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The End of the End of History: Politics in the Twenty-First Century
The “End of History” is over. The idea that Western liberal democracy was the “final form of human government” has been exposed as bluster: the old order is crumbling before our eyes. Angry anti-politics have arisen to threaten political establishments across the world. Elites have fallen into hysteria, blaming voters, “populism”, Putin, Facebook… anyone but themselves. They are suffering from Neoliberal Order Breakdown Syndrome.
Emerging from four years of interviews and debates on the popular global politics podcast Aufhebunga Bunga, The End of the End of History examines how the political consequences of the 2008 financial crisis have come home to roost. If Trump and Brexit shattered the liberal-democratic consensus in 2016, then the global pandemic of 2020 put a final end to the “End of History”. Politics is back, but it’s stranger than ever.
Emerging from four years of interviews and debates on the popular global politics podcast Aufhebunga Bunga, The End of the End of History examines how the political consequences of the 2008 financial crisis have come home to roost. If Trump and Brexit shattered the liberal-democratic consensus in 2016, then the global pandemic of 2020 put a final end to the “End of History”. Politics is back, but it’s stranger than ever.
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First published June 25, 2021
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July 2, 2023I did not enjoy the encounter that this book offered with the ambient hum of nearly the past decade of my life, too many waking hours of which I spent on a website called Twitter, following a number of people broadly interested in left politics, history and media critique. Almost every sentence of it evoked a day or week's discourse: the monkey that looks like a Comment is Free headshot,a Repeater Book about Britpop being a psyop, John Harris, Justin Trudeau brownface; it's a little bit worse than the Zer0 Book I would have written if someone asked me in 2018 and it made me feel a bit ill.
I don't know if there's a word yet for the view of modernity that we derive from the work of Adam Curtis, and in his wake Mark Fisher, but as with Marx's writings these are less calls to action and more plug-and-play models to which any grad student can bring their own left-inflected cultural studies, their axioms being i) our political life is mired in imaginative inertia ii) popular culture is characterised by depressive pursuit of hedonism iii) public intellectuals of the Cold War-era have been edged out in favour of CIA members hawking identity politics, iv) this is all because history failed to turn in Germany in 1918, in the US in 1968, in Greece in 2015.
This book, and almost all the books I've bought over the years because their authors were promoted on Twitter, abide by this formula, e.g. 'Authentocrats' (didn't quite set the task it set out to, thought the author's previous book on football was better), Kill All Normies (bleh), Geohell (insane gibberish). These are negative books, whether for good (decrying reactionary journalists and politicians for shutting down all forms of debate which don't fit a very narrowly defined consensus, providing the reader with a handbook of left-Lacanian theory or an antidote to contemporary philistinism via an inventory of radical art from a time when it was more commonplace) or for ill (every form of activism is frivolous). The End of the End of History sits in the latter of these two categories. My own thesis fits this mould, drawing on Lukács to argue that capitalism radically attenuates the space available for the representation of social totality in all forms of literature, with uneven and combined effects across prose, poetry and drama.
The gap between what Twitter offered, as compared with its resonance in more conventional cultural forms is I think most pronounced in the sphere of the contemporary literary novel, which are so often humourless, skewing from spontaneity into self-consciousness and dependent on an arch cynicism that makes a game of a refusal to commit. Oyler, Lockwood, Mossfegh, Cohen, Lerner produces a list that indicates, to me at least, that posterity is going to be very kind to Sally Rooney. Though I wouldn't be hugely enthusiastic about her work her first two novels (the third I think is a very interesting failure that has me very curious about how her career will develop) have at their core an unguarded interest in human connection, in the place of a coy and mannered oscillation between liberalism, nihilism.
None of this has anything to do with the friendships Twitter has led me into over the past number of years, sustained over email, Discord or real life, with people who are, to varying extents, active on the left, involved in reading groups, or trying to get their own thing going. The website has given me some ability to publish in places about politics and culture, not something I've ever actually pursued, I prefer to write fiction.
This book though, has no time for anyone seeking to do anything. What is referred to as 'the politics of race/gender/sexuality' are dismissed, the only positive suggestion I can pinpoint is that Sanders and Corbyn didn't seek to engage the masses enough, which is so vague as to be meaningless. To be a little more sympathetic I *understand* where the authors are coming from, but on another level, I also understand where they're coming from; Nagle wrote this book years ago, we didn't need anyone else to.
Two thoughts to conclude whatever this comment is supposed to be:
Tomás Mac Síomóin is an author who has taken these features of the present moment and even though his conclusions are pessimistic, they are anchored in practical problems and I would recommend his book 'The Broken Harp' to anyone with an interest in seeing how you can bend the stick away from the macro scale for long enough to get a purchase on somethin real. I wish D.K. Wayne wrote a book.
I don't know if there's a word yet for the view of modernity that we derive from the work of Adam Curtis, and in his wake Mark Fisher, but as with Marx's writings these are less calls to action and more plug-and-play models to which any grad student can bring their own left-inflected cultural studies, their axioms being i) our political life is mired in imaginative inertia ii) popular culture is characterised by depressive pursuit of hedonism iii) public intellectuals of the Cold War-era have been edged out in favour of CIA members hawking identity politics, iv) this is all because history failed to turn in Germany in 1918, in the US in 1968, in Greece in 2015.
This book, and almost all the books I've bought over the years because their authors were promoted on Twitter, abide by this formula, e.g. 'Authentocrats' (didn't quite set the task it set out to, thought the author's previous book on football was better), Kill All Normies (bleh), Geohell (insane gibberish). These are negative books, whether for good (decrying reactionary journalists and politicians for shutting down all forms of debate which don't fit a very narrowly defined consensus, providing the reader with a handbook of left-Lacanian theory or an antidote to contemporary philistinism via an inventory of radical art from a time when it was more commonplace) or for ill (every form of activism is frivolous). The End of the End of History sits in the latter of these two categories. My own thesis fits this mould, drawing on Lukács to argue that capitalism radically attenuates the space available for the representation of social totality in all forms of literature, with uneven and combined effects across prose, poetry and drama.
The gap between what Twitter offered, as compared with its resonance in more conventional cultural forms is I think most pronounced in the sphere of the contemporary literary novel, which are so often humourless, skewing from spontaneity into self-consciousness and dependent on an arch cynicism that makes a game of a refusal to commit. Oyler, Lockwood, Mossfegh, Cohen, Lerner produces a list that indicates, to me at least, that posterity is going to be very kind to Sally Rooney. Though I wouldn't be hugely enthusiastic about her work her first two novels (the third I think is a very interesting failure that has me very curious about how her career will develop) have at their core an unguarded interest in human connection, in the place of a coy and mannered oscillation between liberalism, nihilism.
None of this has anything to do with the friendships Twitter has led me into over the past number of years, sustained over email, Discord or real life, with people who are, to varying extents, active on the left, involved in reading groups, or trying to get their own thing going. The website has given me some ability to publish in places about politics and culture, not something I've ever actually pursued, I prefer to write fiction.
This book though, has no time for anyone seeking to do anything. What is referred to as 'the politics of race/gender/sexuality' are dismissed, the only positive suggestion I can pinpoint is that Sanders and Corbyn didn't seek to engage the masses enough, which is so vague as to be meaningless. To be a little more sympathetic I *understand* where the authors are coming from, but on another level, I also understand where they're coming from; Nagle wrote this book years ago, we didn't need anyone else to.
Two thoughts to conclude whatever this comment is supposed to be:
Tomás Mac Síomóin is an author who has taken these features of the present moment and even though his conclusions are pessimistic, they are anchored in practical problems and I would recommend his book 'The Broken Harp' to anyone with an interest in seeing how you can bend the stick away from the macro scale for long enough to get a purchase on somethin real. I wish D.K. Wayne wrote a book.
March 22, 2023
The best short political book I've read since Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?.
If Mark Fisher helped us brush ourselves down after the miserable years of Iraq and 2008, The End of the End of History is the short, sharp, slap we need to help us get back on our feet after Corbyn.
The book's central thesis is that post 1991, the *political* era of superpower confrontation and democratic ideological confrontation within states transformed into a *post-political* era. The post-political era redefined democratic competition away from a contest over the core ideological basis of the state, and towards a process for deciding on who would be the most competent set of managers to operate within a mutually agreed framework.
The post-political world was characterised by the 'hollowing out' of democratic parties and institutions, and the disengagement of the citizen from public and political life. However, since 2008, and especially since 2016, the post-political has be contested by the *anti-political*.
The anti-political is defined by an angry rejection of the post-political institutions wholesale. It's central claim is that none of them are fit to run the system on the grounds of their incompetence/venality/corruption etc.
The important theoretical advance in this book is the identification that anti-politics is not about cleaning up corrupt democratic institutions, but that it represents a collapse in the legitimacy of liberal democracy wholescale. Further, it brings about a collapse in the legitimacy of *any* political solution to ongoing crisis, which is extremely damaging to a socialist left committed to specific political programmes.
The failure of both traditional mass politics and technocratic post-politics has been answered by (unsuccessful) left-populist responses and (more successful) right-demagogic responses. What is now emerging is actually a new political centre ground monopolised by a form of right-wing state capitalism, in which conservative and nationalist parties abandon the sharper edges of neoliberalism for a potent mix of right wing cultural politics and economic interventionism designed to hold together a coalition of big business and 'native' working class voters.
This book is so important because it strips away the political delusions which, to some extent, we have all entertained over the last decade and asks us to look hard and straight at the situation we are actually in. Then it asks:
What is to be done?
If Mark Fisher helped us brush ourselves down after the miserable years of Iraq and 2008, The End of the End of History is the short, sharp, slap we need to help us get back on our feet after Corbyn.
The book's central thesis is that post 1991, the *political* era of superpower confrontation and democratic ideological confrontation within states transformed into a *post-political* era. The post-political era redefined democratic competition away from a contest over the core ideological basis of the state, and towards a process for deciding on who would be the most competent set of managers to operate within a mutually agreed framework.
The post-political world was characterised by the 'hollowing out' of democratic parties and institutions, and the disengagement of the citizen from public and political life. However, since 2008, and especially since 2016, the post-political has be contested by the *anti-political*.
The anti-political is defined by an angry rejection of the post-political institutions wholesale. It's central claim is that none of them are fit to run the system on the grounds of their incompetence/venality/corruption etc.
The important theoretical advance in this book is the identification that anti-politics is not about cleaning up corrupt democratic institutions, but that it represents a collapse in the legitimacy of liberal democracy wholescale. Further, it brings about a collapse in the legitimacy of *any* political solution to ongoing crisis, which is extremely damaging to a socialist left committed to specific political programmes.
The failure of both traditional mass politics and technocratic post-politics has been answered by (unsuccessful) left-populist responses and (more successful) right-demagogic responses. What is now emerging is actually a new political centre ground monopolised by a form of right-wing state capitalism, in which conservative and nationalist parties abandon the sharper edges of neoliberalism for a potent mix of right wing cultural politics and economic interventionism designed to hold together a coalition of big business and 'native' working class voters.
This book is so important because it strips away the political delusions which, to some extent, we have all entertained over the last decade and asks us to look hard and straight at the situation we are actually in. Then it asks:
What is to be done?
October 9, 2021
Add the following ingredients:
* an undergraduate's understanding of Hegel
* smattering of obscure political examples readers will not be familiar with
* charlatan's trick of thinking one's self superior because you criticize both right and left
* handful of $2 SAT words ("irruption", "fissiparous")
What do you get? "The End of the End of History."
This book conveys the same intellectual value as ringing a gong in an empty space. (Scratch that—the gong may actually deliver more insight.) I re-read several sections at first, thinking perhaps the fault lay in my own understanding. But the authors alleviated that possibility with their absurd claims about the "deep state" investigation into Trump's Russian involvement, how liberals despise the majority of citizens, and more.
Consider the following para:
"In their failure to overturn neoliberalism, left-populism failed to expand the meaning of what was politically possible—left-populists did not manage to expand people's political control over their own lives and societies because they did not key into the agency of their own citizens."
What the fuck does that even mean? I ask this sincerely, not from a liberal or conservative point of view. The authors revel in talking about concepts and ideologies like "neoliberalism", "patriomonialism", and "plebiscitarianism" as if these are real forces endowed with their own thoughts and desires. One often finds this personification of concepts in postmodern philosophy—another pseudo-intellectual watering hole.
This vacuous book commits a specific error all too typical today: it completely fails to appreciate the role of race in explaining contemporary politics. To be sure, the authors assume they have checked that box in railing against "identity politics", as if being gay, Muslim, or nonbinary is equivalent to being black in America. In this, they commit the same error as Mark Lilla in urging liberals to abandon any talk of racial justice lest they lose the support of the white hinterland. The authors so studiously avoid discussing the impact of the US' first black president as to suggest this omission was conscious decision. And by ignoring it, they write its impact out of existence.
It's rare that I hate a book this much, and I suppose the authors deserve a modicum of credit for that.
(For context, I did graduate work on Hegel while earning my degree in philosophy. I also hold a degree in political science and a master's in business.)
* an undergraduate's understanding of Hegel
* smattering of obscure political examples readers will not be familiar with
* charlatan's trick of thinking one's self superior because you criticize both right and left
* handful of $2 SAT words ("irruption", "fissiparous")
What do you get? "The End of the End of History."
This book conveys the same intellectual value as ringing a gong in an empty space. (Scratch that—the gong may actually deliver more insight.) I re-read several sections at first, thinking perhaps the fault lay in my own understanding. But the authors alleviated that possibility with their absurd claims about the "deep state" investigation into Trump's Russian involvement, how liberals despise the majority of citizens, and more.
Consider the following para:
"In their failure to overturn neoliberalism, left-populism failed to expand the meaning of what was politically possible—left-populists did not manage to expand people's political control over their own lives and societies because they did not key into the agency of their own citizens."
What the fuck does that even mean? I ask this sincerely, not from a liberal or conservative point of view. The authors revel in talking about concepts and ideologies like "neoliberalism", "patriomonialism", and "plebiscitarianism" as if these are real forces endowed with their own thoughts and desires. One often finds this personification of concepts in postmodern philosophy—another pseudo-intellectual watering hole.
This vacuous book commits a specific error all too typical today: it completely fails to appreciate the role of race in explaining contemporary politics. To be sure, the authors assume they have checked that box in railing against "identity politics", as if being gay, Muslim, or nonbinary is equivalent to being black in America. In this, they commit the same error as Mark Lilla in urging liberals to abandon any talk of racial justice lest they lose the support of the white hinterland. The authors so studiously avoid discussing the impact of the US' first black president as to suggest this omission was conscious decision. And by ignoring it, they write its impact out of existence.
It's rare that I hate a book this much, and I suppose the authors deserve a modicum of credit for that.
(For context, I did graduate work on Hegel while earning my degree in philosophy. I also hold a degree in political science and a master's in business.)
July 10, 2022
Although I broadly agree with this book’s points about historical and political trends, there is one giant criticism I have - that the authors are prototypical smug podcast socialists.
Throughout this book, the authors disparage any and all forms of (recent) left wing activism as ineffective at best and actually reactionary at worse. Sympathy seems to only be doled out to the reactionary working class, who themselves are implied to simply not know better than vote against their interests. The authors turn their noses up at BLM protests and climate activism as pointless because they divide the working class. I think that’s an extremely easy opinion to have from a comfortable chair behind a microphone.
Discussions of race are so completely absent that I believe they were omitted because the authors simply don’t think it’s important. I don’t know how you can call yourself a political scientist in the 2020’s and not appreciate the importance of race. It goes to show the absolute disdain in which the authors hold intersectionality, the political goals of POC, and probably POC in general - despite the clear fact that the goals of intersectional activism are aligned with and often identical to those of the international working class in most Marxist theories.
What, then, is the “right” way to be a socialist at the end of the end of history? It’s hard to say according to these authors. I guess you have to have a podcast and sit around shitting on POC activists while waiting for an actual Revolution to start.
Re: broad political trends though, I think it’s spot on. It’s just too bad that the authors seem to hold the the left wing in as much contempt as the right does. You’ll love this book if you think Chapo Trap House is the pinnacle of political commentary.
Throughout this book, the authors disparage any and all forms of (recent) left wing activism as ineffective at best and actually reactionary at worse. Sympathy seems to only be doled out to the reactionary working class, who themselves are implied to simply not know better than vote against their interests. The authors turn their noses up at BLM protests and climate activism as pointless because they divide the working class. I think that’s an extremely easy opinion to have from a comfortable chair behind a microphone.
Discussions of race are so completely absent that I believe they were omitted because the authors simply don’t think it’s important. I don’t know how you can call yourself a political scientist in the 2020’s and not appreciate the importance of race. It goes to show the absolute disdain in which the authors hold intersectionality, the political goals of POC, and probably POC in general - despite the clear fact that the goals of intersectional activism are aligned with and often identical to those of the international working class in most Marxist theories.
What, then, is the “right” way to be a socialist at the end of the end of history? It’s hard to say according to these authors. I guess you have to have a podcast and sit around shitting on POC activists while waiting for an actual Revolution to start.
Re: broad political trends though, I think it’s spot on. It’s just too bad that the authors seem to hold the the left wing in as much contempt as the right does. You’ll love this book if you think Chapo Trap House is the pinnacle of political commentary.
October 9, 2022
For many academics, journalists, and politicians, history ended in 1989.
Prompted by Francis Fukuyama's thesis on how the end of a bipolar world arena signalled the supremacy of the liberal-democratic political system (and neoliberal economic model), many politicians and academics thought that it was 'the end of history', as this system would eventually 'spread' all over the world. For the book's authors, this idea began to end in 2016 (Brexit and Trump) and was sealed as dead in 2021, with the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
But how did we end up at the end of 'The End of History'? This is the central question that is answered throughout the book, as the authors track more than 30 years of western politics to understand why the end-of-history thesis gained prominence and how it came to be disputed.
Naturally, a book like this has a lot of information about European and USA politics from the 1990s until today. What really strikes out though is the example of Italian politics which is presented as an exemplary case of how pre-1989 politics came to an end in the early 1990s and how it signalled the emergence of Berlusconi-type politicians that are more evident nowadays. The book is also criticizing the lack of adaptability of the neoliberal economic model to the post-2008 reality and how this led to the Neoliberal Order Breakdown Syndrome (NOBS): an economic/political system that exists in denial of its apparent end. If we follow the recent developments in Italy and how Draghi talked with Giorgia Meloni to assure the country's EU/NATO positioning, and fiscal responsibility towards EU institutions, then the NOBS thesis becomes more evident.
At times the book can be superficial but if you examine 30 years of politics, that's bound to happen. Nevertheless, it was an enjoyable book that offers a broader outlook on 21st-century politics so far.
Prompted by Francis Fukuyama's thesis on how the end of a bipolar world arena signalled the supremacy of the liberal-democratic political system (and neoliberal economic model), many politicians and academics thought that it was 'the end of history', as this system would eventually 'spread' all over the world. For the book's authors, this idea began to end in 2016 (Brexit and Trump) and was sealed as dead in 2021, with the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
But how did we end up at the end of 'The End of History'? This is the central question that is answered throughout the book, as the authors track more than 30 years of western politics to understand why the end-of-history thesis gained prominence and how it came to be disputed.
Naturally, a book like this has a lot of information about European and USA politics from the 1990s until today. What really strikes out though is the example of Italian politics which is presented as an exemplary case of how pre-1989 politics came to an end in the early 1990s and how it signalled the emergence of Berlusconi-type politicians that are more evident nowadays. The book is also criticizing the lack of adaptability of the neoliberal economic model to the post-2008 reality and how this led to the Neoliberal Order Breakdown Syndrome (NOBS): an economic/political system that exists in denial of its apparent end. If we follow the recent developments in Italy and how Draghi talked with Giorgia Meloni to assure the country's EU/NATO positioning, and fiscal responsibility towards EU institutions, then the NOBS thesis becomes more evident.
At times the book can be superficial but if you examine 30 years of politics, that's bound to happen. Nevertheless, it was an enjoyable book that offers a broader outlook on 21st-century politics so far.
August 27, 2022
Hoewel ik mij grotendeels kon vinden in de analyse (aldus de beoordeling) kent dit boek in mijn ogen twee belangrijke gebreken:
1. antiracisme en ecologie afdoen als hobby’s van de “professional managerial class” is echt te kort door de bocht. Waarom niet benoemen hoe verschillende denkers marxisme met ecologie en antiracisme verbinden?
2. Hoe kan ik, als lid van de PMC tegen wil en dank, bijdragen aan een samenleving gecontroleerd door de arbeidersklasse? De auteurs lijken het antwoord op die vraag niet te weten, waardoor mij het gevoel beklijft dat mijn indentiteit als academisch geschoolde defacto een obstakel vormt richting het socialisme.
1. antiracisme en ecologie afdoen als hobby’s van de “professional managerial class” is echt te kort door de bocht. Waarom niet benoemen hoe verschillende denkers marxisme met ecologie en antiracisme verbinden?
2. Hoe kan ik, als lid van de PMC tegen wil en dank, bijdragen aan een samenleving gecontroleerd door de arbeidersklasse? De auteurs lijken het antwoord op die vraag niet te weten, waardoor mij het gevoel beklijft dat mijn indentiteit als academisch geschoolde defacto een obstakel vormt richting het socialisme.
January 24, 2023
A clear-eyed analysis of the recent global political history (from the wall's fall onwards). A welcome antidote against many dumb takes that continue to float around. The far right, center right, and liberal left all get justifiably savaged -- the last one especially so. It introduces some concepts that help us think through things as we advance: post-politics vs. anti-politics, neoliberal order breakdown syndrome (NOBS, see what they did there?), and the decline of mass politics. A reasonably quick read and mostly jargon free. Recommended to all of us sickos that somehow still follow and think about politics for fun.
October 12, 2021
I thought it was a good idea to delve into political economy for a change, after having read so many economics volumes. But sadly I didn't finish this one. Although the writing isn't bad, I'm just not very convinced I was learning many new things, and a couple of characterizations feel to me as somewhat too generalizing as well as written with some disdain. Maybe I would go for 1,5 stars if that had been possible, because after reading the first few chapters I did understand the concept of the End of History a bit better.
August 12, 2022
I've seen the future, brother
It is murder.
-Leonard Cohen
The Bunga Boys perform an autopsy on the End of History. Based on the results, it's not looking good. A muscular techno-populist state, center right in orientation, will jettison much of the nostrums of the neoliberal economics. The left-liberals will remain a shrieking chorus of the PMC, providing a so called moral compass for this new order. From the far right will come nationalism and an organicist view of society.
That all makes sense to me. I'll admit, my understanding of global economic policy is fairly limited, so take everything I'm about to say with a grain of salt. However, as far as I understand it, I'm not so sure there will be a material basis for this new political order. Take the U.S for instance. To bring back our jobs, we in the United States will have to adopt a policy of protectionism. But this isn't 1946. The United States no longer accounts for more than 50% of global GDP.
We could cobble together a new industrial base. In exchange, we'd likely have to relinquish the dollar's role as global reserve currency and adopt what the economist, Branko Milanovic, terms "technologically regressive import substitution." He said this in regards to Russia. Faced with sanctions, it will be forced to revive its old industrial base - a dinosaur by the 1980s, much of it left to rust since the 90s. Given how enmeshed the U.S is into the global economy, we'd likely have to do the same. The flood of cheap consumer goodies that have made declining wages and massive inequality somewhat bearable will dry up. How we could tolerate life in the suburbs or in those downtown pseudo-luxury apartments without black Friday is beyond me. I'm serious. Without the promise of cheap crap, would my shitty job and the credit card's worth of microplastics we ingest every week be worth it?
At the end of the book, the Bunga Boys concede that there's one reason to be optimistic. Perhaps, they say, the working classes of the world might stir from their listlessness and take matters into their owns hands. The way they say it honestly sounds perfunctory. Good Marxists must at the very least acknowledge that the workers might, someday, take history into their own hands once more.
And that's exactly what seems to be happening, at least here in the U.S. Upswells in American labor unrest always start out somewhat apolitical, at least in a left right sense. Hopefully this movement will last long enough to become conscious of its historic role.
It is murder.
-Leonard Cohen
The Bunga Boys perform an autopsy on the End of History. Based on the results, it's not looking good. A muscular techno-populist state, center right in orientation, will jettison much of the nostrums of the neoliberal economics. The left-liberals will remain a shrieking chorus of the PMC, providing a so called moral compass for this new order. From the far right will come nationalism and an organicist view of society.
That all makes sense to me. I'll admit, my understanding of global economic policy is fairly limited, so take everything I'm about to say with a grain of salt. However, as far as I understand it, I'm not so sure there will be a material basis for this new political order. Take the U.S for instance. To bring back our jobs, we in the United States will have to adopt a policy of protectionism. But this isn't 1946. The United States no longer accounts for more than 50% of global GDP.
We could cobble together a new industrial base. In exchange, we'd likely have to relinquish the dollar's role as global reserve currency and adopt what the economist, Branko Milanovic, terms "technologically regressive import substitution." He said this in regards to Russia. Faced with sanctions, it will be forced to revive its old industrial base - a dinosaur by the 1980s, much of it left to rust since the 90s. Given how enmeshed the U.S is into the global economy, we'd likely have to do the same. The flood of cheap consumer goodies that have made declining wages and massive inequality somewhat bearable will dry up. How we could tolerate life in the suburbs or in those downtown pseudo-luxury apartments without black Friday is beyond me. I'm serious. Without the promise of cheap crap, would my shitty job and the credit card's worth of microplastics we ingest every week be worth it?
At the end of the book, the Bunga Boys concede that there's one reason to be optimistic. Perhaps, they say, the working classes of the world might stir from their listlessness and take matters into their owns hands. The way they say it honestly sounds perfunctory. Good Marxists must at the very least acknowledge that the workers might, someday, take history into their own hands once more.
And that's exactly what seems to be happening, at least here in the U.S. Upswells in American labor unrest always start out somewhat apolitical, at least in a left right sense. Hopefully this movement will last long enough to become conscious of its historic role.
Read
August 22, 2021These guys, more than anyone else, understand what the hell is going on.
April 20, 2023
I had no idea of the activity and inclinations of the authors beforehand. The way it started out ticked my boxes as a dispassionate analysis of political phenomena. I soon realized that the authors were leftists of the old variety and highly critical of intersectionalism and the peace the New Left is making with Neoliberalism. I can agree with that, but not with other things. I continued reading and learned a great deal. The authors manage to give a highly readable account of the decline of politics and the marginalization of the citizen as an active political participant as opposed to a passive recipient of spectacle and policies. Despite how the book started out, this is no dry Peter Mair-style account of the decline of democracy (maybe one of the three authors was solely in charge of the beginning and it was his style that seemed very objective). The authors wear their biases on their sleeves, as befits the new podcast intellectual class, but the book is better for it in many ways. It has great zingers that give food for thought and articulate very well some important issues that had been brewing in the back of my mind related to the rise of populism, the ineffectual protest culture and the pandemic.
My criticism of the book, such that I have, is twofold. Firstly, the authors ignore certain issues and gloss over their obvious importance, not just from my right wing view, but also in research carried out by leftists. The massive impact of demographic change is reduced to a throwaway line about Democrats promoting migration also as a vote getter (true enough). Migration barely features into the discussion, even though the Neoliberal aspect of it as a means of wage suppression is a classic lefty talking point (and populist left of the Sanders variety). There is more hay made of migration as a means for organicist far right movements to advance. Other aspects of demographic change, like aging, sub-replacement fertility, internal migration and the hollowing out of areas or even cultural issues like single parenthood are totally absent, despite being a strong driver of politics. Generational politics get a throwaway line about being a deadend for true change. The authors acknowledge that the New Left is contemptuous of the working class and the nation, driving these groups to right wing populism (post-neoliberal conservatism and organicist far right), but they do not explore the real effects of intersectionality and the oppressor-oppressed narrative on societal conflict and psychological wellbeing, including in the breakdown of public order and the growth of violence and preferential policing. There is an entire corpus of literature along the lines of Robert Putnam's "Bowling Alone" on the destruction of civil society, institutional trust and real civic and political engagement because of economic, social and demographic changes (with Putnam being a classic arch-leftist), but this does not enter any discussion at all. Neither do the findings of Charles Murray on the pathologies of the working class in the new economic and political environment, which makes it less likely that they can advance any sort of bid for political control of the state. The demographic issue is an afterthought, despite it being a core determinant of everything else.
Secondly, I am also surprised by their charitable interpretation of recent events:
1. Well meaning technocrats are blinded by class self-interest and faith in their craft while making and implementing pandemic policies. There is no pettiness, vindictiveness, status jockeying, contempt or any other human negativity involved. The Professional-Managerial Class and its machinations are mentioned but specifically denied as constituting a class in themselves, despite James Burnham and many others asserting that the managerial class is THE class for much of the neoliberal agenda, with their interests superseding left-right divisions.
2. Bernie Sanders concedes an electoral contest and that spells the death of left populism. Conveniently, they stick to the 2020 election, omitting that Bernie Sanders, on a much more populist lefty agenda (including being as strong as Trump on anti-immigration rhetoric), was blindsided then neutered by the Democratic establishment in 2016 in a structural way (the superdelegate issue and donor abandonment). The resentment of his followers was what gave him the chance in 2020 to run again. I am not familiar enough with the dynamics of New Labour in the UK to comment on that example.
3. The authors recoil from the perspective of "White (and male?)" identity politics, associating it with racism, but make no mention of specific identity politics for other groups as inherently undesirable (as opposed to strategically wrongheaded), perpetuating a double standard and evincing a lack of understanding regarding the political transformation of deracinated Whites in post-national societies like the US and Canada (as opposed to the organic ethnics of the Old World).
4. The simplistic interpretation of the 2008 financial crisis and its starting point. Neoliberalism run amok is too simple and ignores the intersection (haha) with New Left priorities and sensibilities, such as the incredibly expensive and risky drive in the US for increased minority homeownership that became both predatorial/exploitative to these communities and a source of systemic risk through the erosion of prudence in lending (the subprime crisis originated in housing loans).
5. The death of George Floyd, BLM, its roots during the Obama years rate a single mention and no analysis. "Protests" happened. This ignores completely both the obvious attempts to polarize society for electoral contests to the detriment of collective interests and the radicalizing effects that the violence of 2020 had on society, including previously on-the-fence voters. They should at least acknowledge it for its effects on the hated organicist/conservative right option that the authors think will crowd out leftism as the hegemonic ideology of society in the next period.
It is obvious that the book was a great success if I engaged with the authors' arguments so deeply. Did they prove their thesis that The End of the End of History is around the corner and politics are restarting? I am not so sure, but neither were they, so I guess it's ok. Five stars.
My criticism of the book, such that I have, is twofold. Firstly, the authors ignore certain issues and gloss over their obvious importance, not just from my right wing view, but also in research carried out by leftists. The massive impact of demographic change is reduced to a throwaway line about Democrats promoting migration also as a vote getter (true enough). Migration barely features into the discussion, even though the Neoliberal aspect of it as a means of wage suppression is a classic lefty talking point (and populist left of the Sanders variety). There is more hay made of migration as a means for organicist far right movements to advance. Other aspects of demographic change, like aging, sub-replacement fertility, internal migration and the hollowing out of areas or even cultural issues like single parenthood are totally absent, despite being a strong driver of politics. Generational politics get a throwaway line about being a deadend for true change. The authors acknowledge that the New Left is contemptuous of the working class and the nation, driving these groups to right wing populism (post-neoliberal conservatism and organicist far right), but they do not explore the real effects of intersectionality and the oppressor-oppressed narrative on societal conflict and psychological wellbeing, including in the breakdown of public order and the growth of violence and preferential policing. There is an entire corpus of literature along the lines of Robert Putnam's "Bowling Alone" on the destruction of civil society, institutional trust and real civic and political engagement because of economic, social and demographic changes (with Putnam being a classic arch-leftist), but this does not enter any discussion at all. Neither do the findings of Charles Murray on the pathologies of the working class in the new economic and political environment, which makes it less likely that they can advance any sort of bid for political control of the state. The demographic issue is an afterthought, despite it being a core determinant of everything else.
Secondly, I am also surprised by their charitable interpretation of recent events:
1. Well meaning technocrats are blinded by class self-interest and faith in their craft while making and implementing pandemic policies. There is no pettiness, vindictiveness, status jockeying, contempt or any other human negativity involved. The Professional-Managerial Class and its machinations are mentioned but specifically denied as constituting a class in themselves, despite James Burnham and many others asserting that the managerial class is THE class for much of the neoliberal agenda, with their interests superseding left-right divisions.
2. Bernie Sanders concedes an electoral contest and that spells the death of left populism. Conveniently, they stick to the 2020 election, omitting that Bernie Sanders, on a much more populist lefty agenda (including being as strong as Trump on anti-immigration rhetoric), was blindsided then neutered by the Democratic establishment in 2016 in a structural way (the superdelegate issue and donor abandonment). The resentment of his followers was what gave him the chance in 2020 to run again. I am not familiar enough with the dynamics of New Labour in the UK to comment on that example.
3. The authors recoil from the perspective of "White (and male?)" identity politics, associating it with racism, but make no mention of specific identity politics for other groups as inherently undesirable (as opposed to strategically wrongheaded), perpetuating a double standard and evincing a lack of understanding regarding the political transformation of deracinated Whites in post-national societies like the US and Canada (as opposed to the organic ethnics of the Old World).
4. The simplistic interpretation of the 2008 financial crisis and its starting point. Neoliberalism run amok is too simple and ignores the intersection (haha) with New Left priorities and sensibilities, such as the incredibly expensive and risky drive in the US for increased minority homeownership that became both predatorial/exploitative to these communities and a source of systemic risk through the erosion of prudence in lending (the subprime crisis originated in housing loans).
5. The death of George Floyd, BLM, its roots during the Obama years rate a single mention and no analysis. "Protests" happened. This ignores completely both the obvious attempts to polarize society for electoral contests to the detriment of collective interests and the radicalizing effects that the violence of 2020 had on society, including previously on-the-fence voters. They should at least acknowledge it for its effects on the hated organicist/conservative right option that the authors think will crowd out leftism as the hegemonic ideology of society in the next period.
It is obvious that the book was a great success if I engaged with the authors' arguments so deeply. Did they prove their thesis that The End of the End of History is around the corner and politics are restarting? I am not so sure, but neither were they, so I guess it's ok. Five stars.
February 15, 2022
Succinct dissection of post-Cold War trends
Reflecting back on the period from the collapse of the Soviet Union, characterised by Francis Fukuyama as The End of History, the Bungas map out how that era saw the hollowing out of traditional left and right politics, their replacement with forms of 'anti-politics', both technocratic and populist, and identify trends that might lead to the renewal of grass roots politics at the End of the End of History. A good overall assessment of the past 30 years and a useful primer for those wanting to follow the podcasts.
Reflecting back on the period from the collapse of the Soviet Union, characterised by Francis Fukuyama as The End of History, the Bungas map out how that era saw the hollowing out of traditional left and right politics, their replacement with forms of 'anti-politics', both technocratic and populist, and identify trends that might lead to the renewal of grass roots politics at the End of the End of History. A good overall assessment of the past 30 years and a useful primer for those wanting to follow the podcasts.
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February 24, 2024Some bad ideas, some good ideas, but no new ones.
April 29, 2025
This awkwardly titled book offers a thoughtful and fast analysis of early 21st century politics. The podcasting authors explore what happened after the post-Cold War settlement started to fray.
Some key points:
-some countries become hollow with hard shells: hollow from political disengagement/collapse, hard from the security state. (111)
-left/liberal parties drift towards high-income, high-education voters, while right/conservative ones win low-income, low-education support. (133)
-elite panic over the collapsing state of affairs takes the form of lashing out moralistically, which the authors cheekily nickname Neoliberal Order Breakdown Syndrome (NOBS) (60). This looks like:
Chapter six really impressed me with their detailed focus on Silvio Berlusconi as template figure for our time: powerful tv role; drive against corruption while being openly corrupt; businessman as hero; celebrity; lawfare by opponents; a panic about decline; a strong gap between developed and left behind regions - north and south, in Italy.
There are some weaknesses, due likely to the volume's brevity (159 short pages). The focus on the US, UK, France, and Italy leaves Asia. China barely appears; a too-quick mention of US-China decoupling (29) had some prescience, but wasn't followed upon. The authors also dismiss 9-11 and the war on terror too quickly, which I find many not on the political right often do. The shock of that experience, the rapid development of global war, the expansion of a surveillance state all support their view of emerging politics, actually.
The book appeared right after the peak of COVID and that experience marks the text strongly. Alas, we seem to have energetically moved past the pandemic, turning a thoroughly blind eye in that direction, so The End of The End now seems dated. But I recommend it nonetheless.
Some key points:
-some countries become hollow with hard shells: hollow from political disengagement/collapse, hard from the security state. (111)
-left/liberal parties drift towards high-income, high-education voters, while right/conservative ones win low-income, low-education support. (133)
-elite panic over the collapsing state of affairs takes the form of lashing out moralistically, which the authors cheekily nickname Neoliberal Order Breakdown Syndrome (NOBS) (60). This looks like:
a fevered inability on the part of the liberal establishment to accept political change, leading to incredulity, denial, and a refusal to take responsibility; an inability to explain political change, replacing any credible understanding of political causation with a facile fetishization of disinformation or lack of knowledge on the part of voters; an inability to respond to political change, with reactions marked variously by an elite persecution complex, nostalgia for a very recent past, catastrophism, repetition compulsion, infantilization, and moralization. (73)
Chapter six really impressed me with their detailed focus on Silvio Berlusconi as template figure for our time: powerful tv role; drive against corruption while being openly corrupt; businessman as hero; celebrity; lawfare by opponents; a panic about decline; a strong gap between developed and left behind regions - north and south, in Italy.
There are some weaknesses, due likely to the volume's brevity (159 short pages). The focus on the US, UK, France, and Italy leaves Asia. China barely appears; a too-quick mention of US-China decoupling (29) had some prescience, but wasn't followed upon. The authors also dismiss 9-11 and the war on terror too quickly, which I find many not on the political right often do. The shock of that experience, the rapid development of global war, the expansion of a surveillance state all support their view of emerging politics, actually.
The book appeared right after the peak of COVID and that experience marks the text strongly. Alas, we seem to have energetically moved past the pandemic, turning a thoroughly blind eye in that direction, so The End of The End now seems dated. But I recommend it nonetheless.
January 4, 2025
The book gives a nice overview of the politics of the end of history, and why the "end of history" has been coming to an end. It is grounded in real world examples, and is not afraid to look at possible trends by analyzing countries besides the US and UK, and honestly, benefits greatly from it. Anglosphere writers often hold the, unfounded, belief that the Anglosphere is at the cutting edge of any development, be it social or scientific. Yet the ending of history and anti-politics came relatively late to the Anglosphere. I wonder if certain parties would have made the same mistake if, when working out their strategy, they had taken an analytical look at political trends across the globe, rather than ignoring everything past their shores.
As far as the book is concerned, it builds on real world examples, and provides ample sources for further reading, but can meander and I think some fat could have been trimmed. My favorite insights were the about displacing politics to other places, like the supranational or sub-national level in order to eliminate the threat of political mobilization of the working class.
I also found the predictions of the future, particularly on the right end, to be quite poignant, but think the prediction of the left is a bit too sceptical and anglocentric. Indeed, the left has made some gains in Europe recently, and not on a platform of anti-"fascism", but on a platform of more equal distribution of material welfare and seizing power from the neoliberals. Still I think the prediction of the far-right becoming more Malthusian, and organicist is going to be right on the mark. If resources get scarcer due to global warming, it will be trivial for far-right parties, particularly in resource poor Europe, to promise to make the "tough choices" of stripping "undesireables" of those resources in favor of "indigenous" people.
One critique I have is that the book could have benefited from more precise language. For example, distrust against government institutions and distrust in the political system are put under the same umbrella. While these are both represented by anti-politics, these are really separate resentments, against the technocratic Professional Managerial Class of the former, and the entrenched political class of the latter. The book makes this very clear later on, but from the earlier descriptions of anti-politics, this was in my opinion not apparent, but that could have been because English isn't my native tongue.
As far as the book is concerned, it builds on real world examples, and provides ample sources for further reading, but can meander and I think some fat could have been trimmed. My favorite insights were the about displacing politics to other places, like the supranational or sub-national level in order to eliminate the threat of political mobilization of the working class.
I also found the predictions of the future, particularly on the right end, to be quite poignant, but think the prediction of the left is a bit too sceptical and anglocentric. Indeed, the left has made some gains in Europe recently, and not on a platform of anti-"fascism", but on a platform of more equal distribution of material welfare and seizing power from the neoliberals. Still I think the prediction of the far-right becoming more Malthusian, and organicist is going to be right on the mark. If resources get scarcer due to global warming, it will be trivial for far-right parties, particularly in resource poor Europe, to promise to make the "tough choices" of stripping "undesireables" of those resources in favor of "indigenous" people.
One critique I have is that the book could have benefited from more precise language. For example, distrust against government institutions and distrust in the political system are put under the same umbrella. While these are both represented by anti-politics, these are really separate resentments, against the technocratic Professional Managerial Class of the former, and the entrenched political class of the latter. The book makes this very clear later on, but from the earlier descriptions of anti-politics, this was in my opinion not apparent, but that could have been because English isn't my native tongue.
September 8, 2021
A breezy, ironic political theory of the present the discusses the collapse of the neoliberal consensus as well as the various morbid political symptoms that are manifesting as the new dispensation and equilibrium struggles to be born. Theoretically serious but easy to read, this is in a sense an update to Angela Nagle's Kill All Normies which covered similar if narrower territory about the rise of the alt-right out of the failures of the Very Online left. The claims are similar here, animated by a barely veiled hatred of the way that the PMC has taken over left political parties, cutting them off from their working class base, seeking to turn politics into a series of technical problems. Instead of the left representing the empowerment of the working class, in other words, it now represents educated moralizers figuring out what's good for folks who don't generally take very good care of themselves; ironically, this makes the "left" the primary defender of the status quo ante of neoliberal managerialism. Meanwhile, those "folks" (both genuine working classes, but especially petty bourgeois small business owners) turn out to have a lot of neo-nationalist and worse attitudes, stoked by the evident failure of technocratic elites to prevent bad things from happening even as those elites made choices and imposed rules that destroy the livelihoods of these folks, for whom the independence afforded by business ownerships has been the last source of pride in a world that has generally seen their social status steadily downgraded for four decades (and who may now, the authors darkly suggest, be tempted by "neo-Malthusian" political appeals). And finally, the center-right is coopting the left's dirigiste agenda to promote a more muscular form of Nation-First industrial policy, though it's unclear who the political constituency for that will be, aside from businesses hoping to deepen the feed in the trough.
June 8, 2024
What a read! Highly recommending it if you've been feeling lost in the political climate of the past 20 years. I have.
What is the end of history?
The original concept was expounded at different times by Francis Fukuyama, Alexandre Kojeve, Hegel. In brief, it is when there is no alternative to the status quo, one single template of social organisation (e.g. liberal market capitalism); the institution of which makes left and right lose meaning and political discourse drifts towards a technocratic centre.
What is the end of the end of history, then?
It is the crumbling of the mainstream ideology that left no space for alternative thinking.
In this book the End of History is situated with the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989, and the End of the End of History with the 2008 Global Financial Crisis (GFC).
The book analyses the state of politics of the 21st century, how we got to where we are, the current ideological void, and the lack of participation of the masses (as the working class has fragmented into individuals incapable to organise in any meaningful way to change things).
And it takes a stab at what emerging ideologies we could expect to see in the future as we go through an era of profound social change.
I found this book very interesting because it allowed me to connect many dots and reduce the sense of discomfort caused by my inability to read, attach meaning to the current political discourse.
What is the end of history?
The original concept was expounded at different times by Francis Fukuyama, Alexandre Kojeve, Hegel. In brief, it is when there is no alternative to the status quo, one single template of social organisation (e.g. liberal market capitalism); the institution of which makes left and right lose meaning and political discourse drifts towards a technocratic centre.
What is the end of the end of history, then?
It is the crumbling of the mainstream ideology that left no space for alternative thinking.
In this book the End of History is situated with the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989, and the End of the End of History with the 2008 Global Financial Crisis (GFC).
The book analyses the state of politics of the 21st century, how we got to where we are, the current ideological void, and the lack of participation of the masses (as the working class has fragmented into individuals incapable to organise in any meaningful way to change things).
And it takes a stab at what emerging ideologies we could expect to see in the future as we go through an era of profound social change.
I found this book very interesting because it allowed me to connect many dots and reduce the sense of discomfort caused by my inability to read, attach meaning to the current political discourse.
August 9, 2025
I found the first few chapters very good, chapters 7-9 less so. It is at its best when discussing populism and the end of history concept. The turn towards more leftist infighting and debate emphasise the worst parts of the authors' tendencies and the left more generally - too stuck on concepts like neoliberalism and faulty analysis of current affairs. Calling Boris Johnson a nationalist after the 'Boriswave' made me roll my eyes very hard, it does end up feeling like bad British leftist writing. Still, I really enjoyed the analysis of the End of History and the stuff on anti-politics and post-politics - I wish they had maintained this theoretical approach rather than tired debates about Covid that make the book feel dated. For a book on politics in the 21st century, to feel dated and to be proven wrong 4 years later is not a good sign.
November 28, 2021
Politics in the 21st Century seems to make no sense and this excellent read at times is a welcome antidote to the echo chamber that is presented by the (anti)social media companies. The best thing at this book is that those from the left and right will find things to agree with and also disagree with.
As with many excellent non-fiction books this makes you think and could be cause for despair. With the incredibly inept leadership currently on display in England and recently in the United States of America you could be forgiven for giving up. However, this book shows that the only certainty in relation to the future is that there is no certainty.
Thank you NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an impartial review.
As with many excellent non-fiction books this makes you think and could be cause for despair. With the incredibly inept leadership currently on display in England and recently in the United States of America you could be forgiven for giving up. However, this book shows that the only certainty in relation to the future is that there is no certainty.
Thank you NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an impartial review.
April 26, 2022
Τhe most comprehensive review of our contemporary political landscape I have read lately. The writer dares to go against all our certainties. It warns of the the danger of authoritarian right populism because of the hypocrisy and the entitlement of the educated top 15% ,i.e the professional managerial class. They want change because of their dashed expectations but they can't go against the system because they still have hope to gain something more from this beyond their moral authority. Brilliant!
January 28, 2023
A useful insight into the recent divisions and travails of the western left. For Americans, the examination of Italy and Brazil as harbingers of larger trends was especially illuminating. The cautiously hopeful ending, however, seems less plausible (when taken on its own terms) amidst the war in Ukraine.
August 5, 2021
Hilarious, insightful, and interesting.
August 31, 2022
The end of a single cycle should not be confused with the end of Hegelian Synthesis, rather just patient expectation for the process of the evolution of an antithesis to complete itself.
November 12, 2022
Patchy. Aside from the chapter on NOLD it wasn't very interesting.
May 18, 2023
Great book!
January 21, 2022
A good book in terms of describing the 'end of history' years (lets say 1990-2008/2016) and the political landscape in turmoil thereafter. The cultural and political portrait is witty and on point, including 'NOBS' ie. 'neoliberal order breakdown syndrome' the hysterical reactions coming from some of the political centre following the disruptions of the status quo like Brexit and the election of Trump.
The book is less convincing in proposing an alternative. There is talk about reclaiming the primacy of politics, but it's less clear what would be the actual content of the politics that the authors want the political left to adopt. In sum: good diagnosis of the present impasse, but no convincing alternatives put forward.
Also the authors are very keen to distance themselves from other currents on the political left, which comes through as rather sectarian and not very productive - the differences seem to be more of style than substance.
The book is less convincing in proposing an alternative. There is talk about reclaiming the primacy of politics, but it's less clear what would be the actual content of the politics that the authors want the political left to adopt. In sum: good diagnosis of the present impasse, but no convincing alternatives put forward.
Also the authors are very keen to distance themselves from other currents on the political left, which comes through as rather sectarian and not very productive - the differences seem to be more of style than substance.
November 10, 2022
As an astute description of our current political world as I've read. The prescriptive portions are hit or miss, I don't think even the Aufhebunga Bunga boys really have that great an idea of what's coming, but everything descriptive feels very accurate. A good short read to get a very non-orthodox (and therefore probably more accurate) view of why we are where we are now.
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