Communism

Zizek: Covid crisis sparked fear of communism & China’s rise as superpower. But best way to prevent communism is to FOLLOW China

Slavoj Zizek

By: Slavoj Zizek

Across the world, the establishment is aware of the radical social consequences of the coronavirus pandemic. That’s why we’re seeing leaders introduce strategies and thinking that could be interpreted as fascist in principle.

A story picked up by the UK media at the end of September passed almost unnoticed. As The Guardian reported, “The government has ordered schools in England not to use resources from organizations which have expressed a desire to end capitalism. Department for Education guidance issued on Thursday for school leaders and teachers involved in setting the relationship, sex and health curriculum categorized anti-capitalism as an ‘extreme political stance’ and equated it with opposition to freedom of speech, anti-Semitism and endorsement of illegal activity.”

As far as I know, this was the first time such an explicit order had been given; nothing like this happened even in the darkest periods of the Cold War. One should also note the words used: “a desire to end capitalism.” Not an intention, a plan, a program, but simply a desire – a term which can be applied to almost any statement (“True, you didn’t say it, but it’s what you desire…»).

Plus, of course, there was the (now usual) addition of “anti-Semitism,” as if a desire to end capitalism is in itself anti-Semitic. Are the authors aware that their prohibition is in itself anti-Semitic: it implies that Jews are in their essence capitalist?

Why this sudden panic reaction to communism? Is it fear that the pandemic, global warming and other social crises may provide an opportunity for China to assert itself as the only remaining superpower? No, China is not today’s Soviet Union; the best way to prevent communism is to follow China. While the Soviet Union was the external enemy, the threat to liberal democracies today is internal, from the explosive mixture of crises that beset our societies.

Let’s take an extreme but clear example of how the ongoing pandemic pushed our societies in the direction of what we associate with communism, and for some even the worst part of it.

In his Logiques des mondes, Alain Badiou elaborated on the idea of the politics of revolutionary justice at work from the ancient Chinese ‘legists’ through Jacobins to Lenin and Mao. It consists of four moments: voluntarism (the belief that one can “move mountains,” ignoring “objective” laws and obstacles), terror (a ruthless will to crush the enemy), egalitarian justice (its immediate brutal imposition, with no understanding for the “complex circumstances” which allegedly compel us to proceed gradually), and, last but not least, trust in the people.

Does the ongoing pandemic not require us to invent a new version of these four features?

Voluntarism: Even in countries where conservative forces are in power, decisions are taken which clearly violate “objective” laws of the market, like the state directly intervening in industry, distributing billions to prevent hunger or for healthcare measures.

Terror: Liberals are correct in their fears. Not only are states forced to enact new modes of social control and regulation, but people are even solicited to report family members and neighbors who hide their infection to the authorities.

Egalitarian justice: It is commonly accepted that the eventual vaccine should be accessible to everybody, and that no part of the world population should be sacrificed to the virus – the cure is either global or inefficient.

Trust in the people: We all know that most of the measures against the pandemic only work if people follow the recommendations. No state control can do the work here.

But much more important than this is the partial socialization of economy imposed by the pandemic. Such a socialization will become even more urgent with the ongoing rise in infections. This is how one should also interpret the ‘fascist’ tendencies of Trump and other populists. As Walter Benjamin said long ago: “Behind every fascism, there is a failed revolution.”

These ‘fascist’ tendencies signal that the establishment is silently aware of the radical social consequences of the pandemic. The establishment acts preventively by trying to quash them before they acquire full political form.

Although it is too simple to dismiss Trump as a fascist, the danger he embodies is even worse than outright fascism. From my youth, I remember a classic East German joke: Richard Nixon, Leonid Brezhnev and Erich Honecker confront God, asking him about the future of their countries. To Nixon, he answers: “In 2050, the US will be communist.” Nixon turns around and starts to cry. To Brezhnev, he says: “In 2050, the Soviet Union will be a Chinese province.” After Brezhnev also turns around and starts to cry, Honecker finally asks: “And how will it be in my beloved GDR?” And God turns around, and starts to cry…

We can easily imagine a version of the same joke if Trump and those similar to him prevail in our world. Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Donald Trump confront God with the same question. To Putin, God answers: “Russia will be controlled by China,” so Putin turns around and starts to cry. To Xi, God answers: “Mainland China will be dominated by Taiwan,” so Xi does the same. When Trump finally asks the same question, God turns around and starts to cry…

What we are getting today – not only in China – is the combination of strong authoritarian states with wild capitalist dynamics. The most efficient form of capitalism today is what Henry Farrell called “networked authoritarianism”: if a state spies on people enough and allows machine-learning systems to incorporate their behavior and respond to it, it is possible to provide for everyone’s needs better than a democracy could. Here, Xi, Putin and Trump are joining hands.

Two conclusions impose themselves here, a short-term one and a long-term one. The short-term one is that the task of (whatever remains of) the radical left is now, as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez pointed out, to save our “bourgeois” democracy when the liberal center is too weak and indecisive to do it. ‘Shame on them; we have now even to fight their battles!’

Obsessed by Trump’s provocative eccentricities, liberals miss the key point, developed by Michael Sandel: Trump is not a dictator, he only plays one on television, and we should not play along as his supporting cast. This is what we do when we criticize him as some kind of fascist, instead of focusing on his failures which he obfuscates by his dictatorial excesses and provocations. His typical strategy is to provoke the liberal ire which attracts wide attention and then, out of sight of the public at large, enforce measures which limit workers’ rights, etc.

And the second conclusion? During the protests that erupted in Chile in October 2019, there was graffiti on a wall which read, “Another end of the world is possible.”. This should be our answer to an establishment obsessed by apocalyptic scenarios. Yes, your old world is coming to an end, but the options envisaged by you are not the only ones: another end of the world is possible.

Source and Image: https://www.rt.com/op-ed/502825-china-communism-covid-follow/

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Global communism or the jungle law, coronavirus forces us to decide

Slavoj Zizek

By: Slavoj Zizek

As panic over coronavirus spreads, we have to make the ultimate choice – either we enact the most brutal logic of the survival of the fittest or some kind of reinvented communism with global coordination and collaboration.

Our media endlessly repeat the formula “No panic!” And then we get all the reports which cannot but trigger panic. The situation resembles the one I remember from my youth in a communist country: when government officials assured the public that there is no reason to panic, we all took these assurances as clear signs that they were themselves in panic.

It’s too serious to lose time with panic

Panic has a logic of its own. The fact that, in the UK, due to the coronavirus panic even toilet paper rolls have disappeared from the stores reminds me of a weird incident with toilet paper from my youth in socialist Yugoslavia. All of a sudden, a rumor started to circulate that there was not enough toilet paper in the stores. The authorities promptly issued assurances that there was enough toilet paper for the normal consumption, and, surprisingly, this was not only true but people mostly even believed it was true.

However, an average consumer reasoned in the following way: I know there is enough toilet paper and the rumor is false, but what if some people take this rumor seriously and, in a panic, will start to buy excessive reserves of toilet paper, causing this way an actual lack of toilet paper? So I better go and buy reserves of it myself.

The strange counterpart of this kind of ongoing excessive panic is the total lack of panic where it would have been fully justified. In the last couple of years, after the SARS and ebola epidemics, we were told again and again that a new much stronger epidemic is just a matter of time, that the question is not IF but WHEN it will occur. Although we were rationally convinced of the truth of these dire predictions, we somehow didn’t take them seriously and were reluctant to act and engage in serious preparations – the only place we dealt with them were in apocalyptic movies like Contagion.It is even not necessary to believe that some others take the rumor seriously – it is enough to presuppose that some others believe that there are people who take the rumor seriously – the effect is the same, namely the real lack of toilet paper in the stores. Is something similar not going on in the UK (and also in California) today?

What this contrast tells us is that panic is not a proper way to confront a real threat. When we react in panic we do not take the threat too seriously. On the contrary, we trivialize it. Just think at how ridiculous the excessive buying of toilet paper rolls is: as if having enough toilet paper would matter in the midst of a deadly epidemic. So what would be an appropriate reaction to the coronavirus epidemic? What should we learn and what should we do to confront it seriously?

What I mean by communism

When I suggested that the coronavirus epidemic may give a new boost of life to communism, my claim was, as expected, ridiculed. Although it looks that the strong approach to the crisis by the Chinese state worked – at least it worked much better than what goes on now in Italy, the old authoritarian logic of communists in power also clearly demonstrated its limitations. One of them was that the fear of bringing bad news to those in power (and to the public) outweighs actual results – this was apparently the reason why those who first shared information on a new virus were reportedly arrested, and there are reports that a similar thing is going on now.

“The pressure to get China back to work after the coronavirus shutdown is resurrecting an old temptation: doctoring data so it shows senior officials what they want to see,” reports Bloomberg. “This phenomenon is playing out in Zhejiang province, an industrial hub on the east coast, in the form of electricity usage. At least three cities there have given local factories targets to hit for power consumption because they’re using the data to show a resurgence in production, according to people familiar with the matter. That’s prompted some businesses to run machinery even as their plants remain empty, the people said.”

WHO chief Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said last week that although public health authorities across the globe have the ability to successfully combat the spread of the virus, the organization is concerned that in some countries the level of political commitment does not match the threat level. “This is not a drill. This is not the time to give up. This is not a time for excuses. This is a time for pulling out all the stops. Countries have been planning for scenarios like this for decades. Now is the time to act on those plans,” Tedros said. “This epidemic can be pushed back, but only with a collective, coordinated and comprehensive approach that engages the entire machinery of government.”We can also guess what will follow when those in power note this cheating: local managers will be accused of sabotage and severely punished, thus reproducing the vicious cycle of distrust… A Chinese Julian Assange would be needed here to expose to the public this concealed side of how China is coping with the epidemic. So if this is not the communism I have in mind, what do I mean by communism? To get it, it suffices to read the public declarations of WHO – here is a recent one:

One might add that such a comprehensive approach should reach well beyond the machinery of single governments: it should encompass local mobilization of people outside state control as well as strong and efficient international coordination and collaboration.

If thousands will be hospitalized for respiratory problems, a vastly increased number of respiratory machines will be needed, and to get them, the state should directly intervene in the same way as it intervenes in conditions of war when thousands of guns are needed, and it should rely on the cooperation of other states. As in a military campaign, information should be shared and plans fully coordinated – THIS is all I mean by ‘communism’ needed today, or, as Will Hutton put it: “Now, one form of unregulated, free-market globalization with its propensity for crises and pandemics is certainly dying. But another form that recognizes interdependence and the primacy of evidence-based collective action is being born.”

Global coordination & collaboration necessary

What now still predominates is the stance of “every country for itself”: “There are national bans on exports of key products such as medical supplies, with countries falling back on their own analysis of the crisis amid localised shortages and haphazard, primitive approaches to containment,” Will Hutton wrote in the Guardian.

The coronavirus epidemic does not signal just the limit of market globalization, it also signals the even more fatal limit of nationalist populism which insists on full state sovereignty: it’s over with ‘America (or whoever) first!’ since America can be saved only through global coordination and collaboration.

I am not a utopian here, I don’t appeal to an idealized solidarity between people – on the contrary, the present crisis demonstrates clearly how global solidarity and cooperation is in the interest of survival of all and each of us, how it is the only rational egotist thing to do. And it’s not just coronavirus: China itself suffered a gigantic swine flu months ago, and it is now threatened by the prospect of a locust invasion. Plus, as Owen Jones noted, climate crisis kills much more people around the world than coronavirus, but there is no panic about this.

From a cynical vitalist standpoint, one would be tempted to see coronavirus as a beneficial infection which allows humanity to get rid of the old, weak and ill, like pulling out the half-rotten weed, and thus contributes to global health.

The broad communist approach I am advocating is the only way for us to really leave behind such a primitive vitalist standpoint. Signs of curtailing unconditional solidarity are already discernible in the ongoing debates, as in the following note about the role of the “three wise men” if the epidemics takes a more catastrophic turn in the UK: “NHS patients could be denied life saving care during a severe coronavirus outbreak in Britain if intensive care units are struggling to cope, senior doctors have warned. Under a so-called ‘three wise men’ protocol, three senior consultants in each hospital would be forced to make decisions on rationing care such as ventilators and beds, in the event hospitals were overwhelmed with patients.”

What criteria will the “three wise men” rely on? Sacrifice the weakest and eldest? And will this situation not just open up space for immense corruption? Do such procedures not indicate that we are getting ready to enact the most brutal logic of the survival of the fittest? So, again, the ultimate choice is: this or some kind of reinvented communism.

Source and Image: https://www.rt.com/op-ed/482780-coronavirus-communism-jungle-law-choice/

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