Political correctness and “manufactured consent” is now missing in action in much of the western democracies, ruined by rising fears of unemployment and displacement by harder-working immigrants. On the right, the rhetoric of a Donald Trump – protectionism couched in nationalist garb – cannot but be inimical to the idea of re-establishing capitalism, free trade and a rollback of the state as America’s core ideology. Both Left and Right are moving in the same direction from opposite ends.

More interestingly, capitalism is rising elsewhere not with democracy, but through new forms of authoritarianism, as in China or Vietnam, even as it is shrinking with new forms of sectarianism in the west.

If the combo of liberal democracy and capitalism looks like this, where Trump, Corbyn, Sanders and Marine Le Pen are rising stars, one can understand why the rise of Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini and Mao seemed par for the course at one time. We are back to the same contentious times we witnessed in the first half of the last century.

Rather than “the end of history”, what we may be witnessing is the “end of ideology” right now. Not in the sense of people abandoning Left or Right labels, but in the sense that Left and Right are not polar opposites anymore, but labels with similar features that differ only in tonality and emphasis, not essential content.

Even the liberal democracy versus authoritarianism may be a dubious binary, for the erection of an effective state often needs forceful imposition of the law and the concentration of power before the rule of law becomes the norm. It is worth recalling all the South-east Asian tigers (South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia) were effectively authoritarian regimes before they became democratic.

In the economic sphere, countries that preach capitalism are turning more socialist, as electoral democracy needs you to woo a larger number of people than the raw appeal of capitalism and wealth creation can attract; and countries that preach socialism are accepting market-economics are important to drive growth and the creation of wealth. In short, most countries and political systems are gravitating to the amorphous middle, where growth and redistributive justice have to go hand in hand.

Ideologies appear as transient as English weather.

We are seeing the same thing in India, where Narendra Modi, once seen as a business- and market-friendly leader, is now turning scourge of crony capitalists and moving towards greater welfarism and a centre-left political position.