It is about how a society changes from a self-contained society, to linking with its neighbors, to being inhabited by outsiders. There are also internal changes in the structure of the society, where it alters from a democracy to being heavily ruled by Colonel Aureliano Buendia. Most important though, might be the fact that no single political state is suggested as being the preferred one. Instead, all of the political features of society are contained in the novel. One author notes that the novel appeals to all ideologies,.

             leftists like its dealing with social struggles and its portraits of imperialism; conservatives are heartened by the corruption and/or failure of those struggles and with the sustaining role of the family; nihilists and quietists find their pessimism reconfirmed; and the apolitical hedonists find solace in all the sex and swashbuckling (Bell-Villada 93). .

             If the novel is understood as the story of a town and in a larger sense, a story of society, it makes sense that the novel would contain all of the elements of society. It certainly does this as it has periods of growth and prosperity, periods of war and civil strife, periods of progress, and periods of decline. The politics also deals with liberals, conservartives, democary, imperialism, and capitalism. Yet in the end, there does not seem to be any specific point made about any of these political ideas. With the ending of the novel where the town is destroyed and it is revealed that this was fated, it seems that Garcia Marquez is showing that none of the politics matter. Regardless of the politics or the stages of society, or how people try to control their society, it comes down to the people. Essentially, there is nothing the people of Macondo could have done to save their fate. They have flaws and it is these flaws that destroy them, regardless of the systems that become part of their world.

             This leads to a consideration of the flaws of the people, with their major flaw being that they are not capable of learning from the past.