Well people often ask me how can you be so
stupid and still proclaim yourself a communist.
What do you mean by this? Well, I have always
to emphasize that first I am well aware that
let’s call it like this – the twentieth
century’s over. Which means all not only
communists solution but all the big leftist
projects of the twentieth century failed.
Not only did Stalinist communism although
there its failure is much more paradoxical.
Most of the countries where communists are
still in power like China, Vietnam – their
communists in power appear to be the most
efficient managers of a very wildly productive
capitalism. So okay, that one failed. I think
that also and here I in a very respectful
way disagree with your – by your I mean
American neo-Keynesian leftists, Krugman,
Stiglitz and so on. I also think that this
Keynesian welfare state model is passé. In
the conditions of today’s global economy
it no longer works. For the welfare state
to work you need a strong nation state which
can impose a certain fiscal politics and so
on and so on. When you have global market
it doesn’t work. And the third point which
is most problematic for my friends, the third
leftist vision which is deep in the heart
of all leftists that I know – this idea
of critically rejecting alienated representative
democracy and arguing for local grass root
democracy where it’s not that you just delegate
to the others. Your representatives to act
for you, but people immediately engage in
locally managing their affairs and so on.
I think this is a nice idea as far as it goes
but it’s not the solution. It’s a very
limited one. And if I may be really evil here
I frankly I wouldn’t like to live in a stupid
society where I would have to be all the time
engaged in local communitarian politics and
so on and so on. My idea is to live in a society
where some invisible alienated machinery takes
care of things so that I can do whatever I
want – watch movies, read and write philosophical
books and so on. But so I’m well aware that
in all its versions radical left projects
of the twentieth century came to an end and
for one decade maybe we were all Fukuyamaists
for the nineties. By Fukuyamaism I mean the
idea that basically we found if not the best
formula at least the least bad formula. Liberal
democratic capitalism with elements of rebel
state and so on and so on. And even the left
played this game. You know we were fighting
for less racism, women’s right, gay rights,
whatever tolerance. But basically we accepted
the system. I think and even Fukuyama himself
is no longer a Fukuyamaist as I know that
if there is a lesson of September 11 if other
event is that no we don’t have the answer.
That not only is liberal democratic capitalism
not the universal model and is just a time
of slow historical progress for it to be accepted
everywhere. But again try now in Singapore
and other examples of very successful economies
today demonstrate that this, let’s call
it ironically eternal marriage between democracy
and capitalism it’s coming to an end.
What we are more and more getting today is
a capitalism which is brutally efficient but
it no longer needs democracy for its functioning.
That’s my first point. My second point is
that the problems that we are confronting
today we can list them in different ways but
my point is they are all problems of commons.
For example, ecology it’s clearly a problem
of commons. Nature our natural environment
is our commons, something which shouldn’t
be privatized because it belongs to all of
us. It’s as it were the background or literally
the ground of our being. And it’s clear
for me that here we need to reinvent not local
democracy but on the contrary also large scale
solutions. The problem today is not local
communitarian democracy. The problem today
is how it regulates trends worldwide. Because
even here I almost admire the – if I may
use this old fashioned Marxist terms the ruling
ideology, no. Like turning the cards upon
us and making us individually guilty like
did you separate all diet Coke cans. Did you
separate all the newspapers and so on. I mean
I find it ridiculous how not only are we made
responsible. Instead of blaming not some person
but the system as such how to reorganize our
lives. But this solution also allows us an
easy way out. Then as if you recycle, you
buy green products and so on and you feel
well, you did your duty.
And another example that I use again and again
– Starbucks coffee and others. I think it’s
something very ingenious that capitalists
there. You know when you enter a Starbucks
place they always tell you, you know, we take
care of nature, five percent of our profits
go for Guatemalan rainforest, for Somalian
children, whatever. I think this is ingenious
that when we are consumerists we feel bad.
Oh my God, I’m just a consumerist. People
are starving there. We are ruining Mother
Earth. But here the message is our coffee
is a little bit more expensive but the ideological
price to do something for Mother Earth is
included into it, you know. I even – that
would be my idea, Starbucks you know, how
they bring your bill when you pay check and
then it says that – how do they call it
this additional federal tax or whatever so
much. I would love to have it where they would
put it, you know, three percent for helping
Mother Earth included, five percent for Guatemala
orphans included. And it makes you feel good
and so on. So what I’m saying is that, for
example, this is one example of endangered
commons where I’m not underestimating capitalism
here. Of course one should use all capitalists
and market tools like higher taxes for polluters
and all of that.
But you cannot control in this way real ecological
catastrophes. Imagine Fukushima which happened
an earthquake and all that in Japan. Now it
would be a couple of years ago. Imagine the
same thing just some – it’s quite realistic
act of imagining – just some two, three
times stronger which means that probably the
whole northern third of Japan would have to
be evacuated. How to confront this? Who will
do it and so on and so on. We need a solution
here and the problem is the commons. Next
point. Finances. Everyone knows that some
type of regulation is needed otherwise the
way banks function today it’s simply even
from the standpoint of let’s call it naively
rational capitalism. It no longer works. Another
thing – so called intellectual property.
Jeremy Rifkin pointed out how we are already
almost approaching there a kind of a weird
communism. I don’t know how it is here with
you but in my part of Europe, DVDs are disappearing.
You download everything. It’s – I think
– okay this is one phenomenon but I think
that generally there is something in so called
intellectual property, knowledge and so on
which is communist in its very nature in the
sense that it resists being constrained by
private profit. It tends to circulate freely.
So again how to solve this problem? I don’t
think that capitalism will succeed in privatizing
intellectual property. Next point biogenetics.
Are we aware what is happening today? I mean
I don’t want to exaggerate and I’m not
a panic monger. I’m not saying tomorrow
we will be robots. I’m just saying that
two things are happening which are more and
more reality. A, that and this is something
so tremendously important philosophically.
Direct contact between the inside of our brain,
our thoughts, and outside like we all know,
for example, that today still at a very primitive
level but we can directly wire our brain so
that machine can read it direct – and, for
example, Stephen Hawking no longer will have
needed his finger. Now he was functioning
with the finger just moving it a little bit.
You think forward, your wheelchair moves forward
and so on. Of course one of the problems here
is that if it goes outside you just think
about it, it happens, it also goes inside
the other way around. So all this prospect
of the biogenetically changing your properties
directly wiring your mind and so on. How will
this be used for social control? And, for
example, when I visited China five years ago
I got in a conversation with some big shot
from their Academy of Biogenetics. I mean
biogenetic department of their Academy of
Sciences. And he gave me the program of goals
of biogenetics in China. A kind of a programmatic
text which pretty much terrified me.
It opens up the text with something like the
goal of biogenetics in the People’s Republic
of China is to regulate the physical and the
psychic welfare of Chinese people. My God,
what does that mean? Now I’m not here a
conservative guy who is in panic. No, it’s
a new field. Who knows but we have to be aware
of the problem and it cannot be decided on
the market. We need new forms of global control
and regulation. And the last thing, new forms
of apartheid. That’s the ultimate irony
for me. Berlin Wall fell down, now new walls
are emerging all around. The United States,
Mexico. West Bank, Israel occupied territories
to even the south of Spain how to isolate
Europe from Africa and so on and so on. I
think the paradox of today’s global capitalism
is that on the one hand it’s global, free
flow of capital but the free movement of people
is more and more controlled and more and more
we get new forms of apartheid. Full cities
and those immigrants half excluded and so
on. These are all problems we are confronting
today. And the big question is can we cope
with these problems within the liberal democratic
capitalist frame. I’m a pessimist here.
I don’t see – I’m really a pessimist
because I don’t see a clear solution here.
I’m certainly not an idiot who claims oh,
a new Leninist party or whatever, will regulate
it. No, that game is over. But I claim just
two things.
A, all these problems are problems of commons.
Biogenetics – our genetic inheritance is
our humanity’s genetic commons with new
forms of apartheid we are talking simply about
commons as the common social space and so
these are all problems of commons and how
to confront them, how to deal with them because,
you know, the paradox here is that on the
one hand we are already getting elements aspects
of communism like again with all the downloading
and so on. New forms of circulation of knowledge
even of commodities which no longer follow
the market model. On the other hand I’m
well aware that all this also brings out new
problems which is why as I always repeat it,
I support Julian Assange WikiLeaks. But not
in the usual anti-American way. I always emphasize
this. WikiLeaks should not be used for cheap
anti-Americanism. Why not? Because there is
a point in those who say that imagine someone
like Chelsea Manning in China. There would
not be a trial. She would just disappear probably
together with the entire family or whatever.
So why nonetheless we should also talk about
United States even if the control is much
worse in China, Russia and so on.
Because there is one problem and I can tell
you I was in China and Russia. There people
are well aware of the limitation of their
freedom. Nobody in China has the illusion
that they are actually free. You have local
freedoms of choice, you know. You can do sexually
whatever you want. You can more or less read
books that you want. You can find a job if
you find it of course that you want. But the
general social network no democracy there
also with us is getting worse and worse but
that’s another point. What I want to say
is that the importance of WikiLeaks for United
States is that how here in the United States
we can – our lives can also be controlled
and regulated but without us being aware of
it. We still experience ourselves as fully
free. And this is for me the most dangerous
unfreedom. The unfreedom which is not even
aware of itself as unfreedom. Unfreedom which
is experienced as freedom.
Another point here is we all know what is
going on now is something incredible. TISA,
T – I – S – A and other negotiations
which are incredibly important. They will
regulate markets, exchange of data and so
on neo-liberal lines so that they will radically
define the basic coordinates of our economic
lives even more. But the point is we don’t
– these negotiations are all done in secret.
So, you see, this is for me the problem of
freedom today. Yes, we have freedom at the
level of freedom of choice. You buy this,
you buy that, you travel here, you travel
there, whatever. But for me freedom has to
be more. Actual freedom has to also be the
freedom to regulate the very basic coordinates
of your life. You have a choice between this
and that but how is the entire field which
offers you these choices and not other choices
– how is it structured? At that level we
get more and more secret agreements, we get
less and less freedom. So freedom is a big
problem today but it’s the struggle for
what we understand with freedom.
