I was surprised by an article by Slavoj Žižek in the Financial Times today. “Capitalism has broken free of the shackles of democracy,” runs the predictably peppy title. The byline is quite promising, too: “Economic models have proved more portable than political ideas.” True enough. But the first paragraph really got me:

To whom will monuments be built a century from now? Among them, perhaps, will be Lee Kuan Yew. He will be remembered not only as the first prime minister of Singapore, but also as the creator of authoritarian capitalism, an ideology set to shape the next century much as democracy shaped the last.

Žižek continues by reminding the reader that Deng Xiaoping came to Singapore before enacting his far-reaching economic reforms in China. The rest of the article goes on an on about the lack of real freedom in the so-called west. Democracy, schmedocracy. But the notion of authoritarian capitalism grabbed my attention. Is this actually not the first step back toward good old feudalism, though? Too much for Žižek, to be sure. As for the monuments a century from now, he is wrong again. Climate change will see to that.