Here are links to:
Introduction (An Introduction to Slavoj Zizek)
Part I (The Introduction to Living in the End Times
Part II (Chapter 1)
Part III (Chapter 2)
And here is Part IV: Bargaining!
Bargaining, the third stage of grief as late capitalism confronts the ecological crisis, the consequences of the biogenetic revolution, growing imbalances within the system itself, and exploding social divisions, is in focus here, and it brings us right into a critique of capitalist economics. Zizek is deeply inspired by Karl Marx, and it comes out in a tour de force here. Zizek is most interested in debunking the myth that Capitalism is an ahistorical, asocial form. Because of the nature of Capitalism, and its emphasis on human individuality and freedom, it's hard to avoid this myth. It's easy to see money as a natural phenomenon which has served as a tool by which people can freely express themselves and enjoy self-determination, not a product of human psychology and ideology. Theories such as Heidegger's categories of a general 'will-to-power' or a 'will-to-technological-domination' have been utilized to provide a natural explanation of the "inherent structure of capitalist reproduction which can survive only through its incessant expansion and for which this ever-expanding reproduction, not some final state, is itself the only true goal of the entire movement"(188). But this is not so, according to Zizek. Capitalist production does not come naturally to people, but is rather the effect of a political and class struggle that is built into the social body itself. And the social body anchors itself to an ingrained ideology.
The ideology of free-market capital can be unearthed when considering the "inner logic of the three functions of money." Here Zizek takes a close reading of Marx and combines it with a Lacanian analysis. First we have Marx's 'ideal money', which requires no physical material - "it is enough to imagine a certain sum of money which expresses the value of the commodity in question." So, let's imagine gold, and let's put a number beside it, and let's imagine that that number has a relation to, say wheat, and so on. This exercise would be tied in with Lacan's Imaginary. It's at the Imaginary that the ego is conceived and born. It's where ideas are born, which then have a powerful effect on one's understanding of the world and one's place in it. Here the concept of money is born. Next, we pass to symbolic money. This is where cash comes in. The Lacanian category of the Symbolic refers to "the impersonal framework of society, the arena in which we take our place as part of a community of fellow human beings"(Tony Myers, 22). Cash becomes that physical object with the symbolic efficacy to make real interpersonal transactions. We can acquire stuff with paper. And finally, we have the Real: that which cannot be known, that which cannot be brought under a category, the world prior to language and symbolic representations. This would describe the reality of our bank vaults, the physical material resting in them. This is the treasure as it sits in the vaults prior to social valuation.
When we consider that the US debt could be wiped out in an instance if we just printed enough dollar bills, we confront the ideology of money. How much of this is just in our heads? Of course, doing so from within the ideological framework of global capitalism, we would crash the world economy. Most likely, wars would ensue. But we could clear our debt, and the 'reality' of our bank vaults would be known for what it truly is: a myth we believed in, which governed the political landscape and had real effects in people's lives. The US debt is a myth, as is the Greek debt. This is not to make light of it. The Lacanian triad ultimately makes up what we would call Reality. The triad governs our sense of morality, social responsibility, our engagement in philosophy, politics, literature, science, religion, and any other field that can be thought of. It's not so simple as erasing all debt, as that debt has come to dictate relations between people and states and nations. In Greece, real violence has erupted as a result of austerity measures and a European Union bailout. As mentioned, a clearing of the US debt through printing money would likely result in devastating wars and mass unemployment and hardship. If no money was printed, but the US merely defaulted on its loan, there would be mass unemployment, retirements ruined, and sick people would go untreated. In laying out the Lacanian analysis of money, I do not mean to simplify it. Zizek's point here is to critique the idea that labor in a capitalistic system is naturalized in a way it's never been before: it is now post-ideological. He criticizes the idea that, whereas previously imagined social structures which involved castes, estates, and traditional hierarchical links grounded themselves in ideology, Capitalist social classes have not. That labor has now become a natural phenomenon: with individual freedom to, regardless of your previous circumstances, study what you love, choose your career, and effectively determine what kind of lifestyle you will lead, your labor has become ahistorical. Zizek responds: "The abstraction of labor into an asocial form is ideological in the strict sense: it misrecognizes its own socio-historical conditions" (191).
What this means, following Marx, is that social groups don't determine a class struggle, but rather that the class struggle "precedes classes as determinate social groups" (198). In Capitalism, as with other economic models, class struggle is built into the framework of society. The ahistorical formulation of economy would argue the opposite: it would forget political economy in favor of a simple positive ordering of differing income brackets. In contrast, the formulation recognizing social-historical conditions would see 'class struggle' as preceding any ordering, and 'classes', as such, would no longer be part of a social 'reality', but rather an effect of the immanent antagonisms of capitalism. Zizek writes, "(O)ne should always bear in mind that, for a true Marxist, 'classes' are not categories of positive social reality, parts of the social body, but categories of the real of a political struggle which cuts across the entire social body, preventing its 'totalization.' True, there is no outside to capitalism today, but this should not be used to hide the fact that capitalism itself is 'antagonistic,' relying on contradictory measures to remain viable - and these immanent antagonisms open up the space for radical action" (198). What he means when he says there is no "outside to capitalism" is that capitalism is by and large the "determining factor" in the world economy. Stalin's Communism relied on a drive-to-expand, more and more productivity, and a need to increase the scope and quality of its production (188). So does China's Socialist experiment, Chavez's Bolivarian Revolution, and all of Europe's democratic quasi-socialist experiments. Why? Because their success relies on competing in a capitalist world-economy. So, radical action today does indeed exist within Global Capitalism, but Zizek's point is that such radical action, as carried out by the exploited and antagonized, should not be seen, as they commonly are, as triumphs of creative entrepreneurship. They should be seen as political events. Zizek notes, "If, say, a co-operative movement of poor farmers in a Third World country succeeds in establishing a thriving alternative network, this should be celebrated as a genuine political event" (199). In other words, it should not be understood in terms of Capitalism's success, but rather in terms of a class struggle for autonomy and self-determination within the antagonistic structure of Capitalism itself.
Zizek emphasizes that the 'class struggle' is not one between agents, but rather that which constitutes agents. If it were the former, Capitalism would be thought in its ahistorical, post-ideological sense, which is a fiction. The struggle of the Third World co-operative movement of poor farmers would be seen outside the context of exploitation: a system designed to pay them a subsistence-level income in exchange for their servitude to the institutions that determine prices and value, demand exportation, and provide the framework by which middle-men corporations and their investors can profit. As the latter, class belonging is no longer understood in terms of an objective social fact, but as the result of a historical process and the antagonisms built into the system that keep it afloat. The exploitation is seen for what it is: an antagonism (struggle) preceding the Third-world co-operative's engagement in the world. A political struggle constituting their social engagement. Class belonging is then understood as "the result of struggle and subjective engagement" (202).
I plan to actually follow up this blog with another one because "Bargaining" it's a long chapter with a lot of profound insights. This will due for now, I suppose.
Myers, Tony. Slavoj Zizek. New York: Routledge, 2003.
Zizek, Slavoj. Living in the End Times. Brooklyn, New York: Verso, 2010.
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