Popper’s works seem to be passing into history despite some cogent thinking. A critique of Plato was an original idea, and is relevant to our times which resemble those of Plato as a generation seeing democracy in trouble.
His critique of Marx however seems limited in retrospect despite the bull’s eye critique of the fate of the idea of freedom in Marx. Marx’s work was powerful stuff but very flawed by its ‘historical theory’, whether we use the term historicism or not.
But Popper ended up an apologist of capitalism in the name of that critique and he missed the point that a critique of Marxism from the left would have served better. In that sense he missed the mark completely. The overall result is very mediocre and turned a liberal into a reactionary.
The issue of democracy is tricky: we can’t just preach democracy without defining what it should mean and the first Athenian democrats moved quickly into a chaotic state of affairs. In modern times democracy is in the Americas at risk from its defines and defenders and too often from its public that is so conditioned by ideology that it can function rationally.
The eureka moment came when Popper perceived an affinity between Plato and fascism.
Source: The First Authoritarian | Political Mythologies | Issues | The Hedgehog Review
1848+: The End(s) of History 