VITTORIO CESCHI’S SUMMARY
CM2001-International and Global Communication
Book + Lecture Summary
Week 1
The End of History?
Francis Fukuyama
Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on liberty, consent of the governed and
equality before the law (source: Wikipedia)
I - The concept of history as a dialectical process with a beginning, a middle, and an end was
borrowed by Marx from his great German predecessor, Hegel, whose historicism has become
part of our contemporary intellectual baggage
➢ Unlike later historicists, Hegel believed that history culminated in an absolute
moment – a moment in which a final, rational form of society and state became
victorious
➢ Hegel saw in Napoleon’s defeat of the Prussian monarchy at the battle of Jena the
victory of the ideals of the French revolution, and the imminent universalization of the
state incorporating the principles of liberty and equality
- It was at that point that the vanguard of humanity actualized the principles of the
French Revolution; together with the two world wars in that century, they had the
effect of extending those principles spatially, forcing European and North
American societies to implement their liberalism more fully
- The state that emerges at the end of history is liberal insofar as it recognizes and
protects through a system of law man's universal right to freedom, and democratic
insofar as it exists only with the consent of the governed
II – For Hegel, contradictions that drive history exist first of all in the realm of human
consciousness – i.e. on the level of ideas, or large unifying world views, or ideologies
➢ In this case, ideology not only relates to politics, but also to religion, culture, and the
complex of moral values underlying any society as well
➢ For Hegel, the distinction between real and material worlds was only apparent; he
believes that all human behaviour in the material world (human history) is rooted in a
prior state of consciousness, which may take the form of religion or simple cultural or
moral habits → this realm in the long run necessarily becomes manifest in the
material world, being created in its own image→consciousness is cause and not
effect
➢ Marx, on the other hand, reversed this ideal completely, relegating the entire realm of
consciousness – religion, art, culture… - to a “superstructure” that was determined
, entirely by the prevailing material mode of production → material production
determines consciousness
➢ A central theme of Weber’s work was to prove that contrary to Marx, the material
mode of production, far from being the “base”, was itself a “superstructure” with
roots in religion and culture; to understand the emergence of modern capitalism and
the profit motive one had to study their antecedents in the realm of spirit
➢ Failure to understand that the roots of economic behaviour lie in the realm of
consciousness and culture leads to the common mistake of attributing material causes
to phenomena that are essentially ideal in nature
➢ For Kojève, as for all good Hegelians, understanding the underlying processes of
history requires understanding developments in the realm of consciousness or ideas,
since consciousness will ultimately remake the material world in its own image → it
did not matter to Kojève that the consciousness of the post-war universalized
throughout the world; if ideological development had in fact ended, the homogeneous
state would eventually become victorious throughout the material world
III – Have we in fact reached the end of history? – i.e. are there any fundamental
“contradictions” in human life that cannot be resolved in the context of modern liberalism,
that would be resolvable by an alternative political-economical structure? → we are
interested in what one could in some sense call the common ideological heritage of mankind
➢ The root causes of economic inequality do not have to do with the underlying legal
and social structure of our society, which remains fundamentally egalitarian and
moderately redistributionist, so much as with the cultural and social characteristics of
the groups that make it up, which are in turn the historical legacy of pre-modern
conditions
- Thus black poverty in the US is not the inherent product of liberalism, but is rather
the “legacy of slavery and racism” which persisted long after the formal abolition
of slavery
➢ The power of the liberal idea would seem much less impressive if it had not infected
the largest and oldest culture in Asia, China → the simple existence of communist
China created an alternative pole of ideological attraction, and as such constituted a
threat to liberalism
- Marxism and ideological principle in China have become virtually irrelevant as
guides to policy, and bourgeois consumerism has a real meaning in that country
for the first time since the revolution
➢ By admitting for now that the fascist and communist challenges to liberalism are
dead, by wondering which other ideological competitors are left, two possibilities are
suggested: those of religion and nationalism
- While they may constitute a source of conflict for liberal societies, this conflict
does not arise from liberalism itself so much as from the fact that the liberalism in
question is incomplete → a great deal of the world’s ethnic and nationalist tension
can be explained in terms of peoples who are forced to live in unrepresentative
political systems that they have not chosen
,IV – What are the implications of the end of history for international relations? Considering
Russia and China as not likely to join the developed nations of the West as liberal societies
any time in the future, but supposing that Marxism-Leninism ceases to be a factor driving the
foreign policies of these states, how will the overall characteristics of a de-ideologized world
differ from those of the one with which we are familiar at such a hypothetical juncture?
➢ There is a very widespread belief among many observers that underneath the skin of
ideology is a hard core of great power national interest that guarantees a fairly high
level of competition and conflict between nations.
➢ The notion that ideology is a superstructure imposed on a substratum of permanent
great power interest is a highly questionable proposition. For the way in which any
state defines its national interest is not universal but rests on some kind of prior
ideological basis, just as we saw that economic behaviour is determined by a prior
state of consciousness
➢ For one thing, most "liberal" European societies were illiberal in so far as they
believed in the legitimacy of imperialism, that is, the right of one nation to rule over
other nations without regard for the wishes of the ruled
➢ The real question for the future is the degree to which Soviet elites have assimilated
the consciousness of the universal homogeneous state that is post-Hitler Europe
- The Soviet Union is at a fork in the road: it can start down the path that was staked
out by Western Europe forty-five years ago (a path that most Asia has followed),
or it can realize its own uniqueness and remain stuck in history
- Because of its power, size and military strength, its choice is very important for us
all and will continue to preoccupy us and slow our realization that we already
have emerged on the other side of history
V – The passing of Marxism-Leninism from China and then from the Soviet Union will mean
its death as a living ideology of world historical significance; besides a few believers, the fact
that there is not a single large state in which it is a going concern undermines completely its
pretensions to being in the vanguard of human history → the death of this ideology
(Marxism) means the growing “Common Marketization” of international relations, and the
diminution of the likelihood of large-scale conflict between states
➢ [WIKIPEDIA] The purpose of Marxism–Leninism is to turn a capitalist state into a
socialist state. This is done by a revolution by the proletariat to overthrow the old
government. The new government then creates a "dictatorship of the proletariat". This
new government leads the country based on democratic centralism.
➢ [“”] The communist party is supposed to lead society from capitalism to socialism.
The ultimate goal is to achieve a communist society, one with no class or state. ML
just provides a first step: from capitalism to socialism.
- Terrorism and wars of national liberation will continue to be an important item on
the international agenda; but large-scale conflict must involve large states still
caught in the grip of history, which appear to be passing from the scene
- The end of history will be a very sad time. The struggle for recognition, the
willingness to risk one’s life for a purely abstract goal, the worldwide ideological
struggle that called forth daring, courage, imagination, and idealism, will be
, replaced by economic calculation, the endless solving of technical problems,
environmental concerns, and the satisfaction of sophisticated consumer demands.
CM2001-International and Global Communication
Book + Lecture Summary
Week 1
The End of History?
Francis Fukuyama
Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on liberty, consent of the governed and
equality before the law (source: Wikipedia)
I - The concept of history as a dialectical process with a beginning, a middle, and an end was
borrowed by Marx from his great German predecessor, Hegel, whose historicism has become
part of our contemporary intellectual baggage
➢ Unlike later historicists, Hegel believed that history culminated in an absolute
moment – a moment in which a final, rational form of society and state became
victorious
➢ Hegel saw in Napoleon’s defeat of the Prussian monarchy at the battle of Jena the
victory of the ideals of the French revolution, and the imminent universalization of the
state incorporating the principles of liberty and equality
- It was at that point that the vanguard of humanity actualized the principles of the
French Revolution; together with the two world wars in that century, they had the
effect of extending those principles spatially, forcing European and North
American societies to implement their liberalism more fully
- The state that emerges at the end of history is liberal insofar as it recognizes and
protects through a system of law man's universal right to freedom, and democratic
insofar as it exists only with the consent of the governed
II – For Hegel, contradictions that drive history exist first of all in the realm of human
consciousness – i.e. on the level of ideas, or large unifying world views, or ideologies
➢ In this case, ideology not only relates to politics, but also to religion, culture, and the
complex of moral values underlying any society as well
➢ For Hegel, the distinction between real and material worlds was only apparent; he
believes that all human behaviour in the material world (human history) is rooted in a
prior state of consciousness, which may take the form of religion or simple cultural or
moral habits → this realm in the long run necessarily becomes manifest in the
material world, being created in its own image→consciousness is cause and not
effect
➢ Marx, on the other hand, reversed this ideal completely, relegating the entire realm of
consciousness – religion, art, culture… - to a “superstructure” that was determined
, entirely by the prevailing material mode of production → material production
determines consciousness
➢ A central theme of Weber’s work was to prove that contrary to Marx, the material
mode of production, far from being the “base”, was itself a “superstructure” with
roots in religion and culture; to understand the emergence of modern capitalism and
the profit motive one had to study their antecedents in the realm of spirit
➢ Failure to understand that the roots of economic behaviour lie in the realm of
consciousness and culture leads to the common mistake of attributing material causes
to phenomena that are essentially ideal in nature
➢ For Kojève, as for all good Hegelians, understanding the underlying processes of
history requires understanding developments in the realm of consciousness or ideas,
since consciousness will ultimately remake the material world in its own image → it
did not matter to Kojève that the consciousness of the post-war universalized
throughout the world; if ideological development had in fact ended, the homogeneous
state would eventually become victorious throughout the material world
III – Have we in fact reached the end of history? – i.e. are there any fundamental
“contradictions” in human life that cannot be resolved in the context of modern liberalism,
that would be resolvable by an alternative political-economical structure? → we are
interested in what one could in some sense call the common ideological heritage of mankind
➢ The root causes of economic inequality do not have to do with the underlying legal
and social structure of our society, which remains fundamentally egalitarian and
moderately redistributionist, so much as with the cultural and social characteristics of
the groups that make it up, which are in turn the historical legacy of pre-modern
conditions
- Thus black poverty in the US is not the inherent product of liberalism, but is rather
the “legacy of slavery and racism” which persisted long after the formal abolition
of slavery
➢ The power of the liberal idea would seem much less impressive if it had not infected
the largest and oldest culture in Asia, China → the simple existence of communist
China created an alternative pole of ideological attraction, and as such constituted a
threat to liberalism
- Marxism and ideological principle in China have become virtually irrelevant as
guides to policy, and bourgeois consumerism has a real meaning in that country
for the first time since the revolution
➢ By admitting for now that the fascist and communist challenges to liberalism are
dead, by wondering which other ideological competitors are left, two possibilities are
suggested: those of religion and nationalism
- While they may constitute a source of conflict for liberal societies, this conflict
does not arise from liberalism itself so much as from the fact that the liberalism in
question is incomplete → a great deal of the world’s ethnic and nationalist tension
can be explained in terms of peoples who are forced to live in unrepresentative
political systems that they have not chosen
,IV – What are the implications of the end of history for international relations? Considering
Russia and China as not likely to join the developed nations of the West as liberal societies
any time in the future, but supposing that Marxism-Leninism ceases to be a factor driving the
foreign policies of these states, how will the overall characteristics of a de-ideologized world
differ from those of the one with which we are familiar at such a hypothetical juncture?
➢ There is a very widespread belief among many observers that underneath the skin of
ideology is a hard core of great power national interest that guarantees a fairly high
level of competition and conflict between nations.
➢ The notion that ideology is a superstructure imposed on a substratum of permanent
great power interest is a highly questionable proposition. For the way in which any
state defines its national interest is not universal but rests on some kind of prior
ideological basis, just as we saw that economic behaviour is determined by a prior
state of consciousness
➢ For one thing, most "liberal" European societies were illiberal in so far as they
believed in the legitimacy of imperialism, that is, the right of one nation to rule over
other nations without regard for the wishes of the ruled
➢ The real question for the future is the degree to which Soviet elites have assimilated
the consciousness of the universal homogeneous state that is post-Hitler Europe
- The Soviet Union is at a fork in the road: it can start down the path that was staked
out by Western Europe forty-five years ago (a path that most Asia has followed),
or it can realize its own uniqueness and remain stuck in history
- Because of its power, size and military strength, its choice is very important for us
all and will continue to preoccupy us and slow our realization that we already
have emerged on the other side of history
V – The passing of Marxism-Leninism from China and then from the Soviet Union will mean
its death as a living ideology of world historical significance; besides a few believers, the fact
that there is not a single large state in which it is a going concern undermines completely its
pretensions to being in the vanguard of human history → the death of this ideology
(Marxism) means the growing “Common Marketization” of international relations, and the
diminution of the likelihood of large-scale conflict between states
➢ [WIKIPEDIA] The purpose of Marxism–Leninism is to turn a capitalist state into a
socialist state. This is done by a revolution by the proletariat to overthrow the old
government. The new government then creates a "dictatorship of the proletariat". This
new government leads the country based on democratic centralism.
➢ [“”] The communist party is supposed to lead society from capitalism to socialism.
The ultimate goal is to achieve a communist society, one with no class or state. ML
just provides a first step: from capitalism to socialism.
- Terrorism and wars of national liberation will continue to be an important item on
the international agenda; but large-scale conflict must involve large states still
caught in the grip of history, which appear to be passing from the scene
- The end of history will be a very sad time. The struggle for recognition, the
willingness to risk one’s life for a purely abstract goal, the worldwide ideological
struggle that called forth daring, courage, imagination, and idealism, will be
, replaced by economic calculation, the endless solving of technical problems,
environmental concerns, and the satisfaction of sophisticated consumer demands.
