Francis Fukuyama Wrote His Essay, “The End Of History?”

Marx famously anticipated that the climax of the Class War would result in an economic crisis that would force the proletariat into action and seize the means of production; effectively ending the bourgeoisie. According to Marx, the Proletarian Revolution would be the culminating point of a long term class war, a response to unfavorable socio-economic conditions that would resolve the bourgeoisie state by seizing the means of production and reforming society from the capitalist order. This Proletarian Revolution, for Marx, is inevitable due to the fact labor was commodified and thus laborers hold great power over the bourgeoisie, who rely upon them as means of production. Marx’s analysis is greatly biased to the proletarians, as he sees them as representing the national struggle and bringing to the forefront issues that are above national divisions.

Neorealism came to fruition as a result of classical realism. While classical realism was based on the inclinations of human nature, neorealism proposed the structural constraints determined the behavior of states in the international realm. After World War II, the call for a politically and economically integrated Europe was of utmost importance among European leaders because of the brutal human and economic cost of the war. The idea of integration came in order to maintain the balance of power in the region, specifically regarding the rise of another expansive Germany type state and to guard against the rise of the nuclear armed Soviet Union. The idea of integration started with the European Coal and Steel Community and the European

As World War II came to its end, agreements among the winning powers began to dissolve. The U.S., Great Britain, and the Soviet Union…had very different views politically, socially, and economically. World War II, which was considered a “hot” war, was followed by the cold war. This war was a conflict primarily between the U.S. and the Soviet Union that persevered throughout much of the postwar period. The ideological differences were mutual distrust. As US was a capitalist country, Americans feared communism and the nuclear arms race were the major

They envisioned workers developing class-consciousness, or awareness of a shared place in society – a camaraderie - and the need for a change. The awakening of class-consciousness would ideally be followed shortly by a revolutionary class struggle. In this conflict, the proletariat would rise up against the bourgeoisie and establish a communist society. In a communist society, all private ownership would be abolished, and the means of production (factories, farms, ect) would belong to the entire community. The needs of a society would be put above and beyond the specific needs of an

In John Gaddis’s 2005 book, ‘The Cold War, a New History’,3 Gaddis identifies that from the 1930’s, the Soviet Union and the Western allies were already at ‘war’ with each other ideologically and geopolitically, if not military. Thus it was the ending of the military campaign against Hitler’s Nazi Germany, which had previously unified these opposing ideologies, that triggered the onset of the Cold War. Gaddis theorises that the USA could not continue to serve as a model for the rest of the world after the War had ended, while remaining apart from the rest of the world. American practices of isolationism had become untenable as a result of the War and previously suppressed feelings of anxiety by the USA over Soviet expansion and the spread

War is a wreck machine utilized by each country from Third World nations to Global Empires all through world's history. The world in the 1940's was not the perfect spot for anybody to live. Hitler's Nazi developments being one of the impetuses for World War II, the subjects of the world were flung into a time of disorder and dissatisfaction in the mid 40's. After Japan's shock assault on the U.S., compelling the Americans into war, it soon turned into an entire different ball game. Secondly, the Cold War turned into a foremost impact on numerous elements of American culture for a significant part of the second half of the 20th century. Being the two primary world forces after WWII, discussion in the midst of the Americans and Soviets turned

With the Allied victory of World War II emerged a new world order. The United States abandoned any lingering ideas of remaining isolationist and began to accept the role of the world’s new superpower. For the first time in its history, geopolitics and the realist paradigm dominated policy-making, and national security moved to “center stage” in American politics (Snow, 2014, p. 66). The result was was the passing of the

Conflict of political ideologies is something that was present since the dawn of American history. The American revolt against the arrogant, totalitarian regime set a precedent for the future events in which the nation came together to oppose anything that went against the concept of democracy, and capitalism. Communism, or Marxism posed as a huge threat to the free mined Western societies, thus resulting in world wars that left perilous aftermaths, and bred an ongoing conflict between the two global political establishments. The Cold War, which is most commonly known by the conflicts between the liberal United States, and the totalitarian USSR, affected multiple aspects of social norms, as it became a life style choice. The book The Cold War; A New History, by John Lewis Gaddis provides a detailed and constructive analysis on the causes and effects of conflicts and events that took place within the recent global history. Gaddis is a professor at the Yale University, and is a historian who contains a vast knowledge and expertise on the topics of Cold War and war strategy. Gaddis, in his book lays out the events that have occurred prior to and during the Cold War. What Gaddis was trying to achieve in his writing is to solidify the existing belief that Communism as a political opponent of the modernized Western society has brought nothing well but war and conflict. Gaddis illustrates the dictatorial regime that implanted itself in the eastern hemisphere, and has attempted to

When the term “Cold War” was popularised to refer to post-war tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union, interpreting the course and origins of the conflict became a source of heated controversy among historians. In particular, who was responsible for the breakdown of Soviet-U.S. relations after the Second World War? During World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union were allied against the Axis powers. However, in the years that followed the end of World War II, the alliance became uneasy, and signs of strain began to show. Historians have disagreed as to whether the conflict between the two superpowers was inevitable or may have been avoided. Further, what exactly the Cold War was and the sources of conflict. While there remains great diversity of opinion regarding these questions, it is commonplace to refer to three broad “schools” of thought regarding the origins and end of the Cold War: “orthodox” explanations, “revisionism”, and “post-revisionism”.

Francis Fukuyama; political scientist, economist, and author, in his article “The End of History?” discusses he rise and fall of major ideologies such as absolutism, fascism and communism, and suggests that human history should be viewed in terms of a battle of ideologies which has reached its end in the universalization of Western liberal democracy. Fukuyama concludes that the idea of Western liberal democracy has triumphed in the world through a variety of different ways and is a thriving piece of world order today. However, there are certain flaws to his argument including a US- centric view on the events of the twentieth century.

Realists focus on the arrangement of power in the world as the influence of international politics. If this specific event was explained in a realist’s point of view, two main concepts would

The Realist paradigm of International Relations has played a significant role in the field of security studies. It focuses on military security in inter-state conflicts. Realism helps to explain certain aspects of foreign

The definition of utopia is an ideally perfect place especially in its social, political, and moral aspects (dictionary.com). This paper will discuss the changes in capitalism since Marx’s critique in 1848. Marx’s fundamental critique remains correct today. Marx is still correct about his critique of capitalism because even though there have been changes made to capitalism to prevent some abuses, capitalism still produces inequality, reduces the family relationship, destroys small business, and enslaves.

In conclusion, however, I find that it is not a meaningful argument to examine if ‘the end of history’ has indeed taken place, simply because Francis Fukuyama has set the basis of his theory too wide. People will naturally gravitate towards having more options in their lives, be it socially, economically or in this case, politically. This tendency would thus make Fukuyama’s ‘end of history’ irrefutable. The more pertinent question to explore would be how the end goal of liberal democracy can be properly managed, with it being based on the twin principles of liberty and equality. At this end point of history as we know it, trade-offs have to be made between the two- equality cannot be achieved without the actions of a state controlling liberty, while liberty cannot be attained fully without social inequality. The end of history has dawned, where there would be no further meaningful challenge to liberal democracy, but a new battle awaits with the conundrum of balance between liberty and equality in liberal

     In the Communist Manifesto Karl Marx explains his historical vision of a revolutionary class struggle between Bourgeois and Proletarians. His views are highlighted from the very beginning “The History of all hitherto societies has been the history of class struggles” (50). Focusing on the development and eventual destruction of the bourgeoisie, which was the dominant class of his day, and the rise of the working class, that of the Proletarians.