CSULA Economics Essay

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Economics

California State University Los Angeles

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1. For this essay, read the articles “The End of History?” by Fukuyama and “It’s Still Not the End of History,” by Timothy Stanley and Alexander Lee. Fukuyama’s essay was written in1989. He believed that the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of communism in Eastern Europe (and other events) meant the triumph of Western liberal democracy as a “final” ideology. Explain what Fukuyama means by “the end of history.” For instance, does he mean the end of historical materialism? The Stanley & Lee article is written 25 years after Fukuyama’s essay. How do Stanley and Lee address Fukuyama’s arguments? In your essay, cite evidence for and against the idea that the end of ideology is here – and express your view at the end of your essay – do you believe now that we are at the end of history? You can use additional material for this essay. Much has been written on this topic.


Short Essay:

What are the similarities and differences between world-systems theory and dependency theory? How did world-systems theorists address some of the criticisms directed at dependency theory?

Research:

Hobson and Lenin largely agreed on the causes of imperialism. What did they see as the main causes of imperialism? Describe in a paragraph.


Extra Credit:

Look at some exchange rates:

a. What is the exchange rate between the U.S. dollar and the British pound, as of March 16th?

b. What is the exchange rate of the U.S dollar for Japanese yen as of March 16th?

c. What is the exchange rate for U.S. dollars and Chinese yuan as of March 16th?

d. How is the exchange rate between the U.S. dollar and the Euro doing? Find the rate for March 16th. Compare it to the rate one year ago.

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Center for the National Interest The End of History? Author(s): Francis Fukuyama Source: The National Interest, No. 16 (Summer 1989), pp. 3-18 Published by: Center for the National Interest Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24027184 Accessed: 21-03-2019 01:48 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Center for the National Interest is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The National Interest This content downloaded from 130.182.4.15 on Thu, 21 Mar 2019 01:48:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms The End of History? -Francis Fukuyama. over the past decade or so, it is daily headlines. The twentieth century saw IN WATCHING the flow of events process that gives coherence and order to the hard to avoid the feeling that the developed world descend into a paroxysm something very fundamental has happened in of ideological violence, as liberalism contend world history. The past year has seen a flood ed first with the remnants of absolutism, then of articles commemorating the end of the Cold bolshevism and fascism, and finally an updat War, and the fact that "peace" seems to be ed Marxism that threatened to lead to the ul breaking out in many regions of the world. timate apocalypse of nuclear war. But the cen Most of these analyses lack any larger con- tury that began full of self-confidence in the ceptual framework for distinguishing be- ultimate triumph of Western liberal democ tween what is essential and what is contingent racy seems at its close to be returning full or accidental in world history, and are pre- circle to where it started: not to an "end of dictably superficial. If Mr. Gorbachev were ideology" or a convergence between capital ousted from the Kremlin or a new Ayatollah ism and socialism, as earlier predicted, but to proclaimed the millennium from a desolate an unabashed victory of economic and polit Middle Eastern capital, these same commen- ical liberalism. tators would scramble to announce the rebirth The triumph of the West, of the Western of a new era of conflict. idea, is evident first of all in the total exhaus And yet, all of these people sense dimly tion of viable systematic alternatives to West that there is some larger process at work, a ern liberalism. In the past decade, there have been unmistakable changes in the intellectual Francis Fukuyama is deputy director of the State climate of the world's two largest communist Department's policy planning staff and former countries, and the beginnings of significant analyst at the rand Corporation. This article reform movements in both. But this phenom is based on a lecture presented at the Univer- enon extends beyond high politics and it can sity of Chicago's John M. Olin Center for In- be seen also in the ineluctable spread of con quiry Into the Theory and Practice of De- sumerist Western culture in such diverse con mocracy. The author would like to pay special texts as the peasants' markets and color tele thanks to the Olin Center and to Nathan Tar- vision sets now omnipresent throughout cov and Allan Bloom for their support in this China, the cooperative restaurants and cloth and many earlier endeavors. The opinions ex- ing stores opened in the past year in Moscow, pressed in this article do not reflect those of the Beethoven piped into Japanese depart the rand Corporation or of any agency of the ment stores, and the rock music enjoyed alike U.S. government. in Prague, Rangoon, and Tehran. The National Interest—Summer 1989 3 This content downloaded from 130.182.4.15 on Thu, 21 Mar 2019 01:48:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of postwar history, but the and not, as earlier natural right theorists would have it, a collection of more or less fixed "natural" attributes. The mastery and trans end of history as such: that is, the end point formation of man's natural environment of mankind's ideological evolution and the is not to say that there will no longer be events through the application of science and tech nology was originally not a Marxist concept, but a Hegelian one. Unlike later historicists whose historical relativism degenerated into to fill the pages of Foreign Affairs's yearly sum relativism tout court, however, Hegel believed maries of international relations, for the vic that history culminated in an absolute mo ment—a moment in which a final, rational universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government. This tory of liberalism has occurred primarily in the realm of ideas or consciousness and is as form of society and state became victorious. yet incomplete in the real or material world. It is Hegel's misfortune to be known now But there are powerful reasons for believing primarily as Marx's precursor, and it is our that it is the ideal that will govern the material misfortune that few of us are familiar with world in the long run. To understand how this Hegel's work from direct study, but only as is so, we must first consider some theoretical it has been filtered through the distorting lens issues concerning the nature of historical change. of Marxism. In France, however, there has been an effort to save Hegel from his Marxist interpreters and to resurrect him as the phi losopher who most correctly speaks to our time. Among those modern French inter THE NOTION end of is not of an the original one.history Its best known propagator was Karl Marx, who be lieved that the direction of historical devel preters of Hegel, the greatest was certainly Alexandre Kojève, a brilliant Russian emigre who taught a highly influential series of sem inars in Paris in the 1930s at the Ecole Practique opment was a purposeful one determined by des Hautes Etudes.1 While largely unknown in the interplay of material forces, and would the United States, Kojève had a major impact come to an end only with the achievement of on the intellectual life of the continent. a communist Utopia that would finally resolve Among his students ranged such future lu all prior contradictions. But the concept ofminaries as Jean-Paul Sartre on the Left and history as a dialectical process with a begin Raymond Aron on the Right; postwar exis ning, a middle, and an end was borrowed by tentialism borrowed many of its basic cate Marx from his great German predecessor, gories from Hegel via Kojève. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Kojève sought to resurrect the Hegel of For better or worse, much of Hegel's his the Phenomenology of Mind, the Hegel who pro toricism has become part of our contemporary claimed history to be at an end in 1806. For intellectual baggage. The notion that mankind as early as this Hegel saw in Napoleon's defeat has progressed through a series of primitiveof the Prussian monarchy at the Battle of Jena stages of consciousness on his path to the pres the victory of the ideals of the French Rev ent, and that these stages corresponded to con crete forms of social organization, such as trib 'Kojève's best-known work is his Introduction à la al, slave-owning, theocratic, and finally lecture de Hegel (Paris: Editions Gallimard, democratic-egalitarian societies, has become inseparable from the modern understanding of man. Hegel was the first philosopher to speak the language of modern social science, of Hegel arranged by Raymond Queneau, edited insofar as man for him was the product of his concrete historical and social environment by Allan Bloom, and translated by James Ni chols (New York: Basic Books, 1969). 1947), which is a transcript of the Ecole Practique lectures from the 1930s. This book is available in English entitled Introduction to the Reading The National Interest—Summer 1989 . This content downloaded from 130.182.4.15 on Thu, 21 Mar 2019 01:48:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms olution, and the imminent universalization of issues, and consequently no need for generals the state incorporating the principles of lib or statesmen; what remains is primarily eco nomic activity. And indeed, Kojève's life was consistent with his teaching. Believing that there was no more work for philosophers as well, since Hegel (correctly understood) had already achieved absolute knowledge, Kojève left teaching after the war and spent the re mainder of his life working as a bureaucrat in the European Economic Community, until erty and equality. Kojève, far from rejecting Hegel in light of the turbulent events of the next century and a half, insisted that the latter had been essentially correct.2 The Battle of Jena marked the end of history because it was at that point that the vanguard of humanity (a term quite familiar to Marxists) actualized the principles of the French Revolution. While there was considerable work to be done after his death in 1968. 1806—abolishing slavery and the slave trade, To his contemporaries at mid-century, Kojève's proclamation of the end of history must have seemed like the typical eccentric solipsism of a French intellectual, coming as extending the franchise to workers, women, blacks, and other racial minorities, etc.—the basic principles of the liberal democratic state could not be improved upon. The two world it did on the heels of World War II and at the wars in this century and their attendant rev olutions and upheavals simply had the effect of extending those principles spatially, such that the various provinces of human civili very height of the Cold War. To comprehend zation were brought up to the level of its most how Kojève could have been so audacious as to assert that history has ended, we must first of all understand the meaning of Hegelian idealism. advanced outposts, and of forcing those so cieties in Europe and North America at the vanguard of civilization to implement their II FOR HEGEL, the exist contradictions drive history first of all inthat the liberalism more fully. The state that emerges at the end of his realm of human consciousness, i.e. on the level tects through a system of law man's universal of ideas4—not the trivial election year pro posals of American politicians, but ideas in right to freedom, and democratic insofar as it the sense of large unifying world views that tory is liberal insofar as it recognizes and pro exists only with the consent of the governed. might best be understood under the rubric of For Kojève, this so-called "universal homo genous state" found real-life embodiment in the countries of postwar Western Europe— precisely those flabby, prosperous, self-satis ideology. Ideology in this sense is not restrict ed to the secular and explicit political doc trines we usually associate with the term, but can include religion, culture, and the complex fied, inward-looking, weak-willed states whose grandest project was nothing more he 2In this respect Kojève stands in sharp contrast to roic than the creation of the Common Mar contemporary German interpreters of Hegel ket.' But this was only to be expected. For human history and the conflict that charac terized it was based on the existence of "con pathetic to Marx, regarded Hegel ultimately as an historically bound and incomplete phi tradictions": primitive man's quest for mutual losopher. like Herbert Marcuse who, being more sym recognition, the dialectic of the master and 'Kojève alternatively identified the end of history with the postwar "American way of life," to slave, the transformation and mastery of na ture, the struggle for the universal recognition ward which he thought the Soviet Union was moving as well. of rights, and the dichotomy between prole tarian and capitalist. But in the universal ho This notion was expressed in the famous aphorism from the preface to the Philosophy of History to mogenous state, all prior contradictions are resolved and all human needs are satisfied. the effect that "everything that is rational is There is no struggle or conflict over "large" real, and everything that is real is rational." The End of History ? This content downloaded from 130.182.4.15 on Thu, 21 Mar 2019 01:48:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms of moral values underlying any society as well. Hegel's view of the relationship between the ideal and the real or material worlds was or historical phenomena, and our disinclina tion to believe in the autonomous power of ideas. A recent example of this is Paul Ken nedy's hugely successful The Rise and Fall of an extremely complicated one, beginning the Great Powers, which ascribes the decline of great powers to simple economic overexten with the fact that for him the distinction be tween the two was only apparent.5 He did not believe that the real world conformed or could sion. Obviously, this is true on some level: an be made to conform to ideological preconcep tions of philosophy professors in any simple minded way, or that the "material" world could not impinge on the ideal. Indeed, Hegel level of subsistence cannot bankrupt its treas ury indefinitely. But whether a highly pro ductive modern industrial society chooses to the professor was temporarily thrown out of rather than consumption is entirely a matter work as a result of a very material event, the of that society's political priorities, which are in turn determined in the realm of conscious Battle of Jena. But while Hegel's writing and thinking could be stopped by a bullet from the material world, the hand on the trigger empire whose economy is barely above the spend 3 or 7 percent of its GNP on defense ness. The materialist bias of modern thought of the gun was motivated in turn by the ideas is characteristic not only of people on the Left of liberty and equality that had driven the who may be sympathetic to Marxism, but of French Revolution. many passionate anti-Marxists as well. In For Hegel, all human behavior in the ma terial world, and hence all human history, is rooted in a prior state of consciousness—an idea similar to the one expressed by John May nard Keynes when he said that the views of men of affairs were usually derived from de funct economists and academic scribblers of deed, there is on the Right what one might label the Wall Street Journal school of deter ministic materialism that discounts the im portance of ideology and culture and sees man as essentially a rational, profit-maximizing in dividual. It is precisely this kind of individual and his pursuit of material incentives that is earlier generations. This consciousness may posited as the basis for economic life as such not be explicit and self-aware, as are modernin economic textbooks.6 One small example political doctrines, but may rather take the will illustrate the problematic character of form of religion or simple cultural or moralsuch materialist views. habits. And yet this realm of consciousness in Max Weber begins his famous book, The the long run necessarily becomes manifest in Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, by the material world, indeed creates the material noting the different economic performance of world in its own image. Consciousness is cause and not effect, and can develop auton omously from the material world; hence the 'Indeed, for Hegel the very dichotomy between the real subtext underlying the apparent jumble ideal and material worlds was itself only an of current events is the history of ideology. apparent one that was ultimately overcome by Hegel's idealism has fared poorly at the hands of later thinkers. Marx reversed the the self-conscious subject; in his system, the material world is itself only an aspect of mind. priority of the real and the ideal completely, "In fact, modern economists, recognizing that man relegating the entire realm of consciousness— does not always behave as a /»ro/ît-maximizer, religion, art, culture, philosophy itself—to a "superstructure" that was determined entire ly by the prevailing material mode of pro duction. Yet another unfortunate legacy of Marxism is our tendency to retreat into ma terialist or utilitarian explanations of political posit a "utility" function, utility being either income or some other good that can be max imized: leisure, sexual satisfaction, or the pleas ure of philosophizing. That profit must be re placed with a value like utility indicates the cogency of the idealist perspective. The National Interest—Summer 1989 . This content downloaded from 130.182.4.15 on Thu, 21 Mar 2019 01:48:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Protestant and Catholic communities strictions on certain forms of economic be havior, throughout Europe and America, summed up and other deeply ingrained moral in the proverb that Protestants eat wellqualities, while are equally important in explaining Catholics sleep well. Weber notes that their ac economic performance.7 And yet the in tellectual weight of materialism is such that cording to any economic theory that posited not the a single respectable contemporary theory man as a rational profit-maximizer, raising of economic development addresses con piece-work rate should increase labor produc sciousness and culture seriously as the matrix tivity. But in fact, in many traditional peasant which economic behavior is formed. communities, raising the piece-work within rate ac tually had the opposite effect of lowering labor productivity: at the higher rate, a peasant ac FAILURE to understand that lie theinroots of economic behavior the customed to earning two and one-half marks realm of consciousness and culture leads to per day found he could earn the same amount by working less, and did so because he valued the common mistake of attributing material leisure more than income. The choices of lei causes to phenomena that are essentially ideal sure over income, or of the militaristic life of in nature. For example, it is commonplace in the Spartan hoplite over the wealth of the the West to interpret the reform movements Athenian trader, or even the ascetic life of the first in China and most recently in the Soviet early capitalist entrepreneur over that of a Union as the victory of the material over the ideal—that is, a recognition that ideological be explained by the impersonal working of incentives could not replace material ones in traditional leisured aristocrat, cannot possibly material forces, but come preeminently out of stimulating a highly productive modern econ the sphere of consciousness—what we have omy, and that if one wanted to prosper one labeled here broadly as ideology. And indeed, had to appeal to baser forms of self-interest. a central theme of Weber's work was to prove But the deep defects of socialist economies that contrary to Marx, the material mode of were evident thirty or forty years ago to any production, far from being the "base," was one who chose to look. Why was it that these itself a "superstructure" with roots in religion countries moved away from central planning and culture, and that to understand the emerg only in the 1980s? The answer must be found in the consciousness of the elites and leaders ence of modern capitalism and the profit mo tive one had to study their antecedents in the realm of the spirit. ruling them, who decided to opt for the "Prot estant" life of wealth and risk over the "Cath As we look around the contemporary olic" path of poverty and security.8 That world, the poverty of materialist theories of economic development is all too apparent. The Wall Street Journal school of deterministic 'One need look no further than the recent per formance of Vietnamese immigrants in the materialism habitually points to the stunning economic success of Asia in the past few dec U.S. school system when compared to their ades as evidence of the viability of free market black or Hispanic classmates to realize that economics, with the implication that all so cieties would see similar development were culture and consciousness are absolutely cru they simply to allow their populations to pur sue their material self-interest freely. Surely cial to explain not only economic behavior but virtually every other important aspect of life as well. free markets and stable political systems are 8I understand that a full explanation of the origins a necessary precondition to capitalist econom of the reform movements in China and Russia ic growth. But just as surely the cultural her is a good deal more complicated than this sim itage of those Far Eastern societies, the ethic ple formula would suggest. The Soviet reform, of work and saving and family, a religious heritage that does not, like Islam, place re for example, was motivated in good measure by Moscow's sense of insecurity in the tech The End of History? . This content downloaded from 130.182.4.15 on Thu, 21 Mar 2019 01:48:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms found itself on the eve of the reform, but in sphere. I want to avoid the materialist deter minism that says that liberal economics inev itably produces liberal politics, because I be stead came about as the result of the victory of one idea over another.9 presuppose an autonomous prior state of con change was in no way made inevitable by the material conditions in which either country For Kojève, as for all good Hegelians, un derstanding the underlying processes of his tory requires understanding developments in the realm of consciousness or ideas, since con sciousness will ultimately remake the material world in its own image. To say that history ended in 1806 meant that mankind's ideolog lieve that both economics and politics sciousness that makes them possible. But that state of consciousness that permits the growth of liberalism seems to stabilize in the way one would expect at the end of history if it is underwritten by the abundance of a modern free market economy. We might summarize the content of the universal homogenous state ical evolution ended in the ideals of the as liberal democracy in the political sphere French or American Revolutions: while combined par with easy access to VCRs and stereos the economic. ticular regimes in the real world might in not implement these ideals fully, their theoretical truth is absolute and could not be improved upon. Hence it did not matter to Kojève that the consciousness of the postwar generation Ill WE in fact reached the end of Europeans had not been universalized HAVEof history? Are there, in other words, any fundamental "contradictions" in throughout the world; if ideological devel human life that cannot be resolved in the con opment had in fact ended, the homogenous text of modern liberalism, that would be re state would eventually become victorious throughout the material world. solvable by an alternative political-economic I have neither the space nor, frankly, the structure? If we accept the idealist premises ability to defend in depth Hegel's radical ide alist perspective. The issue is not whether He nological-military realm. Nonetheless, neither gel's system was right, but whether his percountry on the eve of its reforms was in such spective might uncover the problematica state of material crisis that one could have nature of many materialist explanations wepredicted the surprising reform paths ulti often take for granted. This is not to deny the mately taken. role of material factors as such. To a literal 'It is still not clear whether the Soviet peoples are minded idealist, human society can be built as "Protestant" as Gorbachev and will follow him down that path. around any arbitrary set of principles regard less of their relationship to the material world."The internal politics of the Byzantine Empire at the time of Justinian revolved around a conflict And in fact men have proven themselves able to endure the most extreme material hard between the so-called monophysites and mon ships in the name of ideas that exist in the othelites, who believed that the unity of the realm of the spirit alone, be it the divinity of Holy Trinity was alternatively one of nature cows or the nature of the Holy Trinity.10 or of will. This conflict corresponded to some But while man's very perception of the extent to one between proponents of different material world is shaped by his historical con racing teams in the Hippodrome in Byzantium sciousness of it, the material world can clearly and led to a not insignificant level of political violence. Modern historians would tend to affect in return the viability of a particular state of consciousness. In particular, the spec tacular abundance of advanced liberal econ seek the roots of such conflicts in antagonisms between social classes or some other modern omies and the infinitely diverse consumer cul economic category, being unwilling to believe ture made possible by them seem to both that men would kill each other over the nature foster and preserve liberalism in the political of the Trinity. The Notional Interest—Summer 1989 . This content downloaded from 130.182.4.15 on Thu, 21 Mar 2019 01:48:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms laid out above, we must seek an answer to this other great alternative to liberalism, com question in the realm of ideology and con munism, was far more serious. Marx, speaking tively the challenges to liberalism promoted contained a fundamental contradiction that by every crackpot messiah around the world, but only those that are embodied in important could not be resolved within its context, that social or political forces and movements, and diction has constituted the chief accusation which are therefore part of world history. For against liberalism ever since. But surely, the class issue has actually been successfully re solved in the West. As Kojève (among others) sciousness. Our task is not to answer exhaus our purposes, it matters very little what strange thoughts occur to people in Albania or Burkina Faso, for we are interested in what one could in some sense call the common ideo logical heritage of mankind. In the past century, there have been two major challenges to liberalism, those of fas cism and of communism. The former" saw the political weakness, materialism, anomie, and lack of community of the West as fun damental contradictions in liberal societies Hegel's language, asserted that liberal society between capital and labor, and this contra noted, the egalitarianism of modern America represents the essential achievement of the classless society envisioned by Marx. This is not to say that there are not rich people and poor people in the United States, or that the gap between them has not grown in recent years. But the root causes of economic ine quality do not have to do with the underlying legal and social structure of our society, which that could only be resolved by a strong state remains fundamentally egalitarian and mod that forged a new "people" on the basis of erately redistributionist, so much as with the cultural and social characteristics of the national exclusiveness. Fascism was destroyed as a living ideology by World War II. This groups that make it up, which are in turn the was a defeat, of course, on a very material historical legacy of premodern conditions. level, but it amounted to a defeat of the idea Thus black poverty in the United States is not as well. What destroyed fascism as an idea was not universal moral revulsion against it, since the inherent product of liberalism, but is rath er the "legacy of slavery and racism" which plenty of people were willing to endorse the persisted long after the formal abolition of idea as long as it seemed the wave of the fu slavery. ture, but its lack of success. After the war, it As a result of the receding of the class seemed to most people that German fascism issue, the appeal of communism in the devel as well as its other European and Asian vari oped Western world, it is safe to say, is lower ants were bound to self-destruct. There was "I am not using the term "fascism" here in its most no material reason why new fascist move precise sense, fully aware of the frequent mis ments could not have sprung up again after the war in other locales, but for the fact that use of this term to denounce anyone to the expansionist ultranationalism, with its prom right of the user. "Fascism" here denotes any ise of unending conflict leading to disastrous organized ultra-nationalist movement with military defeat, had completely lost its appeal. universalistic pretensions—not universalistic The ruins of the Reich chancellory as well as with regard to its nationalism, of course, since the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed this ideology on the level of consciousness as well as materially, and all of the latter is exclusive by definition, but with the proto-fascist movements spawned by the would qualify as fascist while former strong German and Japanese examples like the Pe ronist movement in Argentina or Subhas Chandra Bose's Indian National Army with would not. Obviously fascist ideologies cannot ered after the war. regard to the movement's belief in its right to rule other people. Hence Imperial Japan man Stoessner's Paraguay or Pinochet's Chile be universalistic in the sense of Marxism or liberalism, but the structure of the doctrine The ideological challenge mounted by the can be transferred from country to country. The End of History? This content downloaded from 130.182.4.15 on Thu, 21 Mar 2019 01:48:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms today than any time since the end of the First planted to Japan were adapted and trans World War. This can be measured in any formed by the Japanese in such a way as to be scarcely recognizable.12 Many Americans are now aware that Japanese industrial or ganization is very different from that pre vailing in the United States or Europe, and it is questionable what relationship the fac tional maneuvering that takes place with the governing Liberal Democratic Party bears to number of ways: in the declining membership and electoral pull of the major European com munist parties, and their overtly revisionist programs; in the corresponding electoral suc cess of conservative parties from Britain and Germany to the United States and Japan, which are unabashedly pro-market and anti statist; and in an intellectual climate whose most "advanced" members no longer believe that bourgeois society is something that ul timately needs to be overcome. This is not to democracy. Nonetheless, the very fact that the essential elements of economic and political liberalism have been so successfully grafted onto uniquely Japanese traditions and insti tutions guarantees their survival in the long say that the opinions of progressive intellec tuals in Western countries are not deeply run. More important is the contribution that pathological in any number of ways. But those Japan has made in turn to world history by who believe that the future must inevitably be socialist tend to be very old, or very mar ginal to the real political discourse of their following in the footsteps of the United States societies. to create a truly universal consumer culture that has become both a symbol and an un derpinning of the universal homogenous MAY argue that the socialist al O'^NEternative was never terribly plau state. V.S. Naipaul travelling in Khomeini's Iran shortly after the revolution noted the omnipresent signs advertising the products of sible for the North Atlantic world, and was Sony, Hitachi, and JVC, whose appeal re sustained for the last several decades primar ily by its success outside of this region. But mained virtually irresistible and gave the lie it is precisely in the non-European world that one is most struck by the occurrence of major ideological transformations. Surely the most remarkable changes have occurred in Asia. Due to the strength and adaptability of the indigenous cultures there, Asia became a bat tleground for a variety of imported Western ideologies early in this century. Liberalism in Asia was a very weak reed in the period after to the regime's pretensions of restoring a state based on the rule of the Shariah. Desire for access to the consumer culture, created in large measure by Japan, has played a crucial role in fostering the spread of economic lib eralism throughout Asia, and hence in pro moting political liberalism as well. The economic success of the other newly industrializing countries (NlCs) in Asia fol lowing on the example of Japan is by now a World War I; it is easy today to forget how gloomy Asia's political future looked as re familiar story. What is important from a He cently as ten or fifteen years ago. It is easy to has been following economic liberalism, more forget as well how momentous the outcome of Asian ideological struggles seemed for slowly than many had hoped but with seem ing inevitability. Here again we see the vie world political development as a whole. The first Asian alternative to liberalism 1JI use the example of Japan with some caution, gelian standpoint is that political liberalism to be decisively defeated was the fascist one represented by Imperial Japan. Japanese fas cism (like its German version) was defeated formal arts, proved that the universal homog by the force of American arms in the Pacific enous state was not victorious and that history war, and liberal democracy was imposed on Japan by a victorious United States. Western the end of the second edition of Introduction à capitalism and political liberalism when trans la Lecture de Hegel, 462-3. since Kojève late in his life came to conclude that Japan, with its culture based on purely had perhaps not ended. See the long note at 10 The National Interest—Summer 1989 . This content downloaded from 130.182.4.15 on Thu, 21 Mar 2019 01:48:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms tory of the idea of the universal homogenous scribe the dynamism, initiative, and openness state. South Korea had developed into a mod- evident in China since the reform began, ern, urbanized society with an increasingly China could not now be described in any large and well-educated middle class that way as a liberal democracy. At present, no could not possibly be isolated from the larger more than 20 percent of its economy has been democratic trends around them. Under these marketized, and most importantly it con tin circumstances it seemed intolerable to a large ues to be ruled by a self-appointed Communist part of this population that it should be ruled party which has given no hint of wanting to by an anachronistic military regime while Ja- devolve power. Deng has made none of Gor pan, only a decade or so ahead in economic bachev's promises regarding democratization terms, had parliamentary institutions for over of the political system and there is no Chinese forty years. Even the former socialist regime equivalent of glasnost. The Chinese leadership in Burma, which for so many decades existed has in fact been much more circumspect in in dismal isolation from the larger trends criticizing Mao and Maoism than Gorbachev dominating Asia, was buffeted in the past year with respect to Brezhnev and Stalin, and the by pressures to liberalize both its economy regime continues to pay lip service to Marx and political system. It is said that unhappi- ism-Leninism as its ideological underpinning, ness with strongman Ne Win began when a But anyone familiar with the outlook and be senior Burmese officer went to Singapore for havior of the new technocratic elite now gov medical treatment and broke down crying erning China knows that Marxism and ideo when he saw how far socialist Burma had logical principle have become virtually been left behind by its ASEAN neighbors. irrelevant as guides to policy, and that bour geois consumerism has a real meaning in that country for the first time since the revolution. BUT THE power the liberal idea The the various slowdowns in the pace of reform, would seemofmuch less impressive campaigns against "spiritual pollution" if it had not infected the largest and oldest and crackdowns on political dissent are more culture in Asia, China. The simple existence properly seen as tactical adjustments made in of communist China created an alternative the process of managing what is an extraor pole of ideological attraction, and as such con- dinarily difficult political transition. By duck stituted a threat to liberalism. But the past ing the question of political reform while put fifteen years have seen an almost total dis- ting the economy on a new footing, Deng has crediting of Marxism-Leninism as an econom- managed to avoid the breakdown of authority ic system. Beginning with the famous third that has accompanied Gorbachev's perestroïka. plenum of the Tenth Central Committee in Yet the pull of the liberal idea continues to 1978, the Chinese Communist party set about be very strong as economic power devolves decollectivizing agriculture for the 800 mil- and the economy becomes more open to the lion Chinese who still lived in the country- outside world. There are currently over side. The role of the state in agriculture was 20,000 Chinese students studying in the U.S. reduced to that of a tax collector, while pro- and other Western countries, almost all of duction of consumer goods was sharply in- them the children of the Chinese elite. It is creased in order to give peasants a taste of the hard to believe that when they return home universal homogenous state and thereby an to run the country they will be content for incentive to work. The reform doubled China to be the only country in Asia unaf Chinese grain output in only five years, and fected by the larger democratizing trend. The in the process created for Deng Xiao-ping a student demonstrations in Beijing that broke solid political base from which he was able to out first in December 1986 and recurred re extend the reform to other parts of the econ- cently on the occasion of Hu Yao-bang's death omy. Economic statistics do not begin to de- were only the beginning of what will inev The End of History? 11 This content downloaded from 130.182.4.15 on Thu, 21 Mar 2019 01:48:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms itably be mounting pressure for change in the that virtually nobody in that country truly political system as well. believed in Marxism-Leninism any longer, What is important about China from the and that this was nowhere more true than in standpoint of world history is not the present the Soviet elite, which continued to mouth state of the reform or even its future pros- Marxist slogans out of sheer cynicism. The pects. The central issue is the fact that the corruption and decadence of the late Brezh People's Republic of China can no longer act nev-era Soviet state seemed to matter little, as a beacon for illiberal forces around the however, for as long as the state itself refused world, whether they be guerrillas in some to throw into question any of the fundamental Asian jungle or middle class students in Paris. principles underlying Soviet society, the sys Maoism, rather than being the pattern for tern was capable of functioning adequately out Asia's future, became an anachronism, and it of sheer inertia and could even muster some was the mainland Chinese who in fact were dynamism in the realm of foreign and defense decisively influenced by the prosperity and policy. Marxism-Leninism was like a magical dynamism of their overseas co-ethnics—the incantation which, however absurd and de ironic ultimate victory of Taiwan. void of meaning, was the only common basis Important as these changes in China have on which the elite could agree to rule Soviet been, however, it is developments in the So- society, viet Union—the original "homeland of the world proletariat"—that have put the final TT7HAT HAS happened in the four nail in the coffin of the Marxist-Leninist al- V V years since Gorbachev's coming ternative to liberal democracy. It should be to power is a revolutionary assault on the most clear that in terms of formal institutions, not fundamental institutions and principles of much has changed in the four years since Gor- Stalinism, and their replacement by other bachev has come to power: free markets and principles which do not amount to liberalism the cooperative movement represent only a per se but whose only connecting thread is small part of the Soviet economy, which re- liberalism. This is most evident in the eco mains centrally planned; the political system nomic sphere, where the reform economists is still dominated by the Communist party, around Gorbachev have become steadily more which has only begun to democratize inter- radical in their support for free markets, to nally and to share power with other groups; the point where some like Nikolai Shmelev the regime continues to assert that it is seeking do not mind being compared in public to Mil only to modernize socialism and that its ideo- ton Friedman. There is a virtual consensus logical basis remains Marxism-Leninism; and, among the currently dominant school of So finally, Gorbachev faces a potentially pow- viet economists now that central planning and erful conservative opposition that could undo the command system of allocation are the root many of the changes that have taken place to cause of economic inefficiency, and that if the date. Moreover, it is hard to be too sanguine Soviet system is ever to heal itself, it must about the chances for success of Gorbachev's permit free and decentralized decision-mak proposed reforms, either in the sphere of eco- ing with respect to investment, labor, and nomics or politics. But my purpose here is not prices. After a couple of initial years of ideo to analyze events in the short-term, or to make logical confusion, these principles have finally predictions for policy purposes, but to look at been incorporated into policy with the pro underlying trends in the sphere of ideology mulgation of new laws on enterprise auton and consciousness. And in that respect, it is omy, cooperatives, and finally in 1988 on lease clear that an astounding transformation has arrangements and family farming. There are, occurred. of course, a number of fatal flaws in the cur Emigres from the Soviet Union have been rent implementation of th reporting for at least the last generation now tably the absence of a t 12 The National Interest—Summer 1989 This content downloaded from 130.182.4.15 on Thu, 21 Mar 2019 01:48:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms reform. But the problem is no longer a con ceptual one: Gorbachev and his lieutenants able. The essence of Lenin's democratic cen ketization well enough, but like the leaders of tralism was centralism, not democracy; that is, the absolutely rigid, monolithic, and dis ciplined dictatorship of a hierarchically or a Third World country facing the IMF, are afraid of the social consequences of ending ganized vanguard Communist party, speaking in the name of the demos. All of Lenin's vicious seem to understand the economic logic of mar consumer subsidies and other forms of de polemics against Karl Kautsky, Rosa Lux pendence on the state sector. emburg, and various other Menshevik and So In the political sphere, the proposedcial Democratic rivals, not to mention his con changes to the Soviet constitution, legal systempt for "bourgeois legality" and freedoms, tem, and party rules amount to much less thancentered around his profound conviction that the establishment of a liberal state. Gorbachev a revolution could not be successfully made has spoken of democratization primarily inby a democratically run organization. the sphere of internal party affairs, and has Gorbachev's claim that he is seeking to shown little intention of ending the Com return to the true Lenin is perfectly easy to munist party's monopoly of power; indeed,understand: having fostered a thorough de the political reform seeks to legitimize andnunciation of Stalinism and Brezhnevism as therefore strengthen the CPSU's rule." Nonethe root of the USSR's present predicament, theless, the general principles underlying he needs some point in Soviet history on many of the reforms—that the "people"which to anchor the legitimacy of the CPSU's should be truly responsible for their own afcontinued rule. But Gorbachev's tactical re fairs, that higher political bodies should bequirements should not blind us to the fact that answerable to lower ones, and not vice versa, the democratizing and decentralizing princi that the rule of law should prevail over arples which he has enunciated in both the eco bitrary police actions, with separation of pow nomic and political spheres are highly sub ers and an independent judiciary, that thereversive of some of the most fundamental should be legal protection for property rights, precepts of both Marxism and Leninism. In the need for open discussion of public issuesdeed, if the bulk of the present economic re and the right of public dissent, the empowform proposals were put into effect, it is hard ering of the Soviets as a forum in which the to know how the Soviet economy would be whole Soviet people can participate, and of amore socialist than those of other Western political culture that is more tolerant and countries with large public sectors. The Soviet Union could in no way be pluralistic—come from a source fundamen described as a liberal or democratic country tally alien to the USSR's Marxist-Leninist tra now, nor do I think that it is terribly likely dition, even if they are incompletely articu lated and poorly implemented in practice. that perestroika will succeed such that the label Gorbachev's repeated assertions that hewill be thinkable any time in the near future. But at the end of history it is not necessary is doing no more than trying to restore the that all societies become successful liberal so original meaning of Leninism are themselves a kind of Orwellian doublespeak. Gorbachevcieties, merely that they end their ideological and his allies have consistently maintainedpretensions of representing different and higher forms of human society. And in this that intraparty democracy was somehow the essence of Leninism, and that the various lib respect I believe that something very impor eral practices of open debate, secret ballottant has happened in the Soviet Union in the elections, and rule of law were all part of the past few years: the criticisms of the Soviet Leninist heritage, corrupted only later by Sta lin. While almost anyone would look good "This is not true in Poland and Hungary, however, whose Communist parties have taken moves compared to Stalin, drawing so sharp a line toward true power-sharing and pluralism. between Lenin and his successor is question The End of History ? 13 This content downloaded from 130.182.4.15 on Thu, 21 Mar 2019 01:48:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms system sanctioned by Gorbachev have been of the good life, could not provide even the so thorough and devastating that there is very little chance of going back to either Stalinism minimal preconditions of peace and stability. In the contemporary world only Islam has offered a theocratic state as a political alter or Brezhnevism in any simple way. Gorbach ev has finally permitted people to say what native to both liberalism and communism. they had privately understood for many years, But the doctrine has little appeal for non-Mus namely, that the magical incantations of Marxism-Leninism were nonsense, that So viet socialism was not superior to the West in any respect but was in fact a monumental failure. The conservative opposition in the lims, and it is hard to believe that the move ment will take on any universal significance. Other less organized religious impulses have been successfully satisfied within the sphere of personal life that is permitted in liberal USSR, consisting both of simple workers societies. afraid of unemployment and inflation and of The other major "contradiction" poten tially unresolvable by liberalism is the one party officials fearful of losing their jobs and privileges, is outspoken and may be strong enough to force Gorbachev's ouster in the next few years. But what both groups desire is tradition, order, and authority; they mani fest no deep commitment to Marxism-Len inism, except insofar as they have invested much of their own lives in it.14 For authority to be restored in the Soviet Union after Gor bachev's demolition work, it must be on the posed by nationalism and other forms of racial and ethnic consciousness. It is certainly true that a very large degree of conflict since the Battle of Jena has had its roots in nationalism. Two cataclysmic world wars in this century have been spawned by the nationalism of the developed world in various guises, and if those passions have been muted to a certain extent basis of some new and vigorous ideology in postwar Europe, they are still extremely powerful in the Third World. Nationalism which has not yet appeared on the horizon. has been a threat to liberalism historically in "F WE ADMIT for the moment that I1 the fascist and communist chal Germany, and continues to be one in isolated parts of "post-historical" Europe like North ern Ireland. lenges to liberalism are dead, are there any But it is not clear that nationalism rep an irreconcilable contradiction in the other ideological competitors left? Or putresents an other way, are there contradictions in liberal heart of liberalism. In the first place, nation society beyond that of class that are notalism re is not one single phenomenon but sev solvable? Two possibilities suggest them eral, ranging from mild cultural nostalgia to selves, those of religion and nationalism. the highly organized and elaborately articu The rise of religious fundamentalism lated in doctrine of National Socialism. Only recent years within the Christian, Jewish, systematic and nationalisms of the latter sort can Muslim traditions has been widely noted. One qualify as a formal ideology on the level of is inclined to say that the revival of religion liberalism or communism. The vast majority in some way attests to a broad unhappiness with the impersonality and spiritual vacuity '"This is particularly true of the leading Soviet con of liberal consumerist societies. Yet while the servative, former Second Secretary Yegor Li emptiness at the core of liberalism is most gachev, who has publicly recognized many of certainly a defect in the ideology—indeed, a the deep defects of the Brezhnev period. flaw that one does not need the perspective "I am thinking particularly of Rousseau and the of religion to recognize's—it is not at all clear Western philosophical tradition that flows that it is remediable through politics. Modern from him that was highly critical of Lockean liberalism itself was historically a conse or Hobbesian liberalism, though one could quence of the weakness of religiously-based criticize liberalism from the standpoint of clas societies which, failing to agree on the nature sical political philosophy as well. 14 The National Interest—Summer 1989 . This content downloaded from 130.182.4.15 on Thu, 21 Mar 2019 01:48:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms of the world's nationalist movements do not have a political program beyond the negative desire of independence from some other group pect which, if not yet here, the last few years have made a real possibility. How will the overall characteristics of a de-ideologized or people, and do not offer anything like a comprehensive agenda for socio-economic or world differ from those of the one with which ganization. As such, they are compatible with ture? doctrines and ideologies that do offer such agendas. While they may constitute a source of conflict for liberal societies, this conflict The most common answer is—not very much. For there is a very widespread belief among many observers of international rela we are familiar at such a hypothetical junc does not arise from liberalism itself so much tions that underneath the skin of ideology is as from the fact that the liberalism in question a hard core of great power national interest that guarantees a fairly high level of compe tition and conflict between nations. Indeed, is incomplete. Certainly a great deal of the world's ethnic and nationalist tension can be explained in terms of peoples who are forced to live in unrepresentative political systems that they have not chosen. While it is impossible to rule out the sud den appearance of new ideologies or previ ously unrecognized contradictions in liberal societies, then, the present world seems to confirm that the fundamental principles of socio-political organization have not advanced terribly far since 1806. Many of the wars and revolutions fought since that time have been undertaken in the name of ideologies which according to one academically popular school of international relations theory, conflict in heres in the international system as such, and to understand the prospects for conflict one must look at the shape of the system—for ex ample, whether it is bipolar or multipolar— rather than at the specific character of the nations and regimes that constitute it. This school in effect applies a Hobbesian view of politics to international relations, and assumes that aggression and insecurity are universal characteristics of human societies rather than claimed to be more advanced than liberalism, the product of specific historical circum but whose pretensions were ultimately un masked by history. In the meantime, they have helped to spread the universal homoge nous state to the point where it could have a stances. significant effect on the overall character of international relations. IV Believers in this line of thought take the relations that existed between the participants in the classical nineteenth century European balance of power as a model for what a de ideologized contemporary world would look like. Charles Krauthammer, for example, re cently explained that if as a result of Gor bachev's reforms the USSR is shorn of Marx ist-Leninist ideology, its behavior will revert WHAT end AREofthe implications of the to that of nineteenth century imperial Rus history for international relations? Clearly, the vast bulk of the Third sia.16 While he finds this more reassuring than World remains very much mired in history,the threat posed by a communist Russia, he and will be a terrain of conflict for many years implies that there will still be a substantial to come. But let us focus for the time beingdegree of competition and conflict in the in on the larger and more developed states of the ternational system, just as there was say be world who after all account for the greatertween Russia and Britain or Wilhelmine Ger part of world politics. Russia and China are many in the last century. This is, of course, not likely to join the developed nations of the a convenient point of view for people who West as liberal societies any time in the forewant to admit that something major is chang seeable future, but suppose for a moment that Marxism-Leninism ceases to be a factor driv "See his article, "Beyond the Cold War," New Re ing the foreign policies of these states—a pros public, December 19, 1988. The End of History? IS This content downloaded from 130.182.4.15 on Thu, 21 Mar 2019 01:48:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms ing in the Soviet Union, but do not want to accept responsibility for recommending the radical policy redirection implicit in such a view. But is it true? In fact, the notion that ideology is a su in retrospect it seems that Hitler represented a diseased bypath in the general course of European development, and since his fiery de feat, the legitimacy of any kind of territorial aggrandizement has been thoroughly discred perstructure imposed on a substratum of per manent great power interest is a highly ques ited.17 Since the Second World War, European tionable proposition. For the way in which any state defines its national interest is not any real relevance to foreign policy, with the universal but rests on some kind of prior ideo model of great power behavior has become a nationalism has been defanged and shorn of consequence that the nineteenth-century logical basis, just as we saw that economic serious anachronism. The most extreme form behavior is determined by a prior state of con of nationalism that any Western European sciousness. In this century, states have adopt ed highly articulated doctrines with explicit foreign policy agendas legitimizing expan sionism, like Marxism-Leninism or National Socialism. state has mustered since 1945 has been Gaul lism, whose self-assertion has been confined largely to the realm of nuisance politics and culture. International life for the part of the world that has reached the end of history is far more preoccupied with economics than EXPANSIONIST and compet T'TIEitive behavior of nineteenth-cen with politics or strategy. The developed states of the West do main tain defense establishments and in the post basis; it just so happened that the ideology war period have competed vigorously for in tury European states rested on no less ideal a driving it was less explicit than the doctrines fluence to meet a worldwide communist of the twentieth century. For one thing, most threat. This behavior has been driven, how "liberal" European societies were illiberal in ever, by an external threat from states that sofar as they believed in the legitimacy of im possess overtly expansionist ideologies, and perialism, that is, the right of one nation to would not exist in their absence. To take the rule over other nations without regard for the "neo-realist" theory seriously, one would have wishes of the ruled. The justifications for im to believe that "natural" competitive behavior perialism varied from nation to nation, from would reassert itself among the OECD states a crude belief in the legitimacy of force, par were Russia and China to disappear from the ticularly when applied to non-Europeans, to face of the earth. That is, West Germany and the White Man's Burden and Europe's Chris France would arm themselves against each tianizing mission, to the desire to give people other as they did in the 1930s, Australia and of color access to the culture of Rabelais and New Zealand would send military advisers to Molière. But whatever the particular ideolog block each others' advances in Africa, and the U.S.-Canadian border would become fortified. ical basis, every "developed" country believed in the acceptability of higher civilizations rul Such a prospect is, of course, ludicrous: minus ing lower ones—including, incidentally, the Marxist-Leninist ideology, we are far more United States with regard to the Philippines. likely to see the "Common Marketization" of This led to a drive for pure territorial ag world politics than the disintegration of the grandizement in the latter half of the century and played no small role in causing the Great War. EEC into nineteenth-century competitiveness. "It took European colonial powers like France sev The radical and deformed outgrowth of nineteenth-century imperialism was German fascism, an ideology which justified German eral years after the war to admit the illegiti y's right not only to rule over non-European peoples, but over all non-German ones. But victory which had been based on the promise of a restoration of democratic freedoms. macy of their empires, but decolonialization was an inevitable consequence of the Allied là Tbe National Interest—Summer 1989 . This content downloaded from 130.182.4.15 on Thu, 21 Mar 2019 01:48:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Indeed, as our experience in dealing with Eu rope on matters such as terrorism or Libya prove, they are much further gone than we down the road that denies the legitimacy of the use of force in international politics, even in self-defense. The automatic assumption that Russia shorn of its expansionist communist ideology should pick up where the czars left off just which there are no ideological grounds for major conflict between nations, and in which, consequently, the use of military force be comes less legitimate. As Foreign Minister Shevardnadze put it in mid-1988: The struggle between two opposing systems is no longer a determining tendency of the present day era. At the modern stage, the ability to build up material wealth at an accelerated rate on the prior to the Bolshevik Revolution is therefore a curious one. It assumes that the evolution basis of front-ranking science and high-level tech of human consciousness has stood still in the and through joint efforts to restore and protect meantime, and that the Soviets, while picking up currently fashionable ideas in the realm of niques and technology, and to distribute it fairly, the resources necessary for mankind's survival acquires decisive importance.18 economics, will return to foreign policy views The post-historical consciousness repre a century out of date in the rest of Europe. sented by "new thinking" is only one possible This is certainly not what happened to China future for the Soviet Union, however. There after it began its reform process. Chinese com has always been a very strong current of great petitiveness and expansionism on the world Russian chauvinism in the Soviet Union, scene have virtually disappeared: Beijing no which has found freer expression since the longer sponsors Maoist insurgencies or tries advent of glasnost. It may be possible to return to cultivate influence in distant African coun to traditional Marxism-Leninism for a while tries as it did in the 1960s. This is not to say as a simple rallying point for those who want that there are not troublesome aspects to con to restore the authority that Gorbachev has temporary Chinese foreign policy, such as the dissipated. But as in Poland, Marxism-Len reckless sale of ballistic missile technology in inism is dead as a mobilizing ideology: under the Middle East; and the PRC continues to its banner people cannot be made to work manifest traditional great power behavior in harder, and its adherents have lost confidence its sponsorship of the Khmer Rouge against in themselves. Unlike the propagators of tra Vietnam. But the former is explained by com ditional Marxism-Leninism, however, ultra mercial motives and the latter is a vestige ofnationalists in the USSR believe in their Sla earlier ideologically-based rivalries. The new vophile cause passionately, and one gets the China far more resembles Gaullist France sense that the fascist alternative is not one that than pre-World War I Germany. The real question for the future, however, has played itself out entirely there. The Soviet Union, then, is at a fork in is the degree to which Soviet elites have as the road: it can start down the path that was similated the consciousness of the universal staked out by Western Europe forty-five years homogenous state that is post-Hitler Europe. ago, a path that most of Asia has followed, or From their writings and from my own per it can realize its own uniqueness and remain sonal contacts with them, there is no question stuck in history. The choice it makes will be in my mind that the liberal Soviet intelli highly important for us, given the Soviet gentsia rallying around Gorbachev has ar rived at the end-of-history view in a remark 8Vestnik Ministerstva Inostrannikb Del SSSR no. 15 ably short time, due in no small measure to (August 1988), 27-46. "New thinking" does of the contacts they have had since the Brezhnev course serve a propagandistic purpose in per era with the larger European civilization suading Western audiences of Soviet good in around them. "New political thinking," the general rubric for their views, describes a world dominated by economic concerns, in tentions. But the fact that it is good propa ganda does not mean that its formulators do not take many of its ideas seriously. The End of History? 17 This content downloaded from 130.182.4.15 on Thu, 21 Mar 2019 01:48:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Union's size and military strength, for that Catholics and Walloons, Armenians and Azer power will continue to preoccupy us and slow is, will continue to have their unresolved our realization that we have already emerged grievances. This implies that terrorism and on the other side of history. wars of national liberation will continue to be an important item on the international agenda. But large-scale conflict must involve large states still caught in the grip of history, THE PASSING offrom Marxism-Leninand the theyscene, are what appear to be passing from ism first China and then from the Soviet Union will mean its death as The end of history will be a very sad time, a living ideology of world historical signifi- The struggle for recognition, the willingness cance. For while there may be some isolated to risk one's life for a purely abstract goal, the true believers left in places like Managua, worldwide ideological struggle that called Pyongyang, or Cambridge, Massachusetts, the forth daring, courage, imagination, and ide fact that there is not a single large state in alism, will be replaced by economic calcula which it is a going concern undermines com- tion, the endless solving of technical prob pletely its pretensions to being in the van- lems, environmental concerns, and the guard of human history. And the death of this satisfaction of sophisticated consumer de ideology means the growing "Common Mar- mands. In the post-historical period there will ketization" of international relations, and the be neither art nor philosophy, just the per diminution of the likelihood of large-scale petual caretaking of the museum of human conflict between states. history. I can feel in myself, and see in others This does not by any means imply the around me, a powerful nostalgia for the time end of international conflict per se. For the when history existed. Such nostalgia, in fact, world at that point would be divided between will continue to fuel competition and conflict a part that was historical and a part that was even in the post-historical world for some post-historical. Conflict between states still in time to come. Even though I recognize its history, and between those states and those at inevitability, I have the most ambivalent feel the end of history, would still be possible. ings for the civilization that has been created There would still be a high and perhaps rising in Europe since 1945, with its north Atlantic level of ethnic and nationalist violence, since and Asian offshoots. Perhaps this very pros those are impulses incompletely played out, pect of centuries of boredom at the end of even in parts of the post-historical world. Pal- history will serve to get history started once estinians and Kurds, Sikhs and Tamils, Irish again. 18 The National Interest—Summer 1989 . This content downloaded from 130.182.4.15 on Thu, 21 Mar 2019 01:48:01 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
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Fukuyama, Stanley and Lee essays
Question 1

It is apparent that the influential essay, the end of history written by Fukuyama, can be
interpreted in different ways. The author, who is a political scientist, wrote the essay in 1989. He
did this with a motive to demonstrate the conquest of liberal democracy and the start of the postideological world era. He demonstrates a new era in the world after the end of the cold war,
which was a conceptual battle between the west and the east. Ideally, the protests by the
communists swept across the famously known former Soviet Union (El Yacoubi & Kalpakian,
2018).
It is a matter of the fact that Fukuyama emphasized the historical end of materialism,
though not necessarily on possession of material things and wealth. Materialism relates to a form
of monism that is philosophical that states that matter is the vital ingredient in nature. This means
that all possessions, things, consciousness, and mental states are all a product of material
connections. Fukuyama does not say that the end of history generally means that nothing
significant would happen to the world anymore after the cold war but mainly concentrated on
ideas rather than events.
How Stanley and Lee address Fukuyama's arguments.
After Fukuyama wrote the essay, the end of history, 25 years later, another essay
recognized as, It's still not the end of histor...


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