[lbo-talk] Zizek speech to OWS

John Gulick john_gulick at hotmail.com
Mon Oct 10 08:49:12 PDT 2011


Bryan Atinsky asks:

China isn't?

John Gulick says:

I am going to answer this (briefly) only b/c some attribute to me a certain level of knowledge about China, and a certain stance regarding China -- a reputation that is largely undeserved, but one that I should do a little to uphold. I have long strenuously argued against some fossils on the "Third Worldist" (for lack of a better phrase) left that of course the PRC is decidedly capitalist. That is obvious enough; everybody of every stripe seems to recognize this (sometimes acknowledged only behind closed doors) except for them. And yes, PRC capitalist production involves a lot of ruthless super-exploitation; no need to catalogue myriad examples here. Of course, to some extent this is a consequence of China being a still-"developing" (sic, I hate that term) country -- not to make any excuses for the CCP. But more to the point, China's capitalism is not only in some sense "more ruthless," but also "more efficient" because the party-state makes huge investments in public infrastructure (not always with the most enlightened intentions or outcomes), because it has a forward-looking, largely successful (if not always "rational") industrial policy, etc. As Doug Henwood and David Harvey among other non-experts have argued. It's not all about importing parts and components, assembling them with super-exploited labor (who don't enjoy independent unions), exporting them to the rich world with an undervalued currency, etc. But even more to the point, to the extent that any of the Occupiers have chauvinist-nativist-protectonist impressions of what Chinese capitalism is all about -- "our unpatriotic corporations have exported all of our factory jobs and are in cahoots with the corrupt and wicked CCP!" -- he is not doing them or the US left any favors by reinforcing these non-dialectical impressions. But that is standard "contrarian"/"provocative"/"self-promotional" fare for Zizek, where sharpening his own brand matters more than anything else.

Now, I have to disappear. I have been spending way too much time on-line. In other words, I will not follow this thread further. Sorry.



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