Francis Fukuyama wrote a very bold essay in the summer of 1988 where he stated that history had come to a stop, and the west had finally triumphed as the dominant civilization. As the world witnessed the fall of communism and a democratization wave that swept through many countries, especially in Latin America, it seemed to the author that liberal democracy had proven to be the highest form of human society. He declared that history, as a constant struggle between ideologies, had ended. This, of course, did not mean that nothing interesting was going to happen anymore. Fukuyama stated that it only meant the end of other ideologies that pretended to represent higher forms of societies .
Fukuyama was not the first one to formulate the idea of a possible end of history. He cites Marx, Hegel and Kojève as his sources of inspiration.
According to Marx, historic development was driven by an intention determined by material forces leading to communism. Marx then foresees an end of history when communism is established, and all contradictions are resolved. Unfortunately for Marx it did not happen that way.
It was Hegel who saw more clearly that humankind had advanced through a series of stages of consciousness and that each one corresponded to a specific form of social organization. He insisted that with the triumph of the French Revolution, the universalization of the State had become a fact, and the principles of the liberal state could not be bettered by any other form of social organization. Of course, there was still a lot of work to do back then, but the goals had been set by the principles of liberalism, and they would be slowly achieved during the next centuries.
Kojève is a modern philosopher that rescues all these Hegelian ideas. He demonstrates that, even when there have been many wars and conflicts in the last two centuries that might disprove Hegel´s assertion that history was coming to an end, he was right on one essential aspect: the liberal state was the ultimate state. For Kojève, and Fukuyama, the liberal state is the only form of social organization that recognizes and protects individual freedoms.
Fukuyama took this assertion as true, which led him to think that Marxism-Leninism would eventually cease to influence international politics the way it did during most of the twentieth century. There are no important states ruled by Marxism-Leninism anymore, meaning that many states have reached the end of their histories . This end of history would mean an end of conflict among them as they become democratic, leaning towards relations through commerce and trade. It does not mean that there will be no conflicts in the future. In fact, Fukuyama states that it would be perfectly possible to witness a conflict between countries that are in the middle of their history with others that are at the end of it. But this case, according to Fukuyama, would become rarer as other countries adopt liberal democracy as their form of government.
As attractive as it may sound, the author still regrets that history is coming to an end. He believed that if it were true, then art and philosophy would also come to an end. Idealism and courage would be replaced by economic calculus and the need to achieve total customer satisfaction. Maybe this will mean that humanity will get bored very soon, and this boredom might push history forward again.
Bibliography
Fukuyama, Francis. The End of History and the Last Man. New York: Macmillan, 1992.
