Does socialism have a future? Many think that question has been answered definitively in the negative. Others see the latest economic crisis as evidence that the question remains open, and many continue to hope that a more egalitarian form of justice is possible than anything so far delivered by capitalism. Whatever the case, you might think it a solid conclusion from the experience of the left in the 20th century that if socialism is to have a future worth fighting for, this would have to be a socialism that had thoroughly assimilated the norms and the practices of pluralist democracy, had understood the depths of the human disaster that authoritarian, non-democratic socialisms had led to.
All the more mystifying is it therefore that a man can be taken seriously as an intellectual of the left who speaks like Slavoj Žižek. Here he is, talking to Jonathan Derbyshire:
"... A large majority of the left doesn't question liberal democracy and capitalism as such. In the same way that when we were young we wanted socialism with a human face, what a large part of today's left want is capitalism with a human face."
It's precisely Žižek's readiness to question the "liberal democracy" to which he thinks many western leftists are prematurely reconciled that so unsettles his critics... He agrees when I suggest that he is not especially interested in the questions about the nature of legitimate political authority that concern most mainstream theorists. "Yes, legitimate power is not the topic I focus on. I don't despise democracy, but for me, although democracy, in the formal sense, is precious, it is not in itself a measure of ultimate truth or authenticity. We shouldn't fetishise democracy - after all, you can have democratic elections where the majority votes for a rightist populist, and when it does, you have the right to treat the government as illegitimate. I don't think that this formal electoral procedure should be taken as equalling legitimacy."
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What implications does such an account have for the actual practice of politics? "I am a Leninist. Lenin wasn't afraid to dirty his hands. If you can get power, grab it. Do whatever is possible. This is why I support Obama. I think the battle he is fighting now over healthcare is extremely important, because it concerns the very core of the ruling ideology. The core of the campaign against Obama is freedom of choice. And the lesson, if he wins, is that freedom of choice is certainly something beautiful, but that it only works against a background of regulations, ethical presuppositions, economic conditions and so on. My position isn't that we should sit down and wait for some big revolution to come. We have to engage wherever we can. If Obama wins his battle over healthcare, if some kind of blow can be struck against the ideology of freedom of choice, it will have been a victory worth fighting for."
Where to begin? Being a critic of liberal democracy only carries any moral weight if you speak for a form of democracy that is superior to it. Otherwise, not being reconciled to it is just hot air or worse. In Žižek's case you can take your pick as to which of the two this is: he doesn't despise democracy, in fact it is precious to him; but one mustn't fetishize it, for there is another legitimacy than winning democratic elections; only he doesn't go into the detail of what this other legitimacy might be; unless we are to take grabbing power as the whole of it. Like a Leninist - a Leninist like... Obama. Such is the 'theory' that Žižek concludes here by saying is sacred.