Claims to be a marxist communist

Reminder that the first 5 years of the ussr were amazing times to be russian

Predicting what communism would look like is pure idealism. Read Bordiga.

C тoчки зpeния мapкcиcтcкoгo хyecoca - бeзycлoвнo.

>hardly talks about communism or how it could be implemented in modern western society
>Do you see communism as a totally realistic and optimal goal for America?

There. If Zizek talked about a communist America it wouldn't be realistic. He's not so naive

>If Zizek talked about a communist America it wouldn't be realistic.
What

So it is realistic because he doesn't talk about it?????????????????????????????

It's stupid to believe that there's a chance for America to be communist.

I understand, but you stated the opposite. Are you drunk m8?

Marxism it's a way of articulating history

No, it's a way of analyzing economic systems

From my point of view, Zizek works tend to aim at your average american liberal reader to force them to question their assumed ideological values. It doesn't provide much more value for a marxist because his speech sort of censors himself so he can be read and accepted by a wider audience. At the same time, it doesn't deserve to be underestimated, this was a role that had to be fulfilled.

>hardly talks about communism or how it could be implemented in modern western society
This goes all the way to Marx, it's nothing new.

>This goes all the way to Marx, it's nothing new.

This

It made perfect sense to me. Zizek doesn't talk about communism because there is no chance for it.

The window has closed on a Marxist people's revolution. There is no point advocating for such a thing, and anyone you see talking about a proletarian revolution in Current Year you can safely call an entry-level pleb.

So whats the leftist alternative? The last thing I want to be is just another bourgeoisi liberal

There's an Alain Badiou interview that talks about the no-alternative panorama. I wish I had it in English

Those are the watered down demsocs. I prefer to call them social democrats, because they're basically neoliberalism + welfare state. To my mind, someone is only deserving of being called a demsoc if they want to get rid of capitalism in the end. Otherwise, if they just want "humane capitalism" -- socdem.

This thread is totally off, I question if any of you actually read Zizek.

The point is not to define some project for an utopia and then set the coordinates for our society to get there. Zizek criticizes this approach over and over again, and other writers before him were doing that too. To validate the imaginary order in that sense would be, in a lacanian perspective, totally crazy. Capitalism and communism, before being definite things we can defend or attack, are symbolic structures, discourses, they have their own logic of being. Zizek's work (and for the greater part, Marx's work as well) has more to do with listening to this logic than anything. Zizek listens to what's going on with a psychanalyst lacanian ear and a materialist marxist ear. This listening is not passive.

Also, OP's comment about America is weird. Russia is huge and they developped a communist society didn't they? But anyway, it has more to do with the fact that the societies are totally different, so it sounds like convincing 350 million rednecks. Imagine if you want americans to listen to what the french have to say, you don't come up with a plan to make America to drop english and speak french. In the same way, you don't "replace" capitalism with communism, not without this replacement to become a real necessity (not your necessity, but for the people involved), something of a possible way out of your situation. If every american wanted to learn french, now we can think of strategies to make they learn french, it doesn't sound that impossible if you don't have to convince them.

That is not to say you create a problem to which only communism could save you, in a manipulative way, but there are already all sorts of problems and all sorts of solutions are brought out. A philosopher's role has much more to do with working with our questions. Are the problems we have are really the way we describe them? And are our solutions really solutions? Look at high contrast examples, while a Trump supporter may be blaming his problems on muslims, others may be blaming Trump himself for the problem, some are mourning over Clinton's defeat, others for Sanders, some are happy with corporate activism, others want a communist project to be implemented asap, etc. That's why the psychanalytic listening is essential here, you don't stop listening to either side, on the contrary, you listen to it so well, you give room for the lies to stumble on their short legs, you explain the "joke" of certain ways of thinking in order to ruin them (just like it is when you explain a joke). What is left is the necessity for x transformation to happen, whatever it is. Zizek is a communist, he sees in communism, that necessary transformation. That also doesn't mean there is one kind of communism, or that he is trying to reproduce the soviet or cuban or, god forbid, chinese revolution. If you read his books you'll find a lot of nuanced opinions on each one of them.

Unless you were an Octobrist, a Menshevik, a Tsarist, an Anarchist, a Kadet or really anything but a Red.

>I question if any of you actually read Zizek
Are you suggesting that Veeky Forums posters participate in discussions on subjects they haven't studied?

Do you want someone to write step by step instructions to build socialist society? It's a tactical problem, not a philosophical one.

Zizek isn't a real communist, he's playing a role.

ayy, phampire. I like Zizek's memetastic film pieces and I like studying revolutions. Could you tell me where Zizek comments on the Soviet, Cuban and Chinese revolutions? I've never bothered with one of his books before so I wouldn't know where to look. Do you consider anything else to be important reading before his stuff on revolutions?

> Even if you broke America up into smaller nations, that would require us to dissolve our military and basically we'd be conqured in a day for our resources.

It's called proletarian internationalism pleb. No one believes in 'socialism in one country' anymore.

>more ethical
marxism isn't ethics
HISSSSS

I'm more inclined to his thoughts on psychanalysis rather than his talks on politics, but you can't get one without the other, so I guess it is important to have some notions of philosophy, politics and lacanian psychanalysis.

I don't know exactly where I've read and listened to him talk about revolutions, because he repeats himself a lot (naturally, really) and because he just sprinkles a thought about trump with some political anecdote, then some scene from a movie, then a psychanalytic reading and then decaff coffee. Less Than Nothing is a great book, but you can also look for the chapters on Marx and not read the ones more on Hegel and Lacan, if you want more about revolutions.

I also recommend his articles, you can easily find a collection of them, they are short and more to the point. But they get repetitive as well.

All right then. I suppose I'll just look around and maybe google some specific stuff if anything catches my interest. I should probably finish Basic Economic before I try anything political though.

>why a socialist based economy would be more ethical

Either bait or you have some major misunderstanding going on. Marx doesn't give a shit about ethics. "Ethical" critiques of socialism are petty-bourgeois pipe dreams that somehow want to keep the "good" sides of capitalism but lose the bad ones.

It's because orthodox Marxism has been discredited, the viable Marxist criticisms of Capitalism have already been implemented decades ago, it's a very small niche group nowadays.

Look for his longer interviews, maybe a good start.

Also, you don't have to know basic economy before getting into Zizek. I'm opposed with this idea that you must first go through this and this before going to that. I think it misses the point that if you have knowledge of economy and read Zizek, you'd have a different, perhaps more profound interpretation of it, but that it isn't the only way to do it. I don't know much about politics, and some things I get, while sometimes I miss a reference, but also acquire a reference from reading it a first time. More troublesome is when we think we got something because we have prior knowledge on a subject, not to realize there are other ways to see it. You say you will "try anything political", "try", as if there was some clear thing you ought to do with it. Allow yourself to read something you don't understand from time to time, you don't have to form an opinion on every sentence.

From the point of view of a Marxist cocksucker- unconditionally.

Your Russian sucks

good summary senpai mah nigga

Cocёт здecь твoя мaмaшa, тaщeмтa

There are no credible, orthodox Marxists in academia and there hasn't been for decades........despite what breitbart shills on /pol/ think.

Well blame the critical theorists and the post-structuralists. They are the ones who changed the conversation away from class struggle to power dynamics.

>
The point is not to define some project for an utopia and then set the coordinates for our society to get there. Zizek criticizes this approach over and over again, and other writers before him were doing that too. To validate the imaginary order in that sense would be, in a lacanian perspective, totally crazy. Capitalism and communism, before being definite things we can defend or attack, are symbolic structures, discourses, they have their own logic of being. Zizek's work (and for the greater part, Marx's work as well) has more to do with listening to this logic than anything. Zizek listens to what's going on with a psychanalyst lacanian ear and a materialist marxist ear. This listening is not passive.

>That's why the psychanalytic listening is essential here, you don't stop listening to either side, on the contrary, you listen to it so well, you give room for the lies to stumble on their short legs, you explain the "joke" of certain ways of thinking in order to ruin them (just like it is when you explain a joke). What is left is the necessity for x transformation to happen, whatever it is.

good post senpai

>communist nations
>communist
>nations
I understand your point, though, you're not entirely wrong. I'm a leftist myself, and most leftists aren't necessarily interested in developing solutions genuine post-revolution organization theory, because the "what comes after?" (a global revolution, not socialism in one country e.g. the USSR, we know what happens then) question is almost entirely unanswerable. The point of revolution is to abolish all forms of capital relations (not just "seize le means of production", but literally everything Marx talked about) and many leftists seem to think that everything will just sort of solve itself after the abolition of capitalism, which I don't think is necessarily wrong, but I do think it is, to most people, a very unsatisfactory answer.
This applies to nearly all sectarian splits within leftism itself as well, as most people want to achieve communism, but how it is achieved is the main distinction (this is where the anarkiddie/tankie divide come from). Not that there aren't some discussions on "what comes after" (workers' councils, one big union, centralized planning, freely associated "democratic" work places, etc.), though.

This made me want to read Zizek
Where should I start?

I do blame them. I blame them everyday.

Event is a good book

sublime object

Read the communist manifesto

The left is dead. The future will be a struggle between center-right populism and neoreactionaries.

It bothers me about him.

Post-Left anarchist movement and student debt bubble seem to be correlated

zing

His critiques of capitalist ideology are vast,
but worker co-ops are his only solution.

He did write on communism a lot, in the idea of communism 3 vol and he will drop this nigga very soon

>a socialist based economy would be more ethical
Moralism is bourgeouis.

Violence.

Don't. I wouldn't recommend that atrocity to anyone.
t. commie

socialism is alive and well. national socialism.
the sad part is that the (american) left as it is would rather try and drag voters from the right than implement leftist socialist policies. explaining the rise of trump's popularity, he dragged many voters from the center left because yea he's kind of a piece of shit but he's actually implementing some socialist policies. which i find fucking hilarious because many trump supporters say fuck commies/socialism while defending him with his socialist elements.
zizek is literally mussolini.
he's a closet fascist.

Idiot, learn to articulate.

>How could you develop a communist society in a place with 350,000,000 people? Even if you broke America up into smaller nations, that would require us to dissolve our military and basically we'd be conqured in a day for our resources.
what the fuck are you on?
we could literally just implement a planned economy soviet system, it would probably work better than in the USSR - digital technology would be a genuine help. well, practically no one advocates this as far as I know. but your point doesn't make sense. if people wanted that, there would be nothing preventing them.