6th Subversive festival
15 May, 2013. Alexis Tsipras and Slavoj Žižek, The Role of the European Left Moderator: Srećko Horvat
Žižek starts here
If Syriza wins nothing will be the same. Al Gore that dummy, everyone expected him to win, “I am the guy who once was the future American President” All history will be read as pointing towards the Syriza victory. If Syriza wins and does something it will be the end of the old Europe. The very soul of Europe will change.
Radical egalitarianism, radical democracy this is at the core of European identity and this is at stake today. Brussels technocrats, anti-immigrant fascists they are the true threat to Europe. You have economic neo-liberalism combined with anti-immigrant populism, this is not Europe. Syriza stands for Europe, what Europe stands for, not just the marginals etc.
Syriza is the voice of true reason and moderation, the dangerous experimenters are in power, what is attributed to Syriza is what the Euro-technocrats are doing. asdf
Žižek pt 2
After 1968, capitalism welfare state wasn’t in total crisis. While today the systemic crisis is here, so return to social democratic welfare state is not the solution, for all our sympathies for Latin America, we can’t simply follow the Latin American way.
Alliances, I’m not fascinated with Tahir Sq. What about the morning after What will your victory mean in the lives of ordinary people when life returns back to nomral. Its a question of intelligent alliances. Its not simple redistribution, since for a couple decades we’ll still live within capitalism. In the old commie days, patriotic bourgeoisie, genuine interest to produce for the people, its not just strike at the rich, but a carefully planned strategy, competition, small level prod’n of consumerist goods. Crazy as it will sound, a dream of what Syriza will be, within global distribution, should make life easier for truly productive capitalists, its the link with State clientelism with international banks, this is bad even for productive capitalist classes. If you are a good honest capitalist you can still vote for us.
Golden Dawn one aspect of unfortunately a trend all around Europe. Croatia and Slovenia the discourse is changing, in the last decades there is a subtle re-writing of WWII. It wasn’t simply that the good side one, a subtle rehabilitation of soft fascism. Things that were unthinkable in Europe 30 years ago are back, before fascists were not tolerated.
Banking System Today’s economy needs banks. Not Wall St. but Main St. too simplistic. If you look really closely how indebted countries works, this structure of debts, 80% of money is speculative money. Iceland, a couple of private speculators ruined everything. Simply in the interests of capitalist production, the ongoing global banking system cannot do its function, a more popular democratic banking system is necessary simply for capitalist prod’n to survive. Syriza should not just a crazy leftist solution, but make it a better bourgeois state. You will have to do, what capitalist ruling class could not do themselves.
Žižek pt 3 If you want to have a real popular mobilization beyond, above the standard bureacratic politics, you need a charismatic leader look at Chavez, there are genuine charismatic leaders that are not Stalin. Its first time in my life I’m accused of being a social democrat. The so-called Stalinist State Socialism was also a catastrophe. I don’t believe that local forms of self-organization, have the potential to universalize themselves. I am shameless saying back to Marx from Hegel, we have to re-invent the state. I’m totally opposed to John Holloway, who said I was in Greece, a park was proclaimed a liberated zone, entrance prohibited to capitalism. that’s crazy. This idea of some type of immediate self-transparent direct democracy. I don’t like enthusiastic moments, where after you have nostalgic moments, then your phone rings I have to go back to the bank my boss is calling. When the enthusiasm is over I want the Left to change things at the everyday common-sense level. Don’t fall in love with enthusiastic moments. It lasts for 2 months. I’m not talking about bourgeois state, we should re-invent these large scale mechanisms.
Žižek pt 4 The old Ricardo dream, you will get the good function of money. There are differences up and down but I don’t believe there was a Golden Era. American Leftists it was the 1950s, I’m skeptical. Argentinian cooperatives, I’m skeptical. Latin American countries like to point out factories taken over by workers, but re-visit the same factories a year later. You can’t universalize the cooperatives. Maurizio Lazzarato’s book The Making of the Indebted Man: An Essay on the Neoliberal Condition did something very important. Capitalism can less and less globally afford even these formal freedoms. What I like in Lazzarato’s work, all the ideological networks that make us accept this form of slavery, the universalization of capitalism, in a way a different levels we are all capitalists. Aren’t you acting as a self-entrepreneur, we are all capitalists. As all efficient forms of ideology, if I decide to economize and invest in education, am I not treating myself as object of investment, this change of everyday attitudes, everyday forms perceived as apolitical. Ideology which matters is everyday, how you preceive your everyday situation. Never underestimate the power of ideology today.