Karl Popper published The Open Society and its enemies in 1945, and the work acts as both an indictment and a criticism of philosophers such as Plato, Hegel, and Marx. To Karl Popper, Plato’s rhetoric of an idealised republic, with a ruling elite presiding over the majority, came replete with totalitarian overtones, a criticism he extended towards Hegel and Marx for their similar notions of an idealised Utopia and a singular correct path that history must travel upon. Popper was an advocate of Falsificationism, a philosophy of science that involved creating alternate hypotheses which deliberately falsified scientific theories, thus rendering all scientific theory scrutable and open to challenge. Popper believed that only by testing that which we believe to be truth can society move towards a healthier, more open society. He believed that Plato, Hegel, and Marx, in their unified belief in a singular Utopia, had resisted serious consideration of any path toward social enlightenment that didn’t follow their own set goal.

Marx saw the Proletariat rising as the ultimate goal, for Hegel it was the progressive process of reason called ‘Geist,’ but each headed toward one inevitable conclusion for society and failed to look beyond this. Karl Popper viewed this kind of set thinking as laying the blueprints for totalitarianism and in the least harmful outcome reducing the concept of freedom and choice in societies. Karl Popper in his mistrust of any political thinking which was too rigid and, in his drive, away from totalitarian ideals had been a man indefinitely shaped by his experience of the two world wars. His writings promote self-determination, self-challenge, and adaptation in belief. For Popper, Historicism and Utopianism counteract these principles in a dangerous was as they promote an ideal world view that is only applicable to some and not all.