The End of History -- 20 Years Later

November 9 will mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, which led Francis
Fukuyama to famously declare "the end of history" in an essay in the National Interest and later in a book titled The End of History and the Last Man.

Twenty years on, what does Fukuyama think about where history has gone since? I asked him for the Global Viewpoint Network. Here is the interview as a week of commemoration opens
in Berlin:

Nathan Gardels: In 1989, you wrote an essay, later developed into a book, that stated your famous "end of history" thesis. You said then:

What we may be witnessing is 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.

What mostly holds up in your thesis 20 years on? What doesn't? What changed?

Francis Fukuyama: The basic point -- that liberal democracy is the final form of government -- is still basically right. Obviously there are alternatives out there, like the Islamic Republic of Iran or Chinese authoritarianism. But I don't think that all that many people are persuaded these are higher forms of civilization than what exists in Europe, the United States, Japan or other developed democracies; societies that provide their citizens with a higher level of prosperity and personal freedom.

The issue is not whether liberal democracy is a perfect system, or whether capitalism doesn't have problems. After all, we've been thrown into this huge global recession because of the failure of unregulated markets. The real question is whether any other system of governance has emerged in the last 20 years that challenges this. The answer remains no.

Now, that essay was written in the winter of 1988-89 just before the fall of the Berlin Wall. I wrote it then because I thought that the pessimism about civilization that we had developed as a result of the terrible 20th century, with its genocides, gulags and world wars, was actually not the whole picture at all. In fact, there were a lot of positive trends going on in the world, including the spread of democracy where there had been dictatorship. Sam Huntington called this "the third wave."

It began in southern Europe in the 1970s with Spain and Portugal turning to democracy. Then and later you had an ending of virtually all the dictatorships in Latin America, except for Cuba. And then there was collapse of the Berlin Wall and the opening of Eastern Europe. Beyond that, democracy displaced authoritarian regimes in South Korea and Taiwan. We went from 80 democracies in the early 1970s to 130 or 140 20 years later.

Of course, this hasn't all held up since then. We see today a kind of democratic recession. There have been reversals in important countries like Russia, where we see the return of a nasty authoritarian system without rule of law, or in Venezuela and some other Latin American countries with populist regimes.

Clearly, that big surge toward democracy went as far as it could. Now there is a backlash against it in some places. But that doesn't mean the larger trend is not still toward democracy.

Gardels: The main contending argument against the "end of history" was offered by Sam Huntington. Far from ideological convergence, he argued, we were facing a "clash of civilizations" in which culture and religion would be the main points of conflict after the Cold War. For many, 9/11 and its aftermath confirmed his thesis of a clash between Islam and the West. To what extent was his argument valid?

Fukuyama: The differences between Huntington and I have been somewhat overstated. I wrote a book called Trust in which I argue that culture is one of the key factors that determines economic success and the possibilities of prosperity. So I don't deny the critical role of culture. But, overall, the question is whether cultural characteristics are so rooted that there is no chance of universal values or a convergence of values. That is where I disagree.

Huntington's argument was that democracy, individualism and human rights are not universal, but reflections of culture rooted in Western Christendom. While that is true historically, these values have grown beyond their origins. They've been adopted by societies that come out of very different cultural traditions. Look at Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and Indonesia.

Societies rooted in different cultural origins come to accept these values not because the U.S. does it, but because it works for them. It provides a mechanism for government accountability. It provides societies with a way to get rid of bad leaders when things go wrong. That is a huge advantage of democratic societies that someplace like China doesn't have. China, at the moment, is blessed with competent leaders. But before that they had Mao. There is nothing to prevent another Mao in the future without some form of democratic accountability.

Problems of corruption or poor governance are much easier to solve if you have a democracy. For enduring prosperity and success, institutionalized, legal mechanisms of change and accountability are essential.

Gardels: In an earlier book, Political Order in Changing Societies, Huntington argued that Westernization and modernization were not identical. He thought modernization -- an effective state, urbanization, breakdown of primary kinship groups, inclusive levels of education, market economies and a growing middle class -- were quite possible without a society becoming Western in terms of a liberal secular culture or democratic norms.

We see this today from Singapore to China, from Turkey to Malaysia and even Iran. Any observant visitor to China these days can see that beneath the logos of Hyatt and Citigroup the soul of old Confucius is stirring, with its authoritarian bent. In Turkey, we see an Islamist-rooted party running a secular state, battling to allow women to wear headscarves in public universities.

In other words, isn't "non-Western modernization" as likely a path ahead as Westernization through globalization?

Fukuyama: For me, there are three key components of political modernization. First, the modernization of the state as a stable, effective, impersonal institution that can enforce rules across complex societies. This was Huntington's focus. But there are two other components of modernization in my view. Second, the rule of law so that the state itself is constrained in it actions by a pre-existing body of law that is sovereign. In other words, a ruler or ruling party cannot just do whatever he or it decides. Third is some form of accountability of the powers that be.

Huntington would have said that rule of law and accountability are Western values. I think they are values toward which non-Western societies are converging because of their own experience. You can't have true modernization without them. They are in fact necessary complements to each other. If you have just political modernization defined as a competent state, you may only have a more effective form of tyranny.

What you can certainly have is effective state building and a certain amount of prosperity under authoritarian conditions for a time. That is what the Chinese are doing right now. But I am convinced that their prosperity cannot in the end endure, nor can Chinese citizens ever be secure in their personal progress, without the rule of law and accountability. They can't go to the next stage without all three components that comprise modernization.

Corruption and questionable legitimacy will ultimately weigh them down, if not open unrest.

Gardels: Modernization has usually also meant the growing secularization of society and the primacy of science and reason. Yet, in a place like Turkey today, as I mentioned, we see modernization and growing religiosity side by side. That certainly departs from the Western-oriented trajectory charted by Ataturk.

Fukuyama: I agree. The old version of the idea modernization was Euro-centric, reflecting Europe's own development. That did contain attributes which sought to define modernization in a quite narrow way. Most importantly, as you point out, religion and modernization certainly can coexist. Secularism is not a condition of modernity. You don't have to travel to Turkey to see that. It is true in the United States, which is a very religious society but in which advanced science and technological innovation thrive.

The old assumption that religion would disappear and be replaced solely by secular, scientific rationalism is not going to happen.

At the same time, I don't believe the existence, or even prevalence of cultural attributes, including religion, are so overwhelming anywhere that you will not see a universal convergence toward rule of law and accountability.

Gardels: Still, must accountability entail the same democratic, electoral norms of Europe or the United States?

Fukuyama: You can have non-electoral accountability through moral education which forges a sense of moral obligation by the ruler. Traditional Confucianism, after all, taught the emperor that he had a duty to his subjects as well as himself. It is not an accident that the most successful authoritarian modernization experiments have all been in East Asian societies touched by Confucianism.

In the end, though, that is not enough. You cannot solve the problem of the "bad emperor" through moral suasion. And China has had some pretty bad emperors over the centuries. Without procedural accountability, you can never establish real accountability.

Gardels: Some top Chinese intellectuals today argue that when China arises again as the superior civilization in a post-American world, the "tired" global debate over autocracy vs. democracy will yield to a more pragmatic debate over good governance vs. bad governance. I doubt you would agree.

Fukuyama: You are right, I don't believe that. You simply can't get good governance without democratic accountability. It is a risky illusion to believe otherwise.

(c) 2009 GLOBAL VIEWPOINT NETWORK/TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES. HOSTED ON LINE BY
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR

 

Comments

[wiig]

This harkens back to Obama's comments in San Francisco last year. It doesn't matter whether they are in Pennsylvania, Riyadh or in Tehran, poor distressed people will cling to guns and religion or maybe more accurately gravitate to religion and guns. It is unbridled capitalism that was ushered in with Reagan, Bush and even Clinton that is at fault. Unless the people have an acceptable share of the wealth of a country they will be susceptible to extremists who play to the hurt that the people who feel left out feel, which can result in anything from Timothy McVeigh to Tea Baggers. The result is that democracy is undermined and modernization and Westernization is not achieved.

[Blueboy1938]

The reliance on a particular form of government with a set of laws to constrict executive caprice is extremely tenuous. Look at the degree to which the Bush administration dismantled constitutional protections by simply ignoring them and establishing agencies and policies by fiat. Congress was basically toothless, because it gave him the status of "wartime president" which Cheney and company interpreted as having de facto dictatorial power. Those changes are pretty much still in effect, and every effort to rein them in is met dismissively with "9/11."

Another thing that is overlooked in the dialogue is that the current government form of choice is not that of the United States, but of the United Kingdom and/or France: Multiparty, unicameral, and parliamentarian. There is no separation of the executive and the legislature, by and large, as most other "democratic" governments are run by a ruling party in the legislature. That form of government is a fractured and fractious morass of changing party and coalition loyalties and agendas struggling for a majority, in order to form a government.

So long as the nation-state is the principal base for governments, there will be negative consequences, such as Iran's regional bullying, Korea's international blackmail, and the United States' military adventurism. Until government is locally based, the needs of human beings will continue to be held hostage by their governments, authoritarian, democratic, tyrannical, or whatever. Human problems will not be addressed. The condition of the global ecosphere will continue to deteriorate.

[voxpop4]

I agee with Jimboy 17. I would add a quote I read.."the trouble with Capitalism are "Capitalists"...all of em. When a country, whatever what its governing rule, is from Democracy, Communism, Religious,or a Dictatorship, and has its great wealth in the hands of a few Billionaires, there has to be trouble. The people down below (ie the Middle class should be satisfied and can make a decent living) must get the benefits of Capitalistic success. When the middle (vortex of society) is happy..the world goes, generally, well. I also agree with jimboy that "a global disaster is brewing." and that would be in the form of war, terrorism, or a economic/commercial catastrophe! There are many books have been written about this Gloomy, Doomy, prediction of the future. Also the present world leaders of Aisa, the Middle East and the free western world are so far apart that its an impossible task..and they will eventually collide. Again jimboy is correct ..we have in our own land(USA) such a "continental divide" and hate between the extreme right and left that it makes solving problems ( any problems ie war, health care, education, helping the poor), an impossible task. We are all in for a "wild, bumpy ride!

[AxelDC]

Historical determinism is a silly theory. There is no inevitable march of any movement in world history. Unforeseeable events and changing circumstances make predicting the future impossible.

History didn't end in 1989, it merely took a turn. If we smugly think our way of life is going to triumph, it's only because we've never really read a history book.

[robert234]

The unsupported assumtion that the end of history is possible without the end of paradigmatic STATISM and THEISM (notwithstanding form or function) is not only imposible, but is a contradiction to the obvious fact that all of history to date includes them as primary and foundational. However, if we do assume their finis, then ipso facto---the end of history. Now, with the very genesis of evil eliminated, it's possible to envision what remains for human existence. Here, with modifications, I agree with Mr. Fukuyama. Capitalism and the Marketplace, guided by Smith's Invisible Hand , will basically remain unchanged. Now without the STATE, the rule of law will remain, but its modus operandi will be grounded in CONTRACT by consent and privatization. The ramaining archetypes of human existence are unmentioned, and remain virtually known by a very small group of academics and intellectualls in the fields of science and technology­---primari­ly computer science, nanotechnology, genetic research, robotics, cloning, and artificial intelligence. This letter is to brief to illuminate them, but there is no better place to start than by reading Ray Kurzweil and K. Eric Drexler. They will light thousands of candles in the darkness. Just my guess, but the problems for many intellectuals steeped in history and sociology is that they are a titch short on science, math, and technology.

[jackwaddington]

Wow, again we hang onto this stupid notion that we need to be governed and then concoct ways to do it, normally with biases towards what we HOPE would benefit us. What no-one seems to see is that we actually don't need to be governed. No other creature on the planet sets up a governing system, but we crazy humans. This idea of no government is not new, but every time someone attempts to put forward the idea; like Galileo; they get excommunicated.

[BK1717]

Umm, so, are you suggesting that we look to the animal kingdom for inspiration as we strive for this post-government world?

[Godweiser]

Lions and hyenas don't inspire me with much hope for humanity along that path.

[jackwaddington]

Looking to the animal kingdom for inspiration is NOT what we need to do. Inspiration occurs to us without making comparisons. However, though we couldn't emulate what any other creature does we do know they are not dumb enough to create governments and parliaments and voting and businesses and and and.ad infinitum.

[Godweiser]

I never agreed with Fukuyama's thesis for the most part. Unfortunately, the idea that western values are part of the package of a democratic system is a highly dangerous one that's gotten us into a lot of trouble internationally, as the neoonservative movement took "The End of History" to heart.

My most heartfelt feeling is that democracy has to be grown from the bottom up and inclusive of local institutions that already exist. You can't just pick leaders and have them do it (see Afghanistan) because there will be resistance from the 'salt of the earth' in defense of tradition. If you try to quickly impose, top-down, you get what Russia had; a weak democracy quickly taken over by a strongman or a demagogue.

I think the biggest problem with Fukuyama's thesis is that it's been used to justify the imposition of democracy, western style, into places that are culturally unable to digest it.

Americans often think our system came up overnight, but if you look at the political development in England and the Netherlands and then the development of small town and colony governance in America, you see that the American system took more than a century to develop, and was very much rooted in cultural values and expectations that were centuries old. So it seems silly then that we expect other cultures to turn on a dime.

It isn't inevitable, and it can't be imposed and it has to be developed using existing cultural institutions.

[RaviVesely]

"...was very much rooted in cultural values and expectations that were centuries old"--yes, yes, spoken like a true Weberian! But that's exactly the point: namely, Weber boldly and correctly inverted epiphenome­nalism--sa­ying essentially that Protestant "ethics"/"emotions" (like "guilt," "shame," "fear") were the CAUSES of Capitalism, not its effects. As Weber would agree with you, so do I.

Peace.

[michelesda]

What we really need, long overdue, is the end of Neocon silliness.

[RaviVesely]

Nathan, great post! The written interview is vastly underrated and its social value cannot be overstated. A great service for the reader--you bring both yours and Fukuyama's "absence" back into the fold of "presence." So thank you!

First, Fukuyama is hardly Hegelian--even if he himself thinks he is. If anything, he merely embodies Hegel's "unhappy consciousness." Fukuyama reminds me of Bill Kristol: always horribly wrong about everything, yet mysteriously pedestaled as "an intellectual." My point is, the fall of the Berlin Wall does not mark "the end of History"--­metaphoric­ally or otherwise. (And no, Reagan deserves no credit for it--he was coincidentally in Office when its inevitability finally reached its resting point.) Hegel and Marx (an ACTUAL Hegelian) were the first to correctly point out that, rather, "the self comes at the end of History." And, sorry to say, liberal democracy has not yet found its self. If anything, and in a slanted tone that perhaps echoes the late Baudrillard, what we witnessed in September, 2008, with Hank Paulon's whopping 2-page proposal for $700 billion is precisely "the end of the individual"--or, if one prefers, the beginning of post-Marxian "alienation." Paulson, Geithner, Summers, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove, Ashcroft, et. al., are among the most un-free individuals walking around right now--and they don't even know it. Marx predicted those guys with astonishing accuracy: i.e., "they don't know it, but they are doing it."

Peace.

[jsarets]

I see human civilization moving away from the rule of law (with its unintended consequences and loopholes) and toward a form of dynamic mutual ethics powered by rapid propagation of information across network structures and enforced by collective judgment before the court of public opinion.

I see the false dilemma of individualism vs. collectivism dissolving with the growing importance of voluntary association as the means by which people seek economic prosperity and social status, spontaneously self-organizing for mutual benefit while retaining individual liberty.

The cornerstones of classic liberalism -- freedom and democracy -- aren't going out of style. But the way they've been implemented, namely the state capitalist model and its hierarchical structures of government and production, is becoming outmoded.

We're experiencing a breakdown of hierarchical systems and the proliferation of network systems to take their place. The central processor that failed to scale with socialism is now failing to scale with capitalism. The future belongs to systems that decentralize and parallelize decision-making.

Karl Marx had this seemingly ridiculous theory that central institutions would grow incredibly powerful and then suddenly collapse, leaving behind a loosely-coupled system of cooperative co-creation. Why would the central institutions collapse? How would society be organized in their absence?

It was premature to call the end of history before the emergence of the world wide web. That was the missing piece of the puzzles contemplated by Marx and Fukuyama.

[CenterOfMass]

"We're experiencing a breakdown of hierarchical systems and the proliferation of network systems to take their place."

It seems that this process is in its infancy. There is still the hierarchy of politics and money. Giant companies and well-funded lobbyists still seem to be guiding things, and the network seems to have very much smaller influence.

[jsarets]

Two years ago, hardly anybody knew about Twitter. It didn't even play a major role in the 2008 elections. Now it's everywhere, influencing mass movements from San Francisco to Tehran. How are networks going to evolve in the next two years?

The process may be in its infancy. I think it's getting closer to early adolescence. But the nature of networks is that they create swarms of awareness that generate rapid shifts in public opinion.

People thought that the 2008 elections were influenced by networks. We haven't seen anything yet. By the time 2012 comes around, the game of electoral politics is going to played very differently, almost unrecognizable from 2000 or to a certain extent 2008.

[TheBaffler]

It needs to be stressed that when conservatives like Fukuyama say "democracy," they always mean "capitalism." They are synonymous terms to free market mousketeers.

[henryberry]

Fukuyama's view of history is formalistic - and any such view of history is bound to be short-sighted and ultimately wrong. Not only does Fukuyama's view that liberal democracy is the highest type of social form (though he moderated this in the interview) raise the issue of a bias of his; but even within liberal democracy there are instabilities, ambitions, evolutions, etc., which make for history. Partisan politics in the U.S. is only one example of this. The U.S.--the prime example of liberal democracy--is loosing its position as a world leader, a plutocratic caste has become dominant, and the concept of "state" upon which U.S. alliances, power, and domestic coherence have been based is paling. Furthermore, unpredictable groups such as drug gangs, pirates, and terrorists are causing liberal democracies and other states to respond in ways that make for history.

Fukuyama's view is wrong essentially because history is rooted in human being, human presence, human life, and the desires, ambitions, cruelties, restiveness, lust for power, scheming, opportunism, imagination, egoism, selfishness, and all else which come with this. The only way for there to be an end of history is for there to be an end of humanity.

[TOOO]

I hate to say this, but... well, I suppose somebody has to play Devil's Advocate.

Fukuyama: You can have non-electoral accountability through moral education which forges a sense of moral obligation by the ruler. Traditional Confucianism, after all, taught the emperor that he had a duty to his subjects as well as himself. It is not an accident that the most successful authoritarian modernization experiments have all been in East Asian societies touched by Confucianism.
In the end, though, that is not enough. You cannot solve the problem of the "bad emperor" through moral suasion. And China has had some pretty bad emperors over the centuries. Without procedural accountability, you can never establish real accountability.

Except for the fact that China has existed for something like 3000 years. How many "liberal democracies" can say that? (And no, I'm not advocating authoritarianism. Just pointing out an inconvenient fact.)

[twofish]

We get to have a certain amount of democracy and accountability because the real power has withdrawn from that arena. It is housed in the concentrated wealth of the top 1% of families and corporations. We get to tinker around the edges and occasionally do something useful (or damaging), but the good ship money-power sails on.

Even within the sphere of choice we are permitted, we are tricked and manipulated by a corrupt media and the manipulation of images and ideas. California's initiative process, supposedly direct democracy, is subject to all manner of propaganda, obscurantism (written so that you don't know if your desired outcome requires a "yes" or "no" vote), and appeals to fear and greed. The side that spends the most money usually prevails. One good way to scuttle an undesirable but popular initiative is to submit another one with a similar name and opposite provisions, then spend the run-up to the election muddying the waters so people will vote against both in disgust. Result: no change.

Not that the ruling elite don't make mistakes. They do. There is still a certain level of reality that even their power can't ignore forever. Like global warming. But that's another variant of the "bad emperor" problem, just more diffuse than a single emperor.

[billstewart]

Fukuyama argued that liberal democracy is the best form of government for people, and he was right. But the people who say that "War is the health of the State" are unfortunately right also, and the Neocons that like to quote Fukuyama think that it's more important for the State to be powerful than for the people to have good government, and in a few years tore down much of the liberal-democratic consensus and infrastructure that we've been building since the Enlightenment.
Can you imagine the people of a liberal democracy cheering on government torture or warrantless wiretapping? Fukuyama said that moral suasion isn't enough to solve the "Bad Emperor" problem in an authoritarian society; I guess we're lucky to have term limits, but even the mostly-moral Obama hasn't swept out the policies of the Bad Emperor who preceded him.

[lisakaz2]

I've been making fun of this theory for almost as long as it has existed. The theory is dependent on a couple of things, including a Western arrogance (guess I'm being influenced by Edward Said here) as well as a view of liberal democracy and capitalism as if they aren't corruptible and in fact corrupted. So even if one element was overcome the other would block "history" actually ending.