It's Ideology, Stupid!

"But what if "moral hazard" is inscribed into the very structure of capitalism? That is to say, there is no way to separate the two: in the capitalist system, welfare on Main Street depends on a thriving Wall Street. . . To put it in more sophisticated terms, the 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."^1a

"Incidentally, it is a sign of the maturity of the US Public that there have been no traces of anti-Semitism in their reaction to the financial crisis, although it would have been easy to imagine a reaction such as: "Did you notice how Jews, Jewish financiers, made us hard-working Americans pay $700 billion to cover the cost of their follies!""^1b

"Are we thus not gradually approaching a global state in which the potential scarcity of three basic material resources (oil, water, and food) will become the determining factor in international politics? Is not the lack of food -- which makes itself visible in (for the time being) sporadic crises here and there -- one of the signs of the forthcoming apocalypse?"^1c

The Communist Hypothesis

"The only true question today is: do we endorse the predominant naturalization of capitalism, or does today's global capitalism contain antagonisms which are sufficiently strong to prevent its indefinite reproduction? There are four such antagonisms: the looming threat of an ecological catastrophe; the inappropriateness of the notion of private property in relation to so-called "intellectual property"; the socio-ethical implications of new techno-scientific developments (especially in biogenetics); and, last but not least, the creation of new forms of apartheid, new Walls and slums. . .
"What the struggles in all these domains share is an awareness of the potential for destruction, up to and including the self-annihilation of humanity itself, should the capitalist logic of enclosing the commons be allowed a free run. . .
"If this sounds apocalyptic, one can only retort that we live in apocalyptic times. . ."^1d

   
The Sublime Object of Ideology.

   
The Parallax View.

* Italics in the original.

¹ Slavoj Žižek (b. 1949). First as Tragedy, Then as Farce. Slavoj Žižek, 2009. Brooklyn, NY: Verso; New Left Books, 2009.
1. It's Ideology, Stupid!
^a Capitalist Socialism, at 13.
^b The Structure of Enemy Propaganda, Note at 37.
^c Communism, Again!, at 83.
2. The Communist Hypothesis
^d The New Enclosure of the Commons, at 90-93.

MK-BOOK-ZIZEK-20110224.