Well I think it's hard to define "wealth" adequately, but I think it's pretty easy to show that there isn't a constant, finite amount of wealth in the world, and that capitalism has probably, at least in the short run, increased the total amount of it in the world, regardless of how it's been distributed
This parts I think iseasy to show: "there isn't a constant, finite amount of wealth in the world".
This part, not so much: "capitalism has ... increased the total amount of it in the world".
The world is not a reproducible experiment where we can add in capitalism and take it out, keeping all other variables constant, and compare the results. Maybe it's been technology that's increased wealth, which happened to coincide with increased capitalism? Or better education, health, human rights, women's suffrage, democracy, etc. Who knows which factor is predominant?
― o. nate, Friday, 8 January 2010 17:49 (fourteen years ago) link
muslim brotherhood was founded well before nasser was in power as a response to british militarism/colonialism
― max, Friday, January 8, 2010 5:15 PM (30 minutes ago) Bookmark
and got much stronger and more militant after the british were kicked out...
it's obviously easier to think of everything from the pov of the west, but the muslim bros were about a lot more than getting rid of the brits. they were against any kind of secular government.
n e way, zizek's argument that islamism is a result of US meddling doesn't stand up. it was also the brits. but i would imagine in the early history of the muslim brotherhood, it was also the collapse of the ottoman empire, and the desire to restore it? or something like it? idk, throwing that one out there, it's important context that helps explain the brits' presence.
― Patriarchy Oppression Machine (history mayne), Friday, 8 January 2010 17:52 (fourteen years ago) link
Maybe it's been technology that's increased wealth, which happened to coincide with increased capitalism? Or better education, health, human rights, women's suffrage, democracy, etc. Who knows which factor is predominant?
― o. nate, Friday, January 8, 2010 5:49 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark
"happened to coincide"? a case could be made, but really a whole lot of technology has come out of capitalist wars. science is a pretty capital-intensive business. it's difficult to separate all these things out, of course, equally difficult to discuss their relations.
marx iirc was about superseding capitalism; zizek treats it like a supernatural evil spirit that has to be destroyed.
― Patriarchy Oppression Machine (history mayne), Friday, 8 January 2010 17:58 (fourteen years ago) link
a whole lot of technology has come out of capitalist wars
That seems like a strange way to characterize the two World Wars (if that's what you're referring to). Are you saying that only wars between capitalist countries would lead to innovation?
― o. nate, Friday, 8 January 2010 18:00 (fourteen years ago) link
im using trot-speak with a dab of irony, but don't just mean those wars. im saying that war and trade were in lockstep during the scientific revolution, which was also closely related to the advance of bourgeois democracy and protestant religion, in england. it's not a matter of "competition producing innovation" or anything glib like that, more that, unless you have global trade, you don't have much need for super-accurate navigation, or long-range communication. and trade advanced along the lines of private ownership (more or less) because idk long story but that's how it happened.
― Patriarchy Oppression Machine (history mayne), Friday, 8 January 2010 18:05 (fourteen years ago) link
Your points make sense. I would agree that in the history of the world (the only world we can observe), capitalism, free trade, etc. have gone hand in hand with lots of innovation. But innovation also happened of course before there was anything as economically sophisticated as modern capitalism. I'm not sure about the validity of conflating trade and capitalism, because trade is about as ancient as human civilization, but I don't think we can make the same point about capitalism without making our definition overly broad.
― o. nate, Friday, 8 January 2010 18:09 (fourteen years ago) link
yeah. im not sure if zizek is even thinking about these questions though! i don't know what his definition of capitalism is. im mostly thinking of britain in all this, and while for sure there's always been trade, our move to capitalism -- the concentration of capital, the institution of the large-scale firm, the notion of shareholding, the division of labour -- was intimately related to us "opening up" markets overseas (using guns). the massive profits from overseas trade stimulated industry at home. etc. the role of the state in all this became pretty controversial.
anyway -- these questions are huge and no-one can answer them once and for all. but to my mind they're going to tell us more than zizek's extolling of "love" and suchlike.
― Patriarchy Oppression Machine (history mayne), Friday, 8 January 2010 19:45 (fourteen years ago) link
Well, it's an interesting question about how we choose to organize ourselves as a society. There's an inherent conflict between our democratic ideals which say that all people are equal, and our capitalist ideals which seem to require the existence of a wealthy class, which tends to perpetuate its existence using, ahem, less than democratic means.
― o. nate, Friday, 8 January 2010 19:56 (fourteen years ago) link
right now and for the next 40 minutes, zizek on "the double death of neo-liberalism" -
http://resonancefm.com
― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 21 January 2010 13:21 (fourteen years ago) link
iirc he thinks it died once on 9/11 and once again in autumn 2008.
as, really quite obviously, it did not.
as gone over above, based on the youtube clip, he doesn't actually give a fuck whether we have "neo-liberalism", "liberalism", or (what we have) a "mized economy", or any other form of capitalism. and that pretty obviously has not gone away either.
― free the charmless but occasionally brilliant Dom Passantino (history mayne), Thursday, 21 January 2010 13:37 (fourteen years ago) link
this serrano bit is basically my thesis, coulda used this this time last yr ziz
― plaxico (I know, right?), Thursday, 21 January 2010 13:49 (fourteen years ago) link
ok didn't turn out how i thought
― plaxico (I know, right?), Thursday, 21 January 2010 13:51 (fourteen years ago) link
new Verso catalogue lists "Slavoj Zizek’s brand new book Living in the End Times, about the forthcoming apocalypse." Wuh oh.
― FC Tom Tomsk Club (Merdeyeux), Friday, 22 January 2010 21:30 (fourteen years ago) link
"Everything You Wanted to Know About Lacan But Were Afraid to Ask Alfred Hitchcock" is pretty funny too
― killah priest, Friday, 22 January 2010 23:16 (fourteen years ago) link
am i right in thinking he's interviewed in the current cahiers du cinema?
― one of your top-tier posters! (history mayne), Friday, 30 April 2010 09:19 (fourteen years ago) link
http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2010/04/zizek-on-avatar.html
oh i am... and he's now written about avatar twice without seeing it.
― one of your top-tier posters! (history mayne), Friday, 30 April 2010 09:27 (fourteen years ago) link
blah blah Morbs zing blah blah will this do?
― Daily Sport Stunna Yasmin Alibhai Brown (Noodle Vague), Friday, 30 April 2010 09:30 (fourteen years ago) link
He's also in this week's New Statesman:
http://www.newstatesman.com/environment/2010/05/essay-nature-catastrophe
Pretty humdrum piece though.
― Zelda Zonk, Friday, 30 April 2010 09:48 (fourteen years ago) link
"We are living in an age when we are both able to change nature and more at its mercy than ever"
spose it depends on the "we", but, hey, anyone remember the age before medical science? bubonic plague?
yeah, no, we're probably more at the mercy of nature than ever.
― one of your top-tier posters! (history mayne), Friday, 30 April 2010 09:56 (fourteen years ago) link
LOL, I sort of admire that
― Football's Flocking Home (Tom D.), Friday, 30 April 2010 10:00 (fourteen years ago) link
it's a shitty film
but basically it confirms my view that most film theorists -- exactly like what manny farber called the "plot-sociologists" of 70 years ago -- are just dealing with synopses, not films
― one of your top-tier posters! (history mayne), Friday, 30 April 2010 10:02 (fourteen years ago) link
Hi Slavoj! The piece about Rosicrucianism, Blanchot and the Tellytubbies is great, honestly. But we at the New Statesman feel our readership would appreciate something a little more.....humdrum. RSVP!
― nakhchivan, Friday, 30 April 2010 10:08 (fourteen years ago) link
he;s used that unknown unknowns meme about a million times
basically my college's 2 most famous professors are now: this fucking clown and orlando figes
oh and daud abdullah
― one of your top-tier posters! (history mayne), Friday, 30 April 2010 10:10 (fourteen years ago) link
It feels better if you put "Daily Sport Stunna" in front of their names.
― Daily Sport Stunna Yasmin Alibhai Brown (Noodle Vague), Friday, 30 April 2010 10:12 (fourteen years ago) link
he's used everything he's ever said a million times. I read an introduction he wrote for someone else's book and 75% of it was cribbed from his past books, which seemed a weird too far extension of his self-plagiarism to me.
I, btw, like this guy lots even if/when he's very silly.
― FC Tom Tomsk Club (Merdeyeux), Friday, 30 April 2010 10:20 (fourteen years ago) link
http://www.amazon.com/Living-End-Times-Slavoj-Zizek/dp/184467598X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273924795&sr=8-1/marginalrevol-20
Kinda really want to read this.
― Mordy, Tuesday, 18 May 2010 19:53 (fourteen years ago) link
Or, as Mao Zedong put it, “There is great disorder under heaven, the situation is excellent.”
classy
― long time listener, first time balla (history mayne), Tuesday, 18 May 2010 19:54 (fourteen years ago) link
Zizek is truly one of the great trolls of our time.
― Mordy, Tuesday, 18 May 2010 19:56 (fourteen years ago) link
I'll be reading that later this year, no doubt.
― ksh, Tuesday, 18 May 2010 19:57 (fourteen years ago) link
why not read s.thing that doesn't suck?
― long time listener, first time balla (history mayne), Tuesday, 18 May 2010 19:57 (fourteen years ago) link
cause this looks super entertaining
― Mordy, Tuesday, 18 May 2010 19:58 (fourteen years ago) link
ehh people were saying capitalism was done for 80 years ago
― long time listener, first time balla (history mayne), Tuesday, 18 May 2010 20:00 (fourteen years ago) link
this is aight, for a book about... eschatology/teleology... i think those are the words i mean
http://static.letsbuyit.com/filer/images/fr/products/original/83/68/the-sense-of-an-ending-studies-in-the-theory-of-fiction-with-a-new-epilogue-8368621.jpeg
but were they finding the seeds of Communism in Heroes? i personally find Zizek very very entertaining, and sometimes I'd rather not read some dense academic text but still want to deal with provocative arguments and thoughts. Certainly more worthwhile reading Zizek than uh -- Christopher Hitchens, or Jonah Goldberg, or - le gaspe - Judith Butler.
― Mordy, Tuesday, 18 May 2010 20:01 (fourteen years ago) link
but were they finding the seeds of Communism in Heroes?
wd have been exciting in the 80s (maybe). but you know he won't even have seen it yeah?
wont stan for latter-day hitchens so much but, looked at over his career, he a) is much less of an idiot than zizek b) can write. wouldn't put him in the same sentence as goldberg.
― long time listener, first time balla (history mayne), Tuesday, 18 May 2010 20:07 (fourteen years ago) link
i find Hitchens generally hits the same notes over and over again. Maybe he frames them well, but dude hasn't had interesting things to say in a long time. I'm rarely bored around Zizek (tho too much exposure can tire you -- there's definitely a Zizek formula).
― Mordy, Tuesday, 18 May 2010 20:11 (fourteen years ago) link
i was about to say, he is king of hitting the same notes over and over! kind of inevitable given his quasi-religious adherence to lacan and (his version of) marx.
but yeah the hitch is mostly churning it out these days. he can still write a sentence though, and he's still serious even when wrong.
― long time listener, first time balla (history mayne), Tuesday, 18 May 2010 20:13 (fourteen years ago) link
pretty sure all new zizek books are cut and pasted from bits of old ones now.
― plax (ico), Wednesday, 19 May 2010 12:00 (fourteen years ago) link
but yeah i mean the guy is still funny
Verso sent me an advance hardcover copy of Living in the End Times today (and one proof I gave to the founder of ESM, to confuse him). It's on the pile with the new Bret Easton Ellis and DBC Pierre books.
― cleggaeton (suzy), Wednesday, 19 May 2010 12:31 (fourteen years ago) link
ru going to review it?
give im hell imo
― long time listener, first time balla (history mayne), Wednesday, 19 May 2010 12:55 (fourteen years ago) link
can i have the bret easton ellis one if ur not gonna read it?
― plax (ico), Sunday, 23 May 2010 20:47 (fourteen years ago) link
I'm rarely bored around Zizek (tho too much exposure can tire you -- there's definitely a Zizek formula).
― Mordy, Tuesday, 18 May 2010 20:11 (6 days ago)
It is not so much that Zisek has a formula, as that formulaity itself has an essential Zizekianness.
― hills like white people (Hurting 2), Monday, 24 May 2010 01:00 (fourteen years ago) link
Cute, tho the real Zizekian twist would be that it is only by expressing something in formula that one actually expresses something radical and revolutionary.
― Mordy, Monday, 24 May 2010 01:02 (fourteen years ago) link
at the end of history, all we can do is ceaselessly post about Animal Collective on an internet message board
― ksh, Monday, 24 May 2010 01:46 (fourteen years ago) link
this guy has used mountains of cocaine.
― by another name (amateurist), Monday, 24 May 2010 01:58 (fourteen years ago) link
i really hate / do not get lacan.
― toastmodernist, Monday, 24 May 2010 03:24 (fourteen years ago) link
We don't really have a rolling philosophy thread (maybe we should), so I'm not sure where to put this but:http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/184467617X?ie=UTF8&tag=crookedtimb04-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=184467617X
New book that looks really interesting. Review in Crooked Timber here: http://crookedtimber.org/2010/06/16/envisioning-real-utopias-announcing-a-book-event-in-the-fall/
Hugely rich and stimulating, Envisioning Real Utopias is may books in one: an incisive diagnosis of the harms done by capitalism; a masterful synthesis of the best work in political sociology and political economy over the past thirty years; and innovative theoretical framework for conceptualizing both the goals of progressive change and the strategies for their achievement; and inspiring story of actually existing challenges to capitalism that have arisen within capitalism itself; and a compelling essay on the relation between the desirable, the viable and the achievable. Anyone interested in the future of leftist politics has to read this book.
That last bit, about actual existing challenges, is what piques my interest.
― Mordy, Wednesday, 16 June 2010 16:59 (fourteen years ago) link
We don't really have a rolling philosophy thread (maybe we should)
let's do it up
― ksh, Wednesday, 16 June 2010 17:14 (fourteen years ago) link
fwiw, that book looks super interesting
― ksh, Wednesday, 16 June 2010 17:15 (fourteen years ago) link