General politics thread (was: General U.S. politics thread)

lrdgck

Honestly, more recent events have only served to prove Fukuyama wrong because he was going on about how liberal democracy tied to market economies were the final political ideal that everyone was drifting towards and if that was the case, there wouldn't be so much populism going around and people drifting towards strongmen (e.g. Erdogan, Orban, Trump, etc.). I think Fukuyama has even gone on record admitting he was a bit naive in that essay somewhere, which, to be fair, published right after the end of the Cold War and everyone being in a bit of celebratory mood, it made sense a bit to feel a bit celebratory.

So, I read that so I could discuss it without feeling awkward about it; linky's here in case anyone else wants.

Of recent I have read a bunch of - by which I mean, at least two separate - articles invoking Fukuyama. The gist was that when you read him all these years later, it sounds less triumphal than it did back then, that this end of history meant there is no longer a viable, universal ideological alternative to liberal democracy. Marxism-Leninism fell on its ugly face, nationalisms are at most a matter of national interests, and religious fundamentalism lacks appeal towards those who aren't co-religionists already.

(He claimed nationalism counts as a competitor to liberal democracy only if it's as developed and ambitious as fascism or Nazism were, national interest or statism alone don't.)

At the end of the essay, Fukuyama expresses vague hope that history will begin to "move" again... well, feels like it did. (Oh Harambe, had you not...)

I don't know of Fukuyama's any recent thoughts on the matter, but he said something along the lines of conflicts will happen, so I don't know if stuff like Russia-Ukraine war counts as a shock to this concept or not. But assuming it counts - I'd say it cound be interpreted as one of the first rousings of a new contending idea. The alt-righties are certainly trying hard to convince people their decentralized para-fascisms are the new in-thing, so far only Putin seems to have ever got anywhere near that point, but he had it easy with Russia to work upon. Perhaps armchair leftism of the Internet will cohere into a rejuvenation of socialism in some form, but we'll yet to see that.

catch_the_sun