"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:
just wait for the Goldman Saxophony-baloneys
Hard to watch this guy. Brutal speech impediment, but his ideas are interesting. Just hard to watch. Sounds like Daffy Duck.
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.
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