Each great economic transformation produces its own characteristic type of crisis
Evidence
That is one particular example, whose outcome will be relatively limited. But technofeudalism also unlocks a more pervasive and pressing problem, in which we are all implicated. … Every great transformation brings with it a new type of crisis. When we invented agriculture, we amassed plants and animals within our communities and, unwittingly, bred noxious germs that caused hideous epidemics. The arrival of capitalism begat economic crises such as the Great Depression. Today, technofeudalism is deepening pre-existing sources of instability and turning them into new existential threats. Specifically, the Great Inflation and cost-of-living crisis that have followed the recent pandemic cannot be properly understood outside the context of technofeudalism. — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 517
Categorization
- SEED: An essay angle: mapping each mode of production (agriculture, capitalism, technofeudalism) to its signature crisis — epidemics, depressions, and now inflation-as-rent-war.
- XREF: Fits the reader’s broader interest in how economic transformations reshape society, echoing Marxian periodization discussed in past reading. — connects to: Each PIIGS country suffered a distinct kind of debt crisis before austerity was imposed. — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 29; Economic crises are also conceptual and intellectual catastrophes — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 45; Financial deepening is linked to bankruptcies, bank failures, and recession. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1760 (+3 more)
- corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 517
Broader Connections
- Crises recurring across eras implies neoliberalism may not cause them
#exemplifies(0.80) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 1787