fukuyama the end of history

8/12/2019 Fukuyama the End of History

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The End Of History? **

By Francis Fukuyama*

IN WATCHING the flow of events over the past decade or so, it is hard toavoid the feeling that something very fundamental has happened in worldhistory. The past year has seen a flood of articles commemorating the endof the Cold War, and the fact that peace seems to !e !rea"ing out inmany regions of the world. #ost of these analyses lac" any largerconceptual framewor" for distinguishing !etween what is essential andwhat is contingent or accidental in world history, and are predicta!ly

superficial. If #r. Gor!achev were ousted from the $remlin or a newAyatollah proclaimed the millennium from a desolate #iddle %asterncapital, these same commentators would scram!le to announce there!irth of a new era of conflict.

And yet, all of these people sense dimly that there is some larger processat wor", a process that gives coherence and order to the daily headlines.The twentieth century saw the developed world descend into a paro&ysmof ideological violence, as li!eralism contended first with the remnants ofa!solutism, then !olshevism and fascism, and finally an updated #ar&ismthat threatened to lead to the ultimate apocalypse of nuclear war. 'ut thecentury that !egan full of self(confidence in the ultimate triumph ofWestern li!eral democracy seems at its close to !e returning full circle towhere it started) not to an end of ideology or a convergence !etweencapitalism and socialism, as earlier predicted, !ut to an una!ashed victoryof economic and political li!eralism.

The triumph of the West, of the Western idea, is evident first of all in thetotal e&haustion of via!le systematic alternatives to Western li!eralism. Inthe past decade, there have !een unmista"a!le changes in the intellectualclimate of the world*s two largest communist countries, and the

!eginnings of significant reform movements in !oth. 'ut this phenomenone&tends !eyond high politics and it can !e seen also in the inelucta!lespread of consumerist Western culture in such diverse conte&ts as thepeasants* mar"ets and color television sets now omnipresent throughoutChina, the cooperative restaurants and clothing stores opened in the pastyear in #oscow, the 'eethoven piped into +apanese department stores,and the roc" music enoyed ali"e in -rague, angoon, and Tehran.

What we may !e witnessing is not ust the end of the Cold War, or thepassing of a particular period of postwar history, !ut the end of history assuch) that is, the end point of man"ind*s ideological evolution and the

universali/ation of Western li!eral democracy as the final form of humangovernment. This is not to say that there will no longer !e events to fill thepages of Foreign Affair'syearly summaries of international relations, for

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the victory of li!eralism has occurred primarily in the realm of ideas orconsciousness and is as yet incomplete in. the real or material world. 'utthere are powerful reasons for !elieving that it is the ideal that will governthe material world in the long run. To understand how this is so, we mustfirst consider some theoretical issues concerning the nature of historical

change.

I

TH% N1TI1N of the end of history is not an original one. Its !est "nownpropagator was $arl #ar&, who !elieved that the direction of historicaldevelopment was a purposeful one determined !y the interplay of materialforces, and would come to an end only with the achievement of acommunist utopia that would finally resolve all prior contradictions. 'utthe concept of history as a dialectical process with a !eginning, a middle,and an end was !orrowed !y #ar& from his great German predecessor,Georg Wilhelm 2riedrich Hegel.

2or !etter or worse, much of Hegel*s historicism has !ecome part of ourcontemporary intellectual !aggage. The notion that man"ind hasprogressed through a series of primitive stages of consciousness on hispath to the present, and that these stages corresponded to concrete formsof social organi/ation, such as tri!al, slave(owning, theocratic, and finallydemocratic(egalitarian societies, has !ecome insepara!le from the modern

understanding of man. Hegel was the first philosopher to spea" thelanguage of modern social science, insofar as man for him was the productof his concrete historical and social environment and not, as earlier naturalright theorists would have it, a collection of more or less fi&ed naturalattri!utes. The mastery and transformation of man*s natural environmentthrough the application of science and technology was originally not a#ar&ist concept, !ut a Hegelian one. 3nli"e later historicists whosehistorical relativism degenerated into relativism tout court, however, Hegel!elieved that history culminated in an a!solute moment ( a moment inwhich a final, rational form of society and state !ecame victorious.

It is Hegel*s misfortune to !e "nown now primarily as #ar&*s precursor4and it is our misfortune that few of us are familiar with Hegel*s wor" fromdirect study, !ut only as it has !een filtered through the distorting lens of#ar&ism. In 2rance, however, there has !een an effort to save Hegel fromhis #ar&ist interpreters and to resurrect him as the philosopher who mostcorrectly spea"s to our time. Among those modern 2rench interpreters ofHegel, the greatest was certainly Ale&andre $o5ve, a !rilliant ussian6migr6 who taught a highly influential series of seminars in -aris in the0789s at the Ecole Practique des Hautes Etudes.:0; While largely un"nownin the 3nited


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$o5ve sought to resurrect the Hegel of the Phenomenology of Mind, theHegel who proclaimed history to !e at an end in 0?9@. 2or as early as thisHegel saw in Napoleon*s defeat of the -russian monarchy at the 'attle of+ena the victory of the ideals of the 2rench evolution, and the imminentuniversali/ation of the state incorporating the principles of li!erty and

euality. $o5ve, far from reecting Hegel in light of the tur!ulent events ofthe ne&t century and a half, insisted that the latter had !een essentiallycorrect.:>; The 'attle of +ena mar"ed the end of history !ecause it was atthat point that the vanguard of humanity Ba term uite familiar to#ar&ists actuali/ed the principles of the 2rench evolution. While therewas considera!le wor" to !e done after 0?9@ ( a!olishing slavery and theslave trade, e&tending the franchise to wor"ers, women, !lac"s, and otherracial minorities, etc. ( the !asic principles of the li!eral democratic statecould not !e improved upon. The two world wars in this century and theirattendant revolutions and upheavals simply had the effect of e&tendingthose principles spatially, such that the various provinces of humancivili/ation were !rought up to the level of its most advanced outposts,and of forcing those societies in %urope and North America at thevanguard of civili/ation to implement their li!eralism more fully.

The state that emerges at the end of history is li!eral insofar as itrecogni/es and protects through a system of law man*s universal right tofreedom, and democratic insofar as it e&ists only with the consent of thegoverned. 2or $o5ve, this so(called universal homogenous state foundreal(life em!odiment in the countries of postwar Western %urope (precisely those fla!!y, prosperous, self(satisfied, inward(loo"ing, wea"(

willed states whose grandest proect was nothing more heroic than thecreation of the Common #ar"et.:8; 'ut this was only to !e e&pected. 2orhuman history and the conflict that characteri/ed it was !ased on thee&istence of contradictions) primitive man*s uest for mutual recognition,the dialectic of the master and slave, the transformation and mastery ofnature, the struggle for the universal recognition of rights, and thedichotomy !etween proletarian and capitalist. 'ut in the universalhomogenous state, all prior contradictions are resolved and all humanneeds are satisfied. There is no struggle or conflict over large issues, andconseuently no need for generals or statesmen4 what remains is primarilyeconomic activity. And indeed, $o5ve*s life was consistent with his

teaching. 'elieving that there was no more wor" for philosophers as well,since Hegel Bcorrectly understood had already achieved a!solute"nowledge, $o5ve left teaching after the war and spent the remainder ofhis life wor"ing as a !ureaucrat in the %uropean %conomic Community,until his death in 07@?.

To his contemporaries at mid(century, $o5ve*s proclamation of the end ofhistory must have seemed li"e the typical eccentric solipsism of a 2renchintellectual, coming as it did on the heels of World War II and at the veryheight of the Cold War. To comprehend how $o5ve could have !een soaudacious as to assert that history has ended, we must first of allunderstand the meaning of Hegelian idealism.

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II

21 H%G%=, the contradictions that drive history e&ist first of all in the

realm of human consciousness, i.e. on the level of ideas:D; ( not the trivialelection year proposals of American politicians, !ut ideas in the sense oflarge unifying world views that might !est !e understood under the ru!ricof ideology. Ideology in this sense is not restricted to the secular ande&plicit political doctrines we usually associate with the term, !ut caninclude religion, culture, and the comple& of moral values underlying anysociety as well.

Hegel*s view of the relationship !etween the ideal and the real or materialworlds was an e&tremely complicated one, !eginning with the fact that forhim the distinction !etween the two was only apparent.:E; He did not!elieve that the real world conformed or could !e made to conform toideological preconceptions of philosophy professors in any simplemindedway, or that the material world could not impinge on the ideal. Indeed,Hegel the professor was temporarily thrown out of wor" as a result of avery material event, the 'attle of +ena. 'ut while Hegel*s writing andthin"ing could !e stopped !y a !ullet from the material world, the hand onthe trigger of the gun was motivated in turn !y the ideas of li!erty andeuality that had driven the 2rench evolution.

2or Hegel, all human !ehavior in the material world, and hence all human

history, is rooted in a prior state of consciousness ( an idea similar to theone e&pressed !y +ohn #aynard $eynes when he said that the views ofmen of affairs were usually derived from defunct economists andacademic scri!!lers of earlier generations. This consciousness may not !ee&plicit and self(aware, as are modern political doctrines, !ut may ratherta"e the form of religion or simple cultural or moral ha!its. And yet thisrealm of consciousness in the long run necessarily !ecomes manifest inthe material world, indeed creates the material world in its own image.Consciousness is cause and not effect, and can develop autonomouslyfrom the material world4 hence the real su!te&t underlying the apparentum!le of current events is the history of ideology.

Hegel*s idealism has fared poorly at the hands of later thin"ers. #ar&reversed the priority of the real and the ideal completely, relegating theentire realm of consciousness ( religion, art, culture, philosophy itself ( to asuperstructure that was determined entirely !y the prevailing materialmode of production. Fet another unfortunate legacy of #ar&ism is ourtendency to retreat into materialist or utilitarian e&planations of political orhistorical phenomena, and our disinclination to !elieve in the autonomouspower of ideas. A recent e&ample of this is -aul $ennedy*s hugelysuccessful The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, which ascri!es the

decline of great powers to simple economic overe&tension. 1!viously, thisis true on some level) an empire whose economy is !arely a!ove the levelof su!sistence cannot !an"rupt its treasury indefinitely. 'ut whether a

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highly productive modern industrial society chooses to spend 8 or percent of its GN- on defense rather than consumption is entirely a matterof that society*s political priorities, which are in turn determined in therealm of consciousness.

The materialist !ias of modern thought is characteristic not only of peopleon the =eft who may !e sympathetic to #ar&ism, !ut of many passionateanti(#ar&ists as well. Indeed, there is on the ight what one might la!elthe Wall


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intellectual weight of materialism is such that not a single respecta!lecontemporary theory of economic development addresses consciousnessand culture seriously as the matri& within which economic !ehavior isformed.

2AI=3% to understand that the roots of economic !ehavior lie in the realmof consciousness and culture leads to the common mista"e of attri!utingmaterial causes to phenomena that are essentially ideal in nature. 2ore&ample, it is commonplace in the West to interpret the reformmovements first in China and most recently in the


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diverse consumer culture made possi!le !y them seem to !oth foster andpreserve li!eralism in the political sphere. I want to avoid the materialistdeterminism that says that li!eral economics inevita!ly produces li!eralpolitics, !ecause I !elieve that !oth economics and politics presuppose anautonomous prior state of consciousness that ma"es them possi!le. 'ut

that state of consciousness that permits the growth of li!eralism seems tosta!ili/e in the way one would e&pect at the end of history if it isunderwritten !y the a!undance of a modern free mar"et economy. Wemight summari/e the content of the universal homogenous state as li!eraldemocracy in the political sphere com!ined with easy access to Cs andstereos in the economic.


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III

HA% W% in fact reached the end of history Are there, in other words, any

fundamental contradictions in human life that cannot !e resolved in theconte&t of modern li!eralism, that would !e resolva!le !y an alternativepolitical(economic structure If we accept the idealist premises laid outa!ove, we must see" an answer to this uestion in the realm of ideologyand consciousness. 1ur tas" is not to answer e&haustively the challengesto li!eralism promoted !y every crac"pot messiah around the world, !utonly those that are em!odied in important social or political forces andmovements, and which are therefore part of world history. 2or ourpurposes, it matters very little what strange thoughts occur to people inAl!ania or 'ur"ina 2aso, for we are interested in what one could in somesense call the common ideological heritage of man"ind.

In the past century, there have !een two maor challenges to li!eralism,those of fascism and of communism. The former:00; saw the politicalwea"ness, materialism, anomie, and lac" of community of the West asfundamental contradictions in li!eral societies that could only !e resolved!y a strong state that forged a new people on the !asis of nationale&clusiveness. 2ascism was destroyed as a living ideology !y World War II.This was a defeat, of course, on a very material level, !ut it amounted to adefeat of the idea as well. What destroyed fascism as an idea was notuniversal moral revulsion against it, since plenty of people were willing to

endorse the idea as long as it seemed the wave of the future, !ut its lac"of success. After the war, it seemed to most people that German fascismas well as its other %uropean and Asian variants were !ound to self(destruct. There was no material reason why new fascist movements couldnot have sprung up again after the war in other locales, !ut for the factthat e&pansionist ultranationalism, with its promise of unending conflictleading to disastrous military defeat, had completely lost its appeal. Theruins of the eich chancellery as well as the atomic !om!s dropped onHiroshima and Nagasa"i "illed this ideology on the level of consciousnessas well as materially, and all of the pro(fascist movements spawned !y theGerman and +apanese e&amples li"e the -eronist movement in Argentina

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of economic ineuality do not have to do with the underlying legal andsocial structure of our society, which remains fundamentally egalitarianand moderately redistri!utionist, so much as with the cultural and socialcharacteristics of the groups that ma"e it up, which are in turn thehistorical legacy of premodern conditions. Thus !lac" poverty in the 3nited


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contri!ution that +apan has made in turn to world history !y following inthe footsteps of the 3nited


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and most importantly it continues to !e ruled !y a self(appointedCommunist party which has given no hint of wanting to devolve power.Jeng has made none of Gor!achev*s promises regarding democrati/ationof the political system and there is no Chinese euivalent of ghost. TheChinese leadership has in fact !een much more circumspect in critici/ing

#ao and #aoism than Gor!achev with respect to 're/hnev and 9,999 Chinese students studyingin the 3.


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that could undo many of the changes that have ta"en place to date.#oreover, it is hard to !e too sanguine a!out the chances for success ofGor!achev*s proposed reforms, either in the sphere of economics orpolitics. 'ut my purpose here is not to analy/e events in the short(term, orto ma"e predictions for policy purposes, !ut to loo" at underlying trends in

the sphere of ideology and consciousness. And in that respect, it is clearthat an astounding transformation has occurred.

Lmigr6s from the


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see"s to legitimi/e and therefore strengthen the C-


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in the


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'ut it is not clear that nationalism rep resents an irreconcila!lecontradiction in the heart of li!eralism. In the first place, nationalism is notone single phenomenon !ut several, ranging from mild cultural nostalgiato the highly organi/ed and ela!orately articulated doctrine of National


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I

WHAT A% the implications of the end of history for international relations

Clearly, the vast !ul" of the Third World remains very much mired inhistory, and will !e a terrain of conflict for many years to come. 'ut let usfocus for the time !eing on the larger and more developed states of theworld who after all account for the greater part of world politics. ussiaand China are not li"ely to oin the developed nations of the West as li!eralsocieties any time in the foreseea!le future, !ut suppose for a momentthat #ar&ism(=eninism ceases to !e a factor driving the foreign policies ofthese states ( a prospect which, if not yet here, the last few years havemade a real possi!ility. How will the overall characteristics of a de(ideologi/ed world differ from those of the one with which we are familiar atsuch a hypothetical uncture

The most common answer is ( not very much. 2or there is a verywidespread !elief among many o!servers of international relations thatunderneath the s"in of ideology is a hard core of great power nationalinterest that guarantees a fairly high level of competition and conflict!etween nations. Indeed, according to one academically popular school ofinternational relations theory, conflict inheres in the international systemas such, and to understand the prospects for conflict one must loo" at theshape of the system ( for e&ample, whether it is !ipolar or multipolar (rather than at the specific character of the nations and regimes that

constitute it. This school in effect applies a Ho!!esian view of politics tointernational relations, and assumes that aggression and insecurity areuniversal characteristics of human societies rather than the product ofspecific historical circumstances.

'elievers in this line of thought ta"e the relations that e&isted !etween theparticipants in the classical nineteenth century %uropean !alance of poweras a model for what a de(ideologi/ed contemporary world would loo" li"e.Charles $rauthammer, for e&ample, recently e&plained that if as a result ofGor!achev*s reforms the 3


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saw that economic !ehavior is determined !y a prior state ofconsciousness. In this century, states have adopted highly articulateddoctrines with e&plicit foreign policy agendas legitimi/ing e&pansionism,li"e #ar&ism(=eninism or National


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world politics than the disintegration of the %%C into nineteenth(centurycompetitiveness. Indeed, as our e&periences in dealing with %urope onmatters such as terrorism or =i!ya prove, they are much further gone thanwe down the road that denies the legitimacy of the use of force ininternational politics, even in self(defense.

The automatic assumption that ussia shorn of its e&pansionist communistideology should pic" up where the c/ars left off ust prior to the 'olshevi"evolution is therefore a curious one. It assumes that the evolution ofhuman consciousness has stood still in the meantime, and that the


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has dissipated. 'ut as in -oland, #ar&ism(=eninism is dead as a mo!ili/ingideology) under its !anner people cannot !e made to wor" harder, and itsadherents have lost confidence in themselves. 3nli"e the propagators oftraditional #ar&ism(=eninism, however, ultranationalists in the 3


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TH% -A


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0. $o5ve*s !est "nown wor" is his &ntroduction la lecture de Hegel B-aris) %ditionsGallimard, 07D, which is a transcript of the %cole -ractiue lectures from the 0789*s.This !oo" is availa!le in %nglish entitled &ntroduction to the Reading of Hegelarranged !yaymond ueneau, edited !y Allan 'loom, and translated !y +ames Nichols BNew For")'asic 'oo"s, 07@7.

>. In this respect $o5ve stands in sharp contrast to contemporary German interpreters ofHegel li"e Her!ert #arcuse who, !eing more sympathetic to #ar&, regarded Hegelultimately as an historically !ound and incomplete philosopher.

8. $o5ve alternatively identified the end of history with the postwar American way oflife, toward which he thought the


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universalistic in the sense of #ar&ism or li!eralism, !ut the structure of the doctrine can!e transferred from country to country.

0>. I use the e&ample of +apan with some caution, since $o5ve late in his life came toconclude that +apan, with its culture !ased on purely formal arts, proved that theuniversal homogenous state was not victorious and that history had perhaps not ended.

(8.

08. This is not true in -oland and Hungary, however, whose Communist parties haveta"en moves toward true power sharing and pluralism.

0D. This is particularly true of the leading

fukuyama the end of history

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