本文旨在探討馬康度敗亡的原因。這些原因包括後殖民論述所謂的外在資本主義的奴化以及內在族群階級鬥爭及血族相姦本質主義的危機。本文兼而論述透過教育以建立民族文化的重要。當然罔顧人道的內戰也是新興國家敗亡的主因之一。這些敗亡原因的批判是《百年孤寂》的主軸。 藉著小說對這些事實的陳述，馬奎士藝術化一個政治暗示，說明後殖民國家在建立自己主體性之時，不要陷入馬康度自閉式的悲劇。他點出一個後殖民國家的生存，光靠神話和命名來建構本源（origin），不建立自己的教育而崇慕頹老的歐洲，以及只求單薄的本質主義是不夠的。馬奎士同時訴求呼籲外國強樑不要傷害在殖民地中意圖自主的國家，否則這些小地方，甚至整個處於相同情況的拉丁美洲，都將只會是鏡中一樣的虛幻城市，一如馬康度，它們將存活不過不年，而且只會在地球上留下一片孤寂。

　　　　　This paper defines the main city of Marquez's novel, Macondo, with its main family, the Buendias, as a symbol of emergent post-colonial nations characteristic of those which have been exploited by capitalists, although it is also identified as Colombia and even to Latin America by some critics. This paper also investigates the relation of the destruction of the city and the causes which include the corruption of the local government, exploitation of the dominated by new elites and foreign capitalists, class struggles, ruthless killings in civil wars, repeated incest, ehnocentrism, and others. This paper concludes that merely such gestures as naming, myth-making, the construction of the origin of nationalism and essentialism cannot guarantee the survival of an emergent city/nation, for a post-colonial nation can never survive if it neglects practices to ensure strong internal unification, brotherhood, a common cultural foundation, and the people's awareness and precautions against insidious foreign economic invasion. Macondo is destined to die, for its inhabitants are ignorant of these practices.