Is the “End of History” Back on Track?(noahpinion.substack.com)
noahpinion.substack.com
Is the “End of History” Back on Track?
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/is-the-end-of-history-back-on-track
3 comments
Fukuyama's theory was always badly named. It would be better respected if he called it "end of autocracy" or "end of tyranny," which are better names for his theory.
Someone please correct me if I’m wrong but Fukuyama’s hypothesis wasn’t so much the what of the end of history but the why. He believed that capitalism inevitably leads to liberal democracy. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, autocracy had failed and humanity had assumed its final form.
With that bold framework in mind, I don’t think a recent faltering Russia and China are enough to prove it. Even if China collapsed tomorrow it only demonstrates one possible trajectory. The corrupting influence of money in politics is quite clear, and backsliding democracies e.g. Hungary to me demonstrate that liberal democracy isn’t a destination like Fukuyama believed but an ongoing process. We are always going to have to contend with new problems, new ideas, and new technologies, not to mention a completely different stock of humans every century.
In retrospect, democracy is an anomaly in recorded human history. Autocracy was the norm for thousands of years. I think any bold statements about how humanity must trend are premature.
With that bold framework in mind, I don’t think a recent faltering Russia and China are enough to prove it. Even if China collapsed tomorrow it only demonstrates one possible trajectory. The corrupting influence of money in politics is quite clear, and backsliding democracies e.g. Hungary to me demonstrate that liberal democracy isn’t a destination like Fukuyama believed but an ongoing process. We are always going to have to contend with new problems, new ideas, and new technologies, not to mention a completely different stock of humans every century.
In retrospect, democracy is an anomaly in recorded human history. Autocracy was the norm for thousands of years. I think any bold statements about how humanity must trend are premature.
Betteridge's law of headlines is applicable here. Will be interesting to see what happens in China wrt zero-covid, but he has a number of other takes that to me suggest a heavily distorted view of reality.