The Decline of the West (1918)
The concept of historical philosophy developed by Spengler is founded upon two assumptions:
the existence of social entities called 'Cultures' (Kulturen), regarded as the largest possible actors
in human history, which itself had no metaphysical sense, and the parallelism between the
evolution of those Cultures and the evolution of living beings. Spengler numbered nine Cultures:
Egyptian, Babylonian, Indian, Chinese, Greco-Roman, Magian or Arabic (including early and
Byzantine Christianity and Islam), Mexican, Westren, and Russian–, interacted between each
other in time and space but were distinct from each other by 'internal' attributes. According to
him, "Cultures are organisms, and world-history is their collective biography."
Spengler also compares the evolution of Cultures to the different ages of human life, "Every
Culture passes through the age-phases of the individual man. Each has its childhood, youth,
manhood and old age." When a Culture enters its late stage, Spengler argues, it becomes a
Civilization, a petrified body characterized in the modern age by technology, imperialism, and
mass society, which he expected to fossilize and decline from the 2000s onward.
Prussianism and Socialism (1919)
In late 1919, Spengler published Prussianism and Socialism, an essay based on notes intended
for the second volume of The Decline of the West in which he argues that German socialism is
the correct socialism in contrast to English socialism. In his view, correct socialism has a much
more "national" spirit. According to Spengler, mankind will spend the next and last several
hundred years of its existence in a state of Caesarian socialism, when all humans will be
synergized into a harmonious and happy totality by a dictator, like an orchestra is synergized into
a harmonious totality by its conductor.
According to some recent critics such as Ishay Landa, "Prussian socialism" has some decidedly
capitalistic traits. Spengler declares himself resolutely opposed to labor strikes, trade unions,
progressive taxation or any imposition of taxes on the rich, any shortening of the working day
(he argues that workers should work even on Sundays), as well as any form of government
insurance for sickness, old age, accidents, or unemployment.
At the same time as he rejects any social democratic provisions, Spengler celebrates private
property, competition, imperialism, capital accumulation, and "wealth, collected in few hands
and among the ruling classes." Landa describes Spengler's "Prussian Socialism" as "working a
whole lot, for the absolute minimum, but – and this is a vital aspect – being happy about it."
Nazism and Fascism
In his private papers, Spengler denounced Nazi anti-Semitism in even stronger terms, wondering
"how much envy of the capability of other people in view of one's lack of it lies hidden in anti-
Semitism!", and arguing that "when one would rather destroy business and scholarship than see
Jews in them, one is an ideologue, i.e., a danger for the nation. Idiotic." Spengler was an admirer
of the old Prussian aristocracy and showed contempt for the proletarian and demagogic character
of the Nazi party, and considered the Aryan racial doctrine to be nonsense.
Spengler, however, regarded the transformation of ultra-capitalist mass democracies into
dictatorial regimes as inevitable, and he had expressed some sympathy for Benito Mussolini and
the Italian Fascist movement as a first symptom of this development.
He also considered Judaism to be a "disintegrating element" that acts destructively "wherever it
intervenes". In his view, Jews are characterized by a "cynical intelligence" and their "money
thinking". Therefore, they were incapable of adapting to Western culture and represented a
foreign body in Europe. With these characterizations Spengler contributed significantly to the
enforcement of Jewish stereotypes in pre-WW2 German circles.
