So, FRANCIS "End of History" FUKUYAMA recants (sorta)...

[laststeamtrain]

(http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/19/magazine/neo.html?ei=5090&en=4126fa38fefd80de&ex=1298005200&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=print)

...has history started again?
Is it same as it ever was, driven by the engine of class struggle? And....
Where are the Democrats articulating that point of view, even if it's more symbolic than substantive?
John Edwards does that somewhat with his 'two Americas' bit.
Will/can we have a new New Deal candidate for President in '08?

I'm just full of questions...I know...don't have that many answers, but where's the left-wing populist to scoop up the votes of those who've been shat upon by big government conservatives?

It seems so logical that there should be some.
Is it that the media so thoroughly shuts them out?

[Jack Rabbit]

1. I am not a Utopian; I do not believe in the end of history. However . . .

At least when Karl Marx argued that communism would bring about the end of history, he described a state of social entropy that would mean no further human conflict would take place. It was a social state in which all were equal and the production and distribution of material goods would satisfy all.

Fukuyama's idea of the end of history in corporate capitalism is utter nonsense. It is a social state that will, if anything, guarantee future conflicts. The only end of history corporate capitalism will bring about will will be the end punctuated with a mushroom-shaped cloud.

[regnaD kciN]

3. I wish I agreed...

Fukuyama's idea of the end of history in corporate capitalism is utter nonsense. It is a social state that will, if anything, guarantee future conflicts.

I believe that a world-wide, static capitalist state is not only possible, but well on its way.

The conditions that would bring about such a state would include a) centralization of capital into structures that span nations (so that war between industrialized nations would never be allowed to disrupt the status quo), b) elimination of the middle class, and strict division of society into haves and have-nots, c) centralization of information (so that any potential individual threats to the system can be identified and tracked long before they're able to pose a genuine threat -- TIA, GPS-based pinpointing of individual's location, etc.), and d) the construction of a military/police apparatus willing, through legal or extra-legal means, to use brute force against the "bad apples" among its own citizens so as to stop any threats to the system.

Once you have these in place, there remains only a matter of fine-tuning: first, the minimum level of reward to be given to the military/police apparatus, to keep them happy and dissuade them from turning against the system that keeps them above the have-nots, and, second, the minimum level that has to be given to the have-nots to discourage most of them from thinking that even death in an uprising would be preferable to their current meager existence. Once you've got those levels tuned, the capitalist state can last indefinitely, or at least until the natural resources to support production run out.

Of the four required conditions, two (a and c) are already in place, one (b) is well on its way, and one (d) is currently in the budding stages.

And, if you want to know what the future looks like, unless we fight like hell to change it right now, it looks an awful lot like a Chinese factory to me.

:-(

[Jack Rabbit]

6. Response

It won't work because of your condition (b) elimination of the middle class.

Fukuyama, of course, assumes that capitalism enhances and grows the middle class. This is true in the conditions under which we are used to seeing it, but more recent trends are toward a smaller middle class and a more polarized society.

The most simple statement of Marx' theory of history is the first sentence of The Communist Manifesto: "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles." If one eliminates social classes, then one eliminates class struggle and therefore brings history to an end.

Centralization of information is another scheme that only works for a short period, if that. Peasants and workers in Latin America don't need to be told they're poor and that they're poor because somebody else is rich. Global capitalism has been a complete failure in Latin America, ergo the revolt of the masses there has led to the election of populist leaders like Chávez and Morales.

Even your condition (d) the construction of a military/police apparatus willing . . . to use brute force against the "bad apples" assumes the continuation of history as Marx defined it. Indeed, if the world became one big Chinese factory, it would have to be that way. Whether the workers can effectively organize against the system is another question, but there will be at least low-level conflict (i.e., history) owing to continuing social inequality.

I am not a Marxist for several reasons. First of all, I am not a materialist, but a transcendental idealist; that's not really that important since Marx was a philosophical grandchild of Kant through Hegel. Second, if one does accept a purely materialist point of view, then one must concede that the concrete material reality is never as perfect as the ideal thesis would describe it (a materialist would reject Platonic idealism, although not necessarily Kantian idealism); consequently, it is unlikely that one can form a society so perfect as to be free of all conflict. Third, contrary to what Lenin said, the state is about more than oppression. In a democratic state, it is also the apparatus for collective decision making. I can conceive of no society so perfect that mundane issues like whether or not to build a dam and, if so, where are eliminated. One needs the state to facilitate the discussion and to enforce the decision made by the people or their elected representatives, regardless of how equal social conditions are.

[regnaD kciN]

2. Unintentionally hilarious...

So, Fukuyama is convinced that the neocons were driven by an "idealistic" desire to "promote democracy and human rights abroad"...???

:rofl:

(Some editorial columns should come with their own laugh-track.)

I guess it just goes to show that you can take a conservative academic out of the Bush-worshipping camp, but it doesn't mean you've given him brains. :eyes:

[JVS]

4. Oh hell! Even my old self-styled neocon friend never thought that

He was much more of the "kick their ass and steal their gas" school of thought

[applegrove]

5. Can they give us another example of how neocon social engineering

works? Other than takig the paint off of subway cars?

Cause the crime wave went down just about then.. because fewer kids.

[Odin2005]

7. I see the nation-states becoming irrelavent.

In the future the main actors will be supranational groupings like the EU and multinational corpoartions. Class conflict in the developed world until now was kept in check by the welfare state, which was disigned to prevent the working class from going Marxist during the Great depression and post WW2. Globalization is now allowing corporations to go around the welfare states and force a race to the bottom and so class conflict in the developed world will begin again. Chavez clones will pop up more and more in the 3rd world. The EU will become more intergrated to couterbalance Russia.