Congo as integral part of global capitalism
example ·
retold in 6 talks
Žižek uses the Democratic Republic of Congo, a state that barely functions, with child soldiers drugged from age five, as an example of Hegelian totality: Congo is not an external exception but an integral part of global capitalism as supplier of minerals for digital industries.
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026
As told 6
“As such, Congo is an integral part of global capitalism. Congo is absolutely crucial in supplying minerals and so on for our digital industries.”
“Congo is for me the metaphor of where we are today. On the one hand a rogue state warlords ruling...on the other hand country fully integrated...into global capitalism”
“Congo is not excluded my god without minerals from Congo we wouldn't have all the computers all the stuff that we have.”
What it carries
one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)
contents · one story, 3 jobsuses
Hegelian totality
×1
sur-numerary element
×1
structural unemployment
×1
Its cast and sources
populated by
Ayaan Hirsi Ali1Amin Maalouf1Ignatius of Loyola1Charles Baudelaire1Liana Theodoratou / Ed Kadava1Antonis Samaras1Mohamed Atta1Sayyid Qutb1
alongside works
Every retelling 6
Žižek uses the Democratic Republic of Congo, a state that barely functions, with child soldiers drugged from age five, as an example of Hegelian totality: Congo is not an external exception but an integral part of global capitalism as supplier of minerals for digital industries., illustrating Hegelian totality,capitalism and its excluded,element in excess as figure of universality
Congo, a failed state run by warlords who nonetheless sell its minerals seamlessly to global capital, is Žižek's emblem of how state collapse and capitalist integration are not opposites but mutually reinforcing., illustrating capitalism and failed states,geopolitics of refugee crisis
Congo exemplifies those apparently 'excluded' from global capitalism who are in fact structurally included: without Congo's minerals there would be no computers or digital technology, making exclusion a mode of extreme inclusion., illustrating excluded included as excluded,totality of capitalism,structural unemployment,rabble
Five or six million people died in Congo through violence that never makes Western media; the warlords responsible are fully integrated into global capitalism via coltan mining for electronics, systemic violence made invisible by its functionality., illustrating objective violence,capitalism
Žižek argues that the warlords ruling Congo's provinces are always dealing with Western companies that buy minerals, our computers require coltan from Congo. This illustrates that the 'chaos' in so-called rogue states is directly connected to Western market integration rather than being an external disorder., illustrating commons,capitalism and global disorder,symptomatic treatment
Žižek uses the Congo crisis, where 4 million died while foreign mining companies and local warlords formed a perfect symbiotic system, to argue that the problem is political-economic, not a matter of charity., illustrating charity as humanitarian mask,ideological depoliticization,real abstraction