Table of Contents
In Zizek’s Violence, he investigates violence and distinguishes the difference between its general types. According to Zizek, subjective violence is something tangible, which can be performed by a subject. This notion has physical and physiological essence, i.e. subjective violence is “an intentional use of force” (Zizek 10). On the contrary, systemic violence is a totally social notion, which is what affects the whole political and social system and is inherent to it. As it can be seen, systemic violence is a rather complicated notion, which has a broader scope of use and understanding. In addition, it may include subjective violence as its instrument.
Liberal communists are “big executives … who takes over big corporations” (Zizek 17). In other words, they are big manufacturers and business owners who combine social responsibility and a large capital, and have a mutual benefit from this combination. This means they earn a fortune, but simultaneously change and help the society to the best of their abilities. That is why Zizek to some extent admires them since they found a way to combine opposites. He claims that they are people who are able to start a dialogue between society and economics, i.e. to improve the world where the production is performed for the further production.
Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
According to Hobbes, the main reason for people to start wars and social unrest is disagreement, i.e. the disagreement with rights and the laws of nature. He indicates that people are martial, because they are weak and fragile, and they try to save these features by starting various conflicts.
In addition, in Leviathan Hobbes says that human moral principles are also firstly caused by the laws of nature. It is nature that regulates human behavior; consequently, its laws and rights are fundamental for human actions and their consequences. Therefore, Hobbes claims that the reasons for human actions are the features subjected by nature. The main law of nature, which Hobbes call fundamental, is “to seek peace and follow it” (Springborg 444).
In other words, Hobbes claims that an individual should seek peace by transferring the right to hinder harmony to the other people, i.e. an individual’s task it to find peace and keep it, and it is up to the others to decide whether to hinder or keep it as well. In addition, Hobbes proposes not only to keep peace, but also defend it by any convenient means.
Alienated Labor by Karl Marx
Marx, in his turn, claims that the system of private property and capitalism are caused by alienations which people have to the products they make and to the process of production itself. The author says that the more a worker is subjected to the fact that the products he/she makes are not for him/her but for the owners, the more he is alienated from the human nature of producing everything that is required for living. In this situation, the worker is unable to determine his/her life destiny since he/she sees no point in manufacturing the same product every day. Therefore, he/she abstracts his/her mind from what he/she does and loses the sense of life.
Equalizing wages, according to Marx, would change the situation but not for long. Marx says that it would only change the attitude of one particular worker to his/her product into the attitude of all works to labor as a whole (996). In the other words, equalization of wages would not give a worker inspiration to produce better and would not ensure him/her that everyone is in equal conditions. Instead, the loss of human nature would be subjected to all workers together with large owners.