Is it the End of History, or Was Karl Marx Correct?

(Image: freeliberal.com)

Introduction

In 1992, American political philosopher, Francis Fukuyama, released his infamous work “The End of History and the Last Man”, arguing that the progression of human history as a struggle between ideologies is largely at an end, with the world settling on liberal democracy after the end of the Cold War.

Without going too far into Fukuyama’s actual argument, in this article, I would first like to problematise Fukuyama’s underlying assumption that ‘history has ended’. Following this, I propose an argument that Karl Marx’s suggestion, that history is based upon the dialectical opposition of economic forces, may possibly be correct given recent history, and that Marx’s ideas should not be simply written off just because of the fall of Communism.

Fukuyama’s End of History

Despite being a very conservative thinker, Fukuyama’s claim is actually based upon a very Marxian argument. (Note: not a Marxist argument, but a Marxian argument — Marx actually stated that “I am not a Marxist” after the damage he had seen committed on his theories in his own lifetime). Basically, Marx argued that the forward linear trajectory of history is the logical result of the struggle between opposing economic forces — the owners of the means of production (capitalists) and the workers (the proletariat).

Fukuyama’s argument is based on his observation of the global political climate at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Communist political system. He argued that the opposing ideological forces of Communism and Capitalism resulted in the political stand-off of the Cold War. When Communism fell in the late-1980s and early- to mid-1990s, this was the indication that there were no longer any opposing ideological forces and therefore that history had come to an end. Or so Fukuyama claimed.

Karl Marx and the Path of History

Karl Marx claimed that the progressive, linear march of history was a result of the struggle between the workers and the owners of the means of production. It is important to understand that Marx’s work was primarily a critique of Capitalism. He recognised the massive social problems that had been caused by the Industrial Revolution and the transition from Feudalism to Capitalism. Only a minor portion of Marx’s work involved his ideas about Communism — not minor in terms of impact, but minor in terms of volume.

The important point here is that Marx aligned this ideological struggle with the march of history due largely to his belief that history was also associated with the progressive domination of ‘man’ (in Marx’s words) over nature. At around the same time that Marx was writing, the ideas propounded by Charles Darwin were becoming the scientific and social orthodoxy of the time.

These ideas had a great impact on Marx, perhaps not directly, but instead due to the impact and popularity of Darwin’s arguments throughout society in general. The domination of ‘man’ over nature through technology and the ‘taming’ of nature became part of Marx’s view of progress which became part of his view of history.

Fukuyama and Marx

One can see that this idea of opposing forces that create the progressive march of history in the work of Marx, is quite similar in some ways to Fukuyama’s idea of the two opposing ideological forces of modern times, Communism and Capitalism. The logical conclusion for Fukuyama is that if one of the two ideological forces vanishes (in this case Communism), then there is no opposing force left to progress history. Thus, he pronounced the end of history.

But What if Marx is Correct?

Marx’s idea that there is a progressive, linear march of history culminated in the idea that Capitalism would evolve into a utopian society that he called Communism. However, one of the most important parts of his argument, one that often gets overlooked, is that in order to reach this utopia, it would be necessary for the Capitalist system to reach it’s maximum economic capacity. Thus it was a ‘natural’ progression of society, a natural evolution rather than a revolution. This part of Marx’s work was part of his critique of Capitalism. Marx’s political work involved theorising (not doing) the transition from Capitalism to the Communist utopia and this would occur (theoretically) through skipping some of the stages of the natural progress of history, through revolution. In other words, it was a case of speeding up the evolution of society through revolution.

Now, what this actually meant was that, regardless of anything, Capitalism still needed to reach it’s maximum economic capacity in order for the utopia to be reached. Therefore, a revolution would mean that the working classes would realise their own class position (as ‘slaves’ to the capitalists) and be ready to take power when the utopia dawned.

The question to be asked is: have we reached the maximum economic potential of Capitalism? If we have not, was Soviet Communism, and for that matter, Chinese Communism, too premature? If the answer is yes, then Marx may be right. Without reaching the maximum economic potential of Capitalism, Communism cannot be realised. In this way, it could be argued that Karl Marx was correct. The collapse of the Soviet system was just that, the collapse of a system of states which was run by a military oligarchy. It bears little resemblance to Marx’s Utopia. So was it actually an experiment based on Marx’s ideas and philosophy? Or was it actually a leadership based on different principles which these days are branded as Stalinist?

Conclusion

When Francis Fukuyama proclaimed that the end of history had been reached, he may very well have been wrong. To claim that history, based on opposing forces and ideologies, is over and that we will inevitably settle on liberal democracy, may be mistaken. If Communism, based on Marx’s ideas, has not yet even been tried, and if Capitalism has not yet reached its full economic capacity, then the end, or ‘death’ of history may very well be premature!