Transcription
This is a conversation with Francis Fukuyama, a professor and research fellow at the Stanford University and one of the most famous and influential scholars of political science and international relations of our time. Although he has decades of scholarship behind him, he is by far the most well-known for one book titled The End of History and the Last Man, which is both highly influential and highly misunderstood. In it, he argued that following the fall of the Soviet Union in the early '90s, humanity has reached the final era of human government in the form of liberal democracy.
We talk about what the argument of the book really was and why it is so often misunderstood, as well as about why the end of history never happened, about why history seems to have taken a turn backwards, and why we're seeing a return of large-scale wars and conflicts and democratic backsliding. Why democracies everywhere seem to be going through a major crisis and how to fix that? Or what if history isn't ending, is it ahead of us now? And what, despite all of that, still gives him hope that liberal democracy is not going anywhere just yet.
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Okay. So, welcome to the podcast.
>> Thank you very much.
>> You are one of the most famous and influential political scientists in the world and of our generation. And someone who I think is fair to say has had enormous influence on how we think about democracy and its competition with other forms of governance. And I'd like to talk about all of those things. But I think before that, a good place to start would be with the fact that despite all of this, your by far, you know, most famous work, The End of History, is quite often misunderstood. And it's often presented in a very oversimplified and perhaps incorrect way that, um, where many people are basically understanding it as you saying back in the '90s, when when you wrote it, that liberal democracy has won forever and that it was the end of conflict and end of change and that everything was sort of supposed to stay the same and just continue to get better. And I think that's not really what what what you meant with that. But I assume that many people listening to this don't really know the details of your work and probably only have a surface-level understanding of it. So maybe to start, would you explain what you actually meant and what you think people still get wrong about your thesis?
>> Uh, sure. So the phrase "the end of history" was not mine. It was really, um, a concept of the philosopher Hegel in the early 19th century. Uh, Hegel was the first historicist philosopher, meaning that he believed that human societies and human norms changed over time, uh, basically in a progressive manner. And so for him, history was history with a capital H, which we today might label development or modernization. And, uh, you know, to me, it's there's just no question that modernization is a phenomenon that's happened and it's real. It's very meaningful. Uh, and the end of history really, uh, is not the ceasing of events. It's where is modernization taking us? The most modernized societies are going to look like what? Now, Karl Marx took the concept of history from Hegel. He used it for his own purposes and he also believed in the concept of an end of history. The Marxist end of history would be a communist society, uh, where private property had been abolished. There was a dictatorship of the proletariat. Uh, and, you know, the argument that I was making back in 1989 was that the Hegelian version, where the end of history was really a liberal state and a market economy, looked much more likely than a communist, uh, end of history. Uh, and I still believe that that is the case. The other thing that people don't, um, recognize is that the book version of this argument, uh, was entitled The End of History and the Last Man. The Last Man, uh, was a phrase of Nietzsche, who critiqued the idea of the Hegelian end of history. Uh, and he basically argued that, uh, the victory of a liberal society, uh, that produced peace and prosperity, would ultimately not be satisfying for many people. That people want to aspire to something higher, uh, than just living comfortable, you know, prosperous lives. Uh, and that that would lead to instability in democracies. And so the last five chapters of that book were all about ways in which democracy could break down in the future. And I think that a lot of those, um, speculations are proving to be true. I mean, they're playing out as we speak. I think that a lot of the right-wing, uh, populism that you see in many countries around the world, you know, it's very hard to understand why it's happening right now because in many ways the world is better than it ever was in terms of material prosperity, in terms of, you know, basic political stability. But I think that there are a lot of people that don't want to be Last Men. You know, that they aren't content with simple peace and prosperity, which is what liberal democracy has brought them. Uh, but they want something more. And as a result, they're turning against liberal democracy and, you know, trying to go for something different, like, you know, a return to some form of, um, uh, of exclusive nationalism.
>> Do you ever get tired after the three, more than three decades since you since you came up with the thesis of how often it gets misinterpreted and how often you have to maybe correct people about what was it that you actually wrote?
>> Well, it's been, it's been several times a week ever since, you know, 1992. So, yeah, I do get tired of it.
>> I want to talk about a few things that you've already hinted on about both the the core argument and what you wrote about might come and how where we are today. And I think it's interesting to start on how different the world looked like back in the late '80s, early '90s when you wrote the book and how it looks like today because back then, re-liberal democracy, obviously after the fall of, um, the Eastern bloc communist regimes and Soviet Union, seemed to be advancing everywhere. And looking at the world today, it's kind of the opposite. There's now less democracies, fewer democracies than there was previously. Autocratic powers are on the rise. How much of that, what the trajectory? How surprising was that to you?
>> Um, well, since I had, uh, speculated at some length about the ways in which democracy could break down, uh, it's not a complete surprise that a lot of that is being borne out today. The thing that is the most surprising though, is what's happened in the United States because I really did not think that American voters would, uh, you know, elect somebody like Donald Trump and not just elect him once, but elect him twice, even after he had tried to overturn the 2020 election. Uh, I thought that Americans were much more committed to liberal democracy, uh, than that vote, uh, indicated. And so that's been a huge disappointment and it's also very serious for the rest of the world because when the United States begins acting like an authoritarian power, that gives permission to every other country to, you know, backslide from, uh, good democratic practice and the rule of law.
>> Isn't Donald Trump kind of a, doesn't his rise as a president sort of symbolize what you wrote in the second part of the book or by the end, in the final chapters of the book, as the revolt of people against the stability and maybe against just living in in in peace and having too good? Isn't he the disruptor that that you spoke about might come?
>> Yeah, I, I think, uh, that's true. If you listen to him, he says, uh, that things have never been worse. You know, that the United States, uh, is being destroyed from within. Uh, the country is not recognizable, uh, anymore. All of these are just absurd assumptions. You know, the United States is peaceful. It's prosperous. Uh, you know, it's one thing in the 1930s when, uh, you know, Germany had suffered defeat in the First World War, then hyperinflation, then economic, uh, collapse. You know, in a way, you can understand the rise of fascism, uh, under those circumstances because they went through a very, very extreme, uh, set of traumas. But the United States has not done that. You know, it's, uh, it's we've had the COVID epidemic. We've had a mild case of inflation, but compared to the historical disruptions that the United States itself has experienced, it's nothing. I mean, we're actually living in one of the best, uh, uh, imaginable times. If you look back at the Great Depression in the early 1930s, the unemployment rate in the United States was over 20%. Uh, you had, uh, you know, millions and millions of people out of work, uh, and a general world order that was very much disrupted with the rise of communism and fascism. Uh, and yet the American people at that point did not vote like the German people or the Italian people for, uh, a dictator. They, you know, they voted for Franklin Roosevelt and they stayed well within the bounds of, you know, a recognizable democracy. But this time around, under much more benign circumstances, we're getting, you know, Donald Trump. And I think the only explanation for that is something like this, uh, what I had talked about, boredom at the end of history, that people just don't like the prospect of continuing peace and prosperity. They want to struggle. They want to pretend that they're fighting for something higher. And that has proved to be very disruptive for American democracy.
>> I guess another thing that comes to mind that we have now, but we didn't have before, is the way that information is is circulated in society. And obviously, we, the way now information works and how you, how easily you can reach people through social media. Do you think that is playing some kind of a significant role or is that just maybe, um, an additional factor, but not the key one?
>> Well, I actually wrote a piece about this, uh, recently on my blog, called "It's the Internet, Stupid." I think that, you know, there have been all sorts of explanations given for the rise of populism at this particular moment, but I think the one that is probably the most persuasive is actually the internet, uh, and social media, because it really has taken away, uh, the kinds of controls that existed over information. You know, previously, there had been certain, uh, intermediaries that, you know, could vouch for the credibility of basic factual information. You know, these are traditional media companies, newspapers, television, you know, and the like. There was obviously a lot of distortion and bias and whatnot, but, you know, they weren't broadcasting just outright lies. The internet has permitted, uh, anybody to say anything and to get really big audiences, uh, to listen to them. And that's exactly what's happened. And so you got this very weird phenomenon of the anti-vaccine movement, where, you know, vaccines have been one of the great miracles of, you know, the past century, uh, and yet you've got millions of people that somehow think that they're actually dangerous, uh, and, you know, have stopped taking them. So I don't think that that kind of thing could have happened without the internet and without, uh, social media.
>> Do you think that this kind of era of craziness is sort of, when it comes to internet and social media, is kind of a temporary thing where we will eventually learn how to exist with this type of technology, or is it more of a permanent change and it's just going to get crazier and crazier?
>> Yeah. Well, you haven't even mentioned artificial intelligence yet, which is actually going to be probably even more effective in destroying the credibility of a lot of existing, uh, information sources. Yeah, I, you know, I, I can't answer that question. I think that every other wave of technological disruption eventually, uh, was overcome and people learned how to regulate it and, uh, adapt to it. And I suspect that that's, uh, you know, going to happen in this case. Um, uh, if it doesn't, I think, you know, modern democracy is in a lot of trouble. You know, there, there are other potential technological, uh, disruptions. I published a book in, uh, I think it was 2001, called Our Posthuman Future, where I talked about biotechnology and I argued that if you have a technology that's actually capable of altering human nature, that that is going to have huge political implications for our understanding of human rights and what a human being is. And that's a revolution that hasn't really even begun to unfold yet.
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And going back to Trump, do you see him as more of a temporary aberration, as something that happened by a crazy mix of coincidences, and that when his term finishes, things will sort of go back to the way they were before? Or do you see him as someone, maybe with the movement that he's going to leave behind, who has and will kind of change America forever? And I guess in what way would that change look like?
>> Well, I think that he is a uniquely talented politician and it is going to be very hard to undo, uh, what he has created. He's created a movement and actually one of the most depressing things is to see how many followers he has recruited and how many normally intelligent people are willing to help him and, you know, repeat his ridiculous arguments, you know, about vaccines, about the election, uh, so forth. And so we're going to be stuck with a, uh, right-wing movement for some time to come. Uh, whether that is a permanent change in, you know, our politics, uh, is hard to say. Uh, I do think that you're already seeing a reaction. We had an election last week in which, um, you know, the Democrats, the opposition, did extraordinarily well. Uh, if they win the, um, control of the House of Representatives next November, that will put a serious, uh, damper on Trump's ability to do things. Um, you know, actually, quite frankly, the thing I worry about right now is whether we actually can have a free and fair election in the United States because Trump already demonstrated that he is willing to overturn an election. Uh, and, you know, he may try to do it again. Uh, so we'll have to see. But assuming that we actually do have an election, uh, that, um, constitutes a setback to Trump, you know, there's, there's a path forward where, you know, we may be able to get past the worst of this kind of populism.
>> Is that everything we're talking about kind of changing how you thought about all of this back then when you wrote The End of History?
>> Well, I, look, there's, there's a lot of things I, uh, you know, I've changed my mind about. I wrote this two-volume series, uh, The Origins of Political Order and then the second volume, Political Order and Political Decay. And that was really an attempt to rewrite The End of History, uh, uh, based on, you know, what I understand now about the evolution of human politics. And, you know, there's several, uh, major revisions that have were already contained in those two v, excuse me, those two volumes. The most important, in a way, was my recognition of the importance of having a modern, impersonal state. That's something I didn't really appreciate when I wrote The End of History back in 1991. And the other was the concept of political decay, where, you know, history is not simply forward progress, it can also, uh, go backwards. And I think, you know, right now we're in the midst of a big regression, uh, in democratic institutions. So, you know, I, I've modified my views in, in a lot of different ways, uh, you know, since that time.
>> Would you still agree with the sort of a main thesis is that the irreplaceability or it's inevitability of, um, liberal democracy as maybe not the final stage that never changes, but still the, the system that we haven't come up with a better alternative and people will, um, sort of head in that trajectory. Nevertheless?
>> Well, um, first of all, I never argued that liberal democracy was inevitable. Um, you know, the question really was a much more modest one. Uh, is there a, an, a systematic alternative to liberal democracy and a market economy that looked like it was going to be more successful, more stable, uh, you know, more satisfying for people to live under? And on that question, I don't really see, uh, a, a, a an alternative. The one, the country that came closest or comes closest is really China, which has an authoritarian political system and a semi-market economy, and it's been very impressive, you know, the, um, uh, the degree to which they've consolidated, consolidated that regime. Uh, is it going to be an alternative that people will be turning to in the future? That I'm less certain about because I'm not sure that you can replicate the Chinese model in, you know, most other countries. Uh, but that's, I think that's still an open question. The one, the one issue that I think, uh, probably needed the most serious revision was modernization theory because at the time I wrote The End of History and the Last Man, uh, I believed in some version of modernization theory that said that along with economic development and the, uh, growth of a modern, um, industrial, then an information economy, that there would be greater political incentives to move towards a more liberal form of political organization. And, you know, at the time, uh, there were several cases of this, uh, Taiwan, Japan, Korea had all industrialized and they had all made a transition to, uh, pretty successful liberal democracies. Uh, but I think now, you know, China has surpassed those countries in terms of per capita income. Uh, and if modernization were simply true, they should have democratized or at least liberalized a long time ago. Uh, and they haven't. And so, you know, the, the view that economic development past a certain point would promote a different kind of, uh, liberal political, uh, uh, structure, I think has proven not to be true.
>> Why do you think that is? Why do you think that the, the reasons why we thought previously that this would happen have turned out to actually not be the reality?
>> Well, there's a lot of things. I mean, democracy, you know, is, uh, rests on a number of things going on in society other than the level of economic development, including, you know, people's past experiences of alternative, uh, forms. And I think that in China, uh, given the instability throughout most of the 20th century, you know, people were actually looking towards, um, a more authoritarian form of government. The other thing is also cultural. That, uh, China, you know, this is what I wrote about in my political order books. Uh, China has been doing centralized government for several millennia. Uh, although you can democratize a Chinese society, as happened in, uh, Taiwan and was happening in Hong Kong, there's a very deep cultural tradition of, you know, obedience to centralized authority. And I think you've seen that, you know, uh, as one of the supports for the Chinese Communist Party in recent years.
>> I do. On that note, I do have to say that I had a chance to study with several Chinese students in Western universities and in every single case, um, they have seen democracy as a Western concept rather than something that would be universal and one that just isn't suitable for China, which I'm not saying it's it's true, but it's, it, it was interesting to see.
>> Yeah. I mean, it's, uh, it's a reflection of the time also because I think 20, 30 years ago, a lot of those same students would have said, yes, Western democracy is a model that we want to follow. But Western democracy hasn't been looking very good lately. So, uh, it's not surprising that they are reverting now to, you know, older traditions.
>> Well, talking about China, I think in general in the '90s, the ratio of democracies and autocracies was definitely going in favor of democracies and now it has shifted and there we're having more autocracies and fewer democracies. Do you think that maybe in the '90s, in the euphoria, we have kind of underestimated how resilient autocracies and these types of regimes can be?
>> Uh, yeah, I think that it's not just the resilience of the regimes. I think there's some underlying social factors that have, uh, led to that result. Um, yeah, I mean, look, democracy has come in waves. Uh, the third wave began in the early '70s with Spain and Portugal, and it crested around the time of the global, uh, financial crisis in 2008. But, you know, you've had prior, you've had the first and second waves, uh, previously, and so there was never a linear, uh, movement towards democracy. So the real question is, are we going to see some kind of permanent regression, or is this, you know, another wave that's going to be followed by another wave of, you know, pro-democratic, uh, movement? And, you know, we simply don't know at the moment.
>> Do you, do you have a theory?
>> No, I don't have a theory.
>> Do, do you, do you have a personal guess?
>> Uh, well, I think that there's some real downsides to authoritarian government. Uh, first of all, you know, economic, I think the Chinese have made, uh, their economy work, but that's based on adoption of a lot of, uh, liberal market principles, and they're also, they've also made some really big mistakes in terms of state intervention in their, uh, economy. Um, and there's also real problems with an authoritarian, uh, decision-making system. At certain times, it can be very effective because, you know, you need to respond to an emergency or you need to make certain very fundamental changes in your political system. It's easier to do that if you're an authoritarian government than, uh, a democracy. On the other hand, democracies do have an ability to correct themselves. Uh, and, you know, we may see a big correction in the way that the United States is governed. I mean, it's true, I think that, uh, American government was not by any means, uh, efficient and effective, you know, before the rise of Donald Trump. And so there are still things that need to be fixed about the way our system operates. And I think at least in a true liberal democracy, you have more opportunities to make those adjustments than under an authoritarian regime.
>> I think that's definitely a, a really good observation about how a lot of Western democracies are kind of losing their appeal because they're not really seen as that effective systems, and it does seem quite objective that a lot of Western democracies kind of struggle with the governance that maybe previously they were a lot better at. Why do you think that is? Why does the system, it seems like if the plumbing was kind of getting worse over time, why, why do you think that is?
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