Fukuyama swiftly became an intellectual superstar, turning the essay into his first book The End of History and the Last Man, published in 1992. There he ofered an extended explanation of his core hypothesis from three years earlier, outlining how history is primarily driven by ideas constantly competing with one another. As a result, by the 1990s liberal democracy, and by extension market capitalism, reigned supreme because no viable alternative remained. While in a sense that was true – the USSR had just disintegrated – it failed to grasp how the gravest challenges are more likely to emerge from internal contradiction or external, unanticipated, shock than an absence of consent.
For Fukuyama the end of history signalled a world defined by economic calculation and ‘the endless solving of technical problems, environmental concerns, and the satisfaction of sophisticated consumer demands’. And yet the present moment, defined by challenges such as rising temperatures, technological unemployment, income inequality and societal ageing – to name just a few – poses questions which extend beyond mere technical competence. If Fukuyama’s words were naive in 1992, then in the decade that followed the financial crisis of 2008 they became positively ridiculous. Indeed, he admitted as much in a book he published on identity in 2018.
But the stakes are greater than simply being right or wrong on an issue of academic detail. Because worse than naive credulity or mistaking a brief moment for historic permanence, many in power still view Fukuyama’s hypothesis as sacrosanct. Three decades after the end of the Cold War the legacy of his work is a political ‘common sense ’ that actively obstructs us from addressing the great challenges we face. After all, why would decisive action – particularly if it undermined the interests of business and profit – be necessary if nothing really changes?
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chaos under heaven