The End of History and the Last Man
by Francis Fukuyama · first published 1992
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Observing totalitarian and authoritarian governments falling around the world, Fukuyama develops an hypothesis that the end state of all this change will be liberal democracy everywhere (The End of History), and considers how people will react (The Last Man).
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on “Ask HN: What books fundamentally changed the way you think about the world?” ↗…At the time, there was a strong sense that democracy had won, and that it was inevitable. That empowering people economically would eventually, without fail, lead to democratic reform. Fukuyama's "The End of History and the Last Man" is one of the most influential books of the period. But, Fukuyama and people like him (Reagan, necons, Bush, Clinton, etc.) turned out to be fatally wrong. They created an incredibly unequal world that…
on “Leaving China” ↗Thats why people wrote books like .. The End of History and the Last Man is a book of political philosophy written in 1992 by American political scientist Francis Fukuyama which argues that with the ascendancy of Western liberal democracy—which occurred after the Cold War…
on “Beware the Permanent Periphery” ↗…understanding of history. That they can't be deferred to some broader concept of morality because they have history on their side. This argument is the same as the one made by Francis Fukuyama in his book The End of History and the Last Man and it is fundamentally flawed in the same way. Never have violence, inequality, exclusion, famine, and thus economic oppression affected as many human beings in the history of the earth and of humanity.…
on “French executives convicted in the suicides of 35 of their workers” ↗A counter argument can be found in the book "The end of history and the last man". It puts forward the idea that technology improves at the greatest rate in a free market democracy because the professional classes are at their most effective. Link to the book: http://www.amazon.com/End-History-Last-Man/dp/0743284550/…
on “Google's CEO: 'The Laws Are Written by Lobbyists'” ↗…article starts out by referencing "American Foreign Policy and Its Thinkers", which, he says, is is challenging Francis Fukuyama's view of the world. Nobody needed to do that in 2015. Fukuyama's "The End of History and the Last Man" came out in 1992. Fukuyama was writing about the world situation at the time, which looked good. The USSR had come apart non-violently, the US and Russia were getting along, there were no major wars…
on “Divine Indigestion: The endlessly fabulized American self” ↗As I understand your remarks, you basically believe what Fukuyama stated in The End of History and the Last Man. This has largely been proved to be wrong on many counts and even Fukuyama himself disavowed many of his earlier ideas. Humanity is currently facing, and is going to face in the near future, multiple…
on “Timeline of the Far Future” ↗Plus, back when the Sino-British Joint Declaration was negotiated (1984) there was already this heady optimism in the air that democracy was inevitable (as expressed in Francis Fukuyama's 1992 The End of History and the Last Man), and the thinking was that by the time HK would lose its autonomy and become just another Chinese city (2047), China would be a wonderful democracy. Oh well.
on “Student group leader arrested on suspicion of inciting secession in HK” ↗Calling Malthus wrong may be slightly better than Fukuyama's "The End of History and the Last Man" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_History_and_the_L... I mean people love to extrapolate from the recent trend. Genes compete not on a time scale that individuals likely appreciate. Yes for…
on “Misunderstanding Malthus’ mistake” ↗…90s where the West felt invincible and many believe Western style democracy would take over the world within decades. This viewpoint was well described (and I think influenced) by Fukuyama's book "The End of History and the Last Man" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_History_and_the_Las...
on “Microsoft exec: “Summary of meeting with Steve Jobs"” ↗…authoritarianism, which is again a huge threat to the world after being held mostly in check in Western democracies for many years. People tend to forget about the "Last Man" part of Fukuyama's "The End of History and the Last Man", but we are definitely in the phase of the Last Man seeking conflict and fighting against our hard-won freedoms.
on “The CEO of Mullvad is the main financer of the far-right Swedish Örebro party” ↗…got the opposite impression, nor why it seems relevant to my argument. > Was that ever a theory, or was it really just something that people wanted to believe because it sounds hopeful and nice? "The End of History and the Last Man" was hugely influential in political science circles in the 90's and early 2000's, on both the left and the right. People definitely bought its premise of the inevitability of liberal democracy as eventually…
on “Steven Pinker on Language, Reason, and the Future of Violence” ↗…eventually become fragmented, self serving and vulnerable themselves at some point. The applicability to the modern world seems to depend on whether the underlying causes have been eliminated, in a "The End of History and the Last Man" sort of sense.
on “The Earn IT Bill Is Back, Seeking to Scan Our Messages and Photos” ↗…The triumph of the nerds took until the early 1990s.[2] The ultimate victory was, perhaps, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. That was the last major power run by goons. That's celebrated in The End of History and the Last Man (1992).[3] Everything was going to be run by technocrats and experts from now on. But it didn't last. Government by goons is back. Don't need to elaborate on that. The glut of smart people will continue…
on “Thoughts on thinking” ↗"The End of History and the Last Man" was a book written in 1992 about the end of the Cold War and how previous historical patterns no longer applied, and Western liberal democracy would sweep the world and usher in a world of peace. The…
on “America, and probably the world, stands on a precipice” ↗