The End of History and the Last Man

Or: The Case for Democracy and Free Markets

The End of History and the Last Man was written in 1992 by the American political scientist Francis Fukuyuma and became a symbol of democratic optimism in the post Cold War era. Despite the fact that I previously read and enjoyed two other Fukuyama books - The Origins of Political Order and Political Order and Political Decay - I only now had a chance to read his most famous book.

A common misconception about The End of History and the Last Man is that Fukuyama predicts that democracies have vanquished their enemies for good and therefore history is over. In fact, Fukuyama describes History as the development of human thought and organization, and makes a detailed argument how non-democratic organization of society (authoritarianism, monarchy, feudalism, slavery, religious states, fascism, communism) have tried and failed to sustain their hold on societies.

Fundamentally, Fukuyama details a Darwinian process in which societies attempt various systems of government, fight each other using culture, economics and war, the stronger ones persist, which go on to fight each other, and so on and so forth. Using that logic he makes the argument that democracy coupled with free market capitalism is a candidate to be "The Winner" of History, though he acknowledges that this structure of society can itself evolve into more powerful forms of government. The book marks an equivalence between political history and science. In science knowledge is accumulated and, while one can promote and study pseudoscience, they will inevitably fall behind in achievement behind peers that don't.

It seems to me that Fukuyama's argument on free market capitalism stands on solid ground and holds up to scrutiny. As the world becomes more complex, central planning of economies seems impossible, exemplified by the fact that the successful nations of the world have built themselves on a more or less free market economy. Some rich countries have capitalizing on luck, having access to valuable natural resources, but access to natural resources clearly can't be a strategy for building a prosperous society when such access doesn't exist.

China under Deng Xiaoping and his successors has provided a powerful example for this idea, by ostensibly hanging on the "Communist" label while instituting a largely market economy. Interestingly, Xi Jinping has in recent years attempted to reverse this idea, labeling markets as dangerous and pushing the government to assert more control over the Chinese economy (see WSJ ($) and WSJ ($)). If Fukuyama is correct in his analysis (I believe he is), this will be a risky move on Xi's part, as it will limit the potential growth of the Chinese economy and therefore the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Contrary to Fukuyama's solid argument on free market capitalism, I believe his argument on democracy is less solid. Fukuyama acknowledges the success of many countries that combined authoritarianism with free market economies and thrived during the 20th century, and he points that many of them eventually transitioned to democracy (e.g. Korea, Spain, Chile). While this is true, he doesn't prove that such a shift is inevitable. His strongest argument on this front is that to sustain a thriving economy one must create a strong middle class, which eventually wants civil rights. To me Singapore and pre-Xi China provide interesting counterexamples, though it could be the case that one has to wait many decades for the process to play out.

Finally, who is The Last Man that Fukuyama refers to?

This is the aspect of the book that's rather philosophical. The book touches on the theories of philosophers like Hegel and Marx, and describes the idea of a First Man - a person who is interested not only in staying safe and fed but yearns for freedom and honor, so much so that they're willing to (as Hegel put it) "risk their life in a battle for pure prestige". This is a fundamental analysis of human beings, who are uniquely willing to abandon their supposed self interest and group interest in favor of honor and dignity.

Given this concept, Fukuyama raises the question - What happens to the honor and dignity of people in a society in which their needs are taken care of? In a rich democratic free market society, what does "The Last Man of History" care about? How does he or she achieve the goal of honor and dignity?

Fukuyama doesn't provide a definitive answer to this question and keeps it open as a question of the evolution of History. He does note that even in cases of abundance, historically people have found ways to gain prestige without fighting each other but by inventing new ways to be valued by their community. This inherently entails the risk of creating outer and inner groups which could lead to nationalism, xenophobia and war, but Fukuyama is less concerned about that aspect. He says that while nationalism has led to wars in the past, in the End of History nationalistic countries usually want to close their borders and focus inward, and not the other way around. In this aspect I believe he's mostly correct.

All in all, The End of History and the Last Man is a dense but satisfying book, which provides a deep analysis of fundamental aspects of philosophy and political science, much like Fukuyama's other books.