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?

• Fukuyamas 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.
• Nietzsches conceptions of the Last Man and the
  First Man are important here.