Fukuyama: Expect More Violence Before America Returns to Sanity
The famed political philosopher still believes in democracy’s ultimate triumph but says the “end of history” has been sidetracked by unforeseen forces.
Perhaps no idea since the end of the Cold War has been more debated—and disputed—than Francis Fukuyama’s concept of the “end of history.” In a 1989 essay that used the phrase as a title, though as a question, and then in his 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man, the Stanford University political philosopher argued that with the collapse of communism, the way was clear for the worldwide spread of liberal democracy and Western-style capitalism. He suggested that humankind might have achieved a kind of endpoint in its sociopolitical evolution. But things didn’t work out so simply, and Fukuyama has spent the last 30 years taking on critics and further developing his views.
Michael Hirsh is a columnist for Foreign Policy. He is the author of two books: Capital Offense: How Washington’s Wise Men Turned America’s Future Over to Wall Street and At War With Ourselves: Why America Is Squandering Its Chance to Build a Better World. Twitter: @michaelphirsh
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