Slavoj Zizek — The Problem with Direct Democracy

Slavoj Zizek explains why he favours what he calls "bureaucratic socialism" over direct democracy.

[iwouldprefernotto]

If you want to get Zizek's 'I WOULD PREFER NOT TO' t-shirt you can do so here:

[jerseygunz]

A ship needs a captain, dosent mean everyone can’t own the boat

[john.premose]

I definitely agree. Also not everyone is an extrovert. I feel like in the socialist society that is often envisioned, it isextremely extroverted and ignores the fact that not everyone wants to always be in the middle of everything all the time.

[ama-gii]

with all the respect i have for Zizek, he seems to have read just 2 or 3 books about anarchism.

for instance, anarcho-communism works not just with local general assemblies (for community affairs) but also with local federated workers' councils.

and people dont have to debate every week. if life around your home, your workplace and third-places work well, why would you go to a general assembly. its the same as IRL where you dont debate everyday.


lets take a very specific example :
the organization of a local nuclear waste saving facility

to make it work, you need :
engineers, firefighters, transporters, physicians, etc

ok so youll have the syndicate of nuclear engineer bringing about the interests and status of the facility, and issues on their branch like the fact that only 20% of the waste is recyclable; the transporters working with the ecological branch, the gas syndicate, etc..


confederalism in the anarchist sense of it is not just federating between local assemblies, its also liquid association based on time and interest.

some years, the nuclear engineer syndicate will have little to no issues with their environment, so no need to debate every month or week.
but sometimes, for instance, other syndicates from other parts of the world will find a new way to preserve or, even better, recycle nuclear wastes so the latter syndicate will cooperate actively to bring about this new plan or system to their facility OR build a new one (meaning cooperation with communities of hoods, villages, architects, construction workers, steelworkers, electricians, machinists, plumbers, etc.)

and this is selfmanagement on a wide wide range of community.
there are many many ways to build the plumbery of power to check and balance the representative of local interests to the regional and international level.

and this is just 1% of what society could become without bureaucracy and centralization, therefore with as little hierarchy as possible.

i recommend Rudolf Rocker, Malatesta, Anark, Zoe Baker and Andrewism for more philosophy over anarchism.

[christopherhitchens]

1:29 anarchists don’t advocate this, they simply advocate non coercive participation, no anarchist is forcing you to attend meetings you don’t want to attend. Etc, and so on and so on

[sandicirak]

You didn't need to discuss that every day. Once in a month if those things are in your local community or some things once in a year. Maybe that bureaucracy would not organise that to your liking. But for other things on the level of the city or state we should have representatives that we choose and replace when we think that he or she does not represent our interest. Now with the Internet and mobile we can give our opinion or comments that should be easily transferred to our representative or delegate and we can have discussion and find which proposal has majority support.
We do not wait 4 years to replace someone. Yes direct democracy is suitable for smaller communities but technology is so advanced that it gives us new opportunities. Obviously we shoud make investments in public networking to creat easy accessible network and not to give private companies the control of it.

[jonathanguevara]

I like Zizek, but either he is not really familiar with libertarian socialist tradition, or he's deploying a straw man argument. Who said a democratic society must involve direct, personal decision making at all times? Why could you not have structures of short-term delegation that involve the potential for immediate recall? The technological innovations of the last decade actually permit, if not encourage, the full implementation of direct democracy *as described in the libertarian socialist tradition.* Blockchain voting, for example. Also, why could we not have an internet-based lottery system, or something like liquid democracy? Edit: large, global problems could be resolved through large federated structures based on delegation. Delegated persons could meet in periodic and emergency sessions. These delegated persons, who serve only very temporarily and are subject to the potential for immediate recall, could be chosen impersonally through some form of blockchain voting and/or lottery system. I am not seeing how the issues brought up by Zizek would preclude a libertarian socialist society, given the technological innovations of recent years.

[Anita.Cox.]

We can look at consumer coops for a direct socialist democracy, they dont wake up everyday and debate what happens and what goes on. No they decide the big stuff, who runs the store, expansions of the store and where does the leftover profits go. For the kindergarten example you dont wake up take your kid to kindergarten and spend 8 hours debating other parents about what kid of safety scissors to buy, thats left up to the kindergarten. Instead you would debate the curriculum, how the classes are scheduled and what to happen after the class is over, even then we have variations like with democratic education where the students democratically decide what happens as they are effected by it day to day.

[megazord]

nah, it should be opt in, so you vote and suggest policies for the issues you care about. This self selects for people voting for what they understanding and prioritize.

[NILS]

It's not so much problematic, as much as it simply doesn't work like it should. Maybe 30% of people actually normally vote, and that's otimistic.

[KymHammond]

“Yes, but we know this. Bureaucratic socialism involves organizing services and so on. However, what we are really talking about today when we discuss direct democracy is, I believe, the once-dreamed-of purpose for the internet, which persists whenever we form ourselves into an online bubble to preserve whatever it is we fear will be destroyed by not doing so. We believe we are acting out our direct democracy. we believe this is largely in the form of activism., when In fact our activism is not solidarity but content agreement, that we then pay rent for for it to be so.- it’s just more content. . This transformation of our online habits into something else has not been discussed in these terms anywhere that I can see—at least, I’m not allowed to see much at all these days—a rather undignified position indeed—across social media. Excuse if this sounds already familiar. You personally might have the ability to echo your thoughts across the myriad of barriers that stop so many others of us, but in doing so, it gives the affirming impression that this privilege you have is because of a direct democratic process, which is a fundamental structure of the internet’s self-organizing nature. Before the internet, when we all watched television but gathered most of our information about the world from the media, back then, we believed that happened because of free speech tenets buried within Western media, making it so. Today, we understand this is just not the case; we understand free speech is just another ideological component of contemporary communications. direct democracy is now performing the same as freedom - to not realise the nature of our unfreedom.
This may have already been sketched out in clearer terms elsewhere, so excuse the rant

[kyleeaton]

Natural law resource based economy is coming whether anyone likes it or not.

[DemocraticConfederalist]

I think direct democracy can work provided that certain duty's are delegated to certain people

[fpsmeter]

But what exactly is he demanding? In most western countries the state (from central to local level) already organizes almost every basic aspect of life: transport, education, health care, electricity, water, and so on and so on

[sourdough]

ah yes, zizekism-stalinism
in all honesty though, would there be any feasible radical leftist alternative that sits in the middle between representative & direct democracy that wouldn't collapse in times of crisis?