The famous Slovenian philosopher Zizek said this to Al Jazeera:
"I think today the world is asking for a real alternative. Would you like to live in a world where the only alternative is either anglo-saxon neoliberalism or Chinese-Singaporean capitalism with Asian values?I do not entirely disagree with this point, but it's hard to dissociate Zizek's tone from the "yellow peril" hysteria we find in Blade Runner and Black Rain. There is also in all of this that Hegelian view of Asia as being between the democratic spirit of Europeans and the savagery of Africans. In this view, Asians can only realize despotism as a political order. Zizek is above all a Hegelian and "Chinese-Singaporean capitalism with values" sounds very much like a post-neoliberal reanimation of Hegel's dead theory of history of mind/spirit/soul.I claim if we do nothing we will gradually approach a kind of a new type of authoritarian society. Here I see the world historical importance of what is happening today in China. Until now there was one good argument for capitalism: sooner or later it brought a demand for democracy...
What I'm afraid of is with this capitalism with Asian values, we get a capitalism much more efficient and dynamic than our western capitalism. But I don't share the hope of my liberal friends - give them ten years, [and there will be] another Tiananmen Square demonstration - no, the marriage between capitalism and democracy is over."
