that money and reinvested it in financial markets; they bought back their own shares. When they bought back their own shares, what happened? Their market values increased, CEOs were happy, and the bonuses for CEOs started coming in. Suddenly, there was inflation in asset prices, while there was deflation in real prices because there is no demand. So, on one hand, some people are becoming extremely wealthy through financial markets, while others are experiencing worsening economic conditions. Some are becoming poorer. Meanwhile, there is monetary abundance and liquidity abundance in finance.

With the frenzy of the market, the wealthy went and bought land, acquired super yachts, and purchased NFTs that they didn't understand. They bought Bitcoin, but no one made any real investments. Without investments, the economy doesn't grow, and the living conditions of ordinary people do not improve. Over the last 15 years, there was really only one group that made genuine investments: the tech giants. Big Tech invested heavily because they didn't have a profit motive; they played completely into market competition, trying to increase their market share. They invested all the money they received into this. They put all their money into research and development. They fed cloud capital. Mark Zuckerberg's investment, for instance, had 9 out of every 10 dollars coming from central bank money. Varu Akis probably knows what he’s talking about; he must have researched it. I couldn't verify this, but we believe in Varu Hes. You see, these individuals made significant investments to gain this market power, and now they possess it. According to the VFX claim, Jeff Bezos doesn't need to do anything; he just takes the money and lays back. Since he doesn't pay his workers, the money doesn't circulate back into the economy, and central banks also...

They found themselves in a bad situation, saying that once you establish your system and dominate the market, your spending will only be on improving the algorithm. Just like millions of people watch YouTube, YouTube earns a lot of money from Turkey, and it doesn't give much back to Turkey. So, who does YouTube employ in Turkey, what investments does it make, and what taxes does it pay? None of this is clear; there are really important questions here. For example, Jeff Bezos has claimed that Amazon in Ireland has a revenue of 44 billion dollars but is shown not to be profitable in order to avoid paying taxes. Bezos says you can't take money or taxes from it. One of the biggest issues regarding Turkey is that it is currently fixated on social media platforms. The main issue behind this fixation is that these platforms don't pay taxes. We use TikTok, we use YouTube, we use Twitter, and we are feeding their capital and filling their pockets. What contribution do they make to our country? Zero. They don't employ any workers, nor do they give us any money. Moreover, while these platforms don't pay taxes, they also adopt a position as if they are champions of freedom, which is very contradictory.

It feels disturbing to me that the need for freedom and the desire for freedom are being completely transformed into tools for their own profit. On one hand, they are doing this, and on the other hand, because they have great power, they have started to decide what people can post and what they cannot. They have moved beyond merely manipulating people; manipulation already existed, but now censorship has begun as well. They say, Don't post this, post that. The view rates of stories related to Palestine on Instagram are very low. If you share a random photo of a mountain or something, half of your followers will watch it, but when you share something about Palestine, you find that the views drop to one-tenth. 

Now, let me think of something else. There is a war going on, and there is an important image from the war, let's say an image that could change perceptions. If you allow it to circulate and open the way for it, a different public opinion can form. If you block it, on the contrary, and manage to prevent the spread of that image, then you are controlling the narrative. These are what the technofeudal lords say, and here they mention companies like the so-called Magnificent Seven in America: Meta, Google, Amazon, Tesla, and Apple.

Nvidia'nın bu yedi şirketin toplam piyasa değeri, Birleşik Krallık, Almanya, Fransa ve Çin'deki bütün şirketlerin toplam değerinden daha fazla. Bu inanılmaz bir fark. Varu Akis diyor ki, bulut sermayesine sahip sadece iki güç var; biri Amerika, diğeri de Çin big tech. Çünkü aynı şekilde Çin de diyor ki, 2008'den sonra ulusal sermayesinin yarısını yatırıma ayırdı. 2008'den sonra onlar da yatırım yapmaya devam ettiler ve kendi bulut sermaye sahibi firmalarını geliştirdiler. Kim bunlar? Alibaba, Tencent'in WeChat diye bir uygulaması var. Varu Fakih sürekli onu anlatıyor ve hatta diyor ki, Elon Musk Twitter'ı Everything app yani her şeyin uygulaması haline getirmeye çalışıyor. WeChat yapmak istiyor, diyor. Ve Çin bulut sermayesi, ABD bulut sermayesinden farklı olarak şunu yaptı, diyor: Şimdi bulut sermayesiyle finansal sektör iç içe geçti; bulut finans oldu. Yani bu ne demek? WeChat üzerinden sen komisyonsuz para transferi yapabiliyorsun. WeChat öyle bir uygulama ki, giriyorsun, sosyal medya platformlarında geziyorsun, arkadaşlarına mesaj atıyorsun, üstüne arkadaşlarınla para alışver

They say they won't allow it because Wall Street exists; Wall Street doesn't want to give up its privileges in China. However, the government can do this because it controls everything. The reason for the current cold war between America and China is actually the conflict between these two cloud capital powers. They banned Huawei from Google, and then it was said that Donald Trump was acting unpredictably. Then Biden came, and the same policies continued. Now, they say about TikTok that you either sell it to an American company or we will ban you. They gave a deadline for all of this. Varo Akis interprets it like this: it is a clash between two cloud capitals. Taking it a step further, he says that the main reason for U.S. hegemony today is still the hegemony of the dollar. If the dollar's hegemony in international trade is broken, U.S. hegemony will also disappear. An alternative that could break the dollar's hegemony in international trade has emerged, which is that they have launched a digital currency based on the yuan in China. This digital currency works like this: let's say you are a person who can do business in China and you have a bank account there. You enter the application, send yuan to a firm in China.

A company sells you products without involving the Bundesbank, without involving the European Union, and without activating the Swift system. The United States has shown this. Varoufakis says that especially after the Ukraine War, the Swift system is under our control. If we don't like you, we can seize your money. Therefore, an alternative yuan-based route could emerge, and this could attract oligarchs, particularly the wealthy from the Gulf. You know that if you anger America, they will seize your goods. So, there is a story that Varoufakis tells. Do you buy into this story? Is capitalism dead, and is there now something entirely new? I like the story; I enjoyed Varoufakis's narrative, but I think he exaggerates some things. For instance, those companies he mentioned, like Tesla, Apple, Nvidia, and Amazon, are not all alike. What does Nvidia have in common with Apple? Nvidia, as you know, produces and sells chips. Their common feature, in my opinion, is that they have very high profit margins and very low operating costs, for example.

Alexa has been forgiven a lot, but nobody uses it that way. Let me tell you, we had someone who used Google Assistant. Our neighbor, the street vendor Süleyman, uses Google Assistant. He says things like, What is the capital of Australia? or What time is it now? For God's sake, what is he training? What behavior modification? What are you talking about? It's not as big as he describes. Alexa is a failed project; for instance, it exaggerates certain things. The general criticism is that this is actually another form of capitalism. The fundamental system doesn't change; it still relies on profit maximization, and companies are still trying to increase their decisions. There is no change in that regard. For example, consider Instagram. When Snapchat came out, Instagram was shaken. They were worried about what would happen to Instagram. They also have market competition; they are part of that capitalist competition. Market competition is still ongoing. It’s like they describe these companies as if they have exited the markets and created their own. But TikTok is a threat to all of them today, right? Yes, it is a threat to the others, but it poses a threat because it is in the same class as them.

Because it has access to a data pool, I think the threat exists due to that algorithm. What Varu Akis is saying doesn't come out wrong; he describes competition in a way that seems to kill it. In reality, capitalist competition is still ongoing among the big players. Of course, there is competition among the large companies. It is certainly true that accessing cloud capital is not easy. You need to make significant investments, and a large number of people need to use your services. I accept that there are competitive advantages, but the situation of operating with one's head on the chopping block, which is characteristic of the capitalist system, also exists within large firms. For example, Tesla was very successful a couple of years ago, but now its margins have dropped. 

Does Varu Akis mention anything about the personal data aspect? He doesn't say, They are following me, they know what I'm doing. They know about my credit card purchases and which sites I visit, but he doesn't see tracking as a problem. The main issue here is that your data is used later through an algorithm to change your behaviors. These big companies already hold your data and sell cars.

Volkswagen'e vermiyor, Volkswagen'e diyor ki, Benim platformlarımı kullanarak senin reklamını yaparım, bu insanlara bu arabayı aldırırım. Aslında veriyi o firmalarla paylaşmıyor. Oradaki iktidarını her zaman muhafaza ediyor. Tabii şimdi o veri savaşları da başladı. Apple mesela, kullanıcılarının verisinin başka platformlar tarafından alınmasını engelliyor; onun kavgasını veriyorlar. Ama şöyle bir eleştiri var: Varu Akis, o da güzel bir eleştiri. Bence Varu Akis diyor ki, Burada aslında bir ürün yok. Bu büyük teknoloji firmaları bir ürün üretmiyor. Ama başka bir açıdan bakarsan, şu oluyor: Onlar bizim ilgimizi istiyorlar, bizim ilgimizi alıyorlar ve bizim ilgimizi de reklamcılara satıyorlar. Oradaki iş modeli bu aslında; yani yine bir satış var. Yani rant değil sadece, aslında senin verini alıp senin ilgini alıp birilerine pazarlama var. Bir de, bir sistem bitti, yerine yeni bir sistem geldi. Çok iddialı çünkü hala klasik kapitalist model, çağa dayalı model, üretim modeli o devam edecek. Burada yeni bir grup çıktı ve teknoloji özerinde böyle bir grup ortaya çıktı. Yani yeni teknolojik gelişmelerle beraber farklı iş

It's a very beautiful theory, a beautiful analysis. The claim that the new holders of power have a different type of capital is valuable. I really enjoyed reading it and listening to it. I also like Varu Akisi; he constantly criticizes Europe, saying that Europe is dead because of this financial tightening. They haven't made any investments; for example, in Germany, the state is still using FX, which he points out. In other words, Europe is dead, but capitalism is not dead in Europe. In this story, we haven't mentioned Europe at all; it has completely remained outside this narrative. However, of course, capitalism does not die, and production does not die, and trading does not die. We could say that a new class has been born. Perhaps there’s no need to make very bold claims. Still, I thought it was an enlightening theory and a good topic. Let’s send greetings to Varu Ark; he is a person I really admire. Oh, I forgot something. Yes, we forgot to ask for likes again. If you liked this video, friends, please give it a thumbs up on YouTube.

We will defeat the YouTube algorithm. I believe we will succeed. See you in the next video. I will continue to talk about the bar fakes as well. I have another video about War ofx; we will discuss it. Is it pronounced Volkswagen? I think that's how it's said. I will say Volkswagen. It's like a Turkish brother, Ayen Volkswagen.

Kapitalizm Öldü, Sırada Ne Var?

Scripts