Slavoj Zizek
What this covers
Slavoj Žižek and Tyler Cowen debate the meaning and viability of Communism as a political category. Žižek argues that "Communism" names a set of urgent, unsolved problems—ecological collapse, digital surveillance, mass migration—that liberal capitalist democracies lack the resources or will to address. Cowen counters that Žižek's insistence on keeping the Communist label is sentimental attachment masquerading as theory; given Žižek's own pragmatic, moderate positions on gender, humor, and policy, the label serves no function beyond nostalgia. Both agree that twentieth-century Communist regimes failed catastrophically, but they diverge sharply on whether the existing system can manage the crises ahead.
Žižek ranges across philosophy, history, and political economy to support his case. He draws on Hegel to argue for Hegelian Pessimism—the view that even the noblest projects curdle into their opposites, as the French Revolution descended into terror—and therefore twentieth-century Communism, though failed, deserves serious rethinking rather than dismissal. He critiques Marx for underestimating capitalism's capacity to absorb crises, examines how Lenin's virtue lay not in doctrinal purity but in pragmatic openness to contingency, and proposes Sortition as Anti-Expert Safeguard as a democratic corrective. He also explores how ideology functions not through false belief but through the structure of our actions themselves. Cowen pushes back empirically: the worst ecological and surveillance abuses have occurred under Communist regimes, not capitalist ones. He highlights Trump's political success as evidence that extremes can reach majorities better than centrism, and he points to Greta Thunberg's unambiguous climate messaging as a model for clarity over speculative theory. The conversation turns contentious precisely where it matters most—whether the liberal order can survive its own contradictions, or whether some radically different framework is necessary.
Zizek argues that 'Communism' is not a nostalgic political program but a name for a set of unsolved problems—ecology, digital control, migration—that liberal democratic capitalism is too weak to handle, while Cowen counters that Zizek's attachment to the label is sentimental and unnecessary given his actual moderate, pragmatic views.
- Zizek repeatedly insists Communism is 'the name of a problem, not a solution' and disavows nostalgia for 20th-century Communism.
- Cowen argues Zizek's humor, gender views, and pragmatism are right-moderate, so the Communist label is just nostalgia like Spreewald pickles.
- Both agree 20th-century Communism failed, but disagree on whether liberal capitalism can solve looming crises.
Twentieth-century Communism was a utopian failure that must be studied and reimagined rather than revived.
- The Frankfurt School, despite its thesis on the dialectic of enlightenment locating totalitarian potentials within modernity itself, strangely ignored actually-existing Communism—Habermas's published work gives no hint that Communist East Germany existed—revealing a blind spot in their critique.
“Read all his work, and I don't think you will even guess from his published texts that there is something like Communism in East Germany.”
- The deepest lesson of late Yugoslav Communism is that an ideology can function not only even if you don't believe in it, but precisely because it is prohibited to believe in it too seriously—demonstrated by two central committee members in Slovenia who lost their jobs for being foolish enough to take the ruling ideology seriously.
“the lesson, for me, is how an ideology can function, not only even if you don't believe in it, but it is prohibited to believe in it.”
- Stalinism is a more traumatic case of modernity's totalitarian potential than fascism, because fascism is a relatively simple model of conservative revolution, whereas Bolshevism attempted radical emancipation and turned traumatic—and even today we lack a good theory of Stalinism, which is what genuinely bothers Zizek, not any desire to return to it.
“Bolshevism, which tried to do a radical emancipation and it turned into a traumatic . . . Even today, we don't have a good theory of Stalinism. That's what bothers me, not any return to it.”
- Against the Hölderlin paradigm ('where the danger is, the saving power also grows'), Zizek offers a Hegelian pessimism: no matter how good an idea or project is, it will turn wrong somehow—as the French Revolution turned into Jacobin terror—so just as Hegel did with the French Revolution, we should treat 20th-century Communism as a failed but utopian attempt that must be rethought radically and repeated only the second time, learning the lessons of the first.
“Hegel's basic insight is exactly the opposite one. No matter how good an idea or a project is, we can be sure that it will turn wrong somehow.”
- What is valuable in Lenin is not doctrinal fidelity to Marx (which he actually overturned) but his pragmatic, voluntarist spirit of 1921-22, when he openly admitted the situation was totally desperate, that there was no formula, and that one should not stabilize achievements but return to the zero level and begin from nowhere—an openness to total contingency, not a model to return to.
“What interests me in Lenin... is this totally pragmatic voluntarist spirit... Lenin was at least the one who said openly, "Our situation is totally desperate; we don't have any formula."”
- Twentieth-century Communism was ultimately an absolute failure, and like all great revolutions (and religious reformations such as Luther's) it falsely proclaimed itself a return to origins—Lenin in fact totally overturned Marx while pretending to be faithful—so the only honest stance is to study its good and bad sides and begin again, not revive it.
“the 20th-century Communism was ultimately a failure, an absolute failure.”
- Communist oppression was the key factor in Zizek's relative success in the West: after his 1973 job application was rejected on the harsh political line, he spent years unemployed seeking Western contacts, and without that oppression he would still be an unknown professor in Ljubljana.
“When people asked me, "Which was the key factor for your relative success in the West?" I told them, "Communist oppression."”
- More authentic democracy requires an element of chance or lottery to prevent rule by experts (which becomes tyranny)—as Kojin Karatani put it, the passage from bourgeois to proletarian democracy is the passage from voting to lottery, a principle reflected in the lottery-based selection systems of Ancient Greece and Venice that mixed checking against corruption with luck.
“"The passage from bourgeois to proletarian democracy," I quote him, "is the passage from voting to lottery."”
The Western left's comfort with identity politics alienates the working majority and enables right-wing resurgence.
- The big problem of the Western academic left is inter-passive authenticity—keeping one's comfortable life in the West while being authentic through others by searching for another place where things really happen (Cuba, then Chavez's Venezuela)—which Deleuze captured in 'if you are caught in another's dream, you are screwed.'
“What I call... inter-passive authenticity. You want to keep your good life in the West, but you like to be authentic through others.”
- The problem with #MeToo is not that it is too radical but that it is an upper-middle-class fake; American feminism should undertake old-fashioned Stalinist-style self-criticism, recalling for example that it supported the American invasion of Iraq as helping women—even though Iraqi women are worse off now than under the brutal but secular Saddam.
“my reproach to #MeToo is not they are too radical, but it's an upper-middle-class fake.”
- Politically correct leftists are doing everything possible to get Trump reelected, because their humorless, restrictive identity politics alienates the very voters the left needs and pushes the country toward the right.
“that's why politically correct leftists are doing all possible to get Trump reelected, if you ask me.”
- The fundamental problem is that the Left lacks a general vision of a future society: at Occupy Wall Street people had only a vague idea of less corruption, unable to say whether they wanted a more efficient system, full social-democratic welfare, or old-style Communism—and to win the proletariat the Left must reconnect with the impoverished majority rather than indulging a class-biased cultural identity politics.
“the Left doesn't have... a general vision of a future society.”
- Political correctness is itself a misdirected application of the European Enlightenment tradition—you cannot even imagine something like political correctness outside the Western tradition—so Zizek remains staunchly pro-Enlightenment while rejecting the self-blaming colonial-guilt framing of Western humanitarianism toward the third world.
“Even political correctness itself is, I think, a misdirected application of something that is part of European tradition of Enlightenment.”
- Trump is a political genius who proved that sometimes the only way to a majority is through extremes rather than the center: he broke all the rules, and the repeated liberal predictions that each outrageous statement had finished him were wrong—the target for Democrats should likewise be impoverished, half-unemployed white workers, not middle-of-the-road voters, as Ocasio-Cortez grasped in endorsing Sanders 'not in spite of but because' he is an old white man.
“Trump proved that sometimes the only way to a majority is through extremes. It's not always that center works.”
Liberal democratic capitalism cannot sustainably address migration, digital domination, and ecological crisis.
- The core dilemma is Fukuyama's: whether the existing liberal democratic capitalist system is strong enough to cope with the converging problems of global migration, new forms of digital domination, and ecology—and Zizek's answer is, unfortunately, no, which is the entire foundation of his position, though this does not mean reviving 20th-century Communism.
“Is the existing liberal democratic capitalist system strong enough to cope with these problems or not? And my answer is, unfortunately, no.”
- Marx's paradigm exaggerates the exceptionality of the present and underestimates capitalism's capacity to absorb and feed on its own crises—so it is questionable whether we can still hold that capitalism is its own gravedigger.
“it underestimates the capacity of capitalism to absorb and feed on its own crises. Can we still hold to the idea of capitalism as being its own grave digger?”
Sexuality and gender are antagonistic and traumatic, not repressed multiplicities awaiting liberation through social pressure removal.
- The dominant LGBT+ view treats gender as a flourishing multiplicity of positions later repressed by evil patriarchy's binary—but this misreads Freud, whose key lesson is that sexuality is in itself antagonistic and traumatic; you cannot simply remove social pressure to reach a happy sexuality, and you cannot even be sure you desire what you think you desire.
“If there is anything to learn from Freud, it's that sexuality is in itself antagonist, traumatic”
- In LGBT+, the 'plus' should not be read empirically as merely awaiting more identities to add, but Hegelian-dialectically: the 'plus' itself can be the subjective position—standing at a distance, doubting—which is the feminine position at its strongest, captured by the unanswerable question 'Why do you love me?', since any answer destroys true love.
“what if plus itself is the subjective position? You can be a plus in the sense of, you know, at a distance, doubting.”
Communist and Stalinist regimes were paradoxically fascinated by modernity and America rather than opposed to them.
- Stalinism was deeply and explicitly fascinated by America: the model for Soviet cinema was Hollywood (with plans to build a Soviet Hollywood in Crimea), and Stalin around 1930 defined a Bolshevik as one combining dedication to a sacred cause with American pragmatism and efficiency.
“the absolute model of Soviet cinema was Hollywood. They had desperate plans in the '30s to build on Crimea their own version of Hollywood.”
Authoritarian systems like Singapore, Yugoslavia, and China combine prosperity or consent with structural oppression and limits.
- Zizek uses the word 'Communism' rather than 'socialism' because socialism has become meaningless—everyone from Bill Gates to, rhetorically, Hitler 'cared for society'—whereas 'Communism' signals that something more radical will be needed; for Zizek, Communism is just the name of a problem, not a solution.
“"Why don't you call it socialism?" Everybody is a socialist today. Bill Gates says he's a socialist... Socialism basically means today you care for society. Hitler cared for society.”
- Happiness is undesirable because it means no responsibility, as demonstrated by Husák's 1970s Czechoslovakia where material needs were satisfied, people always had an excuse for failures (rain, drought, Communists), and a nearby ideal-other (West Germany) existed—reflecting the post-Khrushchev pact in which the nomenklatura conceded they would never catch the West in exchange for citizens surrendering political power for a private niche of comfortable life.
“That's why I'm against happiness. Happiness means no responsibility, relatively comfortable life”
- Singapore is best characterized as 'fascism with a human face'—consensual and pleasant but with very strict limits even at ridiculous everyday levels (such as requiring a pharmacy and effectively a prescription to buy chewing gum)—and it functions as a structural exception that cannot be expanded to neighbors like Indonesia or even Malaysia.
“The way I would define Singapore... it's fascism with a human face, a very human face. It's consensual and so on, but there are so strict limits”
- Incels (involuntary celibates) should not be automatically dismissed as women-hating fascists; they do something almost tragic by turning their sexual failure into a non-violent performance (e.g. clowncels), confronting the politically incorrect reality that one cannot openly tell a man he is unattractive and unable to attract any woman.
“Usually, they are decried as the worst women-hating Fascists. No. They do something, I think, almost tragic.”
- Chinese authoritarian capitalism, despite shocking development over 50 years, will not work in the long term, as evidenced by its shrinking labor force, falling growth rate, and mass detention of over a million people in concentration camps.
“at one point, I agree with you, that in the long term, this whatever we call it, Chinese authoritarian capitalism or whatever we call it, will not work, I think.”
- China is explicitly pursuing state-directed biogenetics, as evidenced by a programmatic note from a high official of the Chinese Academy of Sciences stating that 'the goal of biogenetics in China is to regulate physical and psychic health of the Chinese nation'—but the West is essentially doing the same thing.
“it says — it shocked me, literally — "The goal of biogenetics in China is to regulate physical and psychic health of the Chinese nation." They are directly doing it.”
- 1980s Yugoslavia was paradoxically better for genuine critical thought than later systems because the ruling nomenklatura, lacking democratic legitimacy and already preparing for economic collapse, tried to earn legitimacy—even funding a new gay organization in mid-1980s Slovenia—whereas after democracy arrived in 1990 conservatives immediately abolished that support.
“in the last decade, 1980s, Yugoslavia was better. You know why? There was not yet a total economic fiasco”
- The explosion of nationalism (exemplified by Milošević) is best read as a strategy by the Communist nomenklatura to regain democratic legitimacy as democracy approached without canceling themselves as a ruling elite—by repainting themselves as defenders of the national interest.
“The answer, obviously, was paint yourself as defender of national interest and so on, nationalism and so on.”
- Greta Thunberg is a contemporary Communist for Zizek because she is dogmatic, insistent, and to-the-point rather than offering holistic dialogue—a deeply feminine but non-stereotypical figure whose 'mean,' aggressive turn (rather than the innocent-girl persona) is exactly what is needed today, and whose parental 'manipulation' the left should embrace rather than decry.
“She's a contemporary Communist for me, fully.”
- Zizek had no illusions about Yugoslav Communism because open borders let him travel freely to the West, and as proof of his clear-sightedness he points to his 1988-89 New Left Review text 'Eastern Europe's Republics of Gilead,' in which he explicitly predicted that East European post-Communism would take a nationalist, fundamentalist turn.
“It appeared in '88, '89 in New Left Review —a short text of mine, "Eastern Europe's Republics of Gilead"... I predicted there, explicitly, that East European post-Communism will take this nationalist, fundamentalist turn”
- The pressure for universities and humanities to serve concrete social needs—begun in England by Labour even more than Thatcher and now spreading—mirrors the worst years of Yugoslav Communist oppression; what is genuinely valuable about academia is precisely that it is useless in the immediate sense, a space with no attachment to society's needs where one can think freely, just as most big inventions emerge contingently (often via military contracts or private hobbies) rather than by planning.
“what's good about academia is precisely that it's a space with no concrete attachment to any needs of society. You can go crazy, you can freely debate”
Ideology functions through ritual performance and empty sincerity rather than false consciousness or subjective belief.
- All humanity is based on 'empty manners' or 'sincere hypocrisies'—ritual gestures both parties know are performative (insisting on splitting a bill you both know the host will pay; saying 'nice to see you' to someone you'd rather avoid)—and there is no civilization without this necessary idiocy; even Kierkegaard was reportedly told by the king that the lesson to learn was how to say polite platitudes.
“I believe in empty manners. All our humanity is based on empty manners... I call them sincere hypocrisies.”
- Marx's theory of commodity fetishism is not the Enlightenment idea that we hold illusory beliefs while real life is elsewhere; rather, the fetishist inversion is in how we act, in our reality structure itself—modern bourgeois subjects can be pragmatic utilitarians who don't subjectively believe, yet ideology functions objectively, as illustrated by Niels Bohr's horseshoe ('it works even if you don't believe in it').
“Marx's theory is that we bourgeois subjects, in our actual life, we are usually pragmatic Anglo-Saxon utilitarians. The fetishist inversion is in how we act our reality structure.”
- Capitalist injustice is an elegant arrangement because failure can be blamed on bad luck or unfairness, so your pride survives intact—whereas in a perfectly just society, being poorer than your neighbor would mean admitting you are simply more stupid, making envy the mega-problem even of an imagined Communist society.
“"But that's why capitalism works. Because," he said, "your pride survives intact."”
People mistake catastrophic predictions for reality and adopt false nostalgia that obscures actual problems.
- People are prone to a seductive fascination with catastrophic prospects that often proves false, as shown by the 1970s-80s German Waldsterben panic predicting Europe would be forestless within 50 years, when in fact there are now more forests in the world than at any point in the last 100 years.
“most of Europe, especially Germany — was obsessed by Waldsterben—the dying of forests.”
- Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale exemplifies true nostalgia—what Fredric Jameson called 'nostalgia for the present'—because it paints a horrible near future while remaining too fascinated by our current permissive societies, failing to raise the crucial questions.
“That's why I don't like the novel... Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale. This is, for me, true nostalgia. It's what Fredric Jameson called "nostalgia for the present."”
Market mechanisms dissolve non-monetary solidarity and consent alone cannot eliminate coercion embedded in social pressure.
- Some forms of human solidarity cannot be reduced to money, as suggested by group experiments (like the disputed Israeli kindergarten fine study) showing that when everything has a price, people lose solidarity—even if the specific kindergarten anecdote is probably apocryphal and unconfirmable.
“there are some group experiments which fascinate me, which proves that you cannot reduce some forms of solidarity to money.”
- Bureaucratic consent (signing or stating agreement before sex) is good in itself and better than nothing, but it does not solve the problem, because so much pressure and violence can survive the form of consent—sexual exploitation can continue even where there is formal consent.
“I just claim consent in itself is good, better than nothing, but it doesn't solve the problem. There is so much pressure, violence which can survive the form of consent.”