What is a liberal communist? (Bert Olivier)

"...liberal communists are [...] a sugar-coated (or, as Zizek would say, chocolate-coated) pill in relation to society.

In a nutshell, the adoption of this self-description is supposed to indicate that one way of seeing the function or justification of socialism (or communism, for that matter), namely, to provide in the needs of a broader society than that catered for by capitalism, can indeed be met by capitalists (note: not capitalism per se) themselves — hence liberal communist as description of the individual agents capable of giving the notion content.

So who are these individual agents who think of themselves as liberal communists, and why is this not a directly systemic function of capitalism, but something wholly dependent on the agency — in fact, the whims — of individuals? Slavoj Zizek (in Violence, 2009) points out that the global entrepreneurs who are among the global elites that regularly attend the meetings (in a virtual “state of siege”) at the Swiss resort of Davos to discuss the global economy (pg. 13-14):

… no longer accept the opposition between Davos (global capitalism) and Porto Alegre (the new social movements alternative to global capitalism). Their claim is that we can have the global capitalist cake, i.e. thrive as profitable entrepreneurs, and eat it, too, ie. endorse the anti-capitalist causes of social responsibility and ecological concern. No need for Porto Alegre, since Davos itself can become Porto Davos … The new liberal communists are, of course, our usual suspects: Bill Gates and George Soros, the CEOs of Google, IBM, Intel, eBay, as well as their court philosophers, most notably the journalist Thomas Friedman.