Slavoj Zizek - First as Tragedy, Then as Farce
Talk · The RSA ·
2010-03-10 · 0:29:25 · 4,075 words
capitalismideologyeconomicsethicspsychoanalysis
Žižek argues that contemporary capitalism has integrated charity into the act of consumption itself, creating a form of 'cultural capitalism' where buying goods simultaneously fulfills ethical duties (e.g., Starbucks, TOMS shoes). He analyzes the concept of 'basic income' (or 'basic rent') not as a socialist solution, but as a rent paid to citizens to maintain capitalist stability, and contrasts Philippe van Parijs’s left-wing version with Peter Sloterdijk’s right-wing version, which argues that the rich should be recognized as benefactors rather than exploited. Žižek critiques both for ignoring the psychoanalytic reality of envy, concluding with Oscar Wilde’s assertion that charity merely prolongs the disease of poverty rather than curing it.
every located moment in this recording, click one to read it
The ideas in it 8
in the order they first come up; click a row for what he does with the idea here
A form of capitalism where the ethical duty to help society or the environment is included in the very act of consumer purchase, short-circuiting the opposition between consumption and charity.
as “logic of chocolate laxative”
Žižek’s term for the paradoxical economic idea where a product or policy contains its own opposite (e.g., chocolate that causes laxation, or consumption that includes anti-consumerist redemption) to resolve the tension.
as “basic rent”
Žižek’s reinterpretation of 'basic income' (or 'basic citizen income') as a rent paid to citizens for their status as citizens, rather than a wage or profit, which serves to stabilize the capitalist system by managing the 'useless' 80%.
Marx’s concept of collective knowledge; Žižek argues that modern capitalism re-privatizes this commons (e.g., via Bill Gates/networking) and extracts rent from it.
Sloterdijk’s two life forces: eros (desire grounded in lack/need) and thymos (pride grounded in self-assertive generosity); Žižek notes Sloterdijk’s claim that eros has fatally disturbed thymos.
Sloterdijk’s term for the basic atmosphere of modern society, characterized by cowardice, guilt, and dependence, lacking the pride and self-assertion (thymos) of giving.
as “objectal social democracy”
A transcription error/correction for 'objective social democracy' as quoted from Sloterdijk, referring to the structural system of the state.
Georges Bataille’s concept opposing 'restrained economy'; Žižek cites it to explain Sloterdijk’s view of the rich man’s charitable donation as a sovereign, self-negating gesture that gives life meaning.
Stories he reaches for 3
Žižek cites Starbucks’ campaign 'it's not just what you are buying, it's what you are buying into' to illustrate how buying coffee includes 'coffee ethics' and fair trade, allowing the consumer to buy their redemption from pure consumerism.
“it's not just what you are buying, it's what you are buying into.”
Žižek claims people buy organic apples not because they believe they are better than GMO apples, but because it makes them feel warm that they are doing something for Mother Earth, illustrating the cynic/skeptic split.
“i don't think you really believe that those halfrot apples... that they are really any better.”
An American company gives a pair of shoes to an African nation for every pair bought; Žižek uses this to show how one act of consumerism includes the payment for being redeemed from it.
“one for one one act of consumerism but included in it you pay for being redeemed of it”
Works invoked 2
Grundrisse book
Marx’s work; Žižek references the fragment on 'general intellect' to argue Marx couldn't imagine its re-privatization as rent.
Oscar Wilde’s book; Žižek quotes it extensively to argue that charity is immoral and that remedies for poverty are part of the disease.
People invoked 14
George Soros positive
Cited as an example of the 'old type' capitalist who separates morning speculation from afternoon charity, though Žižek claims today's capitalism merges them.
Friedrich Hayek positive
Žižek says he 'definitely politically don't like' Hayek, but praises his intelligent remark that capitalism’s injustice (luck vs. merit) prevents resentment by allowing people to blame the 'jerk' who was lucky.
Ayn Rand negative
Cited to describe the 'deregulated titans' who failed and received bailouts, contrasting with Sloterdijk’s view of them as creative geniuses.
Philippe Van Parijs positive
Main proponent of basic income; Žižek analyzes his theory as a 'third way' that remains within capitalism and presupposes a strong state.
John Rawls positive
Cited by Van Parijs; Žižek notes Rawls admits his model works only if one ignores/suspends envy.
Georges Bataille positive
Cited for 'general economy of sovereign expenditure,' which Sloterdijk uses to frame charitable giving as a sovereign, self-negating gesture.
Oscar Wilde positive
Cited as providing the 'best formulation against this logic of charity'; Žižek agrees with Wilde that charity is immoral and prolongs poverty.
Mentioned as a follower working on basic income legislation in the European Union.
Cited by Van Parijs as a basis for his claim that basic income reconciles equality and freedom.
Brazilian president who signed the 2004 law guaranteeing unconditional basic income/citizenship income.
Peter Sloterdijk negative
German philosopher whose 'objective social democracy' and 'rich can save the world' thesis Žižek critiques for ignoring envy and the reality of the financial crisis bailouts.
Cited by Sloterdijk as an exception 100 years ago (becoming mega-rich then giving it away) that is becoming the rule.
Bill Gates positive
Used to illustrate 'rent' extracted from the 'general intellect' (networking); also cited by Sloterdijk as a creative genius who saves the world.
Karl Marx positive
Cited for 'general intellect' and 'Grundrisse'; Žižek argues Marx couldn't imagine the re-privatization of general intellect as rent.
Transcript 1 turns
Slavoj Žižek
i want to develop a very simple linear line of thought about one. only point. why in our economy charity is no longer just an idiosyncrasy of some good guys here and there, but the basic constituent of our economy. i would like to start with the feature of so-called cultural capitalism, today's form of capitalism, and then develop how the same thing applies also to economy in the narrower sense of the term. namely, if in the old times, by old times i mean something very precise, before this 68 transformation of capitalism into, as we usually call it, more cultural capitalism, postmodern caring for ecology and all that, what changed? what changed is that if before this time there was a simple, more or less simple, opposition between here it's consumptionmation, you buy, you speculate and so on, then on the top of it, it comes what you do for a society, like soros. he's still the old type here, i claim. in the morning he grabs the money. if i simplify it, in the afternoon he gives half of the money back to charities and supporting things. and so on. but i claim in today's capitalism more and more the tendency is to bring the two dimensions together in one and the same gesture so that when you buy something, your anti-consumerist duty to do something for others, for environment and so on is already included into it. if you think i'm exaggerating, you have them around the corner. walk into any starbucks coffee. and you will see how they explicitly tell you, i quote their campaign, it's not just what you are buying, it's what you are buying into. and then they describe it to you. listen, when you buy starbucks, whether you realize it or not, you are buying into something bigger than a cup of coffee. you are buying into a coffee ethics. through our starbucks shared planet program, we purchase more fair trade coffee than any company in the world. ensuring that the farmers who grow the beans receive a fair price for their hard work. and we invest in and improve coffee growing practices and communities around the globe. it's a good coffee karma. and a little bit of the price of a cup of starbucks coffee helps furnish the place with comfortable chairs and so on and so on. you see, this is what i call cultural capitalism at its purest. you don't just buy a coffee. you buy in the very consumerist act. you buy your redemption from being only a consumerist, you know. you do something for the environment, you do something to help starving children in guatemala, you do something to restore the sense of community here and so on and so on. this, and again, i could go on, like the almost absurd example of this is so-called... tom's shoes, an american company whose formula is one for one. they claim for every pair of shoes you buy with them, they give a pair of shoes to some african nation and so on and so on so that you know one for one one act of consumerism but included in it you pay for being redeemed of it for doing something of environment and so on and so on this dicht... generates almost a kind of a put it, semantic semantic overinvestment of burden, you know. it's not just buying a cup of coffee. it's at the same time you again, you fulfill a whole series of ethical duties and so on and so on. and again, this logic, i think, is today almost universalized. like, let's be frank, when you go to a store, probably you prefer buying organic apples. why? look deep into yourself. i don't think you really believe that those halfrot apples, which cost double the good old genetically modified apples that we all like, that they are really any better. i claim we are cynics, they are skeptics, but you know, it makes you feel warm that i'm doing. something for our mother earth i'm doing something for our planet and so on and so on. you get all that. so my point is that this very interesting short circuit where the very, as it were, act of egotist consumption and so on already includes the price for its opposite. i claim that the same logic is at work in not only in charity, but in other similar ideas. i will try to compare two ideas one from along the same lines, showing demonstrating the same logic of how. ironically, in some of my books, i call this the logic of chocolate laxative, you know, like chocolate is usually supposed to give you constipation. but i bought in california a pill which is a chocolate, but it has also the opposite function of... making it go. so first, the only original economic idea probably of the left in the last decades. you probably heard about it, the so-called basic citizens income. a rent enabling dignified survival to all citizens who do not have other resources. the term rent, we usually talk about basic income. in brazil, they use the term rent, renta básica. and i think this term should be taken seriously. introduction of basic rent brings to conclusion the, let's call it, becoming rent of the profit which characterizes today's capitalism. after the rent paid to those who privatize parts of our, what marx calls general intellect, like bill gates who collects rent for allowing people to participate in global networking. i think this is again crucial for me with my modest knowledge, at least economically. when ask brief question, how did bill gates become, if he still is, swiftly, the richest man in the world? the answer, i think, is not the extra profit, blah, blah, blah. no, it's simply rent. you know, when marx develops the notion of general intellect as the collective practical theoretical knowledge, what marx couldn't have imagined, for him this was the end of capitalism. in that famous fragment of the grundrisse, what marx couldn't have imagined is how this very general intellect, as it were, can be re-privatized again. and i think this is the secret of bill gates. he owns part of our intellectual commons, the very basic network in order to participate in common and so on, you have to pay him a rent. then we have the rent collected by those who dispose of scarce natural resources, oil and so on. finally, the third element of the production process, the working force also gets paid a rent. how? on what is this rent based? as its other name, citizens' rent, indicates, it is, and you know what i'm talking about, this general idea that every citizen, even if he doesn't work, should get some basic income to enable him a dignified survival, is a rent paid to all citizens of a state, privileging them with regard to non-citizens. this perhaps also explains why the idea of demanding some minimal social work as a condition for receiving this rent is thiseldom discussed. the point is precisely that we are dealing with a rent, something citizens are receiving on account of the mere fact of being citizens of a state. the first country to pass the law guaranteeing minimal income was brazil. in 2004, president lula signed a law guaranteeing an unconditional basic income or citizenship income for every brazilian citizen or foreign citizen, foreign resident living in brazil for five years or more. it should be of equal value, payable in monthly amounts, and so on and so on. of course, it's not yet realized. fully. but it's the first time that it's made into a law. the movement also is gaining more and more support in other countries. south africa. in europe, some followers of tony negri are working on a similar legislation in the european union and so on and so on. the main proponent of this basic income is today philippe van parijs, who from belgium, who? a sociologist, who? hailed the new brazilian law as a deep reform which belongs in the same category as the abolishment of slavery and the adoption of universal suffrage. parijs's idea is that a capitalist society offering a substantial and unconditional basic income to all its members can reconcile equality and freedom. it can resolve the old deadlock of fighting inequality which jeopardizes freedom and taking freedom to seriously which boosts inequality. relying on john rawls and ronald dworkin, parijs claims that such a society, beyond traditional capitalism and socialism, would be both just and feasible. it would promote the achievement of the actual freedom to make choices. in today's society, one cannot really choose to stay at home in order to raise children or to start a business. such freedom would be feasible only if, as a form of income distribution, a society were to tax the scarce commodity of well-paid jobs. in this way, capitalist dynamics can be combined with rawhl's notion of a just society as the one that maximizes the least advantage individuals real freedom, the freedom to actually choose what one prefers. the productivity of capitalism harness to provide the highest sustainable basic income is the only possible moral justification of capitalism. parijs thus offers a real third way beyond capitalism and socialism. the very profit-seeking which sustains capitalist productivity is taxed to provide for the poor in contrast to the socialist utopias where all members have to work. to work or not to work becomes here a truly free choice. the freedom to choose not to work is added as an actual option. if there is exploitation in such a society, it's not so much the exploitation of the workers by the capitalists, but the exploitation of the entire productive strata of capitalists and workers by the non-workers. those who get a rent are not... the parasites at the top of the social scale, noblemen, priests, but those at the bottom. we should be attentive to the presupposition of this solution. first, we remain within capitalism. social production remains predominantly capitalist and redistribution is imposed from the outside by the state apparatus. after 1989, most of the communist countries which survived made all possible concessions to capitalism. we give away everything, allowing unconstrained market exploitation and so on, everything except the essential, the power of the communist party, as in today's china. the basic income society is a kind of symmetrical reversal of this capitalist socialism. we gave away everything, organizing income for everyone and so on, everything except the essential, the smooth running of the capitalist. social machine. the basic income is thus the most radical version of the welfare state distributive justice, of the attempt to make capitalism work for the social welfare and justice. as such, it presupposes a very strong state, a state able to enact and control such a radical redistribution. some social analysts and economists suggest that the coming global economy tends towards a state in which only 20% of the workforce can do all the necessary job. so that so that 80% of the people will gradually become basically irrelevant, of no use, potentially unemployed. the basic income would make it possible to accept and render functional this excess. this is one version. now the enigma for me is that peter sloterdijk, the liberal conservative enfant terrible of contemporary german thought, arrived from the other side, as it were, at a similar conclusion. and i think there is more truth in his right-wing version. sloterdijk's diagnosis of our predicament is that in the developed western societies, the balance between the two basic, as he calls them, life forces, eros and thymos. desire grounded in lack and need and pride. grounded in self- assertive generosity is fatally disturbed. lack and need have priority over excess and generous giving. guilt and dependence over pride and self-assertion. we are paralyzed by cowardice when confronted with prideful self-assertion and giving. a quote. from sloterdijk's one of his interviews, we have practically no understanding for the complementary dimension of the life of the human soul, the pride, the honor, the generosity, the and the bequeathing, the whole scale of giving virtues which belong to the complete thematic life end of quote. consequently, for sloterdijk, only a kind of political psychological reformation can help us to break out of this, as he puts it, lethargocratic basic atmosphere. and sloterdijk adds here a nice multiculturalist twist. our focus on lack is eurocentric and as such prevents us to deal in a proper way with other cultures. our thinking, caught in the categories of lacking and needing, prohibits us to grasp even approximately the numerous pride cultures which continue to exist on the earth together with their life projects in which the man possesses a plush and demands honor. sloterdijk wouldn't have been sloterdijk if he were not to draw from this simple diagnosis a far-reaching and provocative conclusion. till now, we thought that only the united poor can save the world. and the 20th century has shown the catastrophic consequences of this attitude. the destructive violence which is engendered by universalized resentment. now, in the 21st century, we should gather the courage to finally accept, says sloterdijk, that only the rich can save the world. exceptional creative and generously giving individuals like bill gates, george soros and so on did more in the struggle for political freedom and against diseases than all state interventions. this is sloterdijk's diagnosis. uh. what makes it so interesting is that he understands his proposal not against excessive social democracy and so on, but as a strategy to guarantee, secure the survival of what he calls modern europe's greatest economic-political achievement, the social democratic welfare state. according to sloterdijk, our reality is, in europe at least, he calls it in a wonderful objective objective social democracy as opposed to what he calls subjective social democracy. one should distinguish between social democracy as the panoply of political parties and social democracy as the formula of a system which, quote, precisely describes the politico-economic order of things which is defined by the modern state as the state of taxes, infrastructure state, the state of the rule of law, and not last as the social state and the therapy state. consequently, in the systematic actuality of western nation states, we are always dealing with two social democracies which we should carefully keep apart. we encounter everywhere a phenomenal and a structural social democracy, a manifest and a latent one. one which appears as a party and another which is more or less irreversibly built into the very definitions, functions and procedures of the modern. statehood as such end of quote this, what sloterdijk calls really existing half socialism is today approaching its limit. although our societies prosper through redistribution of wealth generated by the creative minority, both political poles deny this fact. the left denies it because if it were to admit it, it would have to accept that it leaves off the exploitation of the rich and successful. the right denies because because if it were to admit it, it would have to accept that it is really part of the social democratic consensus. this denial worked insofar as the political scene was focused on a nation-state playground in which a large popular people's party was able to enact a pact between the white population and the productive minority within the limits of a nation-state. today, however, with global migrations and exchanges, d social national synthesis works less end. therein resides for sloterdijk the lesson of the 2009 german elections. the great losers were both people's parties addressing the entire electorate, social democrats and christian democrats. and the winners were liberal democrats who do not want to imprison the entire society but consciously constrain themselves to standing for the productive minority. so. in order to maintain objective social democracy it is therefore crucial for sloterdijk to grant this creative and tax-active strata the social recognition it deserves. they are not the exploiters, not the takers, but the givers in our societies, those on whose creativity our entire welfare hinges. that's the revolution that sloterdijk. ach. as he put it, arguably there is in the entire history of ideas no other case of a theoretical mistake which entailed so large practical consequences than ricardo and marx's labor theory of value. on this mistake is based a system of calizing the bearers of creativity. whose reign extends of these calumnies over 200 years and so on and so on. so... my counterpoint here, the lesson of the ongoing financial crisis is for me exactly the opposite one. most of the gigantic sums of bailout money is going not to this passive minority, but precisely to this ayn randian, referring to ayn rand the writer, deregulated titans who failed in their creative schemes and thereby brought about the meltdown. is it not the great is not the great creative geniuses who are now helping lazy ordinary people. it is the ordinary taxpayers who are helping the failed creative geniuses. furthermore, is it not that instead of blaming the egalitarian resentment left for the preponderance of eros over thymos, sloterdijk should recall here his own earlier point that it is capitalism itself which in its very core is driven by a perverted eros. by a lac which gapes open the more it is satisfied. uh. aware of all this and referring to georges bataille's notion of the general economy of sovereign expenditure which bataille opposes, as you probably know, to so-called restrained economy. sloterdijk provides the outlines of capitalism's split from itself. sla claims that what was an exception 100 years ago, andrew carnegie, you know, first becoming mega rich, then giving it away, that this today is more and more becoming the rule. at the end, when you... make it the sovereign self-negating gesture of the endless accumulation of wealth. ich. after you gain this wealth to spend this wealth for things beyond price and outside market circulation, public goods, charity, arts, scientists, health and so on and so on. so sloterdijk's idea is that when a rich man donates his accumulated wealth or part of it to public good, the capitalist self-negates himself as the mere personification of capital and its reproductive circulation. his life acquires meaning. so again, that's sloterdijk's solution, that. we should, because our life more and more depends on the minority of creative individuals, we should find a way not of taxing them less. he really tries to be a social democrat, but his solution, i think, is more a kind of a proto-japanese solution. give them, don't make them feel guilty as exploiters or whatever. give them social recognition as this socially celebrated. benefactors and so on and so on. in this way he thinks maybe the entire welfare edifice with basic income included can function. in this way you can combine the wildest capitalism with the facto welfare state. you can combine equality you can combine equality with capitalist. dynamics. the problem i have here is that, and sloterdijk should have known it, that his notion of, although precisely because he wrote so much about thymos's pride, resentment and so on and so on, that his model, i think, works precisely and only insofar as you don't take into account resentment and envy. this is also the big failure of john rawls's theory. john rawls is honest enough in some of his late writings to, i'm five minutes to the end, so i preemptively strike at myself john rawls openly admits this, that his model of ideal justice works only insofar as you suspend, as you ignore envy. envy, because envy ruins all this. balanced recognition and so on and so on. even a guy whom i definitely politically don't like, like friedrich von hayek, made here a very intelligent remark when he said that the usual argument for capitalism, but in reality it's not the intelligent good guys who win, it depends on chance. he says this is not a weakness of capitalism. this is what makes it livable. because let's say that we live in a just capitalist society. but just, i don't mean some marxist economic justice, but simply to put it in naive terms, if you have more money than me, it means you really are brighter, worked more, and so on and so on. but as hayek points out, this would have made for me much more difficult. accept you because accepting your wealth would have entailed the recognition that you are and people under no conditions are ready to admit this, that you are effectively wiser more intelligent and so on than me. but if i am aware that the system is unjust i can say oh that jerk that idiot was lucky and so on. you know what i mean? it allows prevent resentment, envy from exploding. and if you ask me this is what. sloterdijk's model ignores and he should have not needed this, if you ask me, is... i leave outside my scope, all the problems of how is it economically feasible, this is what i also i think makes van parijs's model of basic income unlivable. again, it doesn't take into account envy. and envy, i learned this as a psychoanalyst and as a member of my own nation state, slovenia is a basic factor. you know that we slovenes are well-known misers. like our myth is that what's the origin of scotland? one of us spent too much money, we put him on a boat, he landed in scotland and so on. and what is envy? like this is a classical slovene joke. you know, a fairy appears to you and tells you, what do you prefer more? to a farmer. i give you a cow, but i give to your neighbor two cows or i kill you a cow but i kill two cows of your neighbor. every slovene immediately opts for the second version, of course. and i think, again, marx was even aware of it. these fundamental facts, i claim, make this simple solution that you will simply trade that you will trade taxing the rich for getting from them from paying them by recognition and so on and so on. i think it's entirely unworkable. not even to point, not even to focus on the fact. debt. that of the hoch deputit patronizing dependency into which this puts the minority so i think that now i will conclude. based against all of this, i think that we should return to good old oscar wilde, who still provided the best formulation against this logic of charity. let me just quote a couple of lines from the beginning of his the soul of man under socialism. where he points out that, a quote, it is much more easy to have sympathy with suffering than it is to have sympathy with thought. people find themselves surrounded by hideous poverty, by hideous ugliness, by hideous starvation. it is inevitable that they should be strongly moved by all this. accordingly, with admirable, though misdirected intentions, they very seriously and very sentimentally set themselves to the task of remedying the evils that they see. but their remedies do not cure the disease. they merely prolong it. indeed, remedies are part of the disease. they try to solve the problem of poverty, for instance by keeping the poor alive, or in the case of a very advanced school by amusing the poor. but this is not a solution. it is an aggravation of the difficulty. the proper aim is to try and reconstruct society on such a basis that poverty will be impossible and the altruistic virtues have really prevented the carrying out of this aim. the worst slave owners those who were kind to their slaves and so prevented the horror of the system being realized by those who suffered from it and understood by those who contemplated it. charity degrades and demoralizes. it is immoral to use private property in order to alleviate the horrible evils that result from the institution of private property. i think these lines are more actual than ever. nice as it basic income or this kind of a trade with the rich is not a solution. thank very much.
i want to develop a very simple linear line of thought about one. only point. why in our economy charity is no longer just an idiosyncrasy of some good guys here and there, but the basic constituent of our economy. i would like to start with the feature of so-called cultural capitalism, today's form of capitalism, and then develop how the same thing applies also to economy in the narrower sense of the term. namely, if in the old times, by old times i mean something very precise, before this 68 transformation of capitalism into, as we usually call it, more cultural capitalism, postmodern caring for ecology and all that, what changed? what changed is that if before this time there was a simple, more or less simple, opposition between here it's consumptionmation, you buy, you speculate and so on, then on the top of it, it comes what you do for a society, like soros. he's still the old type here, i claim. in the morning he grabs the money. if i simplify it, in the afternoon he gives half of the money back to charities and supporting things. and so on. but i claim in today's capitalism more and more the tendency is to bring the two dimensions together in one and the same gesture so that when you buy something, your anti-consumerist duty to do something for others, for environment and so on is already included into it. if you think i'm exaggerating, you have them around the corner. walk into any starbucks coffee. and you will see how they explicitly tell you, i quote their campaign, it's not just what you are buying, it's what you are buying into. and then they describe it to you. listen, when you buy starbucks, whether you realize it or not, you are buying into something bigger than a cup of coffee. you are buying into a coffee ethics. through our starbucks shared planet program, we purchase more fair trade coffee than any company in the world. ensuring that the farmers who grow the beans receive a fair price for their hard work. and we invest in and improve coffee growing practices and communities around the globe. it's a good coffee karma. and a little bit of the price of a cup of starbucks coffee helps furnish the place with comfortable chairs and so on and so on. you see, this is what i call cultural capitalism at its purest. you don't just buy a coffee. you buy in the very consumerist act. you buy your redemption from being only a consumerist, you know. you do something for the environment, you do something to help starving children in guatemala, you do something to restore the sense of community here and so on and so on. this, and again, i could go on, like the almost absurd example of this is so-called... tom's shoes, an american company whose formula is one for one. they claim for every pair of shoes you buy with them, they give a pair of shoes to some african nation and so on and so on so that you know one for one one act of consumerism but included in it you pay for being redeemed of it for doing something of environment and so on and so on this dicht... generates almost a kind of a put it, semantic semantic overinvestment of burden, you know. it's not just buying a cup of coffee. it's at the same time you again, you fulfill a whole series of ethical duties and so on and so on. and again, this logic, i think, is today almost universalized. like, let's be frank, when you go to a store, probably you prefer buying organic apples. why? look deep into yourself. i don't think you really believe that those halfrot apples, which cost double the good old genetically modified apples that we all like, that they are really any better. i claim we are cynics, they are skeptics, but you know, it makes you feel warm that i'm doing. something for our mother earth i'm doing something for our planet and so on and so on. you get all that. so my point is that this very interesting short circuit where the very, as it were, act of egotist consumption and so on already includes the price for its opposite. i claim that the same logic is at work in not only in charity, but in other similar ideas. i will try to compare two ideas one from along the same lines, showing demonstrating the same logic of how. ironically, in some of my books, i call this the logic of chocolate laxative, you know, like chocolate is usually supposed to give you constipation. but i bought in california a pill which is a chocolate, but it has also the opposite function of... making it go. so first, the only original economic idea probably of the left in the last decades. you probably heard about it, the so-called basic citizens income. a rent enabling dignified survival to all citizens who do not have other resources. the term rent, we usually talk about basic income. in brazil, they use the term rent, renta básica. and i think this term should be taken seriously. introduction of basic rent brings to conclusion the, let's call it, becoming rent of the profit which characterizes today's capitalism. after the rent paid to those who privatize parts of our, what marx calls general intellect, like bill gates who collects rent for allowing people to participate in global networking. i think this is again crucial for me with my modest knowledge, at least economically. when ask brief question, how did bill gates become, if he still is, swiftly, the richest man in the world? the answer, i think, is not the extra profit, blah, blah, blah. no, it's simply rent. you know, when marx develops the notion of general intellect as the collective practical theoretical knowledge, what marx couldn't have imagined, for him this was the end of capitalism. in that famous fragment of the grundrisse, what marx couldn't have imagined is how this very general intellect, as it were, can be re-privatized again. and i think this is the secret of bill gates. he owns part of our intellectual commons, the very basic network in order to participate in common and so on, you have to pay him a rent. then we have the rent collected by those who dispose of scarce natural resources, oil and so on. finally, the third element of the production process, the working force also gets paid a rent. how? on what is this rent based? as its other name, citizens' rent, indicates, it is, and you know what i'm talking about, this general idea that every citizen, even if he doesn't work, should get some basic income to enable him a dignified survival, is a rent paid to all citizens of a state, privileging them with regard to non-citizens. this perhaps also explains why the idea of demanding some minimal social work as a condition for receiving this rent is thiseldom discussed. the point is precisely that we are dealing with a rent, something citizens are receiving on account of the mere fact of being citizens of a state. the first country to pass the law guaranteeing minimal income was brazil. in 2004, president lula signed a law guaranteeing an unconditional basic income or citizenship income for every brazilian citizen or foreign citizen, foreign resident living in brazil for five years or more. it should be of equal value, payable in monthly amounts, and so on and so on. of course, it's not yet realized. fully. but it's the first time that it's made into a law. the movement also is gaining more and more support in other countries. south africa. in europe, some followers of tony negri are working on a similar legislation in the european union and so on and so on. the main proponent of this basic income is today philippe van parijs, who from belgium, who? a sociologist, who? hailed the new brazilian law as a deep reform which belongs in the same category as the abolishment of slavery and the adoption of universal suffrage. parijs's idea is that a capitalist society offering a substantial and unconditional basic income to all its members can reconcile equality and freedom. it can resolve the old deadlock of fighting inequality which jeopardizes freedom and taking freedom to seriously which boosts inequality. relying on john rawls and ronald dworkin, parijs claims that such a society, beyond traditional capitalism and socialism, would be both just and feasible. it would promote the achievement of the actual freedom to make choices. in today's society, one cannot really choose to stay at home in order to raise children or to start a business. such freedom would be feasible only if, as a form of income distribution, a society were to tax the scarce commodity of well-paid jobs. in this way, capitalist dynamics can be combined with rawhl's notion of a just society as the one that maximizes the least advantage individuals real freedom, the freedom to actually choose what one prefers. the productivity of capitalism harness to provide the highest sustainable basic income is the only possible moral justification of capitalism. parijs thus offers a real third way beyond capitalism and socialism. the very profit-seeking which sustains capitalist productivity is taxed to provide for the poor in contrast to the socialist utopias where all members have to work. to work or not to work becomes here a truly free choice. the freedom to choose not to work is added as an actual option. if there is exploitation in such a society, it's not so much the exploitation of the workers by the capitalists, but the exploitation of the entire productive strata of capitalists and workers by the non-workers. those who get a rent are not... the parasites at the top of the social scale, noblemen, priests, but those at the bottom. we should be attentive to the presupposition of this solution. first, we remain within capitalism. social production remains predominantly capitalist and redistribution is imposed from the outside by the state apparatus. after 1989, most of the communist countries which survived made all possible concessions to capitalism. we give away everything, allowing unconstrained market exploitation and so on, everything except the essential, the power of the communist party, as in today's china. the basic income society is a kind of symmetrical reversal of this capitalist socialism. we gave away everything, organizing income for everyone and so on, everything except the essential, the smooth running of the capitalist. social machine. the basic income is thus the most radical version of the welfare state distributive justice, of the attempt to make capitalism work for the social welfare and justice. as such, it presupposes a very strong state, a state able to enact and control such a radical redistribution. some social analysts and economists suggest that the coming global economy tends towards a state in which only 20% of the workforce can do all the necessary job. so that so that 80% of the people will gradually become basically irrelevant, of no use, potentially unemployed. the basic income would make it possible to accept and render functional this excess. this is one version. now the enigma for me is that peter sloterdijk, the liberal conservative enfant terrible of contemporary german thought, arrived from the other side, as it were, at a similar conclusion. and i think there is more truth in his right-wing version. sloterdijk's diagnosis of our predicament is that in the developed western societies, the balance between the two basic, as he calls them, life forces, eros and thymos. desire grounded in lack and need and pride. grounded in self- assertive generosity is fatally disturbed. lack and need have priority over excess and generous giving. guilt and dependence over pride and self-assertion. we are paralyzed by cowardice when confronted with prideful self-assertion and giving. a quote. from sloterdijk's one of his interviews, we have practically no understanding for the complementary dimension of the life of the human soul, the pride, the honor, the generosity, the and the bequeathing, the whole scale of giving virtues which belong to the complete thematic life end of quote. consequently, for sloterdijk, only a kind of political psychological reformation can help us to break out of this, as he puts it, lethargocratic basic atmosphere. and sloterdijk adds here a nice multiculturalist twist. our focus on lack is eurocentric and as such prevents us to deal in a proper way with other cultures. our thinking, caught in the categories of lacking and needing, prohibits us to grasp even approximately the numerous pride cultures which continue to exist on the earth together with their life projects in which the man possesses a plush and demands honor. sloterdijk wouldn't have been sloterdijk if he were not to draw from this simple diagnosis a far-reaching and provocative conclusion. till now, we thought that only the united poor can save the world. and the 20th century has shown the catastrophic consequences of this attitude. the destructive violence which is engendered by universalized resentment. now, in the 21st century, we should gather the courage to finally accept, says sloterdijk, that only the rich can save the world. exceptional creative and generously giving individuals like bill gates, george soros and so on did more in the struggle for political freedom and against diseases than all state interventions. this is sloterdijk's diagnosis. uh. what makes it so interesting is that he understands his proposal not against excessive social democracy and so on, but as a strategy to guarantee, secure the survival of what he calls modern europe's greatest economic-political achievement, the social democratic welfare state. according to sloterdijk, our reality is, in europe at least, he calls it in a wonderful objective objective social democracy as opposed to what he calls subjective social democracy. one should distinguish between social democracy as the panoply of political parties and social democracy as the formula of a system which, quote, precisely describes the politico-economic order of things which is defined by the modern state as the state of taxes, infrastructure state, the state of the rule of law, and not last as the social state and the therapy state. consequently, in the systematic actuality of western nation states, we are always dealing with two social democracies which we should carefully keep apart. we encounter everywhere a phenomenal and a structural social democracy, a manifest and a latent one. one which appears as a party and another which is more or less irreversibly built into the very definitions, functions and procedures of the modern. statehood as such end of quote this, what sloterdijk calls really existing half socialism is today approaching its limit. although our societies prosper through redistribution of wealth generated by the creative minority, both political poles deny this fact. the left denies it because if it were to admit it, it would have to accept that it leaves off the exploitation of the rich and successful. the right denies because because if it were to admit it, it would have to accept that it is really part of the social democratic consensus. this denial worked insofar as the political scene was focused on a nation-state playground in which a large popular people's party was able to enact a pact between the white population and the productive minority within the limits of a nation-state. today, however, with global migrations and exchanges, d social national synthesis works less end. therein resides for sloterdijk the lesson of the 2009 german elections. the great losers were both people's parties addressing the entire electorate, social democrats and christian democrats. and the winners were liberal democrats who do not want to imprison the entire society but consciously constrain themselves to standing for the productive minority. so. in order to maintain objective social democracy it is therefore crucial for sloterdijk to grant this creative and tax-active strata the social recognition it deserves. they are not the exploiters, not the takers, but the givers in our societies, those on whose creativity our entire welfare hinges. that's the revolution that sloterdijk. ach. as he put it, arguably there is in the entire history of ideas no other case of a theoretical mistake which entailed so large practical consequences than ricardo and marx's labor theory of value. on this mistake is based a system of calizing the bearers of creativity. whose reign extends of these calumnies over 200 years and so on and so on. so... my counterpoint here, the lesson of the ongoing financial crisis is for me exactly the opposite one. most of the gigantic sums of bailout money is going not to this passive minority, but precisely to this ayn randian, referring to ayn rand the writer, deregulated titans who failed in their creative schemes and thereby brought about the meltdown. is it not the great is not the great creative geniuses who are now helping lazy ordinary people. it is the ordinary taxpayers who are helping the failed creative geniuses. furthermore, is it not that instead of blaming the egalitarian resentment left for the preponderance of eros over thymos, sloterdijk should recall here his own earlier point that it is capitalism itself which in its very core is driven by a perverted eros. by a lac which gapes open the more it is satisfied. uh. aware of all this and referring to georges bataille's notion of the general economy of sovereign expenditure which bataille opposes, as you probably know, to so-called restrained economy. sloterdijk provides the outlines of capitalism's split from itself. sla claims that what was an exception 100 years ago, andrew carnegie, you know, first becoming mega rich, then giving it away, that this today is more and more becoming the rule. at the end, when you... make it the sovereign self-negating gesture of the endless accumulation of wealth. ich. after you gain this wealth to spend this wealth for things beyond price and outside market circulation, public goods, charity, arts, scientists, health and so on and so on. so sloterdijk's idea is that when a rich man donates his accumulated wealth or part of it to public good, the capitalist self-negates himself as the mere personification of capital and its reproductive circulation. his life acquires meaning. so again, that's sloterdijk's solution, that. we should, because our life more and more depends on the minority of creative individuals, we should find a way not of taxing them less. he really tries to be a social democrat, but his solution, i think, is more a kind of a proto-japanese solution. give them, don't make them feel guilty as exploiters or whatever. give them social recognition as this socially celebrated. benefactors and so on and so on. in this way he thinks maybe the entire welfare edifice with basic income included can function. in this way you can combine the wildest capitalism with the facto welfare state. you can combine equality you can combine equality with capitalist. dynamics. the problem i have here is that, and sloterdijk should have known it, that his notion of, although precisely because he wrote so much about thymos's pride, resentment and so on and so on, that his model, i think, works precisely and only insofar as you don't take into account resentment and envy. this is also the big failure of john rawls's theory. john rawls is honest enough in some of his late writings to, i'm five minutes to the end, so i preemptively strike at myself john rawls openly admits this, that his model of ideal justice works only insofar as you suspend, as you ignore envy. envy, because envy ruins all this. balanced recognition and so on and so on. even a guy whom i definitely politically don't like, like friedrich von hayek, made here a very intelligent remark when he said that the usual argument for capitalism, but in reality it's not the intelligent good guys who win, it depends on chance. he says this is not a weakness of capitalism. this is what makes it livable. because let's say that we live in a just capitalist society. but just, i don't mean some marxist economic justice, but simply to put it in naive terms, if you have more money than me, it means you really are brighter, worked more, and so on and so on. but as hayek points out, this would have made for me much more difficult. accept you because accepting your wealth would have entailed the recognition that you are and people under no conditions are ready to admit this, that you are effectively wiser more intelligent and so on than me. but if i am aware that the system is unjust i can say oh that jerk that idiot was lucky and so on. you know what i mean? it allows prevent resentment, envy from exploding. and if you ask me this is what. sloterdijk's model ignores and he should have not needed this, if you ask me, is... i leave outside my scope, all the problems of how is it economically feasible, this is what i also i think makes van parijs's model of basic income unlivable. again, it doesn't take into account envy. and envy, i learned this as a psychoanalyst and as a member of my own nation state, slovenia is a basic factor. you know that we slovenes are well-known misers. like our myth is that what's the origin of scotland? one of us spent too much money, we put him on a boat, he landed in scotland and so on. and what is envy? like this is a classical slovene joke. you know, a fairy appears to you and tells you, what do you prefer more? to a farmer. i give you a cow, but i give to your neighbor two cows or i kill you a cow but i kill two cows of your neighbor. every slovene immediately opts for the second version, of course. and i think, again, marx was even aware of it. these fundamental facts, i claim, make this simple solution that you will simply trade that you will trade taxing the rich for getting from them from paying them by recognition and so on and so on. i think it's entirely unworkable. not even to point, not even to focus on the fact. debt. that of the hoch deputit patronizing dependency into which this puts the minority so i think that now i will conclude. based against all of this, i think that we should return to good old oscar wilde, who still provided the best formulation against this logic of charity. let me just quote a couple of lines from the beginning of his the soul of man under socialism. where he points out that, a quote, it is much more easy to have sympathy with suffering than it is to have sympathy with thought. people find themselves surrounded by hideous poverty, by hideous ugliness, by hideous starvation. it is inevitable that they should be strongly moved by all this. accordingly, with admirable, though misdirected intentions, they very seriously and very sentimentally set themselves to the task of remedying the evils that they see. but their remedies do not cure the disease. they merely prolong it. indeed, remedies are part of the disease. they try to solve the problem of poverty, for instance by keeping the poor alive, or in the case of a very advanced school by amusing the poor. but this is not a solution. it is an aggravation of the difficulty. the proper aim is to try and reconstruct society on such a basis that poverty will be impossible and the altruistic virtues have really prevented the carrying out of this aim. the worst slave owners those who were kind to their slaves and so prevented the horror of the system being realized by those who suffered from it and understood by those who contemplated it. charity degrades and demoralizes. it is immoral to use private property in order to alleviate the horrible evils that result from the institution of private property. i think these lines are more actual than ever. nice as it basic income or this kind of a trade with the rich is not a solution. thank very much.