An end to history?

[James Farmelant]

As Lou noted Fukuyama based his thesis concerning the end of
history on Hegelian dialectics rather than Marxian dialectics.  As
I recall Fukuyama claims that his understanding of Hegel is derived
from his readings of Kojeve's lectures on Hegel.  From Kojeve's
writings Fukuyama derived a Right Hegelian interpretations of
history as opposed to the Left Hegelianism which inspired the
young Karl Marx.  Whereas, for the elderly Hegel history had reached
its culmination in the Prussian monarchy for Fukuyama it is
triumphant liberal democracy that represents the culmination
of history.  In other words Fukuyama places what Marxists would
consider to be a superstructural formation at the center of his analysis.
Just as Hegel believed that the constitutional monarchy of Prussia
possessed the institutional means for resolving the contradictions
of Prussian society so Fukuyama believes that liberal democracy
provides modern society with the institutional mechanisms for
resolving contradictions.  But from a Marxist perspective such a
view is quite naive because it ignores the materialist roots of social
and political contradictions within the economic base which include
contradictions within the relations of production as well as
contradictions
between the relations of production and the forces of production.
For Marxists superstructural elements like the state, the law, and
ideologies may well succeed for a time in stabilizing the economic
base by masking or "papering" over its contradictions but it cannot
continue to do this forever especially when these contradictions
mean sharply declining living standards for workers.

Fukyama's thesis was premised on the assumption that the absorption
of the former Soviet bloc into the capitalist world would proceed
in a relatively uncomplicated manner.  However, events have
falsified this assumption.  As Lou pointed out the introduction of
capitalism into the former USSR has been less than a roaring 
success.  From the old nomenklatura there has emerged a
"kleptocracy" that is more interested in ripping off state assets
and foreign aid than in either creating new industries or rejuvenating
old ones.  To refer to them as "robber barons" in analogy to the
American "robber barons" of the last century is to give them a
dignity that they do not deserve.  The old American robber barons
did after all along with  the many crimes they committed industrialize
the United States.  The Russian robber barons are if anything 
de-industrializing Russia.  The conservative economist Joseph
Schumpeter once characterized capitalism as a process of creative
destruction.  But so far the Russian capitalists have shown more
talent for destruction than they have had for creating anything positive.
As Lou points out with the recent strikes in Russia and the collapse 
of the Asian tigers and with Japan undergoing political paralysis
as it slips back into recession, the "end of history" would seem
to a long way off.

		Jim Farmelant

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