ABSTRACT
As feudalism and pre-industrial society waned, so too did its main ideological expressions, above all conservatism – though strong residues survived well into the modern era, often contributing to the growth of fascism in Europe and Asia. By the 1920s and 1930s, with both social democracy and fascism on the rise in Europe, the early liberal capitalism analyzed by Marx and Engels – its laissez-faire economics, limited government, and pluralism – was in sharp decline, eroding as the ideological rationale of economic growth and political legitimacy. While capitalism and liberalism endured an uneasy and conflicted marriage throughout the nineteenth century, that dynamic would follow new directions by the early twentieth century. Strong central governments would be indispensable, everywhere, to drive rapidly modernizing economies. The seminal theorist of capitalist rationalization was Max Weber, whose work happened to coincide with the beginnings of the historical period in question.
