00:10:26.360There will be other problems, and so on.
00:10:28.840I don't think that global capitalism, the way it is functioning today, is strong enough in its mechanisms to enable us to cope with these problems.
00:10:41.880I think we need, at three levels, something stronger.
00:10:46.360First, at a local level, you know, which are wonderful moments that I observed, how from different, I mentioned this in my book, in different parts of the world, like in Spain, I was told, in Madrid and Barcelona, people locally in blocks organize and try to identify who are the poor old people who live alone.
00:11:09.240No, it reminds me, but not in a brutal Cuban way, of what they call the committees of the revolution, you know.
00:11:18.400In every block, a group which controls the population.
00:11:24.140It's simply done to take care of those who are otherwise neglected.
00:11:28.000So we need local coordination, you know, which is the most beautiful story here.
00:11:33.780I was told by a friend from Rio de Janeiro that gangs who are usually fighting in favelas there concluded immediately truth and organized themselves to help the poor and destitute in the favelas and so on.
00:11:49.280Second thing, the state, again, the state has to take it over and they are doing it.
00:11:56.940Even Trump will be forced to evoke how it is called, that act from the 50s Cold War that the president can direct industry what to produce and all that stuff.
00:12:08.640The state will have to intervene here.
00:12:10.880Now, I'm here, very satisfied to give an ironic answer to people who tell me, oh, you are no communist and you want to use this moment to propagate.
00:12:21.760No, sorry, but what Trump did with distributing trillions of dollars, okay, we can be very critical of how he did it.
00:12:31.080How many of this money really went to the people, how much of this money went more to help big companies and so on.
00:12:39.040But are we aware that this type of distribution of enormous amounts of money is no longer something that fits the capitalist model?
00:12:52.020The logic was simply millions of new unemployed could be starving.
00:12:58.140It's the duty of the state to enable them a minimally decent life.
00:13:06.300That's logic of some kind of a caretaker state responsibility to and so on and so on.
00:13:13.440So wouldn't you agree in this definition of communism, which is, again, a provocative word, I know.
00:13:21.420The old Marx in one of his texts says that in communism, the formula, the principle of social life will be to everyone according to his needs, or her, of course, of their needs, from everyone according to his, her, their abilities.
00:13:40.420Isn't it this what we are, even people like Trump, Boris Johnson, what we are doing now?
00:13:47.420You don't ask yourself, are you a productive member of society, if by productive we mean profitable and so on.
00:13:56.300We simply know people should not starve.
00:13:59.880It has nothing to do with economic logic.
00:14:03.820And on the other hand, I think, and it should be done in a transparent, democratic way, but the state also, maybe, we don't know how things will develop, should have the right to maybe mobilize people for certain tasks.
00:14:23.300In France, usually, now it's spring harvest, usually they rely on hundreds of thousands of seasonal workers from Spain, Portugal, and so on.
00:14:33.760Borders are closed now, they cannot come.
00:14:36.580Even in England, which is certainly not a communist party, I read that they did something simple and efficient.
00:14:44.200You know, all those waiters, waitresses, flight attendants, and so on, they are employing them harvesting now.
00:14:51.620So, when I say, from everybody according to his abilities, to everybody according to his needs, I don't mean it in the sense of Marx, oh, we will all have a comfortable life and pursue our creative job.
00:15:04.560No, it's more a modest, wartime communist.
00:15:08.460We should mobilize our public authorities to enable some, to everybody, some health and some minimal decent life.
00:15:19.600It's very modest, but so people don't starve, they are taken care of.
00:15:24.600And, on the other hand, public authorities have the right to demand, in a very, as much, as limited as possible, of course, certain public services.
00:15:35.420Now, when people tell me this is utopia, no, people know very well.
00:15:41.040That's why, even in England, when authorities ask for volunteers for public works, half a million people, young, healthy people, offer themselves.
00:15:51.900Because, you know, we are in a unique situation where it's in our egotist interest that these things should be done.
00:23:13.060When she says, and Soviet Union, the history of Soviet Union confirms this, that there is this democratic aspect in money.
00:23:22.680You pay me, which means we are on equal level, that money means we don't need direct violence constraint in social relations.
00:23:35.880And she warns Ayn Rand, she warns that if you abolish money, the danger is not that you will have, like people imagine communism, you know, kind of a societal influence, but that direct domination will return.
00:23:55.360There will be much more brutal power functioning and so on, because, again, money will not decide, so immediate relations of domination, power will have to decide who gets what.
00:24:06.560And isn't this the lesson of Soviet Union?
00:24:08.860Okay, they didn't abolish money, but money didn't function in the standard way.
00:24:14.480The result was a brutal return of social relations of domination.
00:24:19.800Not only this, even the social consequences, even the ecological consequences were much worse.
00:24:26.920With all the critique of capitalism, how, because you care only for profit, you ignore ecological consequences.
00:24:34.140Well, if anything, in classical communism, ecological situation was much worse, because you didn't have free control, free press, all the data where,
00:24:44.900I know this, I know this, I'm following it, that's the irony of today's China, at least till this crisis, it was like these friends were telling me,
00:24:54.080the really dangerous thing was not to be for more rule of law in the Western sense of freedom of capitalism.
00:25:02.380The two really dangerous things to do in China, where, A, draw attention to ecological problems, try to write something about the problems they have with that gigantic three gorges, them, and the legs there.
00:25:20.700Some of my friends, Marxists there, got in contact with workers in some factories around Beijing, and saw their poison, illnesses, workers are dying, they were immediately arrested.
00:25:36.060What I mean is that, and it's immensely productive, this capitalist machinery.
00:26:30.720But this, again, I return to my basic point.
00:26:33.560I think that, from the standpoint of capitalist logic, giving people to people trillions, and so on, it doesn't work.
00:26:44.320This money will never be returned, and so on.
00:26:46.980Here's what I think about you, though.
00:26:48.360I don't think you're a communist, because I think you need to create a new philosophy called Zizekism, not communism.
00:26:55.800Because if the founder of communism is Karl Marx in 1840, whatever the timeline is, 1840, if he's the founder of it, and he pretty much believes the government controls,
00:27:09.680and the people, you know, follow the rules of the government, and taxes is pretty much 100%, you're not able to go out and create jobs.
00:27:17.240That's what the person thinks about my family.
00:27:28.060I just don't think you're a communist, because in the sense of communism, communism, the way it's ran, when it comes down to taxes, control,
00:27:36.680like you talk about China in your book, and you highlight China being a great success story.
00:33:26.180Return to what I already said, where what moves production is not profitability, but in some sense, social power directly violating the loss of the market, strong influence on what should be produced and so on and so on.