Both Hegel an d Marx believed that the evolution of huma n
societies was not open-ended, but would end when mankind had
achieved a form of society that satisfied its deepest and most fundamenta
l longings. Both thinkers thus posited an "end of history":
for Hegel this was the liberal state, while for Marx it was a
communist society. This did not mea n that the natural cycle of
birth, life, an d death would end, that important events would no
longer happen , or that newspapers reporting them would cease to
be published. It meant, rather, that ther e would be no further
progress in the development of underlying principles and institutions,
because all of the really big questions had been settled