Greek FinMin Varoufakis among 10 World Thinkers 2015

Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis is among the World Thinkers 2015. In a online voting poll conducted by the Prospect Magazine, Varoufakis comes second after French economist Thomas Picketty, whose book Capital in the Twenty-First Century had sold a remarkable 1.5m copies worldwide in several languages.

Several of the other thinkers in the top 10 are Yanis Varoufakis, Naomi Klein, Paul Krugman and Russell Brand as well as philosopher Juergen Habermas.

The magazine writes on Yanis Varoufakis:

“Syriza’s victory in January’s Greek general election was in no small part due to the efforts of Yanis Varoufakis, now installed as Finance Minister. Varoufakis, who holds a PhD in game theory from the University of Essex, and calls himself an “accidental economist,” first set out an alternative to German-imposed austerity in 2010. The restructuring of Greece’s debt that Varoufakis has been trying to sell to other eurozone leaders has its origins in those proposals. Whether Varoufakis succeeds in persuading Angela Merkel of its merits remains to be seen. The portents, however, are not auspicious—some European leaders are said to be tiring of Varoufakis’s habit of saying one thing in negotiations in Brussels and another to audiences at home.”