The End of History and the Last Man

Toward the end of the Cold War, three very different books were published within five years of each other that sought to explain the likely contours of the inchoate new world order emerging from the implosion of the communist bloc: David Kennedy's "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" 1989); Francis Fukuyama's "The End of History and the Last Man" (1992); and Samuel Huntington's "The Clash of the Civilizations"(1994).The second in this triumvirate is the deepest intellectually, one might even say profound, yet the most widely misunderstood and often ridiculed. The vast majority of critics, I'm convinced, never actually read the book, as Fukuyama's thesis is sober and thoughtful. Unlike Kennedy's thesis, which is based on relative economic growth rates, or Huntington's, which is rooted (I would argue) in cultural anthropology, Fukuyama's argument is built upon the foundation of modern western philosophy. For those, like me, who only have an armchair education in philosophy, "The End of History" will be both a primer on the basic tenets of liberal political theory and a compelling argument for the spread of both capitalism and democratic representative government.Fukuyama's argument is direct, but cerebral, and fundamentally grounded in the political philosophy of early 19th century German philosopher Georg Hegel, and supported by the further interpretations of Hegel by fellow German Friedrich Nietzsche and the 20th century French-Russian philosopher Alexandre Kojeve.At the dawn of the twenty first century, Fukuyama writes, there were two undeniable trends in global affairs: a movement toward market capitalism on the one hand, and a shift toward liberal democracy on the other. He notes that these two trends are not, at least superficially, mutually reinforcing. In fact, one could argue that they should naturally work against each other. After all, authoritarian regimes in East Asia (Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, China) have proven that dramatic, market-oriented economic growth does not rely on a liberal political order. Indeed, democracy may actually stymie the efficient allocation of central resources toward critical infrastructure projects. Fukuyama sees Hegel's "need for recognition" as the missing link tying liberal economics with liberal political democracy.This book is broken into five parts. The first two provide a background on the philosophical argument behind "The End of History" as posited by both Hegel and Marx, who agreed on the basics but reached radically different conclusions on the end point. Fukuyama maintains that politics is more like natural science than art or literature - its trajectory is directional and cumulative, with each generation building upon the efforts of the past, unlike the more liberal arts whose value remains subjective across the ages. (e.g. Are paintings or architecture better today than in ancient Greece or fin-de-siecle France? Depends who you ask. Are we more advanced in physics than those societies? No doubt. Fukuyama claims government is more like physics than art.)I found part three to be the most informative and fascinating. Fukuyama explains that part of the problem with Hegel's focus on "recognition" in political philosophy is that there is no one word in English that accurately captures the true meaning. Machiavelli spoke of "glory," Hobbes of "pride," Rousseau of "amour-propre," Hamilton of "fame," Madison of "ambition," and Nietzsche of "the beast with red cheeks." Fukuyama makes a strong case for Plato's Greek word "thymos," the same word and concept that Jonathan Shay uses to develop his convincing hypothesis on the nature of moral degeneration after close order combat in his brilliant piece "Achilles in Vietnam." In short, every man, no matter his station in life, has a natural sense of self-worth, of dignity, and when that sense of personal dignity is violated the reaction can be severe. When we don't live up to our own estimate of thymos we feel shame, and when we do we feel pride. And when someone else, especially those in positions of power or authority, fail to recognize our thymos we feel indignation (or, as Shay wrote about Achilles and soldiers in Vietnam, rage). Thus, a healthy political order needs to be more than a basic social contract between man and his government, exchanging some personal rights in exchange for the ability to acquire property (what the Founders referred to as "happiness"), a sort of mutual societal non-aggression pact. Rather, it must also somehow serve man's desire for recognition, of his dignity and worth.In part four Fukuyama presents his central thesis of the desire for recognition as the motor of history, looking at the recent past and projecting into the future some of the different ways the desire for recognition will be manifest. He notes that it was present in the people who fought for greater representation in right-wing authoritarian regimes in the 1970s and 1980s (Spain, Greece, South Korea, Philippines, Taiwan, etc.) and against communist dictatorships at the end of the Cold War - and arguably what is driving the Arab Spring movement across North Africa and the Middle East. The governments rocked by pro-democracy movements span most continents and cultures, include nations that have experienced rapid economic growth and others that have been moribund for decades, and have sought to overthrow or dramatically reform regimes that range from the far left to the far right. The common denominator, Fukuyama argues, is that they failed to satisfy the collective thymos of their people, as only liberal democracy can do that.The fifth and final chapter addresses the question of the "end of history," what the final end state looks like, the so called "last man," as liberal democracies wrestle with their inherent contradiction that they treat unequal people (i.e. based on talent and success) equally.In closing, this is a marvelous, thought-provoking book that, in light of the Arab Spring (depending how that turns out), may come back into fashion nearly a generation after its initial publication. Huntington's "Clash of the Civilization" may still stand as the leading interpretation of the post Cold War international order, but "The End of History" is still very much in the race and gaining ground everyday.

I felt compelled to write a review for The End of History and the Last Man because many of the reviews written on Amazon have either misunderstood the thesis, ignored the thesis, reduced the thesis to simplicity or "reviewed" the book only to attack what they believed the thesis to be because of a dislike for Francis Fukuyama, whom they consider to be a neoconservative."Fukuyama's thesis can be stated as such: liberal democracy constitutes the end point of man's kind ideological evolution and the final form of human government. The term "end of history" was borrowed from Hegel who declared the end of history after Napoleon's victory at the Battle of Jena in 1806. Hegel believed the American and French Revolutions embodied the principles of liberty and equality and that liberal states were free from internal contradictions. The rise of the liberal state ended the Hegelian dialectic process. Many of Fukuyama's ideas were borrowed form philosopher French-Russian Alexander Kojeve. Kojeve believed Hegel to be correct and he considered the "universal and homogenous" state to be the end of man's socio-economic evolution; progression beyond liberal democracy is impossible. For Kojeve, the supremacy of liberal democracy meant not only the end of man's political evolution, but the end of philosophy as well. Philosophers had no other purpose but to embrace the emergence of liberal democracy and support ways to achieve its universality.Fukuyama dismisses the idea of a cyclical history. Rather, viewing history as linear and having a propensity for progress. Unlike other philosophers that dismiss or relegate the importance of human nature to history, Fukuyama thesis is centered on human nature. There exist two mechanisms that drive a Universal History and the eventual "end" of liberal democracy being modern natural science and thymos, which translates into "spiritedness." The concept of thymos comes from Plato but Fukuyama uses Hegel's "struggle for recognition" as a proper definition. Man is not simply an animal of desire, instinct or pure reason. Neither is man simply an economic animal. Man has an innate desire to be recognized by other men. Hegel's first man was a man willing to die in bloody battle solely for pride and recognition. This idea trumps Hobbes' first man whose primary motivation is the desire for self-preservation.Thus liberal democracy is the only political system that can fulfill man's desire for recognition. Man's desire for recognition causes conflicts in political systems, such as communism, feudalism, monarchy and fascism. In a liberal democracy, man's struggle for recognition is satisfied by "universal and reciprocal" recognition. Fukuyama goes in to further detail how liberal democracy is able to fulfill other forms of man's thymos in religion, economics and international affairs. In economics, work is not only a means for survival and material acquisition but also a means for recognition via success and social mobility.The End of History and the Last Man was published in 1992, after the fall of the Soviet Union. This event marked the collapse of communism as a rival contender to liberal democracy, and somewhat vindicated Hegel and Kojeve's beliefs in the "end of history" and the supremacy of liberal democracy. The book is not without its faults. It is classified under "political philosophy" so it was not meant to provide empirical proof for the supremacy of liberal democracy. Fukuyama does not provide a strong definition of liberal democracy, nor compare the merits and shortcomings of varying forms of liberal democracy such as presidential systems, parliamentary systems, and federalist systems. Even the "struggle for recognition" may be false since it puts man only in the purview only of other men and their opinions, while avoiding the possibility of man being driven by personal desires with no regard for the recognition of other men i.e. individualism. Also, liberal democracies do have certain contradictions, such as the ability of the majority to infringe on the rights of a minority and income inequalities.Contrary to what some reviewers and authors have written, Fukuyama does not state that the "end of history" will result in the end of historical events or conflict. Some have suggested that the existence of China's authoritarian government, which restricts political rights and allows some economic rights but has been able to obtain continual high rates of economic growth, undermines Fukuyama's thesis and provides a functional alternative model for modernizing states. For this proposition to be true, one would have to argue that China's system of government is a universal model for a political system AND a system that history, i.e. states, will progress towards. Both are simply not true.I do not agree entirely with the book but I still found it very intriguing and thought provoking. Disregard reviewers that claim that the book is simple or "foolish." Fukuyama takes little information for granted and he cites nearly every idea, proposition and fact. He uses ideas from various political philosophers such as Hegel, Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Madison, Jefferson and Nietzsche (to name a few) in order to construct and support his assertions. This is a monumental work and should be required reading for high school and college students (whether or not one agrees with the thesis).