Re: [Marxism] zizek on tibet and china

["Paul Flewers" <rfls12802@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

John cited: ' There is a further paradox at work here. What if the promised
second stage, the democracy that follows the authoritarian vale of tears,
never arrives? This, perhaps, is what is so unsettling about China today:
the suspicion that its authoritarian capitalism is not merely a reminder of
our past - of the process of capitalist accumulation which, in Europe, took
place from the 16th to the 18th century - but a sign of our future? What if
the combination of the Asian knout and the European stock market proves
economically more efficient than liberal capitalism? What if democracy, as
we understand it, is no longer the condition and motor of economic
development, but an obstacle to it?'

This is a very good point. Liberals in Britain continually rabbit on about
how democracy (that is, liberal democracy) is now the political norm;
democracy is on the march, undemocratic regimes are a hangover from the
past, China and Russia will inevitably become liberal democracies, and so
on. However, the manner in which Putin did not hide the fact that he was
going to fiddle the recent elections in Russia even though he was very
likely to win them fairly, shows that he was making a point to Western
observers: 'Don't think that I go along with all this democracy stuff. I run
this place. And what can you do about it?' The Chinese regime is in a
similar position. 

An important question is this: How many countries were properly
liberal-democratic continually through the twentieth century? Not many,
that's for sure. Britain did not have full adult suffrage until after the
First World War; and the Six Counties of Northern Ireland could not be
considered a liberal democracy by any standard. As for the British Empire...
In the USA, there was the institutionalised racism of the South. Liberal
democracy was the exception, not the norm, in the world; and in any case it
was often hedged in with all sorts of qualifications, especially in respect
of working-class rights. Liberal democracy only exists in large parts of the
world today because class and other social tensions are relatively subdued.
Were social tensions to rise in, say, Latin America, how long would
bourgeois-democratic regimes manage to exist? How long before the military
coups reappeared?

China is the big challenge to US hegemony; the race between them has only
really just started. Unlike inter-imperialist trade rivalries, where one
nation would for a while undercut another in one or two sectors by a slight
margin before another undercut that one, China will increasingly undercut
the big powers by a large margin across many sectors. This is real
competition in a way we've never seen it. Commercial rivalry will be
followed by diplomatic rivalry and eventually military rivalry. Perhaps in
another 10 or 20 years, we'll have a world alignment of the USA versus
China, and the other countries will find their way within that relationship.

I highly doubt that China will become a liberal democracy. There may be more
freedom for the intellectual, especially within the less obviously
politicised sciences, but not intellectual freedom, especially within
sensitive political areas. One of the main targets of the anti-Chinese
chauvinism that will be whipped up in the USA and its allies when
competition really kicks in will be this lack of democracy -- and it will be
our Decent leftists and liberals who will be in the van of this, the lot who
have already shown their colours over the Balkans and Iraq. The Hitchenses
of this world will be the new McCarthyites. Of course, at the same time,
wherever deemed necessary by our rulers, democratic rights, especially for
the working class, in the USA and its allies will come under attack, all in
the name of 'defending democracy'.

Paul F








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