In this video, Slavoj Zizek argues that a creating a more charitable capitalism is a path of folly. For some background on Zizek, check out this profile of him in Der Spiegel (I admit that I hadn’t heard of him until a month ago).
“First as Tragedy, Then as Farce”
August 2, 2010 by Nick Krafft
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Marxian | 17 Comments
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Marxists are the zombies of economics. No matter how often they are killed, they keep rising up, to frighten us. They always look the same, sound the same and act the same. And like zombies, Marxism never works.
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Riddle: What do you get when you combine Marxist evidence with debt-hawk evidence?
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Answer: Nothing. Absolutely nothing. It doesn’t exist.
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Hey Rodger, what a clever comment!
don’t listen, they are marxist! They have nothing to say.
So let’s go on with religious fath in the neoliberal crap. Till the next crash…
Sorry Gino. You are right. I listen to your evidence. The podium is yours.
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Rodger- do you think Marxian critiques have nothing to offer? With which parts of this particular video do you take issue?
Nick, don’t turn it around and ask me to justify or not justify pieces of Marxism. As a whole, it has proven not to work.
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But you and Gino believe otherwise. I asked Gino for evidence. Apparently you and he are Marxist, or part Marxist, or almost Marxist — or something.
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As such, you believe the wealth of the bourgeoisie should be appropriated and placed into collective ownership. I think that is total nonsense, yet it is the foundation of Marxism.
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I subscribe to some things that people call socialism – Social Security and Medicare for example. I even have written that the federal government should pay all students a salary. But those bits of socialism aren’t Marxism, and all I asked for is your evidence Marxism, as a whole, as an entire economic philosophy, works.
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Why not simply provide your evidence?
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Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
First of all, you’re making assumptions about our priors. Second, your comment was on a specific video, so it was only charitable to assume your comment was related to that video, and not just a random rant. Marxism, as it exists today, is too lacking in power to be a specific prescription. Rather, it offers a way of analyzing the economy through the lens of class (and thus power).
One of the most common solutions Marxian economists tend to offer is for workers to control the means of production that they employ. This model has had some success where it has been tried (see previous posts on some cooperatives in the US and abroad). The version of Marxism that holds most relevance to me is not so concerned with the end distribution of wealth; rather, it is concerned with who makes decisions about how that wealth is distributed- owners of labor, or owners of capital. If you watch the video, you’ll find that these broader and more programmatic discussions are only tangentially related to what I posted, which I found to be very thoughtful (and I find the animations aid my retention of the key points).
In that case, don’t refer to it as Marxism, which it isn’t. Giving something a wrong name, merely adds to confusion, not to enlightenment. A piece is not a whole.
How about calling it “Krafftism”?
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Fair enough. I think the way I’ve construed it (surely derived from many sources in a non-sensical way) comes close enough to Marxism, though:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxism
I might hedge a bit on number 3 over what we mean by “revolution” and “collective.” Even Marx was aware that the application of his ideas will adapt over time.
And, for the record, I’m too young to be an anything-ist. I merely find Marxian analysis to be a) thought-provoking and b) unfairly ignored.
@ Rodger
I didn’t want to prove anything, actually. I was just remarking that your argument about the video was a bit silly. Marxists are wrong, Zizek is a marxist, so don’t listen to what he’s saying.
If you’re happy with this kind of argument, I’m not.
As for who’s marxist and who’s not, Karl Marx is said to have denied that he was a marxist. I deny too.
I use Marx’s work as a (very poweful) analytical tool about the intimate working of capitalist economy. Many things have changed in more than a century, but some devices are basically the same, and Marx’s analysis always provides very deep insights, even when he is wrong
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.”
That concept has caused more trouble than anything else I can imagine.
Anyway, I am to old to subscribe to most “isms.” I come close to being a neo-Chartalist, if only I didn’t have to argue with Randy Wray and Warren Mosler about how to prevent and cure inflation. Otherwise, we’re together. So maybe I’ll call it “Mitchellism.”
My complaint (one of them) about Marxism is its focus on class warfare. It leads to efforts to bring down the upper class, as a way to bring up the lower class, and I don’t buy it.
Making everyone equally poor is not a good path to equality.
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Gino,
Every economist in history was partly right, partly wrong, including Marx. I just don’t like the fundamental “Robin Hood” aspects of Marxism, so I never would use it as a reference.
Better to mention the specific ideas you like, and not link them to a discredited philosophy.
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
[...] של הרצאה של סלבוי ז'יז'ק על רעיון הצדקה בתוך [...]
[...] של הרצאה מפי סלבוי ז'יז'ק על הצדקה במערכת [...]
Rodger the abolition of private property is specifically communism. Marxism would be methodology or ideology emanating from Marx’s writings or writings which use class as the central level of analysis as Krafft points out(like feminism would use gender, post-colonialism race, etc). Marxist analysis would examine how wealth is being distributed and the effects that has.
Clearly it is naive to believe in the abolition of private property resulting in anything but tyranny over all property. But am I a Marxist to say that 50% of the stock on the NYSE is owned by 1% of the population? Does it make me a Marxist to point out that the gap in wealth is increasing(the middle class shrinking)? I am using class as the level of my analysis so yes I am a Marxist for stating those facts. But that does not mean that I like Stalin or the USSR or want to give your house to junkies or something.
To call it Marxism is also too broad, because there are generally two different marx(e?)s old and young(I said basically there are as many different marxs as sentences he wrote or are wrote about him).
One thing I find interesting about Marx is he pointed out that Capitalism needs new markets to grow. It needs new peripheries to exploit, because capitalism assumes infinite growth. There is an end to everything and Marx using his historical materialism said that Capitalism will collapse because they will run out of markets. It is also clear that the resources of our environment limit capitalism. Infinite growth which is a key assumption in Capitalism is doomed. The collapse of capitalism is inevitable whether you like it or not.
An individual like you can probably understand the theoretical justification for “Communism” but sees its deployment practically as impossible should confront the fact that a free market is a logical and practical impossibility.
1. Anarchy is not sustainable, governments or things with the ability to justifiably enact violence(law) will manifest.
2. These governments will consist of people who do things people do: eat, sleep, shit, etc.
3. When these members of the government go to use the can between votes they use toilet paper.
4. This toilet paper is purchased by the government.
5. Government manufacture or purchase of private products creates an unfair advantage for certain sectors of the economy.
6. As long as there is a government which consists of people who shit there will never be a free market.
And thats just the toilet paper budget…even though I heard that gets pretty expensive at the pentagon.
/\
tl;dr
On the video specifically Zizek advocates revolution now for what could probably be called democratic-socialism? but thats probably too broad and ambiguous anyway. He thinks that a transition away from capitalism is inevitable and thinks the transition will be violent. The longer we wait according to him, the more violent the transition.
Marx said something similar about guilds(the precursor to trade unions) that they just treated the symptoms of capitalism and thusly just postpone the inevitable revolution. The only true liberation for workers would come through this revolution in Marx’s opinion. For Marx it was just because the revolution was inevitable according to his material dialectics so why wait. To Zizek the transition will be violent. Another reason I have heard is primitivist in nature that if capitalism continues it will destroy all hope for a life after its collapse by using or polluting all available resources.
Rodger its also funny that you would completely agree with the video. Hes saying he hates the idea of redistribution and essentially agreeing with your assessment that this is absolute poverty. Ok thanks for letting em blow up your board