The End of Ideology

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The End of Ideology: On the Exhaustion of Political Ideas in the Fifties is a collection of essays published in 1960 (New York, 2nd ed. 1962) by Daniel Bell, who described himself as a "socialist in economics, a liberal in politics, and a conservative in culture." He suggests that the older, grand-humanistic ideologies derived from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had been exhausted and that new, more parochial ideologies would soon arise. He argues that political ideology has become irrelevant among "sensible" people and that the polity of the future would be driven by piecemeal technological adjustments of the extant system.^[1] With the rise of affluent welfare states and institutionalized bargaining between different groups, Bell maintains, revolutionary movements which aim to overthrow liberal democracy will no longer be able to attract the working classes.^[2]