Heinberg points out in his book ‘Power’¹ (see Section 8.8) that critics of the current system are good at pointing out faults, but weak at mapping transitions, let alone constructing alternatives; this is certainly so for alternative economic systems. Defenders of this situation say that we already have alternative systems available, e.g. Marxist, Socialist, Communist systems, etc., but as I have discussed in Section 1.1.4, these perform little better for the environment than does capitalism, primarily because of their human/material reductionism, and their equal obsession with growth. So, if we are to do better, far better, for the world and for a sustainable future, we must build something new.

Thankfully, some have stepped forward to meet the challenge, and one excellent example is Yanis Varoufakis’ ‘Another Now – Dispatches from an Alternative Present’². Varoufakis is an economist, academic and politician who was once Greece’s Finance Minister – post the Global Financial Crisis – which very much sharpened his resolve to deal with the injustices of the current economic order and to construct a better, fairer, system.

‘Another Now’ sets up a debate about the current system, its strengths and weaknesses, and possible future economic systems, between two fiery protagonists and one ‘mediator’. The two protagonists are Eva, a dry-as-dust economic rationalist, economist and failed investment banker, and Iris, an older anarchist and revolutionary of the left. The mediator is Costa, an engineer and IT expert, and the narrator is Yango, a mathematician and friend of Iris. The action is set in 2025.

It sounds as if it could be a bit clunky and overly dialectical, but it is better than this and is constructed as a novel, and contains genuine human warmth.

The book presents two parallel universes: our world and ‘Another Now’ which split off from our reality after the GFC in 2008. In this Other Now capitalism has been toppled and a new economic system established. Capitalism is brought down by:

• Short-term payment strikes, starving the system of funds and profit;
• Blocked payments to pension funds that supported socially and environmentally irresponsible companies;
• Days of Inaction: boycott days of no purchase of goods and services of certain irresponsible companies; and
• Complete IT transparency that exposes the transactions of governments and corporations.

In its place a new system is established, its basic features being:

• A type of anarcho-syndicalism Varoufakis calls ‘corpo-syndicalism’ which he applies to corporations and imbues with spontaneous order and personal responsibility working in a flat structure to run companies;
• 5% of a company’s income goes to the government (there is no other taxation); other portions go for bills, such as utilities, and to basic pay, and bonuses;
• Basic pay is equal between all employees;
• Bonuses can be accrued by garnering votes from fellow employees; reciprocity is stamped out by a public, transparent, hologram/avatar of votes; each employee has one vote;
• Each worker gets one company share; this is non-transferrable;
• Capital can be accumulated, but in a modest way: each resident has a Personal Capital Account run by a central bank comprising three sub-accounts: (i) Accumulation: for basic pay and bonuses; (ii) Legacy: the state puts an equal amount into the account at birth for later use as an adult; (iii) Dividend: the central bank deposits a monthly sum from the 5% state tax on gross revenue, mentioned previously, as a ‘social payment’;
• People can lend money from their Personal Capital Account, with interest, to their business or to others; therefore, capital can be accumulated;
• Most companies and organisations are relatively small;
• Randomly selected Citizens’ Juries rank companies by a ‘Socialworthiness Index’ so as to reflect their usefulness beyond their workers and shareholders; this index is public;
• Because tradable shares are banned, retail commercial and investment banks disappear; the “whirlpool of financial speculation is dammed”;
• There are types of community credit unions as well as the central bank;
• There are markets, but they are not capitalist markets; they are “truly free markets”;
• There are local, digital, currencies;
• The IMF is replaced by the IMP (International Monetary Project) whose job is to balance out trade and money flows, e.g. via a Trade Imbalance Levy;
• There is no private land; it is controlled by regional authorities and rent is paid;
• Once capitalism disappears and markets are freed from private ownership, GDP is demoted to just another economic measure and value is no longer determined by exchange value, but by experiential value.

This other world is debated, argued, attacked, examined, in detail by Iris, Eva and to an extent, Costa, and I won’t tell you the outcome, other than that there is fundamental disagreement as to whether this ‘Other Now’ really will lead to a better world, and to how ‘improvable’ is the human condition.

Varoufakis is to be heartily applauded for his cleverness and courage in presenting just what ‘Another Now’ might look like and how it might work, but there are some criticisms I have. The problem of growth, the desire for it and its sheer, immense and shiny allure, is largely ignored, replaced by ‘power’. Granted, it is extremely hard to unpick the tightly intertwined strands of power/money/growth, but I am not sure they are synonymous. Probably, power is the main driver for the super-rich oligarchs of this world, but I suspect growth, and ‘more’ is the dominant desire in this equation for the global majority, and its religious hold on modern humanity is unlikely to be toppled by Days of Inaction and technical problems (even if they represent fundamental problems) with capitalism. For example, look at what happened after the GFC in 2008; capitalism is more than adept at displacing blame and exhorting the masses to ever more sacrifice, and the masses are prepared to do same.

‘Another Now’ is not about the environment, but about global inequality and the social rapacity of capitalism. The environment is mentioned in passing, usually in its synonymous modern form of climate change. It appears to assume that the Other Now will automatically be better for the environment, without spelling out how or why. This is a reasonable assumption, to a point, as the great ravening beast of capitalism is tamed and something more modest and controlled installed in its place, but it is by no means a given, and if the desire for growth is not properly addressed, as mentioned, then it will live on to undermine the environment, no matter what the system. As witness to this, ‘Another Now’ does not address population growth at all.

At the heart of all attempts to construct a better world is the conflict between our understandings and beliefs as to the human condition: how good, or bad, are we, and how ‘perfectable’ are we? Capitalism sets the bar very low and says that private self-interest is the only thing robust enough to survive and to protect the individual from communal tyranny; other systems, such as communism, set the bar higher, but seem forever trapped in an excusatory transitional phase whereby the masses must be ‘encouraged’ (all-too-often, ‘co-erced’) into co-operating for a larger good. ‘Another Now’ is definitely in the more optimistic camp about human nature, requiring very high levels of co-operation, co-ordination and commitment to work; are we up to it? Varoufakis introduces several clever algorithms to somewhat reduce the consensual burden of decision-making in ‘Another Now’, and leaves elements of personal agency, investment and accumulation in the system, perhaps to not ‘stretch’ the human too far. Whatever the answers to these questions, his contribution is that capitalism is broken, that we can build new economic systems, that they can work, and that they will be – necessarily – far better for society and environment.

¹ Varoufakis, Y. 2020. Another Now: Dispatches from an Alternative Present. The Bodley Head, London, U.K.

Note: I have not had a chance to read it in full as yet, but another interesting attempt to ‘build alternatives’ has been made by Kate Raworth, in her book, ‘Doughnut Economics’². It is summarised here by Goodreads:

“Economics is broken. It has failed to predict, let alone prevent, financial crises that have shaken the foundations of our societies. Its outdated theories have permitted a world in which extreme poverty persists while the wealth of the super-rich grows year on year. And its blind spots have led to policies that are degrading the living world on a scale that threatens all of our futures.

Can it be fixed? In Doughnut Economics, Oxford academic Kate Raworth identifies seven critical ways in which mainstream economics has led us astray, and sets out a roadmap for bringing humanity into a sweet spot that meets the needs of all within the means of the planet. Enroute, she deconstructs the character of ‘rational economic man’ and explains what really makes us tick. She reveals how an obsession with equilibrium has left economists helpless when facing the boom and bust of the real-world economy. She highlights the dangers of ignoring the role of energy and nature’s resources – and the far-reaching implications for economic growth when we take them into account. And in the process, she creates a new, cutting-edge economic model that is fit for the 21st century – one in which a doughnut-shaped compass points the way to human progress. 

Ambitious, radical and rigorously argued, Doughnut Economics promises to reframe and redraw the future of economics for a new generation.” In addition, and perhaps most excitingly, we have a practical example to follow of Doughnut Economics being trialled. The City of Amsterdam has adopted its principles (in 2020) and we will watch with interest their successes and failures and the extent to which they can operate independently of the overarching capitalist system.

² Raworth, K. 2017. Doughnut Economics. Random House, New York, USA.