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Slavoj Zizek is like the Tom Waits of philosophy – tenacious, famous in the counte rculture and a master of his art. Equally adept at psychoanalysis, cultural theory and political philosophizing, Zizek’s latest book offers his critique of the recent economic bailout and explores its consequences as a moral failure of the left.
Zizek proposes that two crises occurred that showed the major failings of the United States: Sept. 11, 2001, and the current economic bailout. In a narrative voice that holds back no punches, Zizek raises the question of, “Is the bailout plan really a ‘socialist’ measure, the birth of state socialism in the U.S.?” He rightly concludes that, “If it is, it is a very peculiar form: a ‘socialist’ measure whose primary aim is not to help the poor, but the rich; not those who borrow, but those who lend. In a supreme irony, ‘socializing’ the banking system is acceptable when it serves to save capitalism. Socialism is bad –except when it serves to stabilize capitalism.”
Throughout the book Zizek makes the case that several of the current reactions to the bailout, including populist outrage, are misguided attempts by citizens to grasp the enormous mess of the economy. The populist outrage, according to Zizek, show that this economy’s interdependent “relationship is non-transitive: while what is good for Wall Street is not necessarily good for Main Street, Main Street cannot thrive if Wall Street is feeling sickly, and this asymmetry gives an a priori advantage to Wall Street.”
More explicitly, he counsels Americans when he says, “When we are transfixed by events such as the bail-out plan, we should bear in mind that since this is actually a form of blackmail we must resist the populist temptation to act out our anger and thus wound ourselves.”
Page after page includes some kernel of wisdom about the state of America’s affairs, and how the moral failing of our economic system and our representatives have brought us to our current troubles.
After pointing out several of the key players that set up the conditions for the economic crisis he points out the failed assumptions of economic advisor Alan Greenspan. “What he [Greenspan] forgot to include in the equation was the financial speculators’ quite rational expectation that the risks would be worth taking, since in the event of a financial collapse they could count on the state to cover their losses.”
As economist Pat Choate has pointed out, this economic crisis was not the first, but more like the eighth in the last several decades, and what might have begun as a tragedy in the American economy truly has become a farce, according to Zizek’s analysis.
Zizek offers a reason for the farcical turn amidst his argument when he writes, “This is indeed how ideology functions today: nobody takes democracy or justice seriously, we are all aware of their corrupted nature, but we participate in them, we display our belief in them, because we assume that they work even if we do not believe in them.”
Zizek has an agenda, and readers are introduced early on to his inclination toward communism, and even so, it is pretty hard to argue with him writing, “The financial meltdown made it impossible to ignore the blatant irrationality of global capitalism.”
Among his more poignant observations on the weakening of the political left he writes, “Left to itself, liberalism will slowly undermine itself –the only thing that can save its core is a renewed left.” And that renewal is not expected to come from the current administration. Zizek says, “it is quite possible that Obama will turn out to be a ‘Bush with a human face,’ making no more than a few minor face-lifting improvements. He will pursue the same basic politics in a more attractive mode and thus possibly even strengthen US hegemony, damaged as it has been by the catastrophe of the Bush years.” So far, his analysis seems spot-on.
For anyone considering reading this book, one will get a lot of insight into contemporary affairs. Zizek will show an adept use of psychology to understand our culture in the broad sense using everything from Marx to Kung Fu Panda to Lacan and a few dirty jokes thrown in when they are needed most. The only unfortunate effect of this versatility is that it makes comprehension difficult sometimes, and the casual reader will find this book not-so-casual reading.
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