The End of History?

1. The End of History? Paul Bacon SILS, Waseda University IR201

2. Summary of main argument • In The End of History and the Last Man, Francis Fukuyama controversially argued that that the end of the Cold War signals the end of the progression of human history. • Fukuyama famously argues that • ‘What we may be witnessing in not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.’

3. Hegel and Marx • We now have the answer to one of the most fundamental questions of political science – ‘how best to organize human society’. • Fukuyama's thesis is an obvious reference to Marx. • However, Fukuyama reverts back to the work of Marx's original source, Hegel (and especially Hegel as interpreted by the French thinker Alexander Kojeve). • Both Hegel and Marx offer teleological theories.

4. A common misunderstanding… • The most basic error in discussing Fukuyama's work is to confuse ‘history’ with ‘events’. • Fukuyama does not claim at any point that events will stop happening in the future. • What Fukuyama is claiming is that in the future (even if totalitarianism returns, or if fundamentalist Islam becomes a major political force) democracy will become more and more prevalent in the long term. • However, democracy may experience ‘temporary’ setbacks (which may, of course, last for centuries). • Fukuyama argues that ‘the victory of liberalism has occurred primarily in the realm of ideas or consciousness, and is as yet incomplete in the real or material world’.

5. Democracy • Fukuyama's thesis consists of two main elements. • First, Fukuyama points out that the number of democratic states has expanded to the point where the majority of governments in the world are ‘democratic’. • He also argues that democracy's main intellectual alternatives, which include Nazism, Fascism, Communism, nationalism and religion have been discredited.

6. Thymos • Second, there is a philosophical argument, taken from Hegel. • Hegel sees history as consisting of the dialectic between two classes: the Master and the Slave. • Ultimately, this thesis (Master) and antithesis (Slave) must result in a synthesis, in which both manage to live in peace together. • This can only happen in a democracy. • The Platonic idea of ‘thymos’ and the ‘struggle for recognition’ are important here.

7. The end of history – when? • Fukuyama’s thesis is often misinterpreted and misunderstood. • For example, it is frequently claimed that Fukuyama believes that history ended in 1989 (with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War). • In fact, following Kojève, Fukuyama believes that history ended in 1806, with the Battle of Jena. (Napoleon on horseback). • Since the French Revolution of 1789, democracy has repeatedly proven to be a fundamentally better system (ethically, politically, economically) than any of the alternatives.

8. Criticisms of the End of History thesis • Some critics have suggested that Islamic fundamentalisms such as Wahaabism (as represented by the Saudi Arabian government, the Taliban and Bin Laden) offer an intellectual alternative to liberal democracy. • However, Fukuyama argues that Islam has little intellectual or emotional appeal outside the Islamic ‘heartlands’. • In order to provide genuine competition for liberalism, a competing belief system must have global appeal. • Moreover, when Islamic states have actually been created (for example in Afghanistan), they were easily defeated militarily by the powerful democracies.

9. Criticisms of the End of History thesis • Marxism is another End of History philosophy. • Therefore Marxists have been amongst Fukuyama's fiercest critics. • Marxists claim that capitalist democracies are still riven with poverty, inequality and racial tension. • They also reject Fukuyama's reliance on Hegel. • According to them, Hegel's philosophy was fatally flawed until Marx ‘turned it on its head’ to create historical materialism.

10. Criticisms of the End of History thesis • Fukuyama concedes that there is poverty, racism and sexism in present-day democracies. • However, he argues that there is no sign of a major revolutionary movement developing that would actually overthrow capitalism. • Whether such a movement will develop in the future remains to be seen.

11. The Environmentalist Challenge • There is also the environmentalist challenge. • Environmentalists argue that the capitalist economies' propensity towards growth will eventually collide with the Earth's natural ‘limits to growth’. • Some radical alteration in the socio-economic situation of the West would then have to take place.

12. The Clash of Civilizations • Numerous other intellectuals and thinkers have disagreed with the End of History thesis. • For example, Samuel Huntington, in his essay and book, The Clash of Civilizations argues that temporary conflict between ideologies is being replaced by the ancient conflict between civilizations. • The dominant civilization decides the form of human government, and the dominant civilization will not remain the same over time.

13. A justification of US style democracy? • Some argue that Fukuyama presents ‘American-style’ democracy as the only ‘correct’ political system and that all countries must inevitably follow the this example. • However, many Fukuyama scholars claim this is a misreading of his work. • Fukuyama's argument is only that in the future there will be more and more governments that use the framework of parliamentary democracy and that contain markets of some sort. • There will remain a substantial variety of different political systems that remain broadly democratic and free market oriented.

14. The Whig interpretation of history? • It has also been argued that Fukuyama's notion of ‘The End of History’ is merely a Hegelian articulation of the Whig interpretation of history. • However, as the latter sections of his book make clear, Fukuyama is no liberal optimist. • Instead, Fukuyama is a pessimist, influenced by Nietzsche, who sees the end of history as being ultimately a sad and emotionally unsatisfying era. • In the book, Fukuyama also raises the question of whether we have in fact reached the end of history. • Nietzsche’s conceptions of the Last Man and the First Man are important here.