Review & Analysis on “The End of History” by Francis Fukuyama
In the book, “the End of History and the Last Man Standing,” the author emphasizes how we term to look at history more as the chronological flow of events such as world wars, marxism, communism, class, and power struggle, clashes of ideology, and revolutions. But with time, these events seem to be moving more in a close circle from where they initially began and that is the underlying argument presented by the author.
The question of whether there is a history within human society when considering that different people experience different things based on different times. To also understand if there is truly a coherent in the nature of these societies as they progress from the earliest times of agriculture to a feudal society, fight against communism, and up to liberal democracy and technologically driven capitalism. According to the author, “what we are 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 such as that is, the endpoint of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.”
The author does well in drawing our attention to whether democracy (basically characterized by capitalism) is the last form of governance, the final civilization of mankind, and there will be no other form of regimes (monarchy, dictatorship, authoritarian regime, communist, etc). This also includes the fact that democracy is the only form of government (ideological evolution) that seeks to promote the interest and voices of the governed.
To support his claims, he began to draw on various historical events such as the rise of Marxism through which people believed all the troubles of the world (mostly class and power struggles) would come to an end through the rise of Communism. This concept of history coming to a final and rational moment of all society living with one political ideology did not begin with Marx, rather from a prehistorian known as George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, who is almost never spoken about. Most of Hegel’s works were presented by Alexandre Kojeve, who has been putting much effort to separate Hegel’s works from the Marxist interpretation. Hegel believed that history is mostly existing based on human consciousness and on a large unifying worldview (ideology). The author also draws claims from Hegel’s phenomenology of mind leading from the idea of the French revolution, to the abolition of slavery, the world wars, to the point of forcing other cities in Europe and North America to liberalism.
He elaborated deeply on capitalism, the visibility of poverty within our materialistic cultures, and the points of Asia’s development within a free market and stable political system (Wall Street Journal). According to him, the two major challenges faced by liberal democracy in past centuries were Communism and Fascism, which was destroyed by World War II. These were both influential ideologies drawn from human consciousness. He also drew concrete points on how the reclaim of consciousness is the root of economic behavior and cultural shifts and the tremendous growth on the universal consensus of justices that is presented within the Liberal democracy.
Analyses:
The argument presented does validate the author’s claim because, in past events, there have always been some sorts of class, power struggles, or ideology revolution. In the past century, the consciousness of humans was fastly awakened by the idea of Communism being the ultimate solution to human civilization but eventually, it got rejected by most countries. Up until this century, countries continue to push for democracy like in the case of Hong Kong's protest against China’s authoritarian rule (Communist). From the end of the world wars to the present, 96 out of 167 countries have a democratic form of government and this clearly supports the authors’ theses.
Though it seems very hard to fully go against the claims of the author especially when they seem to be presenting well-known facts and claims. However, it falls short of truly acknowledging the fact that our materialistic culture has created more gaps for exploitation and widened the gap between the rich and the poor. With the outburst of technology especially social media, many gravitated towards convenience and easy access to information. On the flip side, we see more speech and research against the negative impact of technology, making people even deactivate social media accounts, move toward the appreciation of our natural environment (climate crises), and now trying to look more for human emotions than what technology is capable of offering. This is also arguable that people are likely to go away from technology in the nearest future and eventually move towards something that fits their particular evolutionary need. Technology is unarguably one of the best evolutionary innovations in the history of mankind but one also cannot assume that with the invention of technology and the rise in capitalism, all of the ideological evolution will cease to exist because human wants are unlimited and ever-changing.
If the author is only telling us that democracy is the last because it is globally accepted, he should also be able to acknowledge that being globally accepted does not mean it cannot change. A research-based article from students of the George Washington University claimed that “Socialism is all about inclusivity and kindness” and they showed strong support toward it. The recent and one of the most popular movements in South Africa known as the Economic Freedom Fighters, is fundamentally based on Socialism and the ideology of said movement seem to be growing even in countries like mine, Liberia. This is also based on the fact that socialist societies are more likely to create value for human life than capitalism which is characterized by large capital, materialistic behaviors, and exploitations of the poor. As generation shapes, we find more people wanting to be social workers, creating NGOs, and other humanitarian institutions even though they paid relatively less.
The above examples show that human consciousness has always continued to evolve, and more people are grasping towards creating value because capitalism on its owns does not really create value for those in need (the poor). It can also be argued that in almost every capitalist society, there is some level of socialism in it and even the Medicaid and Medicare of the USA is not an exception.
This is not to say democratic societies will ever go back to authoritarian regimes, however. We could talk about meritocracy or technocracy. This is because most young leaders seem to be debating against the idea that capitalism does not work for undeveloped countries. The poverty gap keeps increasing and even in the USA, health care is one of the most challenging factors created by capitalism. The cost of insurance leads most middle-income families into immediate poverty after a major illness. Hence, democracy might continue to exist with capitalism, but I disagree with the idea of it being final. Maybe we are moving towards a place where we have democracy and also socialism but in a more refined way that seeks to promote values, reduce the huge poverty gap, but also give power to the governed.