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Slavoj Žižek: Democracy and Capitalism Are Destined to Split Up | Big Think - YouTube
Channel: Big Think
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Well people often ask me how can you be so
stupid and still proclaim yourself a communist.
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What do you mean by this? Well, I have always
to emphasize that first I am well aware that
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let’s call it like this – the twentieth
century’s over. Which means all not only
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communists solution but all the big leftist
projects of the twentieth century failed.
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Not only did Stalinist communism although
there its failure is much more paradoxical.
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Most of the countries where communists are
still in power like China, Vietnam – their
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communists in power appear to be the most
efficient managers of a very wildly productive
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capitalism. So okay, that one failed. I think
that also and here I in a very respectful
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way disagree with your – by your I mean
American neo-Keynesian leftists, Krugman,
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Stiglitz and so on. I also think that this
Keynesian welfare state model is passé. In
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the conditions of today’s global economy
it no longer works. For the welfare state
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to work you need a strong nation state which
can impose a certain fiscal politics and so
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on and so on. When you have global market
it doesn’t work. And the third point which
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is most problematic for my friends, the third
leftist vision which is deep in the heart
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of all leftists that I know – this idea
of critically rejecting alienated representative
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democracy and arguing for local grass root
democracy where it’s not that you just delegate
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to the others. Your representatives to act
for you, but people immediately engage in
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locally managing their affairs and so on.
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I think this is a nice idea as far as it goes
but it’s not the solution. It’s a very
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limited one. And if I may be really evil here
I frankly I wouldn’t like to live in a stupid
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society where I would have to be all the time
engaged in local communitarian politics and
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so on and so on. My idea is to live in a society
where some invisible alienated machinery takes
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care of things so that I can do whatever I
want – watch movies, read and write philosophical
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books and so on. But so I’m well aware that
in all its versions radical left projects
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of the twentieth century came to an end and
for one decade maybe we were all Fukuyamaists
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for the nineties. By Fukuyamaism I mean the
idea that basically we found if not the best
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formula at least the least bad formula. Liberal
democratic capitalism with elements of rebel
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state and so on and so on. And even the left
played this game. You know we were fighting
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for less racism, women’s right, gay rights,
whatever tolerance. But basically we accepted
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the system. I think and even Fukuyama himself
is no longer a Fukuyamaist as I know that
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if there is a lesson of September 11 if other
event is that no we don’t have the answer.
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That not only is liberal democratic capitalism
not the universal model and is just a time
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of slow historical progress for it to be accepted
everywhere. But again try now in Singapore
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and other examples of very successful economies
today demonstrate that this, let’s call
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it ironically eternal marriage between democracy
and capitalism it’s coming to an end.
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What we are more and more getting today is
a capitalism which is brutally efficient but
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it no longer needs democracy for its functioning.
That’s my first point. My second point is
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that the problems that we are confronting
today we can list them in different ways but
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my point is they are all problems of commons.
For example, ecology it’s clearly a problem
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of commons. Nature our natural environment
is our commons, something which shouldn’t
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be privatized because it belongs to all of
us. It’s as it were the background or literally
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the ground of our being. And it’s clear
for me that here we need to reinvent not local
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democracy but on the contrary also large scale
solutions. The problem today is not local
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communitarian democracy. The problem today
is how it regulates trends worldwide. Because
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even here I almost admire the – if I may
use this old fashioned Marxist terms the ruling
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ideology, no. Like turning the cards upon
us and making us individually guilty like
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did you separate all diet Coke cans. Did you
separate all the newspapers and so on. I mean
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I find it ridiculous how not only are we made
responsible. Instead of blaming not some person
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but the system as such how to reorganize our
lives. But this solution also allows us an
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easy way out. Then as if you recycle, you
buy green products and so on and you feel
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well, you did your duty.
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And another example that I use again and again
– Starbucks coffee and others. I think it’s
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something very ingenious that capitalists
there. You know when you enter a Starbucks
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place they always tell you, you know, we take
care of nature, five percent of our profits
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go for Guatemalan rainforest, for Somalian
children, whatever. I think this is ingenious
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that when we are consumerists we feel bad.
Oh my God, I’m just a consumerist. People
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are starving there. We are ruining Mother
Earth. But here the message is our coffee
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is a little bit more expensive but the ideological
price to do something for Mother Earth is
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included into it, you know. I even – that
would be my idea, Starbucks you know, how
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they bring your bill when you pay check and
then it says that – how do they call it
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this additional federal tax or whatever so
much. I would love to have it where they would
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put it, you know, three percent for helping
Mother Earth included, five percent for Guatemala
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orphans included. And it makes you feel good
and so on. So what I’m saying is that, for
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example, this is one example of endangered
commons where I’m not underestimating capitalism
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here. Of course one should use all capitalists
and market tools like higher taxes for polluters
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and all of that.
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But you cannot control in this way real ecological
catastrophes. Imagine Fukushima which happened
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an earthquake and all that in Japan. Now it
would be a couple of years ago. Imagine the
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same thing just some – it’s quite realistic
act of imagining – just some two, three
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times stronger which means that probably the
whole northern third of Japan would have to
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be evacuated. How to confront this? Who will
do it and so on and so on. We need a solution
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here and the problem is the commons. Next
point. Finances. Everyone knows that some
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type of regulation is needed otherwise the
way banks function today it’s simply even
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from the standpoint of let’s call it naively
rational capitalism. It no longer works. Another
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thing – so called intellectual property.
Jeremy Rifkin pointed out how we are already
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almost approaching there a kind of a weird
communism. I don’t know how it is here with
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you but in my part of Europe, DVDs are disappearing.
You download everything. It’s – I think
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– okay this is one phenomenon but I think
that generally there is something in so called
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intellectual property, knowledge and so on
which is communist in its very nature in the
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sense that it resists being constrained by
private profit. It tends to circulate freely.
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So again how to solve this problem? I don’t
think that capitalism will succeed in privatizing
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intellectual property. Next point biogenetics.
Are we aware what is happening today? I mean
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I don’t want to exaggerate and I’m not
a panic monger. I’m not saying tomorrow
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we will be robots. I’m just saying that
two things are happening which are more and
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more reality. A, that and this is something
so tremendously important philosophically.
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Direct contact between the inside of our brain,
our thoughts, and outside like we all know,
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for example, that today still at a very primitive
level but we can directly wire our brain so
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that machine can read it direct – and, for
example, Stephen Hawking no longer will have
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needed his finger. Now he was functioning
with the finger just moving it a little bit.
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You think forward, your wheelchair moves forward
and so on. Of course one of the problems here
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is that if it goes outside you just think
about it, it happens, it also goes inside
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the other way around. So all this prospect
of the biogenetically changing your properties
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directly wiring your mind and so on. How will
this be used for social control? And, for
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example, when I visited China five years ago
I got in a conversation with some big shot
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from their Academy of Biogenetics. I mean
biogenetic department of their Academy of
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Sciences. And he gave me the program of goals
of biogenetics in China. A kind of a programmatic
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text which pretty much terrified me.
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It opens up the text with something like the
goal of biogenetics in the People’s Republic
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of China is to regulate the physical and the
psychic welfare of Chinese people. My God,
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what does that mean? Now I’m not here a
conservative guy who is in panic. No, it’s
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a new field. Who knows but we have to be aware
of the problem and it cannot be decided on
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the market. We need new forms of global control
and regulation. And the last thing, new forms
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of apartheid. That’s the ultimate irony
for me. Berlin Wall fell down, now new walls
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are emerging all around. The United States,
Mexico. West Bank, Israel occupied territories
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to even the south of Spain how to isolate
Europe from Africa and so on and so on. I
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think the paradox of today’s global capitalism
is that on the one hand it’s global, free
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flow of capital but the free movement of people
is more and more controlled and more and more
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we get new forms of apartheid. Full cities
and those immigrants half excluded and so
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on. These are all problems we are confronting
today. And the big question is can we cope
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with these problems within the liberal democratic
capitalist frame. I’m a pessimist here.
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I don’t see – I’m really a pessimist
because I don’t see a clear solution here.
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I’m certainly not an idiot who claims oh,
a new Leninist party or whatever, will regulate
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it. No, that game is over. But I claim just
two things.
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A, all these problems are problems of commons.
Biogenetics – our genetic inheritance is
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our humanity’s genetic commons with new
forms of apartheid we are talking simply about
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commons as the common social space and so
these are all problems of commons and how
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to confront them, how to deal with them because,
you know, the paradox here is that on the
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one hand we are already getting elements aspects
of communism like again with all the downloading
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and so on. New forms of circulation of knowledge
even of commodities which no longer follow
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the market model. On the other hand I’m
well aware that all this also brings out new
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problems which is why as I always repeat it,
I support Julian Assange WikiLeaks. But not
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in the usual anti-American way. I always emphasize
this. WikiLeaks should not be used for cheap
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anti-Americanism. Why not? Because there is
a point in those who say that imagine someone
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like Chelsea Manning in China. There would
not be a trial. She would just disappear probably
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together with the entire family or whatever.
So why nonetheless we should also talk about
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United States even if the control is much
worse in China, Russia and so on.
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Because there is one problem and I can tell
you I was in China and Russia. There people
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are well aware of the limitation of their
freedom. Nobody in China has the illusion
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that they are actually free. You have local
freedoms of choice, you know. You can do sexually
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whatever you want. You can more or less read
books that you want. You can find a job if
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you find it of course that you want. But the
general social network no democracy there
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also with us is getting worse and worse but
that’s another point. What I want to say
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is that the importance of WikiLeaks for United
States is that how here in the United States
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we can – our lives can also be controlled
and regulated but without us being aware of
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it. We still experience ourselves as fully
free. And this is for me the most dangerous
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unfreedom. The unfreedom which is not even
aware of itself as unfreedom. Unfreedom which
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is experienced as freedom.
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Another point here is we all know what is
going on now is something incredible. TISA,
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T – I – S – A and other negotiations
which are incredibly important. They will
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regulate markets, exchange of data and so
on neo-liberal lines so that they will radically
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define the basic coordinates of our economic
lives even more. But the point is we don’t
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– these negotiations are all done in secret.
So, you see, this is for me the problem of
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freedom today. Yes, we have freedom at the
level of freedom of choice. You buy this,
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you buy that, you travel here, you travel
there, whatever. But for me freedom has to
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be more. Actual freedom has to also be the
freedom to regulate the very basic coordinates
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of your life. You have a choice between this
and that but how is the entire field which
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offers you these choices and not other choices
– how is it structured? At that level we
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get more and more secret agreements, we get
less and less freedom. So freedom is a big
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problem today but it’s the struggle for
what we understand with freedom.
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