Taki vs. Fukuyama: It Could Have Been a German Century

My nominee for man of the century is considerably less well known than Time's choice, Albert Einstein, even though his actions arguably left a much greater imprint on the century. He is Alexander von Kluck, the hapless general commanding the German First Army as it swung around the French right while dashing toward Paris in September 1914. The French line miraculously held, and von Kluck lost the first battle of the Marne. The German drive was stalemated, and the two sides then settled down for four horrible years of trench warfare in a conflict that came to be knwon as World War I.

It is worthwhile thinking through what might have happened had the Germans won in early September. They most likely would have swept on to Paris by the end of the month, forcing a capitulation by the French government (as happened in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, and again in May 1940). A quick German victory would have left unimpaired the cultural self-confidence of 19th-century European civilization. The 8.5 million casualties of World War I would not have spawned a radical revolutionary movement in Russia called Bolshevism. With no German humiliation there would have been no occasion for rabble-rousing on the part of an unemployed painter named Adolf Hitler, and therefore no National Socialism.

As they say of Ginsu knives, there's more: no Russian Revolution and Nazism means there would have been no World War II, no Holocaust, no Cold War and no Chinese or Vietnamese revolutions. Decolonization and the emergence of the Third World might have taken place much later absent the exhaustion of hte British Empire after two world wars and the rise of radical revolutionary movement in Eurasia. And the U.S., which came of age as a great power due to the world wars, may have remained the isolationist paradise fondly remembered by Patrick Buchanan.

A quick German victory over France would not necessarily have made the 20th century more peaceful. The U.S. might still have allied with Briatin and Russia to expel the Germans from France as they did in June 1944. On the other hand, it is perfectly plausible to imagine the German Empire, supreme on the continent but lacking Hitler's maniacal ambition, settling in for a protracted struggle with the British Empire over colonies. The monumental revolutions and wars of the first half of our century might have been replaced by a century of relative peace and economic progress in what would have been the German, rather than the American, Century.

This kind of counterfactual history quickly becomes so speculative as to be meaningless. I have spun out htis alternative scenario for the 20th century simply to make a point about historical contingency: The great events that shape our time often spring from very small causes that one could esaily imagine having happened differently, like the battle lost by von Kluck.

According to Alexis de Tocqueville, democratic peoples dislike the idea that single individuals or relatively small events can shape large ones, wanting rather to believe in the power of large, impersonal historical forces. But history frquently plunges off in oblique and oftne disastrous directions as a result of actions by individuals who are often not great but, like von Kluck, mediocre.

If history can indeed be altered in such big ways by little events, what does this tell us about the possibility of historical progress? De Tocqueville asserted in the 19th century that democracy and the idea of human equality had been steadioly gaining ground over the previous seven centuries, and that American democracy would eventually become a model for the entire world. As the 20th century closes, de Tocqueville would seem to be right on target. While there were, according to Freedom House, only a handful of true democracies in 1900, today some 40% of the world's population live in polities that can reasonably be labeled democratic. Is this, like von Kluck's defeat, just an accident of time and place? Will this democratic moment pass in the next century or next millennium, as the result of an unexpected defeat in an obscrube battle yet to come?

The answer, in my view, is no. Even the terrible detour taken by world history in the wake of von Kluck's defeat accelerated the pace of the democratic advances that occurrred later in the century. World War I brought about the collapse of the German, Austro-Hungarian and Turkish empires. While tremendously destabilizing, this laid the ground for national self-determination, which we today regard as a key democratic right. The war and its aftermath brought to power working class parties in Britain, France and other countries, laying the basis for expanded political participation and the modern welfare state. Military competition brought about innumerable technological innovations, from aircraft and radar to computers, integrated circuits and the Internet. All of these advances improved living standards and increased possiblities for communication, education and association, all of which are critical to modern democracy.

A German century may have been peaceful and prosperous, but in the social sphere it also would have been stratified, corporatist and ultimately based on racial and ethnic hierarchy -- a world made safe for South Africa. While there doubtless would have been gradual advances in human liberty and equality, the explosive upheavals of the actual 20th century greatly accelerated the pace of change. The Holocaust put paid to concepts like social Darwinism and eugenics that were widely held by respectable people in the West up through the 1930's. In the U.S., the service of African-Americans and the entry of women into the industrial work force in World War II laid the groundwork for advances by both groups in later decades.

None of this is meant, of course, to justify the terrible events of the century now passing. But it does demonstrate the truth of de Tocqueville's assertion that even the actions of democracy's enemies seem in the long run to advance the cause of democracy. It also supports Immanuel Kant's view that man's "asocial sociability" -- his propensity for war and violence -- is the crucible of human progress.

So it turns out that the main consequence of the long chain of events occasioned by Gen. von Kluck's defeat, important as those events were for the millions of individuals affected by them, was to affect mostly the timing of the march toward democracy and free markets and not the final objective. This would seem to be evidence for what Hegel called the "cunning of History," or what others would label the hand of God in human affairs.

Mr. Fukuyama is a professor of public policy at George Mason University and author, most recently, of "The Great Disruption: Human Nature and the Reconstitution of the Social Order" (Free Press, 1999).

I raised the question about the White Russians only to illuminate the notion that ideas do matter. You say that the wars (I assume WWII?) made socialism less attractive to Americans. Certainly, National Socialism, but definitely not socialism, which took Reagan to kill on our shores.

It was thought by many at the time, and I don't know for sure that he did, that Wilson and certain English liberals sympathized with the Russian revolution. The reason people might have thought it good is because they applied the groundless principle of power to the people, blah, blah, blah. Europe of 1913 was awash in this.

I'm not thinking that Roosevelt was headed towards socialism, per se, all the to each to his own, etc. I erred above in saying he'd have gone beyond the New Deal to socialism. He was too shrewd for that foolishness and it grated at his conception of self-reliance. He stood for min. wages/ max. hours, etc., and not just to the railroads, but all businesses, which is a given today (outside of LewRockwell.com...). The danger lied elsehwere.

What bothers me about him, the New Nationalism speech especially, was this deliverance to big business as an unavoidable fact of life. He was headed towards, as I said above, a government-business partnership, which is the far worser aspect of socialism, or national socialism, or communism, than New Deal social programs. If this means anything to you, check out what George Perkins was saying about the relationship between business and government. I'd be happy to post or send you a copy of an interview with him on the subject from 1912. This was "managed trade" at its worst, the German impulse you describe above.

Roosevelt's belief in the triumph of business was almost Marxist in its historical assumption. Here is why this thread moves me in this direction (and I hate to keep bringing up TR): Fukuyama makes the same mistake with his static view of history (correct me if I am wrong).

Your explanation of 1914 Germany is on, especially #19.

Everything that grew out of WWI taken as a whole and looked at from today -- Communism, Fascism, WWII, the Cold War -- had the effect of disillusioning the world with socialism. Though of course, at the time and in the short run the war vastly increased support for socialism.

What gets me about a lot of these alternative histories is that it's hard to know what to make of them. How could Britain or America have foreseen Hitler and Stalin in 1914 or 1917? Ought they simply to have rolled over and let Germany have everything it wanted? Would this not also have had bad consequences? Why assume that allied victory was responsible for what followed and not German aggression or post-war failures? If history had taken another course, how would we know what we had missed?

In any event, it does seem puzzling that some of those who make out that Hamilton's or Clay's protectionism makes them monsters ignore the protectionism, cartelization, and welfare statism of the imperial German economy. Why do supporters of Taki's view say so much about TR or Wilson or the British Fabians and ignore Germany's own socialists and its statist authoritarians. Had Germany won the war, we'd see articles about how much better things would have been had Britain prevailed.

A German victory might have prevented a Hitler or Stalin from coming to power, and that would have been a very good thing, though there's always the possiblity that a defeated France or Russia would breed their own monsters, especially if, the Germans imposed the kind of harsh terms on them that one would have expected. Those who experienced and suffered under such an Imperial German ascendancy would have regarded it as a defeat for liberty. It may be unlikely that statist and racialist ideas would have been taken as far by Imperial Germany as they were by the Nazis, but the ideas that were in the air would definitely have had consequences.

Good book on alternative history: "Virtual History," edited by Niall Ferguson, who does view Imperial Germany in a benign light. Also, New article on Theodore Roosevelt today.

This thread's been buggin' me, cuz I can't figure it out. It takes me five different directions. Thanks, though, as always for your thoughts. If I trip over anything new, I'll let you know.

Thanks for the latest TR bump. He's still playin' us for suckers. He's a hit these days, ain't he? He hasnt lost a beat. This one is funny, because the author commits the exact crime he accuses others of, the usurpation of TR. The main thesis, though is correct:

In other words, the Roosevelt fans are being selective, not to say opportunistic, in claiming his legacy.

But Roosevelt himself was the first one to do this. Oh well.

This one, I'll smash in my upcoming book on Taft:

TR felt compelled to come out of retirement in 1912 to challenge his Republican successor, William H. Taft, for the presidency because he saw that the GOP was already reconstituting itself as the party of big business. Republican leaders now opposed conservation, railroad regulation, and causes he had made his own.

Bull. And for all the wrong reasons.

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