ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the ethical turn in political theory is extended by exploring the ethical turn as a symptom of changes in global capitalism, from the Fordist mode to post-Fordism. Slavoj Žižek claims that the cultural ethics of late capitalism have changed radically they are reversed, in a way since the re-organization of capitalism along post-Fordist lines. In this sense, he agrees with the standard political-economy analysis that mid-twentieth-century capitalism was defined by the imperative that mass production be partnered with the ability of the population to mass consume. The oftdisavowed enjoyment that subjects receive from capitalism, Žižek argues, is identical to the type of enjoyment promoted by ethical theory. Therefore, he posits a non-adversarial, enabling relationship between ethical theory and contemporary capitalism. The chapter concludes the ideal of democracy to a similar analysis, and in the process outline some very basic principles that might work toward politicizing both contemporary critical theory and the Left as a collective movement.
