BeLabouring Counter-Points...

Slavoj Zizek, "Big Capital will use every tool at its disposal to crush socialists like Corbyn"

The Labour Party’s election failure in the UK proves that, for the progressive left to succeed, it will have to become considerably more revolutionary. The ‘softly, softly’ approach isn’t working.
Since, in some sense, the election was about Brexit, the first thing that strikes the eye is the asymmetry in the position of the two big parties. The Tories constantly repeated their mantra of “Get Brexit done!”, while Labour’s stance was the worst possible.

Knowing well their supporters were almost symmetrically split between ‘Remainers’ and ‘Leavers,’ the party leadership was afraid to choose one side and thus lose voters opposed to it – but, as the saying goes, if you try to sit on two stools simultaneously you may well fall into the gap that separates them. What made things worse was how the true stance of Corbyn was more or less known: he wanted a Brexit, just a different one.

The now-outgoing party leader wanted the UK to get rid of EU financial, and other, regulations in order to pursue more radical Leftist policies. Whatever we think of this choice – there are good reasons for and against Brexit – the Labour party avoided an open debate about it and masked its indecision with a catastrophic formula: “We’ll let the people decide!”

Why was it catastrophic? Simply because people don’t want politicians to impose hard decisions on them. Instead, they demand political leaders show them a clear path, to tell them what choice to make. The Tories made their stance clear.

Playing with fire

The second reason for Labour’s failure was the well-orchestrated campaign of character assassination against Corbyn, who was even rated the Top Anti-Semite of 2019 by the Simon Wiesenthal Center (ahead of actual terrorists!). This was a case of foreign meddling into elections at least as strong as the alleged Russian meddling into the last US elections.

Gideon Levy correctly predicts that the precipitous conflation of critique of Israeli politics with anti-Semitism will give rise to a new wave of anti-Semitism, and one can clearly see where this path will eventually end. As Marxism taught us, anti-Semitism is a displaced anti-capitalism: it projects the cause of social antagonisms engendered by capitalism onto an external intruder (the ‘Jews’).

The temptation here is to make a fateful step further and to denounce any radical anti-capitalism as a form of anti-Semitism – signs of this are already multiplying all around the world. Can one imagine a more dangerous way of inciting hatred?

I find it especially worrying when this strong pro-capitalist stance is combined with the newly-discovered love among US Christian conservatives for Israel: how can the US Christian fundamentalists, who are by nature anti-Semitic, now passionately support the policy of the State of Israel?

There is only one solution to this enigma: it is not that the US fundamentalists changed, it is that Zionism itself, in its hatred of Jews who do not fully identify with the politics of the State of Israel, paradoxically became anti-Semitic. In other words, it constructed the figure of the Jew who doubts the Zionist project along anti-Semitic lines.

Trump did exactly the same when he used anti-Semitic stereotypes to characterize Jews as driven by money and insufficiently loyal to Israel. Israel is playing a dangerous game here: some time ago, Fox News, the main US voice of the radical Right and a staunch supporter of Israeli expansionism, had to demote Glen Beck, its most popular host, whose comments were becoming openly anti-Semitic.

False allies

When, at this year’s Hanukkah party, Trump signed his controversial executive order on anti-Semitism, John Hagee was there, the founder and chairman of the Christians United for Israel. On top of the standard Christian-conservative agenda (Hagee sees the Kyoto Protocol as a conspiracy aimed at manipulating the US economy; in his bestselling novel ‘Jerusalem Countdown,’ the antichrist is the head of the European Union), Hagee has made statements that definitely sound anti-Semitic.

He has blamed the Holocaust on Jews themselves; he has stated that Hitler’s persecution was a “divine plan” to lead Jews to form the modern state of Israel; he calls liberal Jews “poisoned” and “spiritually blind”; he admits that the preemptive nuclear attack on Iran that he favors will lead to the deaths of most Jews in Israel. (As a curiosity, he claims in ‘Jerusalem Countdown’ that Hitler was born from a lineage of “accursed, genocidally murderous half-breed Jews.”) With friends like these, Israel really doesn’t need enemies.

Money talks

Last but not least, the third reason is what I call the Piketty trap. In his Capital and Ideology, Thomas Piketty proposes to radicalize the welfare state – not to nationalize all wealth like in Soviet-style Communism but to maintain capitalism and redistribute assets by giving every adult a lump sum at the age of 25. The progressive income taxes he proposes would allow governments to give everyone a basic income equivalent to 60% of the average wage in wealthy nations and cover the costs of decarbonizing the economy.

Furthermore, employees should have 50% of the seats on company boards; the voting power of even the largest shareholders should be capped at 10%, with an individualized carbon tax calculated by a personalized card that would track each person’s contribution to climate change.

Piketty is thus fully aware that the model he proposes would only work if enforced globally, beyond the confines of nation-states; such a global measure presupposes an already existing global power with the strength and authority to enforce it. However, such a global power is unimaginable within the confines of today’s global capitalism and the political mechanisms it implies – in short, if such a power were to exist, the basic problem would already have been resolved. Piketty’s proposal is utopian, although he presents it as pragmatic, looking for a solution within the frame of capitalism and democratic procedures.

Safe game?

Imagine that Corbyn had won (or, for that matter, Bernie Sanders becomes US president) – and just try to fathom the shattering counter-attack of Big Capital with all its dirty tricks. Maybe the voters were aware of these potential dangers inherent in a Labour victory and preferred the safe game.

The challenges that we face, from global warming to refugees, from digital control to biogenetic manipulations, require nothing less than a global reorganization of our societies. Whichever way this will happen, two things are sure: it will not be enacted by some new version of a Leninist Communist party, but it will also not happen as part of our parliamentary democracy. It will not be just a political party winning more votes and enacting Social Democratic measures.

This brings us to the fatal limitation of Democratic Socialists. Back in 1985, Felix Guattari and Toni Negri published a short book in French ‘Les nouveaux espaces de liberté’ whose title was changed for the English translation into ‘Communists Like Us’ – the implicit message of this change was the same as that of Democratic Socialists: “Don’t be afraid, we are ordinary guys like you, we don’t pose any threat, life will just go on when we will win...” This, unfortunately, is not the option. Radical changes are needed for our survival, and life will NOT go on, as usual; we will have to change even in our innermost feelings and stances.

So we should of course fully support Labour in the UK, Democratic Socialists in the US, and their peers in other states. But if we just wait for the right moment to enact radical change, this moment will never arrive. So, we have to begin with where we are. But we should do this without illusions, fully aware that our future will demand much more than electoral games and Social Democratic measures. We are at the beginning of a dangerous voyage on which our survival depends.

Farooque Chowdhury, "Slavoj Zizek's Misunderstanding

Mr. Slavoj Zizek has tried to interpret recent development of the UK Labour Party – its election debacle – but has only exhibited his misunderstanding of the entire capitalist scenario.

The heading, if the heading is by Mr. Zizek and not by the editor, of his article in RT on December 17, 2019 – “Big Capital will use every tool at its disposal to crush socialists like Corbyn” (https://www.rt.com/op-ed/476079-corbyn-socialists-labour-capital-zizek/) – is the first show of his misunderstanding. Whoever formulates the heading, Mr. Zizek writes: “The second reason for Labour’s failure was the well-orchestrated campaign of character assassination against Corbyn […]”.

Not only big capital, all capitals irrespective of size, origin and character, irrespective of the circuits these pass through, and in whatever way it metamorphoses use every tool at its disposal to crush socialists. And, it’s not only capital, but all economic and political forces use all tools at its disposal to crush opponents, not only socialists, if not compelled to make compromise. Slave owners and feudal lords followed the formula. Capitalists of all sizes always try it. Any rich landowner in any backward economy uses all the tools he can master to crush his opponents. It’s an old fact in economy, society and politics. In any socioeconomic reality, this is the formula the antagonistic class forces follow while the forces deal with each other. However, a section claiming to be “lefties” forgets this fact as they expect their political opponent would not behave hard, brutal or barbaric. They expect their political opponent would act like a lover. It’s a childish expectation. This expectation is based not on lower- or upper-middle class, but on middle-middle class idea about class-based politics, which is actually no-idea. They understand neither class nor class struggle. They expect that they will organize protest marches and their political opponent will shower them with rose water. It’s failure to understand politics and political struggle. They even deny looking at recent street protests in Sudan and Iraq – the number of people the state machines killed.

Crushing Corbyn is not a new development. It was tried in case of Lenin, Mao and Fidel. Lenin was depicted as a German agent; Mao as a red dacoit, Fidel the same. Long articles have been composed and “serious” analyses” have been made showing Lenin was “financed” by bankers to secure bankers’ interest. There were assassination attempts on Lenin and Fidel. Even, Arafat had the same experience. There are hundreds of similar instances in countries. Therefore, Mr. Zizek’s statement is nothing new.

The point Mr. Zizek misses is: Capital’s no attempt against Lenin, Mao and Fidel succeeded. Socialists’ one of the tasks is to foil capital’s all these attempts. It depends on socialists’ capacity, capability, efficiency and power. The incapable and inefficient is busted. The rest learn from the failure.

Mr. Zizek writes in the opinion piece: “The Labour Party’s election failure in the UK proves that, for the progressive left to succeed, it will have to become considerably more revolutionary. The ‘softly, softly’ approach isn’t working.”

“More revolutionary” means the party is already “revolutionary”. In no sense, the LabParty is revolutionary. The LabParty’s program is not also revolutionary. Illusions and unreal expectations should be thrown away if someone likes to survive in the turmoil of class struggle.

In a time of rightist onslaught, in a time of the rise of the rightist and ultra-rightist forces of different colors, in absence of forceful presence of revolutionary politics, the LabParty seems better, seems better than ultra-rightist. That’s the consolation. But, basic character of the LabParty’s politics shouldn’t be forgotten. Aspiration of supporters of a political party and character of politics of the party are not always the same. The two – aspiration and character – may be the same, and the two may be different, even completely opposite. A party leadership can play – exploit – with the aspiration of its supporters to advance the interest it’s tied to. This has been/is found in all sorts of countries – advanced bourgeois democracies, colonies/neo colonies, in the metropolis of the capitalist world system and in the periphery, in the case of aged political parties and in the case of political parties new in terms of age but old in terms of politics and ideology.

Mr. Zizek refers to “[t]he challenges that we face”, and writes about the requirement of “a global reorganization of our societies.”

Other than the forces of status quo, none will disagree with this claim – “a global reorganization of our societies.” Mr. Zizek deserves thanks for this reiteration of position.

But misunderstanding begins in the next sentence: “Whichever way this will happen, two things are sure: it will not be enacted by some new version of a Leninist Communist party, but it will also not happen as part of our parliamentary democracy. It will not be just a political party winning more votes and enacting Social Democratic measures.”

If the requirement is, as Mr. Zizek writes, not a Leninist Communist party or its “some new version”, then what type of political party should it be if it goes for a global reorganization of societies? Let’s assume “some other party” or “some other parties”. But which class interest shall/should it uphold? No political party is simply a gathering or an amalgamation of huge or small number of persons with humbug or sweet pronouncements. All political parties uphold or aspire to uphold interest of any of the classes or any faction of a class in the society the organization operates in or makes loud proclamations about its politics.

A global reorganization of societies requires radical change of the world capitalist order – the old order; and that requires snapping of ties with the order; and that requires a political force that finds no interest in the old order; and that requires a class force having no interest in the order. It’s a complete antagonistic relation between the world capitalist order and the class force aspiring for a radical change of the order. The political party Lenin proposes is nothing other than of a class that have no interest in the world capitalist order, which is based on private property; and the political party doesn’t aspire transfer of ownership of private property from one class to another, but complete abolition of private property. It was not Lenin, who told these for the first time. Marx and Engels told this long ago. Lenin reiterated their position. In any class-based society, can anyone show any political party that doesn’t go for any of the class interests prevailing in the society? Is it possible to escape class question other than in some sort of middle class dream devoid of any idea of reality?

Mr. Zizek writes, “it will also not happen as part of our parliamentary democracy. It will not be just a political party winning more votes and enacting Social Democratic measures.”

Most probably with the word “our”, he means the bourgeois democracy. It’s not known whether he considers the system as his. And, if it’s not limiting with “enacting Social Democratic measures”, he has to go either to bourgeois democracy with no compromise with labor, if situation permits, or take measures fully opposed to bourgeois democracy – people’s democracy, which is opposed to class exploitation. The task needs leadership of a class, a class capable of carrying out the task. No political move in any society in any phase of the society was/is possible without leadership of any of the capable classes in the society. Contemplating anything else is a reflection of a brain having no idea of political move and maneuver in class-based society.

Mr. Zizek claims: “Radical changes are needed for our survival”. Then, it seems that Mr. Zizek is for radical change. What does it mean by radical change? Isn’t it a change in property relations? Isn’t it a change in political power? Are these possible without a political party having no class-mooring, program for change of property relations and political power? Lenin’s claim is this: A political party of the class, which is capable of radically changing these relations. Activities of a certain political party at a certain stage of the party in a certain society are not the sole concept of Leninist party. Mistakes and errors are not the entire concept. The mistakes and errors are not the sole output of the party. And, mistakes and errors are not always the output of the party. Objective conditions, the concerned party’s capability and experience also play a role. A clean, clear claim: “Blame the party” or “the party is the problem” is not a scientific approach. Mistakes and errors don’t wipe out the question of political party’s class basis. The bourgeois or even the backward classes don’t even dream of, plan, or organize their political party not running along the path of their class interest, not carrying out tasks the class interest deserves. Is it possible to cite a single example from any of the class-based societies other than the claim made in the preceding sentence?

Therefore, where does Mr. Zizek lands? It’s nowhere, but a misunderstanding.

Mr. Zizek has another misunderstanding as he writes: “So we should of course fully support Labour in the UK”. Is it possible to support the LabParty fully if it goes to imperialist war in some other country? Has not this – joining imperialist war – happened? Then, how can the working people support the LabParty fully? Should support be extended in absolute term – fully – when the LabParty has a history of joining imperialist war even if aspects of its policies in the domestic issues are ignored? Should objective lessons of politics remain unlearned?

These issues should be discussed as there are efforts, since the debacle of the post-revolutionary states in the eastern and central Europe and in the USSR, to misinterpret questions of politics, political party, dictatorship of class in class-based society, errors in those societies, etc. The basic concepts of class-based politics are thrown away in the name of weeding out mistakes and errors although it has not been possible to throw away issues of politics in class-based societies.

Mr. Zizek is right as he writes: “[O]ur future will demand much more than electoral games and Social Democratic measures.”

Therefore, there comes the question of class-based politics, political party, making support conditional to political forces trying to stand apart from the existing political matrix of right and far-right.

Farooque Chowdhury writes from Dhaka.