The Global Slum

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/Slavoj_Zizek_in_Liverpool_cropped.jpg)

Slavoj Žižek again: in his book, In Defence of Lost Causes, he identifies the slum dwellers as the new proletariat (in the Marxist sense: they have nothing to loose but chains). The slum seen now as global: a distinct segment of the global megalopolis. Žižek starts from there to build a new strategy for the Left: the alliance between the slum dwellers and the progressive segment of the class of knowledge workers (again a Marxist approach: think proletarians and Revolutionary intelligentsia).

Is he right? I know very little about him, and from the little I know I would say I disagree (or rather I keep my distances), while I think the future should be discussed by people across the whole political spectrum: each theory is dealing with a specific segment of reality; the proposed solutions can be wrong, while the reality taken into account by that theory cannot be ignored.

Here is the text from Žižek I'm talking about:

http://theearthisdying.wordpress.com/2010/05/02/zizek-on-global-slums-the-new-proletariat/

(Zoon Politikon)