Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Slavoj Zizek — Future of Capitalism


"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, [and there will be] another Tiananmen Square demonstration - no, the marriage between capitalism and democracy is over." — Slavoj Zizek
Read the story and watch the video at Al Jazeera

3 comments:

googleheim said...

just wait for the Goldman Saxophony-baloneys

mike norman said...

Hard to watch this guy. Brutal speech impediment, but his ideas are interesting. Just hard to watch. Sounds like Daffy Duck.

Tom Hickey said...

Well, English is not his first language. Wikipedia: "He is a fluent speaker of Slovene, Serbo-Croatian, English, French and German. He also has basic knowledge of Italian." In addition, his mannerisms are definitely not Anglo. He probably views us as emotionless automatons. :)

I thought he was in interesting as an example of a "philosopher," in the sense of someone that thinks out of the box rather than exhibiting the conventional tunnel vision. He definitely adds a dimension to the debate that we should all be thinking about. He is a "gadfly" in the Socratic tradition.