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.
