20 Years of Collapse

By SLAVOJ ZIZEK

Published: November 9, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/09/opinion/09zizek.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp

I wish I could read this excerpt to students whenever they ask me about what America thinks of China. Then instead of spinning something lame about how Americans are in awe of and perhaps even envious of China's economic growth, I could respond by saying, "Well, America is scared shitless, and for good reason:


A further twist is added by those countries in which Communists allowed the explosion of capitalism, while retaining political power: they seem to be more capitalist than the Western liberal capitalists themselves. In a crazy double reversal, capitalism won over Communism, but the price paid for this victory is that Communists are now beating capitalism in its own terrain.

This is why today’s China is so unsettling: capitalism has always seemed inextricably linked to democracy, and faced with the explosion of capitalism in the People’s Republic, many analysts still assume that political democracy will inevitably assert itself.

But what if this strain of authoritarian capitalism proves itself to be more efficient, more profitable, than our liberal capitalism? What if democracy is no longer the necessary and natural accompaniment of economic development, but its impediment?



I just wrote in Chad's little box what I was going to write here. I think Zizek nailed America's fear. It's true, impossible shit gets done here, and quickly too, thanks to big bad authoritarian capitalism. Consider Fengdu, for example. An entire city rebuilt because it's former self is now submerged as a result of the 3 Gorges Dam project. Nor will I ever forget the time Rach and I were escorted to our longdistance bus by Besty's army captain uncle. For the first time we were in Chengdu, I didn't have the urge to grumble about traffic. Betsy's uncle was like Moses, parting the Chengdu freeway. And for what? So we could catch a lousy bus!

If this isn't efficiency, I don't know what is.

But it seems like people here are always being told that their form of capitalism IS liberal, and that their form of government IS democratic. Aren't we in the west told the exact same things by the powers that be? So maybe capitalism is at the very least inextricably linked to the tale of democracy.

Just Do It! crisis

"The pressure to "do something" is like the superstitious compulsion to make some gesture when we are observing a process over which we have no real influence. Are not our acts often such gestures? The old saying "Don't just talk, do something!" is one of the stupidest things one can say, even measured by the low standards of common sense. Perhaps the problem lately has been that we have been doing too much, such as intervening in nature, destroying the environment, and so forth. Perhaps it is time to step back think, and say the right thing. True, we often talk about soemthing instead of doing it; but sometimes we also do things in order to avoid talking and thinking about them. Such as throwing $700 billin at a problem instead of reflecting on how it arose in the first place."

- Slavoj Zizek, "To Each According to His Greed"
Harper Magazine, Oct. 2009