U.S attacked Iraq over rumors of W.M.D's

[Mr Khan]

badgenome said:

Mr Khan said:

I'd argue that Fukuyama is right in a broad-strokes sense, but the wrong step the American neo-cons took with it was in assuming this sort of thing could be rushed (really, the same mistake was made by Socialism and Communism. Societies less prepared for a stable sharing of wealth are just going to see class-genocide and looting). Countries that are not ready for democracy have a high probability of just melting down when democracy is thrust upon them from the outside.

Liberalization worked (to a degree) in Eastern Europe because the Communists had spent 40 to 70 years educating their people and building all sorts of infrastructure, and the eastern-european countries were mostly homogenous nation-states that would not have a lot of internal ethnic strife (or, like the Soviet Union, could be divided easily into sorta-homogenous zones).

The middle east, both far less developed and with a careless geography that cared more about the balance of power than who actually wanted to live in which country, could not have the same notions applied to it.

I don't think he's right, although arguably according to the way he worded his claim he is also incapable of being wrong. He was just being a typical academic, trying to be too cute by half. If you define the end of history as the pinnacle of political (not cultural, nor technological) evolution because no progression is possible beyond that point, and then stipulate that any change for the worse represents regression rather than evolution and is therefore not the continuation or resumption of history... well, that leaves very little to argue over except whether or not liberal democracy is really the farthest point we are capable of reaching. It mangles the definition of the word "history" beyond the point of recognition.

Human history is fraught with examples of societies taking huge leaps backwards or sliding into complete ruin altogether through sheer decadence, returning all the way to barbarism. Of course, Fukuyama acknowledges that such set backs can happen but insists that these are just "events" and not part of "history" as he defines it and waves it away as all being just temporary, even though by his definition temporary can mean centuries.

I really think he was just caught up in the triumphialism of the time and attempted to be provocative by playing word games. I have to admit, it is a hell of a book title. He certainly captured the zeitgeist with that one. But rereading it now it already seems hilariously dated.

"History" is not going to end, of course, but European-style social democracy does seem to be the terminal point of political evolution, where basic needs are guaranteed by society but economic freedoms are sufficient to allow for a robust private sector and freedoms of thought are likewise guaranteed.

The changing economics due to the march of technology would largely prevent a backslide to barbarism, short of total nuclear war destroying all of our systems, and we can observe in modernity that countries that achieve democracy rarely stray too far away from some form of democratic rule (which can be observed in many of the anti-communist juntas in South America or Greece, where democracy was restored not because the juntas did anything wrong, but because the people now expected to have it and would not accept otherwise).

I have to look in more to Fukuyama's specific thought, though. His was a name that was thrown around a lot in my major in college, but we were never taught much of it beyond the boiled-down version.

The Arab Spring being a largely home-grown, spontaneous event does demonstrate that the Middle East is nearing democratic maturity, but the problem in uneven urbanization and social development (where the urbanites are ready for democracy but the rural majority just wants sharia theocracy) is what upsets it in the near time.