"A large majority of the left doesn't question liberal democracy and capitalism as such. In the same way that when we were young we wanted socialism with a human face, what a large part of today's left want is capitalism with a human face."
This is an excerpt from an interview with Slavoj Zizek in the New Statesman. In the meantime, Jonathan Derbyshire has written a commentary on the interview in the New Statesman. All this coincides nicely with his new book First as Tragedy, Then as Farce in which Zizek dissects the 'double death' of liberal democracy over the past nine years. Enjoy.
4 comments:
Interesting read. I never really think of myself as Marxist as I'm not sure there's much mileage in waiting for a revolution, especially in the UK. To my mind a Marxist accepts the critique of capitalism, which I do; regarded revolution as the answer (an ineluctable historical inevitability for the true believers), which I don't; and the cultural superstructure as an ephemeral, contingent side-issue.
I'd be happy to regard myself as Marxian,however, as I'm convinced his analysis of capitalism is still the best available especially as he is most convincing on its inherent instability and its tendency to constantly engender class enmity. Classical economists who accept an equilibrium or self-correcting model are disingenuous. Capitalism doesn't 'self-right', it requires massive periodic state interventions.
Whether my anti-revolutionary stance means that I have accepted the liberal-capitalist model though, I'm not so sure. True Marxists always regarded social democracy and labour unions as part of bourgeois society, accommodationist and inimical to their revolutionary ideals. This is why I don't really think of myself as Marxist.
What I totally agree with Zizek upon is the present attitude to the cultural superstructure and its centrality to pseudo-Marxists who to my mind have abandoned both the political economy and revolutionary imperative. The prime example who always jumps to the front of my mind in this case is Bea Campbell..the 'Marxist feminist' whose radicaism is rooted in nothing resembling Marxism. These people and their liberal acolytes (who include plenty of Guardianistas) are the real accommodationists having lost sight of the economic base altogether and grounding their radicalism in diversity and deconstructing texts. They're the useful idiots for the corporate state.
Hi monkeyfish,
I think the inevitability question is really problematic, and clearly Zizek and other Marxists do not subscribe to this. Rather, Marxism is used as a interpretative framework to explain structures, systems, and power dynamics.
If you add to that the idea of negative dialectics, you end up with cynical Marxism (if you so wish), which is very good at pointing out the systemic violence in societies without some misty-eyed view towards 'the revolution'.
Zizek does rather sledge-hammer those pseudo-Marxists to death...
Thanks olching...I've just ordered the book.
Concerning the apparent failure for revolution to occur...
I suppose if we have learnt anything from CiF its simply that original concise and piercing analysis is incredibly rare.
Being of the left or the right or identifying with Marxism or Neo-liberalism or whateverism is in itself an exercise in limiting freedom to think independently and seems highly effective in corralling people into already drawn conclusions...a kind of ideological cattle drive.
Add this to the sensational simplicity with which people are manipulated, not only by exterior forces through the relatively simple method of narrowing narratives through exclusion of topics and options, or the use of mass media propaganda, but also in the more insidious self censorship that people themselves readily adapt to, presumably as a unfortunate perversion of our need to socialise safely.
I agree totally that Marxism is one of if not the most astute lens with which to peer at and gain insight into the workings of economic societies...but I suppose Marx, like most people who have had an opportunity to see clearly, falsely imagine that their insight will be shared by others.
Rarely does this happen.
Claiming the inevitability of revolution is surely the loneliness of the radical progressive manifesting itself in a hopeful desire, effected as he was by this glimpse not shared by others, and assuming that the insight would inevitably be shared, he allowed a weakness common to such rare people, he believed that he wasn't rare.
Of course there is also the inability to predict the sophisticated changes in media, employment, identity, globalisation and capitalism that serve to perpetually undermine the tipping point needed for traditional power grabbing revolutions to gain speed.
If ever a time were able to highlight this astounding inability for people to realise their predicament it would be now.
When the financial crisis began to break I was mildly elated...exited I suppose by the possibilities for change this would inevitably lead to...if anything I've found the whole thing to be quite depressing now...seeing the way things are panning out and realising the extent to which liberal democracy actively disables political innovation and change.
I don't really know what I'm saying with this post.
Thanks for the link though.
I tell you what's woth reading in relation to Marxism, especially in this country: Hobsbawm's "Revolutionaries" and the British CP's apparent self-consciousness over the fact that they were perhaps the least Bolshevik of all Communist parties. By the time most other countries began to develop a significant left wing presence, Britain already had a substantial and influential organised labour movement and an associated political party. The CP knew from the start perhaps that they didn't just have to worry about bourgeois capitalism but a pre-existant left wing movement committed to gradualist change which far better suited the 'National psyche'.
In other countries the communists often dominated the left. In Britain the CP seemed resigned to the fact that there was never likely to emerge the revolutionary fervour nor wouldthey ever attain a significant role in mainstream politics. I think that as a result, Marxism and Marx's economic theory's especially have never received the attention that they were due.
Harold Wilson used to boast that he'd never read Capital although I'm sure I once read him commenting on 'The Road to Serfdom' and 'The Open Society and Its Enemies'. It does seem a little ironic that a left wing politician should read Hayek and Popper and never bother with Marx. (too many footnotes apparently)
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