Fukuyama

[bloody_capitalist_sham]

Hello,

At Uni, my lecturers are devoted to Fukuyama it seems. Ive read articles about his 'end of history' and largely disagree that liberal democracy will reign supreme.

However, when he says the end of ideology has come, is he right?

If he is, does this mean that proletarian revolutions, might still happen but will be free of any ideological bent? as long as its not the return of Leninism, i think it might still be a positive.

If he isn't, will Marxism/anarchism actually go on to challenge liberal democracy.

I guess what i am really looking for is for someone to help me refute Fukuyamist ideas, in a Marxist way.

thanks for any help you can give!

[Amusing Scrotum]

I think the events of the last decade have effectively refuted Fukuyama. Ideologies like neo-Conservatism - of which Fukuyama was a follower - Political Islam, Christian Fascism and so on, have "sprung up".

All three of these Ideologies by the way, oppose - or could at least be argued to oppose - "liberal democracy".


Originally posted by bloody_capitalist_sham+--> (bloody_capitalist_sham)....does this mean that proletarian revolutions, might still happen but will be free of any ideological bent?[/b]

Revolutions, inevitably lead people to explore their lives and the World around them, in more detail.

In many ways, the end of one social order and the beginning of another, are the times when new ideas - which spawn Ideologies - are being "invented" most often.

The French Revolution in 1789, really was a time when so many Ideologies first arose. Completely new ways of thinking about the World were actively encouraged in the environment of Revolutionary France, and different classes, developed different ideas - the sans-culottes (French poor) for instance, at times expressed what could be described as a proto-communist outlook on society.

Revolutions, expose classes as their "naked self" and in such circumstances class outlooks - which spawn ideas, which then spawn Ideologies - are really in their most defined forms.

That being said, the fundamental flaw with Fukuyama's hypothesis, is that it excludes classes. He most likely thinks that "liberal democracy" is an "equal" system and therefore completely ignores the "class context" of "liberal democracy".

Which is, as we all know, an idealist method of explaining social phenomena - hence his emphasis on the importances of ideas.

He obviously does not consider that whilst Ideology may be dead for the bourgeois, the working class, has yet to produce an "Ideology" on which they can successfully rule themselves.

Sure we have both communism and anarchism, but as of yet, the working class as a whole, has not shaped these theories "in their own image" and used them as a method of self rule....but the time will come. :D


bloody_capitalist_sham
I guess what i am really looking for is for someone to help me refute Fukuyamist ideas, in a Marxist way.

Well, something Fukuyama does miss - which I have hopefully sort of conveyed in the section above - is that material conditions change, which in turn creates the material foundations for new ideas.

So, at some point during the future when the material conditions have laid the foundations for it, new Ideologies - or theories - will arise.

Indeed, if you think about, this is already happening within the communist movement.

There is a new group called the Communist League which only admits workers. Now, is this just a brilliant idea? ....of course not. The material conditions of modern society have laid the foundations on which members of the working class are now sufficiently skilled, and confident, to sever the ties with bourgeois communists.

If this type of practise "takes off", then there will have been a new "Ideology" - more precisely theory - within the communist movement.

What would Fukuyama say! :lol:

[Zingu]

Fukuyama is simply an other example of a fluke that dialectics can create. Bear in mind he completely ignored Marx's economic theories...especially Crisis Theory.

[Djehuti]

Fukuyama is a right-wing idealistic hegelian. There is no end of history; liberalism may have won the battle but the war is far from over.

And anyway, communism is not an ideology. Liberals like to view even the ideologies as a market where you choose the best ideology, et cetera. But while the liberals stands at the market place, the great communist spectre sneaks up from behind...

[Guerrilla22]

That essay was complete shit, it was written like more than a decade ago, right after the fall of the USSR, so he seems to have come to a premature conclusion that the world was going to come to order with the end of the uSSR.

Its absurd to think that the world will ever be free of radically contrasting politcal ideologies and ethnic conflicts. Let's look at some of the shit that has happened since this essay was written: genocide in Rwanda and the Balkans, the rise of fundamentalism in the Middle East, the continuing Israeli-Palestinian conflict , the US invasion of Afghanistan, and Iraq to name a few.

If anything political ideologies are more aabundant and contrasting now more than ever in the post cold war era.

[Vanguard1917]

However, when he says the end of ideology has come, is he right?

With a diminished class conflict in society, ideological conflict becomes less and less relevant in society. Ideological conflict is always based on real life conflict in society - i.e. class conflict.

Fukuyama's arguments were made at a time when the working class movement was being heavily defeated throughout the Western world - defeats from which the working class is still yet to recover. Fukuyama expressed a widespread bourgeois belief that with the defeat of the Soviet Union abroad, and with the defeat of the workers' movements at home, capitalism had defeated its class enemies and the ideas of its class enemies.

But the bourgeoisie did not realise that with the defeat of the enemy and the ideas of the enemy, its own ideas would also be under attack - not by the dynamic working class ideas of the past, but by a decaying petit-bourgeoisie, who emerged to fill the vacuum left by the demise of the workers' movement. So, in the last twenty years or so, we have seen the adoption of petit-bourgeois ideas by our ruling classes.


The French Revolution in 1789, really was a time when so many Ideologies first arose. Completely new ways of thinking about the World were actively encouraged in the environment of Revolutionary France, and different classes, developed different ideas

That's right. The French Revolution (along with the birth of industrial capitalism, which can be traced back to around the 1780s) had the effect of intensifying class struggles throughout Europe and beyond. At the same time, ideological struggles also intensified.

[Lamanov]

Fukuyama armed hiself with few phrases from Hegel and ought to proclaim the "end of history", not realizing that this wasn't the first time someone "thought of proclaiming it". Every time history came back and bit those people in the ass.

Hegel included. (Remember: he too proclaimed the "end" and "reconciliation" of "das Geistes" with the German Empire of his time. But unlike Fukuyama, he introduced the concept of "total history" to which all of his idealist conclusions were contrary. Fukuyama introduced nothing new. He only repeated old idealist mistakes.)

[Amusing Scrotum]

Originally posted by Zingu+--> (Zingu)Fukuyama is simply an other example of a fluke that dialectics can create.[/b]

Even though, from my primitive understanding of dialectics, an "end of ideology" would be impossible if the world was "dialectal" - after all, there would always need to be a thesis and an anti-thesis.


Originally posted by [email protected]
Fukuyama is a right-wing idealistic hegelian.

Indeed....


Wikipedia
Politically, Fukuyama has in the past been considered neoconservative. He was active in the Project for the New American Century think tank starting in 1997, and signed the organization's letter recommending that President Bill Clinton overthrow the then-President of Iraq, Saddam Hussein. He also joined in its similar letter to President George W. Bush after the September 11, 2001 attacks, a letter that called for removing Saddam Hussein from power "even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the attack".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Fukuyama#Biography

The "Project for the New American Century" is a plan for American military and economic hegemony over the whole world.

Not very "liberal" or "democratic" now is it? :lol: