MixedJacobinIt is a chronicle of elite pacting far removed from the lives being impacted by the deliberations of these elites. Varoufakis never seems to grasp how elitist his own modus operandi is ... This book tells many truths that need to be told. Varoufakis lucidly explains the 'extend and pretend' dynamic, in which Greece was never 'bailed out' but forced, through many layers of subterfuge, to bear the burden of bailing out German and French banks, while plundering wages, pensions, municipalities, hospitals, schools, and public property to do so ... This book does a service in bearing witness to that essential dynamic. However, Varoufakis’s book conceals as much as it reveals. Most importantly, it does not clearly conceptualize the sociohistorical forces at play, both because of an overbearing egocentrism and a lack of systemic analysis. Capitalism disappears in the play of elite personalities, primarily his own ... he constructs a narrative that selects some facts and omits others in a way that is blatantly self-justifying and distorts the history of this conjuncture ... I do think this is an important book. It is a long read — 560 pages — but worth the time and effort.
