Slavoj Zizek wrote a new article for The Guardian on Sunday, Feb. 17 titled “Why the Free Market Fundamentalists Think 2013 Will be the Best Year Ever.” In it, Zizek discusses the Eurocentric view of progress and the impending crises of capitalism:

Even with regard to human rights: is the situation in China and Russia now not better than it was 50 years ago? Describing the ongoing crisis as a global phenomenon, the story goes, is a typical Eurocentrist view coming from leftists who usually pride themselves on their anti-Eurocentrism. Our “global crisis” is in fact a mere local blip in a larger story of overall progress.

He also takes a swipe at the conflation of democracy and capitalism:

When, during a recent TV debate in France, the French philosopher and economist Guy Sorman claimed democracy and capitalism necessarily go together, I couldn’t resist asking him the obvious question: “But what about China?” He snapped back: “In China there is no capitalism!” For the fanatically pro-capitalist Sorman, if a country is non-democratic, it is not truly capitalist, in exactly the same way that for a democratic communist, Stalinism was simply not an authentic form of communism.

Via The Guardian.