This topic struck me the other day when I was Blockbuster and saw a two-part documentary on Che Guevara, the Marxist/Socialist revolutionary himself. I thought to myself at that instant, would Che Guevara support a documentary on himself on the shelves of a Blockbuster? I concluded he probably would not be too pleased.
I have contemplated whether resistance to capitalism is futile at many points in the past couple years. Here's a couple of examples:
1. Slavoj Zizek -- Slovakian professor and theorist extraordinaire. All around capitalist hating badass if you ask me. He's got multiple books about everything from Socialism to ethics of the Real. His "brand" if you will is now a sign for everything capitalism hates; yet capitalism touts Zizek as the ultimate resistance to itself. In my opinion it just proves how much you cannot stop capitalism.
2. China -- Yes China. This isn't breaking news for those of you who pay any attention to the news in the past decade. I believe it was 1994 when the PRC opened its first "Special Economic Zone" (SEZ). These zones essentially were areas of free market capitalism surrounded by rest of communist China.
China still sometimes decides to play the communist card in the international arena; but any semblance of true communism (they never actually made it to true communism) died years ago.
in the Summer of 2008 many critics predicted the fall of capitalism after the collapse of many US financial institutions. It seems now capitalism has withstood the worst of the recent recession and is rebounding. Marx predicted that capitalism was susceptible to periodic recessions; but he did not predict how incredibly durable capitalism has become. Through multiple long term and short term recessions it has been modified to whatever the situation necessitates.
Capitalism simply coops anything that stands against in its way. It seems that to truly stand against capitalism, you must truly stand against human nature, or at least democracy. Zizek writes that capitalism and democracy are so intertwined that you must fight against democracy to fight against capitalism; separating them would be impossible. But in order to fight against democracy you must fight against the largest purveyor of democracy: the United States. No state or terrorist organization seems to have been able to destroy the US yet, good luck at defeating capitalism.
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Opinions of an innocent bystander in the world.
Restarting
Anybody who followed this blog for its brief lifetime saw its ups and downs. I AM still currently looking for guest writers if anyone would like to submit an article. The same guidelines apply:
1) At least 750 words long.
2) Must be relevant to the blog title and previous posts (this should be obvious). I will accept posts on subjects other than those provided but should be in the same guidelines of IR, Geopolitics, etc. I would be especially interested in seeing articles utilizing theories of Marxism and Critical Geopolitics.
3) I reserve the right to deny any article written for any reason. I also reserve the right to decide whether I will give you a reason for my decision. Along those lines, I will try and give you a reason why, but I like to keep my options open.
4) Any article accepted will be posted on Digg, and other social media websites.
Please email me your article at c.kirkland(at)sussex(dot)ac(dot)uk. Please make the subject "BLOG" (ensure all caps, I may just delete it otherwise). I look forward to restarting this blog and (hopefully) having a healthy, informed discussion of international politics.
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About Me
- C.K.
- Finishing my MA in Geopolitics and Grand Strategy at University of Sussex. Interests: Marxism, Critical Geopolitics, Energy Security, Critical Theory (and those which intersect with IR, particularly critical security analysis), Russian foreign and security policy, Central Asia (particularly Kazakhstan), Caspian Sea politics. Sometimes I enjoy reading a bit about COIN.