The End of History and The Last Man, by Francis Fukuyama. Free Press, 1992 ix + 418 pp., Amazon price $12.61 paperback; $10.34 Kindle.
The
quest for the answer to humankind’s final and most essential form of government
has been a major source of philosophical discourse throughout
history. Throughout the ages philosophical ideologies have sought to
extricate humankind from the entanglements of their own imperfect natures with
a goal to arrive at a society that most suits their competing socio, political
and economic interests. Plato’s Republic dissected humankind’s
nature or soul into tripartite sections; desire, reason and thymos, thymos
being that part of the soul that craves
recognition. Each part of the tripartite must be managed in order to
create a just and ordered society. Machiavelli believed that opportunity
for civil order rested in harnessing man’s capacity for bad behavior to create
civil order and obedience, advocating a rationalistic approach that the end goal, civil order, justifies the means. The early modern English liberals
Thomas Hobbes and John Locke viewed man’s primal need for self-preservation as
the cornerstone for divining humankind’s ultimate civil society, albeit each of
them arriving at that conclusion through differing perspectives. Immanuel
Kant’s endpoint for civil society was human freedom, and G.W.F. Hegel
postulated that man’s need for recognition was central to organizing civil
society. Friedrich Nietzsche believed in an aristocratic society that
encourages its citizens to aspire to greatness, venerating those achieving such
status.
As humankind meandered through this maze of philosophical musings society made tremendous technical progress causing a clash of developing cultures with ever advancing scientific developments. This begs the question as to what sort of civil society will eventually emerge to meet the demands of these competing forces?
As humankind meandered through this maze of philosophical musings society made tremendous technical progress causing a clash of developing cultures with ever advancing scientific developments. This begs the question as to what sort of civil society will eventually emerge to meet the demands of these competing forces?
Francis
Fukuyama addresses this question in his book The End of History and The Last Man, which was the outgrowth of a 1989 article he wrote for National
Interest entitled “The End of History”. Fukuyama, a noted political
scientist, political economist and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli
Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, has written
extensively on issues relating to democratization and international political
economy. His book’s thesis is that liberal democracy may be the only true
legitimate form of government (legitimate government was described by Vaclav Havel as “the power of the powerless”) and, as such, liberal democracy will be the endpoint of man’s ideological evolution. According
to Fukuyama liberal democracies will be the final universal and homogeneous
state. Fukuyama arrives at his thesis through a twofold approach;
first, a review of what he believes inspires humankind’s purpose for existence
and, second, an analyses of the forces that thrust history forward.
Fukuyama
performs a comprehensive review of major historical philosophies, and
determines that Plato’s tripartite soul is central to answering this
question identifying thymos, as interpreted by Hegel, as the principal driver for
enlivening humankind’s existence. Fukuyama asserts that Hegel’s dialectic
view of thymos represents a constant “struggle for recognition” that animates
humankind’s moral need for dignity, self-worth, and even the willingness to
risk one’s life in battle or for other noble reasons. Hegel’s “first man”
is similar to Hobbes’ and Locke’s warlike state of nature pitting man against
man, but differs in that Hegel believes that the first man’s conflict is the
struggle between lordship and bondage. Fukuyama’s thesis accepts Hegel’s
contention that human history should be viewed as a search to satisfy the
desires of both masters and slaves, and “history ends with the victory of a
social order that accomplishes this goal”. Therefore man has a sense of
morality that strives for prestige, recognition and the capacity to make moral
choices, and is not simply some higher animal reduced to the need for societal
protection of property, power or self-preservation. According to Fukuyama
liberal democracy becomes legitimate when humankind’s desire, reason and
thymotic need for recognition are each regarded and balanced within the
constructs of civil society.
Fukuyama’s
thesis also maintains that history is driven directionally by the forces of
modern science, which acts as a mechanism for historical change, having a
twofold effect. First, the threat of military technology forces states to
restructure their social systems to be conducive to producing and deploying
military technology, which can recast societies into a more nationalistic
state. Second, economic-based scientific developments, along the lines of
the industrial revolution, can cause major shifts in societies resulting in
larger urban areas, breakdowns of small communities, and the establishment of
bureaucratic forms of organization that take the place of the individual
craftsman. One of the consequences of scientific industrialization is the
evolution of rational labor decisions to effectuate economic efficiency, which
also serves as a catalyst for homogenizing societies. Fukuyama avows that
taken together military and economic scientific advances do not in and of
themselves cause historical change, but the sheer force of their influence
moves history in a certain direction. Military and economic strength puts
a country on a level playing field with other countries that promote the
freedoms that permit scientific advances to flourish, and those countries are
predominantly liberal democratic states promoting democratic capitalism.
Fukuyama
provides numerous historical examples to support his thesis that a liberal
democratic state is the only truly legitimate form of government that will
represent humankind’s ultimate civil society. Communist Soviet Union and
Nazi Germany were totalitarian regimes that sought to crush civil society and
have total control over its citizens. Francisco Franco’s Spain and
various military dictatorships in Latin America sought to control society. Totalitarianism failed in the People’s Republic
of China causing a return to greater economic freedom, which opened the door
for its citizen’s desire for greater political freedom. In sub-Saharan
Africa, socialism and post-colonial traditions of a one-party system have been
discredited due to the region experiencing economic collapse and civil war. Fundamental to this international pattern of failure for
totalitarian/authoritarian regimes was their inherent illegitimate promises for
economic and political stability. These totalitarian forms of government
did not have any long-term solutions or framework for resolving societal
instabilities. Once the door for economic liberalization opened freedom of
thought prevailed and paved the way for a more liberal democratic framework of
government.
A
conspicuous deficiency in Fukuyama’s book is how religion, specifically
Christianity, has been instrumental in moving history toward a homogenous
liberal democratic form of life. Fukuyama gives short shrift to
Christianity’s influence on the historical progression toward liberal
democracy. In fact he treats Christianity as an impediment to democracy by
characterizing it as “…another slave ideology”. Fukuyama admits that
Christianity recognizes equality but only in the sense of every man having a
moral choice to accept or reject God. According to Fukuyama under
Christianity humankind is a slave to God’s purpose for man on earth, thus
forever a slave on earth with the promise of true freedom and recognition only
in the Kingdom of Heaven. Fukuyama ignores in his dialectic how
totalitarianism replaced a Christian attitude of good versus evil, with a
collectivist distinction of progress and reaction. In light of this Daniel
J. Mahoney points out in his book The Conservative Foundations of the Liberal Order that “…liberals subsequently rediscovered the dependency of
liberty upon conceptions of natural and divine justice that are required to
temper human willfulness and which provide an intellectual context for moral
conscience.” A more brusque representation of how Christianity directed
humankind away from totalitarianism toward liberal democracy was stated by
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn when he stated that totalitarianism arose because “men had
forgotten God”.
Notwithstanding
this criticism The End of History and The Last Man is an extremely
comprehensive and scholarly amalgamation of political philosophy, political
economics and historicism that attempts to reconcile humankind’s purpose with
its most accommodating society. Fukuyama’s work is advanced material best
suited for professional historians, political scientists, academicians or
graduate students, since exposure to those disciplines is vital to fully
appreciate the book’s ideological ruminations. Its thirty-one chapters
begin with quotes establishing each chapter’s theme and are organized by
sections representing each facet of the book’s thesis. The forty-seven
pages of notes and ten pages of bibliography provide abundant insight into
Fukuyama’s provocative topic. Fukuyama’s narrative can be ponderous and
one feels that the author overstates his points through a process of convoluted
logic, but despite this awkwardness the author delivers a vital discourse on
the fate and resolution of humankind’s societal structure.
One
could describe Fukuyama’s work as controversial or even incendiary. At a
minimum it is certainly stimulating. The End of History and The Last
Man is apt to generate more inquisitions into humankind’s destiny than
simply tacit acceptance for the inevitable liberal democratic state. His
work is a promising start on the all-important conversation on the form of
civil society that best befits humankind.
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