Not the end of history

It is thirty years since Francis Fukuyama’s essay “The End of History?” was published in the magazine The National Interest. It was subsequently fleshed out into a book which elevated Fukuyama to the first rank of commentators on global geopolitical issues. Viewed from the perspective of three decades later, it is an idea that has not aged well. Fukuyama’s thesis was that liberal democracy had achieved such dominance as a form of government around the world that we had reached “the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.” This was pretentious hubris in 1989. Today, the argument just looks crass.

There is no doubt that the argument has been hugely influential amongst western leaders. The likes of Bill Clinton and Tony Blair went to great lengths to use foreign policy as a tool to promote western values. The “end of history” mind-set also underpinned the development of the EU. Following the fall of the Iron Curtain, the European Economic Community – whose aim was to promote economic integration amongst its 12 member states – opted to ratify the Maastricht Treaty to create the European Union thus marking a further step on the road to creating an “ever closer union” between the peoples of Europe. It also facilitated an eastward expansion to incorporate 16 new members, many of which had little recent experience of the forms of government practiced in the west. Expansion was based on the idea that membership is open to "any European State which respects the values referred to in Article 2 and is committed to promoting them." Those Article 2 values are "respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities." Very Fukuyama-esque.

All seemed to be proceeding on track until the crash of 2008. Unfortunately, governments over-promised and under-delivered on what they were able to do to stimulate a lasting economic recovery following the great recession, thus paving the way for populists to make political headway and helping to undermine Fukuyama’s ideas. But it is the rise of China that has had a bigger impact on the post-1989 hubris. China can in no way be defined as a liberal democracy, yet the performance of its economy has been the most significant economic event since the dawn of the industrial revolution in the eighteenth century. It would be a major stretch to assume that the majority of Chinese would be prepared to swap their system of government for the rapid rise in living standards experienced over the past three decades. An even more extreme example is Russia where moves towards a more democratic system of government coincided with a period of hardship which tilted the scales back towards authoritarianism.

Fukuyama supporters would no doubt point out that there is a distinction between “history” and ”events” where the former represents an overall narrative and the latter are the individual occurrences which go up to make the whole picture. But this is to overlook the fact that events can have a significant impact on the overall course of history. Fukuyama’s thesis rests on the notion that even if we deviate from the path of liberal democracy, it will eventually reassert itself in the long run, but this is not particularly helpful if we end up in a prolonged period of deviation from the “ideal” – as those who lived through the period 1914 to 1945 might testify.

Fast forward to the present day and the takeaway is that those who dismiss concerns regarding the behaviour of Donald Trump or the fragmentation of European politics as a short-term problem may be missing the point. Trump clearly has no interest in finding an accommodation with China on trade issues and indeed has ratcheted up the pressure in recent months. Tempting though it is to put this down to posturing ahead of the 2020 election, it would be naïve in the extreme to expect him to change his position in his second term as President (assuming he is re-elected). Rules-based liberal democracy is not part of Trump’s makeup and even if he does prove to be an aberration from the US presidential norm, he could do sufficient damage to Sino-US relations in the interim that ends up inflicting significant long-term damage on the US and undermining the cause of liberal democracy on both sides of the Pacific.

In a similar vein, those expecting the current shenanigans over Brexit to be resolved easily and quickly will also be disappointed. The idea that “something will turn up” is a Micawberish way of thinking that does not do justice to the magnitude of the problem. Too many politicians have signed up to the Fukuyama view that politics will quickly tend towards the liberal democratic norm. But the grand sweep of history suggests that societies are often plunged into chaos by sudden and unexpected events which overwhelm the system’s capacity to respond and a long period of adjustment then ensues. In the case of Brexit, politicians cannot hide behind the excuse that a no-deal Brexit is unexpected. Indeed, many of them have advocated it. But a generation of politicians that has grown up without bad things happening because something always turns up may be pushing their (and our) luck too far.

In my view, Fukuyama’s assertion of an end of history makes the mistake of assuming history as some form of linear progression. Perhaps it should be thought of as a 3D spiral, in which we appear to be making progress in one dimension whilst going over the same old ground in another (see chart). Or as Mark Twain (allegedly) said, “history doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes” which is why we should wake up to the damage that Trump or a no-deal Brexit might cause rather than assume it will quickly pass.