Fukuyama VS Marx

In the modern world, there are only a few comprehensive
theories of social and political struggle within state
systems. These include the ideology of the "Open Society"
by Karl Popper, based on the dominance of unelected
institutions; the class struggle theory mistakenly
attributed to Karl Marx; Francis Fukuyama's theory of groups
competing for recognition; and smaller, more exotic theories
such as "Left American Globalism" or theories about social
stratifications. Today, only two ideologies are truly
prominent: Marx's theory of class struggle and Fukuyama's
concept of mutual recognition. All other ideas are mostly
intellectual exercises that have little connection to
reality. In conservative American circles, the word
"liberalism" often triggers panic. This shows how far the
newspeak has embrained in that country. In the U.S.,
"liberals" are considered bourgeois communists, whereas
true liberalism originates from the British philosopher John
Locke. It has nothing to do with the concept of collective
rights adopted by Western communists. When we talk about
liberalism, we mean mutual recognition of rights and
freedoms by citizens - what Ayn Rand wrote about, not the
ideas of Gramsci, Marcuse, or Popper. It's also common to
see a mistaken belief in American conservative media that
political liberalism and economic liberalism are the same.
They are not. Those criticizing Fukuyama either haven't
read his work or have only done so superficially. Yes, his
writings are complex, referencing dead philosophers and
19th-century concepts, requiring a solid background in
political theory. But that's no excuse for spreading
nonsense or embarrassing oneself before world. So, what
did Fukuyama proclaim that makes him a topic of discussion
all from dictators to American conservatives? Essentially,
he proposed a simple and understandable idea: the "end of
history." According to Fukuyama, the final form of social
organization is liberal democracy. This is not the fake
communistic liberalism found in the U.S. but a recognition
that societies tend toward standardization of political
systems. Why? Because everything around us - car tires
or smartphones - is standardized. In the modern world,
everything is unified and standardized. So, why can't the
global political system be unified as well? History has
known similar social-political systems across the world -
during feudalism, colonial empires, and absolute monarchies.
But liberal democracy is a natural continuation of
modernity. With technological and cultural homogenization,
public debates, conferences, and discussions have become
part of everyday life. This isn't globalism; it's a new
culture of humanity. People, using modern tools, are
less dependent on vertical social hierarchies of the past.
Instead, horizontal connections allow people to act
independently of any dictatorship. Marx said that the
millstone gave us the landlord, the steam engine gave us
capitalists. I add that the internet has given us
technocrats. But this doesn't prevent people from building
relationships based on democratic principles through online
communication - that's liberal democracy. If we explore
Fukuyama's ideas further, we find another simple point:
dictatorship almost always leads to war. Therefore,
democracies shouldn't deal with dictatorships. If Europeans
hadn't severed transatlantic trade agreements with the U.S.
in favor of Russia and Iran, there might have been fewer
conflicts in the world - at least within Western
civilization. The idea is that democracies don't go to war
with each other. If European communist dogmatists weren't
so arrogant, Europe wouldn't be fighting drone attacks and
religious fanatics today. Another Fukuyama assertion that
irritates many is that liberal democracy is mutual
recognition of rights and freedoms by citizens. I would add
that anarcho-liberalism also involves mutual recognition,
but additionally includes rights for create new forms
organization of society. To sum up, Fukuyama isn't a
communist. Before criticizing him, one should read the
relevant books. Regarding Karl Marx: modern Western
communists and conservatives deny the class conflict
because they believe there are no opposing classes - no
proletariat, no capitalists. But they forget that the concept
of classes existed long before Marx. Marx's idea was that
the proletariat fights against capital - what he called
dialectical materialism. In reality, in today's world, both
exploiters and exploited include members of bourgeois
society, as anarchist founders warned. How can this be? For
example, in modern communist regimes, corrupt, unchangeable
elites exploit small entrepreneurs and middle classes. This
is called state capitalism. Although the goal of communism
is a classless society, it has never truly been achieved.
This isn't a failure of class theory itself but a mistake in
setting the ultimate goal. Anarchism aims for social freedom
- specific rights and opportunities - not abstract
collective rights. Can the theory of class struggle be
combined with Fukuyama's recognition theory? Yes, it can.
I see no conflict. Class struggle is a specific case of
recognition conflict - when survival is at stake. When the
question becomes: "Either we or they," a real class conflict
arises, driven by polarization, where privileged classes
exploit the masses through state apparatuses. In such
systems, the state becomes a source of organized crime.
The group committing crimes can be any social group by
exploiters. So, who are the people? Broadly, they are those
who possess nothing but their labor. All dictatorships rely
on exploiting this. If it weren't for the power of oil
dollars fueling propaganda and armed accomplices, many
regimes would collapse like a house of cards. The main
source of hostility between nations is a culture of hatred.
The root causes of this hatred, in my view, are twofold:
first, transnational banking and oligarchic capital; second,
a system of states resembling a "King of the Hill" game,
where competing groups fight to seize power for criminal
purposes. Objectively, ordinary people have little to fight
over between themselves. But today's global system is
arranged so that, for maximum profit, democracies and
corporations will cooperate with any dictatorship. This is
driven by a universal ideology of "necessity" - the idea
that maintaining comfort in one country is essential for
survival elsewhere. Nothing can be ruled out. When analyzing
conflicts through Fukuyama's lens, considering class theory,
everything becomes clear. For example, American communists,
supporting transnational bankers and oligarchs, are agents
of exploitative classes aiming to establish a corporate
oligarchy where Americans will have no private rights or
freedoms - only dictatorship by unelected institutions,
collectivism, racial segregation, social credit scores, and
so on. In conclusion, understanding social processes
everywhere involves recognizing that class doctrine
shouldn't be tied to specific groups. Everything is fluid
and changing. The "King of the Hill" recognition game by
Fukuyama's is still ongoing, and it will continue in the
future. It is a competition with no end. This is essentially
all there is to understand about Fukuyama and Marx.