Continuing yesterday's discussion re Zizek

Continuing yesterday's discussion on Slavoj Zizek:

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On Thu, Nov 12, 2009 AA wrote:

Choppa,

By ubiquitous I meant that Zizek's writings and musings are popping up
all over the place, in all sorts of countries. That authoritarianism
and dictatorship are perfectly compatible with capitalism is not news
to those of us who have some personal and historical experience of
both.

And by the way, "all diction and no dick" is how I would describe your
criticism of Zizek. What's the substance of your criticism of this
particular article of his? I say this and I ask as one of your fans.

You have it ass backward: capitalism _can_ work when combined with
authoritarianism. But as always it works for a privileged minority.

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My response:

Hi AA,

You write:

And by the way, "all diction and no dick" is how I would describe your

criticism of Zizek. What's the substance of your criticism of this

particular article of his? I say this and I ask as one of your fans.

You have it ass backward: capitalism _can_ work when combined with

authoritarianism. But as always it works for a privileged minority.

The substance of my criticism is that the article is glib in relation to economics and socio-politics.

In economics he says nothing about what gives state-owned and state-run non-capitalist societies their growing power and staying power. This not only refers to China but to the Soviet Union before it was sold out in 1990 by the bureaucrats who had usurped the regime under Stalin and kept it in their grasp since then. I say this because imperialist "economists" have been claiming from the very start (1917) that the non-capitalist system was unworkable and theoretically impossible (like, say, the flight of the bumblebee). Yet the state, degenerate as it was politically, still survived for seven decades and made huge advances in that time, despite huge hostile pressure from imperialism. It beat the US into space, for instance, and provided security of employment, health care and education for all, despite the shortcomings - just compare this with the health-care record, unemployment and literacy record of capitalist countries like the US, Brazil, India, Chile, Colombia, Thailand, etc.

China was deformed from the start, but a workers (non-capitalist) state from the get-go.

It is NOT more capitalist than the capitalists, it uses capitalist investment under centralized state control - big difference. The wealth being siphoned off by the bureaucrats at the top is an indication that they're not likely to take the Soviet road any time soon. Which means that a popular revolution there could be a damn sight bloodier than the Soviet collapse.

These perspectives are ignored by SZ. As are the reasons for the capitalist crisis, especially the overproduction at the root of it - a glut leading to unsold goods, leading to the evaporation of collateral for the Jacob's Ladders of debt erected in the bubble and burst imperialist and imperialist-dominated capitalist nations. This includes the overproduction of capital, leading to a worldwide fall in the rate of profit, necessitating (this is historically well-founded) the destruction of "surplus" capital to raise the rate of profit to "acceptable" levels. Previous solutions to this on the world scale involved have been the two World Wars. Not a pleasant prospect.

Like I said, glib, and also unimaginative - although this won't be noticed by his blinkered philistine audience ("Western public opinion") in imperialist media. So, "look at me and how dangerous my ideas are!". About as original and insipid as the egregious Fabians in early 20th century Britain - GB Shaw and HG Wells for instance. Shaw was dickless in more than a metaphorical sense. Wells however was described by Trotsky - a good judge of people - as a puffed-up self-important petty-bourgeois rabbit.

My dick is neither here nor there, or perhaps both, in this respect - I'm not a public figure.

I might use diction and rhetoric, but not to ingratiate myself as a hinterlectual the way so many of our Zizek's do. In fact I hate their shibboleth diction. Pre-digested junk so to speak. Reconstituted cows arse a la McDonalds, in a permanent circulation of shit.

And if SZ thinks things are so dreadful, where are his proposals for change??

Sweetness and Light,

Chops