Financial Times columnist Gideon Rachman recently wrote a column in which he argued that the future of Europe was in the hands of two men: Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump. Putin, Rachman argued, is a menace to Europe. Trump, in turn, is indifferent to Europe.
This post is not to take issue with Rachman. Rather it is to point out his Carlylean assumption – that men make history.* Not all men, of course, some men. Usually (though not always) powerful men in high posts. Like the presidents of Russia and the United States.
What do I mean by “Carlylean assumption”? And is the assumption widely shared?
It might seem evident that leaders make a difference. And, to some political philosophers, biographers, and social scientists it is. The quintessential example of someone who believed that “heroes” make history was the mid-nineteenth century English historian and philosopher, Thomas Carlyle. He famously insisted that history is “at bottom the History of the Great Men who have worked here.”
Not that Carlyle had the last word – he did not. Just a few decades later he was challenged by a fellow Britisher, the polymath Herbert Spencer. Spencer dismissed the idea that any single individual made a difference as “utterly incoherent.”
Nor has the “hero in history” debate ever been settled. As distinguished historian Margaret Macmillan wrote just this month (in Foreign Affairs), “Scholars have long been divided on the question of whether leaders shape or are shaped by larger forces.” She goes on to add that while political scientists remain wary of studying individual actors, the evidence suggests that those who “possess exceptional power” can use it to “take their societies and sometimes larger parts of humanity down one road rather than another.”
Of course, the question is a larger one: it applies not just to political leaders but to corporate leaders, as to all leaders. Moreover, it is more nuanced than it first appears. It’s possible, for example, that a leader as powerful and prominent as Mark Zuckerberg has already left a permantent imprint on the context and culture within which he is situated. It’s equally possible that 99.9% of his corporate contemporaries are essentially insignificant.
The age-old debate will not be settled here. But for those who wonder, for example, how deep will be Trump’s fingerprints, it is as irresistible as unresolvable.
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*Given the dispute has long been referred to as the “hero in history debate,” and given that women have hardly ever held power at the national level, I’m assuming for the purposes of this post that leaders are men. The point, though, pertains of course to leaders everywhere, at all times, and of every gender.