The End of Ideology Thesis: The
American Left’s Turn Towards the
Right from the 1930s-50s
Presented by Chris Mansour
For 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 antiideological stance.
Basic Timeline of 3 Major Tendencies
1897-98
1953/
1960
1989
“Revisionist Debate”
“End-of-Ideology Debate”
“End of History”
Bernstein & Schmidt
—vs.—
Luxemburg & Lenin
Daniel Bell
—vs.—
C. Wright Mills
Francis Fukuyama
—vs.—
???
Part I:
The End-of-Ideology Debate
1953/
1960
“Men commit error of not knowing when
to limit their hopes.” –Machiavelli
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
1897-98
“The final goal, no matter what it is, is
nothing; the movement is everything.”
–Bernstein
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
1989
“Philosophy [and practice] which once
seemed outmoded is now alive because the
moment of its realization has been missed.”
–Adorno
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 largescale 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.