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