ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the first, classic, utopian imaginary, Plato's Republic, in the context of the contemporary global crisis. In the case of the Eurozone crisis, austerity cannot address the crisis in the peripheral nations because it does not respond to issues of job creation, but only deepens the problem by causing even more unemployment and redundancy. In the face of social, economic, and political crisis, the neoliberal elites have begun to dismantle the public sector and privatise its functions. For Badiou's Hyper-Plato, true social life is impossible without equality because inequality produces hatred between self and others. Hyper-Plato is no longer simply a philosopher, but also a psychoanalyst, who understands that we can find the truth of a social system in the psychology of its people. In Varoufakis' (2011) story the Global Minotaur is America and the labyrinth is the American-led global economic system that has developed since the end of World War II.
