Cédric Durand is professor of political economy at the University of Geneva and a member of the Centre d’Économie Paris Nord. He is the author of Fictitious Capital: How Finance Is Appropriating Our Future and How Silicon Valley Unleashed Techno-Feudalism: The Making of the Digital Economy.
Silicon Valley hype presented the digital economy as a source of dynamic growth as well as a liberating force for workers. In reality, digital technology is facilitating brutal forms of exploitation while productivity and growth are slowing down.
The neoliberal economic model has foundered and can no longer generate growth. Governments will be forced to change their approach to economic management, giving rise to more promising conditions for struggle by workers after a generation of retreat.
The gilets jaunes movement has presented a vision of France beyond Emmanuel Macron’s neoliberalism. Anticapitalists have to push it even further.
Mélenchon’s election campaign has galvanized the Left by doing what Hamon couldn’t — making a clean break with the political center.
The crisis in Greece is part of a larger disintegration of the European project.