I skimmed through Yanis Varoufakis’ essay entitled “How I Became an Erratic Marxist” in The Guardian this morning. The embattled finance minister of Greece came alive for me through his own words. He came across Marxism in his youth, but he veered off it later in life. His doctoral dissertation was in mathematical economics, just like mine. Much of his life, he taught economics that eschewed politics, just as I did. It was the mess created by the last financial crisis that finally opened his eyes. All of a sudden, he found himself thinking of Marx increasingly often. Even though his policy recommendations cannot be associated with the great philosopher, the minister finds himself mightily influenced by his thinking. Capitalism is not only unfair, but it is also entirely irrational. It threatens to destroy the world. As the essay developed, and it developed very to my liking, I skimmed through it ever more quickly. But a note at its end to the effect that it was adapted from a lecture Varoufakis had delivered at the Sixth Subversive Festival in Zagreb in 2013 surprised me no end. My subversive recipe was written in response to the same festival (“A Recipe for Foolproof Subversion,” May 14, 2014). Erratic or not, Marxism strikes me as the wrong way out of the mess humanity has gotten into. My recipe is the only way out.