The End of Ideology Thesis: The American Left’s Turn Towards the

Right from the 1930s-50s

Presented by Chris MansourFor the Platypus International Convention 2009

My argument…

• In order to understand Bell’s shift to the Right (and a great number of others who came to age as American Leftists), it must be situated in the varied debates over the means/ends problem—that of a “reform or revolution?” debate—in the fight for achieving socialism throughout the 20th century.

• It will be concluded that the end-of-ideology school was the catalyzing moment for the painful withering away of the Left in the latter half of the 20th century that lead to “the end of history,” and the “dead left” in the 90s.

• The current “dead left’s” internalization and adoption of an anti-ideological stance.

Basic Timeline of 3 Major Tendencies

1953/19601897-98 1989

“Revisionist Debate”

Bernstein & Schmidt—vs.—

Luxemburg & Lenin

“End-of-Ideology Debate”

Daniel Bell—vs.—

C. Wright Mills

“End of History”

Francis Fukuyama—vs.—

???

Part I: The End-of-Ideology Debate

“Men commit error of not knowing when to limit their hopes.” –Machiavelli

1953/1960

Daniel Bell the person

How is one to define “ideology?”• 2 basic premises:

• 1) “The statement is the absence of ideological politics in modern industrial society. It is not that we have reached the end of an ideological age in America, but there was never one to begin with.”

• 2) “That it is a positive value-judgment of this age. We’ve reached, or at least are well on our way to reaching ‘the good society,’ and ideology can no longer serve to hinder progress we are making.” This is the point that primarily ensues debate.”*

• This presentation will focus on the latter definition of ideology.

*Waxman, Chiam I. “Introduction.” The End of Ideology Debate. Ed. by Chiam I. Waxman. New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1968. p. 7.

What does the “end of ideology” mean?

• A response to the ostensible “settling” of capitalism and a “healthier” America, the Welfare system, a blurred distinction in class relations, and the growing numbers in trade unions, etc. shows that capitalism can be a humane system.

• A “loss of chiliastic hope,” but a rational and practical move.

• The future would only see “a new exploitation by a new elite.” Social and political emancipation, in Bell’s eyes, are impossible feats to accomplish.

• “For ideology, which was once a road to action, has come to be a dead end.”*

• “The end of ideology closes the book, intellectually speaking, on an era, the one of easy ‘left’ formulae for social change.”*

• “If the end of ideology has any meaning, it is to ask for the end of rhetoric, and rhetoricians, of ‘revolution.’”*

*Bell, Daniel. “The End of Ideology in the West: An Epilogue.” The End of Ideology: The Exhaustion of Political Ideas in the Fifties. Glencoe: Free Press, 1960. p. 393.

*Ibid., p. 405.*Ibid., p. 406.

Its implications.• Bell’s prognosis perceived itself to be a kind of “political realism”—a form of

realpolitik. The American philosophy of Deweyian political pragmatism is implicit in his thesis.

• Failure of the Left was an “inevitable trajectory.” • Only actions through “piecemeal reforms,” not total social programs, can make

progress.• Society is too complex to understand holistically, in ideological programs the risk

of “unintended consequences” are too high.• Irving Kristol: “One of the consequences, however, of living in a world where Flux

is king is that it is ever more difficult to have ideas with any sort of purchase on reality. That is, probably, the reason why the modern age has also been the Age of Ideologies. Being incapable of adequate knowledge, we console ourselves with a total knowledge. If we are constantly being moved by forces outside our control, it is a blessing to be informed that they are at least encompassed in our intelligence .”*

*Kristol, Irving. “Keeping Up With Ourselves.” The End of Ideology Debate. Ed. by Chiam I. Waxman. New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1968. p. 107.

Its repercussions.

• Bell abstracts an attitude that is specific to American and other NATO countries in order to represent an universal end to all variations of ideology, regardless of their particular spatial and temporal circumstances.

• This immediately raises the question if Bell is coming from an “objective standpoint,” at all.

• How does he defines the world “ideology?”

How objective is Bell’s analysis?

• “There is not a single page devoted to any phase in the Negro movement, past or present.”*

• “America is an unfinished nation—the product of a badly-bungled process of inter-group cultural fusion. America is a nation that lies to itself about who and what it is. It is a nation of minorities ruled by a minority of one…”*

*Cruise, Harold. The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual. New York: Quill, 1984. p. 456.

Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF)

• CCF was founded in 1950, establishing bases in NATO countries.

• In events such as the 1950 Berlin Conference and Encounter's article “After the Apocalypse” (1953) shared and used Bell’s end-of-ideology thesis to justify their stark anti-communism.

• The events embellished the blurring lines between class and “left” “right” distinctions, seeing it as a “overcoming” rather than a social confusion.

• CCF lasted until 1967 after it was exposed that it was funded by the CIA for 16 years.

C. Wright Mills critique

• Exemplified in Letter to the New Left (1960).• He argues that the-end-of-ideology school are

ideological in themselves, and take on the role of pitching a “slogan for complacency…to justify the status quo.”*

• Furthermore, it was an “uncreative” response to Stalinism and the decline of the left’s political force, instead being a “mechanical reaction.” “As such,” says Mills, “it takes from its opponent something of its inner quality.”*

*Waxman, Chiam I. “Letter to the New Left.” The End of Ideology Debate. Ed. by Chiam I. Waxman. New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1968. pp. 128-129.*Ibid. p. 130.

In a nutshell

• Bell’s end-of-ideology thesis is instead an elaborate way of justifying the status quo—as it already was, or bound to merge into a “mixed economy” a synthesis between socialism and capitalism)—and believed that society was gradually progressing to the best of all possible worlds.

Part II: The Revisionist Dispute

“The final goal, no matter what it is, is nothing; the movement is everything.”

–Bernstein

1897-98

What is the revisionist dispute?

• Bernstein concluded that revolution was not necessary, that socialism could be achieved by gradual reform of the capitalist system, through mechanisms like consumers cooperatives, trade unions, and the gradual extension of political democracy. The Social Democrat Party of Germany (SPD), he asserted, should be transformed from a party of social revolution into a party of social reforms.

Its implications.• The decline of capitalism seemed more improbable

because production became more varied and a capacity to adapt and reconstitute itself.

• He rejected the “theory of collapse” in the historical development of socialism.

• Konrad Schmidt: “The trade union struggle for hours and wages and the political struggle for reforms will lead to a progressively more extensive control over the conditions of production…the rights of the capitalist proprietor will be diminished through legislation, he will be reduced in time to the role of a simple administrator.”*

*Luxemburg, Rosa. Reform of Revolution? New York: Pathfinder, 1970. p. 28.

Its repercussions.• The philosophy and practice of revisionism was

adopted by the SPD, and by 1914, it was no longer a radical party. By this time, the SPD supported WWI.

• After the fact, the party only acted as a pressure group, and failed to gradually transform the world to a classless society. This is rather tragic, because in 1912 it was the largest party in the Reichstag and appeared as if it was close to gaining enough power to take on this feat with a substantial force.

• A failure to see a link between growth and control.• Revisionism was based on the vulgar assumption that

“one’s appetite grows with the eating.” (Luxemburg)

Similarities between Bell & Bernstein

• Both assume that capitalism is stabilizing, and through gradual revolution—if things just “keep keepin’ on”—the best of all possible worlds will arise naturally. For Bernstein, it was the onset of socialism; for Bell, it was the synthesis of the mixed economy.

• Both promoted the idea that political movements must drop their ends, and to instead focus on the means of its trajectory.

• All in all, both had faith in reformist ideologies.

Part III: The End of History

“Philosophy [and practice] which once seemed outmoded is now alive because the moment of its realization has been missed.”

–Adorno

1989

What does the end of history mean?

• In response to the fall of communism in 1989, Francis Fukuyama, a leading neoconservative intellectual, asserted that due to the triumph of political liberalism makes evident “the total exhaustion of viable systematic alternatives to Western liberalism.”*

• “What we are witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of postwar history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.”*

*Fukuyama, Francis. “The End of History?” The National Interest. Summer (1989). p. 1.* Ibid. p.1.

Its implications.

• The end-of-history is not the end-of-ideology—a convergence between capitalism and socialism—but an “unabashed” victory of economic and political liberalism.

• He appropriates Hegel’s philosophical drive of history to back his claim that society has reached its “end” point in its evolution.

• “And the death of this ideology [communism] means the growing ‘Common Marketization’ of international relations, and the diminution of the likelihood of large-scale conflict between states.”*

*Fukuyama, Francis. “The End of History?” The National Interest. Summer (1989). p. 14.

Its repercussions.• Essentially, out of the 3 reformist assertions

pointed out today, Fukuyama’s is the most ideological and least objective.

• The End of History? was a pseudo-Hegelian argument that created a utopia out of the present—representing the time as a full realization of Geist.

• There was essentially no rebuttal from the Left in the same vain as Mills or Luxemburg to this argument, leaving the end-of-history as accepted and unchallenged.

Where does this tie all together?• The end-of-history is when the blurring of the “left” “right”

distinction of the end-of-ideology age has reached full force: one can no longer tell the difference.

• “To say that the Maoists can be part of the ideological debate would mean to condone them being in this organization, which is something I don’t do. In the New York City SDS I have spoken numerous times with SDSers who are not Maoists about having the Maoists or certain kinds of anarchists in our organization, because both sides hurt us. If we want to build a democratic society, and we want to be relevant, both of these opposing forces are working against us. There are varying degrees of anarchism, definitely, as well as varying degrees of socialism. But, I think ideas that conflict with our vision and our goals need to be clearly defined and excluded before we can actually start talking about our ideological differences formally as a national organization.”*

*Rojas, Laurie. “The Hundred Days campaign: the present and future of SDS: An interview with Rachel Haut”Platypus Review. Sept., 2008.

An image of hope…• Although Fukuyama, et al. come from a purely

ideological perspective exemplified within their “theoretical rationalizations” of the growing irrelevance and eventual death of the Left, the recognition that these diagnosis’ actually took place should be taken seriously in the sense that there was a recognition of the political tendencies of the time. Through this collapse in the age of the end-of-history and politics, it creates the conditions in which one could start anew.