An end to history?

James Farmelant farmelantj at juno.com
Thu Aug 20 07:47:48 PDT 1998


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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