FRANCIS Fukuyama, author of “The End of History and the Last Man”, has been making some noise online by revisiting his original thesis, which is that democratic liberalism has emerged as the perfect system, thereby ushering the “end of history”, by negating all other ideologies.
Now, I must admit I haven’t read Fukuyama’s book. I’ve only listened to it on audio, and only partly.
I’ve heard the same argument before from guys like Marx, Kojeve and Hegel, and I disagreed each time.
The idea of an “end of history” is that that there is such a thing as “human” civilization and that civilization is trying, unconsciously according to Hegel, to reach Utopia, a perfect society.
Fukuyama is one who subscribes to this thought/view of history. In his latest statements, he tries to shore up this view by pointing to the weakness of strongman governments like Xi’s China and Putin’s Russia.
However, I would argue that this is a mistake, because Xi and Putin emerged out of the same liberal worldview as Fukuyama. Putin, for example, needs to work under the Russian Constitution and appease the various factions of his government.
Same with Xi. He may have the same power as Mao. But the CCP also believes in the perfectability of human society. Same with other strongmen, or would-be strongmen. Even Duterte, our country’s latest strongman, considered himself a leftist.
Fukuyama’s argument against the current rivals of the US and Europe has nothing to do with my disagreement with his school of thought. The reason why I oppose is that the idea of an eternal society that can exist beyond the limits of history is ultimately false.
All civilizations end, so it doesn’t matter how good or how perfect liberalism may be. In the end, this system is man-made, and like all man-made things, it will eventually die. It could be in a few years, or in century, but one or another, it will die, and its death will herald the return of history and struggle./PN
