{"id":20993,"date":"2025-11-28T08:37:27","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T07:37:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/28\/how-amazon-turned-our-capitalist-era-of-free-markets-into-the-age-of-technofeudalism-yanis-varoufakis\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T08:37:27","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T07:37:27","slug":"how-amazon-turned-our-capitalist-era-of-free-markets-into-the-age-of-technofeudalism-yanis-varoufakis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/28\/how-amazon-turned-our-capitalist-era-of-free-markets-into-the-age-of-technofeudalism-yanis-varoufakis\/","title":{"rendered":"How Amazon turned our capitalist era of free markets into the age of technofeudalism | Yanis Varoufakis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amazon Web Services owns the basic infrastructure for other businesses to operate online, turning even governments into its serfs. But now some people are fighting back<\/p>\n

For the past six years, every Black Friday \u2013 that made-up carnival of consumption \u2013 Amazon workers and their allies have mobilised across the world in coordinated strikes and protests<\/a>. At first glance, these disputes look like the standard struggle between a giant capitalist employer and the people who keep it running. But Amazon is no ordinary corporation. It is the clearest expression of what I call technofeudalism: a new economic order in which platforms behave like lords owning the fiefs that have replaced markets.<\/p>\n

To appreciate Amazon\u2019s extraordinary power, we must recall the system it is helping to bury. Capitalism relied on markets and profit. Firms invested in productive capital, hired workers, produced commodities and lived or died by profit and loss. But the emerging order is one in which the most powerful capitalist firms have exited that market altogether. They own the digital infrastructure that everyone else must use to trade, work, communicate and live.<\/p>\n

Yanis Varoufakis is the leader of MeRA25 and the author of Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism<\/a><\/p>\n

Continue reading…<\/a>
\nAmazon Web Services owns the basic infrastructure for other businesses to operate online, turning even governments into its serfs. But now some people are fighting back
\nFor the past six years, every Black Friday \u2013 that made-up carnival of consumption \u2013 Amazon workers and their allies have mobilised across the world in coordinated strikes and protests. At first glance, these disputes look like the standard struggle between a giant capitalist employer and the people who keep it running. But Amazon is no ordinary corporation. It is the clearest expression of what I call technofeudalism: a new economic order in which platforms behave like lords owning the fiefs that have replaced markets.
\nTo appreciate Amazon\u2019s extraordinary power, we must recall the system it is helping to bury. Capitalism relied on markets and profit. Firms invested in productive capital, hired workers, produced commodities and lived or died by profit and loss. But the emerging order is one in which the most powerful capitalist firms have exited that market altogether. They own the digital infrastructure that everyone else must use to trade, work, communicate and live.
\nYanis Varoufakis is the leader of MeRA25 and the author of Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism Continue reading…Technology | The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amazon Web Services owns the basic infrastructure for other businesses to operate online, turning even governments into its serfs. But now some people are fighting back For the past six years, every Black Friday \u2013 that made-up carnival of consumption \u2013 Amazon workers and their allies have mobilised across the world in coordinated strikes and …<\/p>\n

How Amazon turned our capitalist era of free markets into the age of technofeudalism | Yanis Varoufakis<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":20994,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20993"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}