1989: The Victory That Was a Defeat
When the Berlin Wall fell, the West celebrated as if history itself had ended. The Cold War was won. Markets triumphed over Marx, Coca-Cola over communism, McDonald’s over bread lines. At least, that’s how it looked.
Rome conquered Greece with armies, yet Greek culture conquered Rome with philosophy. In 1989, the West conquered communism with prosperity, yet communist ideas seeped into the bloodstream of the victors. Suspicion of capitalism, contempt for tradition, obsession with power. The Soviets lost their empire, yet their critique survived.
The Left that once stood for the worker’s revolution had already begun to mutate. Thanks to the Frankfurt School: Adorno, Horkheimer, Marcuse, the battlefield shifted from economics to culture. Workers couldn’t be relied on; they wanted cars, fridges, vacations. So the revolution rebranded. It moved into schools, universities, media, sexuality, race, gender, language. No Kalashnikov needed.
After 1989, the Soviet Union, the great malfunctioning example of communism, was gone. Its complete failure could no longer serve as a living warning against the dangers of radical ideology. Without that contrast, these cultural theories spread unhindered across the West. And here came the twist: capitalism discovered it could profit from them. Permanent disruption creates permanent markets. Cultural radicalism keeps society in flux. New identities, new rights, new sensitivities all demand new products, new services, new technologies. Every redefinition of the self becomes a new consumer niche.
Corporations learned that guilt could be currency. By adopting the slogans of the new Left, they could launder their image. An oil company draped in rainbow flags, a bank promoting equity initiatives, suddenly the most ruthless actors looked virtuous. Ideology turned into marketing.
Family, church, nation once stood as buffers against unlimited consumerism. As they weaken, consumption expands. People root identity not in stable communities but in lifestyle brands, streaming subscriptions, curated selves on Instagram. Tradition loses, profit wins.
Control shifts through bureaucracy. The same obsession with oversight and speech policing that once defined communist states now thrives in corporate HR departments. It doesn’t hinder capital; it deepens control. Compliance becomes the new faith.
The Left, once opposition, became the establishment. It tells itself it fights oppression yet polices language and enforces conformity with more zeal than the old order. The Right, once guardian of hierarchy, now plays rebel. The whole game flipped.
1989 was not the end of history but the start of a paradox. The West won militarily, politically, economically, yet culturally absorbed the worldview of its defeated enemy.
We now live under a hybrid: global capitalism fused with cultural leftism. One sells rebellion as a product, the other rides the engines of media and tech.
The irony cuts deep. Capitalism, once threatened by communism, now feeds on its ghost. The more restless, fragmented, and rootless people become, the more they consume.
The world revolution never came. It turned into a business model.