The Marriage between Capitalism and Democracy is over-Slavoj Zizek

[Ichingcarpenter]

The philosopher discusses the momentous changes taking place in the global financial and political system



Slovenian-born philosopher Slavoj Zizek, whose critical examination of both capitalism and socialism has made him an internationally recognised intellectual, speaks to Al Jazeera's Tom Ackerman about the momentous changes taking place in the global financial and political system.

In his distinct and colourful manner, he analyses the Arab Spring, the eurozone crisis, the "Occupy Wall Street" movement and the rise of China. Concerned about the future of the existing western democratic capitalism Zizek believes that the current "system has lost its self-evidence, its automatic legitimacy, and now the field is open."

"I think today the world is asking for a real alternative. Would you like to live in a world where the only alternative is either anglo-saxon neoliberalism or Chinese-Singaporean capitalism with Asian values?

I claim if we do nothing we will gradually approach a kind of a new type of authoritarian society. Here I see the world historical importance of what is happening today in China. Until now there was one good argument for capitalism: sooner or later it brought a demand for democracy...

What I'm afraid of is with this capitalism with Asian values, we get a capitalism much more efficient and dynamic than our western capitalism. But I don't share the hope of my liberal friends - give them ten years, another Tiananmen Square demonstration - no, the marriage between capitalism and democracy is over." Slavoj Zizek



The 25 min interview is here..... Listen this guy came to OWS and spoke to the crowd.
I find him brilliant and engaging. He is world famous .


http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/talktojazeera/2011/10/2011102813360731764.html

[Laluchacontinua]

1. not sure what chinese-singaporean capitalism is. 60% of singapore's economy = state-owned

businesses. I presume a large share of China's does too. And another large chunk = a maquilla arrangement with foreigner owners.

We're in weird territory here.

[Ichingcarpenter]

2. You need to listen and watch the video

not just read my line they provided in order to get what he is really saying.

[Laluchacontinua]

4. This is a quote, though: "What I'm afraid of is with this capitalism with Asian values...

..we get a capitalism much more efficient and dynamic than our western capitalism."

See, I just disagree with the premise of "asian values" and that what's going on in china is "capitalism with asian values".

I'll watch the video, but I'm pretty familiar with zizek & my opinion is already "flashy but not so deep." He says interesting things & makes interesting juxtapositions, & he's funny -- but I don't think he's a good economic analyst.

[dkf]

3. So add Asian values to capitalism and it gets all f'ed up?

Is that the most racist thing I've heard recently or what?

[westerebus]

5. I've been reading Zizek for ten years or there about.

Brilliant is an understatement.

[Ichingcarpenter]

6. Brilliant is an understatement... is what I should have said

I got turned on to him on BBC series on the movies and follow him after that.

[Karenina]

10. +1

[xchrom]

7. Recommend

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. Another recent Zizek piece: "Democracy is the Enemy"

There is no shortage of anti-capitalist critique at the moment: we are awash with stories about the companies ruthlessly polluting our environment, the bankers raking in fat bonuses while their banks are saved by public money, the sweatshops where children work overtime making cheap clothes for high-street outlets. There is a catch, however. The assumption is that the fight against these excesses should take place in the familiar liberal-democratic frame. The (explicit or implied) goal is to democratise capitalism, to extend democratic control over the global economy, through the pressure of media exposure, parliamentary inquiries, harsher laws, police investigations etc. What goes unquestioned is the institutional framework of the bourgeois democratic state. This remains sacrosanct even in the most radical forms of ‘ethical anti-capitalism’ – the Porto Allegre forum, the Seattle movement and so on.

Here, Marx’s key insight remains as pertinent today as it ever was: the question of freedom should not be located primarily in the political sphere – i.e. in such things as free elections, an independent judiciary, a free press, respect for human rights. Real freedom resides in the ‘apolitical’ network of social relations, from the market to the family, where the change needed in order to make improvements is not political reform, but a change in the social relations of production. We do not vote concerning who owns what, or about the relations between workers in a factory. Such things are left to processes outside the sphere of the political, and it is an illusion that one can change them by ‘extending’ democracy: say, by setting up ‘democratic’ banks under the people’s control. Radical changes in this domain should be made outside the sphere of such democratic devices as legal rights etc. They have a positive role to play, of course, but it must be borne in mind that democratic mechanisms are part of a bourgeois-state apparatus that is designed to ensure the undisturbed functioning of capitalist reproduction. Badiou was right to say that the name of the ultimate enemy today is not capitalism, empire, exploitation or anything of the kind, but democracy: it is the ‘democratic illusion’, the acceptance of democratic mechanisms as the only legitimate means of change, which prevents a genuine transformation in capitalist relations.

The Wall Street protests are just a beginning, but one has to begin this way, with a formal gesture of rejection which is more important than its positive content, for only such a gesture can open up the space for new content. So we should not be distracted by the question: ‘But what do you want?’ This is the question addressed by male authority to the hysterical woman: ‘All your whining and complaining – do you have any idea what you really want?’ In psychoanalytic terms, the protests are a hysterical outburst that provokes the master, undermining his authority, and the master’s question – ‘But what do you want?’ – disguises its subtext: ‘Answer me in my own terms or shut up!’ So far, the protesters have done well to avoid exposing themselves to the criticism that Lacan levelled at the students of 1968: ‘As revolutionaries, you are hysterics who demand a new master. You will get one.’

http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2011/10/28/slavoj-zizek/democracy-is-the-enemy/

I disagree with him that democracy is the enemy, but I'll be interested to see what he says about democracy in the interview - watching now.

[DireStrike]

9. That argument seems, as Laluchacontinua said above, "flashy but not too deep."

He is not arguing against democracy, but against the bourgeois state. He must realize this, but chose to talk about "democracy" for the shock value.

[AntiFascist]

11. To put it quite simply....

Chinese "capitalism" allows the upper classes to have the lower classes be enslaved. Without adequate education, there can be no fluidity. In order for America to compete with this, the PTB have no problem becoming more like them.

[Worship Money]

12. Indeed

I'd actually posit that the powers that be ARE them. The right wing oligarchy here is a best friend of Beijing, and the Iranian corporate state junta, and all the other monster fascists around the world.

Our right wing is really a node of an international right wing that is effectively a super NGO.