In These Times

What Mr Zizek's "authoritarian capitalism" has in common with its 19th century predecessor is an intriguing subject. But, would Gladstone or Disraeli or Bismark or Buffet have declared for a "New Socialist Countryside" or have promoted a "socialism with [british, german, french, etc] characteristics?" Would they have sanctioned the organizing of their industrial workers into national trade unions? Or countenanced the official study of Marxism? Lenin's NEP is probably a whole lot closer to the author's "authoritarian" or "state" capitalism, and Lenin himself would have been deeply flattered by the phrase, as it would have meant that Russia, largely a nation …

Posted to China's Valley of Tears