Friday, May 2, 2014

Did capitalism cause the world wars?

It would be difficult to prove that Capitalism produced the two world wars.   At the time of the First World War, Monarchies were instrumental.  At the time of the second Fascism (being a system of National Socialism) was instrumental.  Liberal Democracy, antithetical to both those systems, has been the last man standing, the only viable system remaining after the 20th century conflicts and Russian Communism collapsed in 1989. 

Fukuyama (whom I like to cite) hasn’t changed his mind since writing The End of History and the Last Man.  What he did object to was the activism of the Neocons and wrote a book divorcing himself from them.  A problem I have with Fukuyama is that in supporting Kojeve and Hegel he too subscribes to a sort of historical determinism, except his subscription is fairly mild and he does seriously consider Nietzsche’s denouncing of the “last man” and the threat of the occasional ubermensch

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