Author: Yuval Klein
This first part of The (In)inevitability of Freedom will primarily discuss Francis Fukayama’s The End of History and the Last Man.
Note: This is not a peer-reviewed academic paper, and I’m far from being an expert in political science. However, I’m interested in the soon to be presented ideas. I intend to read much more about globalization, liberalism, and all of its alternatives. Therefore, my convictions only reflect where I stand right now.
After a long time during which Soviet communism threatened to thwart the potential for universal democracy, a democratizing process rocked the former Soviet territories. Before that, during the 1970s, many right-wing authoritarian regimes were replaced by democracies. These include Portugal, Greece, and Spain. During the 1980s, Turkey, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, and a number of Latin American countries did likewise. There was also the fall of the Marcos regime in the Philippines and democratic reforms in Taiwan. In Fukayama’s seminal work, he describes this process, placing it within a larger historical context–then establishing a trajectory forward, the ultimate destination of which is universal liberal-democratic governments and values. This process is hinged upon first: the dependable forward-moving progression of science, technology, and economics, and second: a basic human desire for recognition. This will bring about liberal democracy, which he asserts to be the most stable form of government.
The remarkable triumph of the market economy, democracy, and liberalism throughout much of the world demonstrated Fukuyama’s notion of a “universal history.” A “universal history” is a pattern in human development that is universally generalizable. Thinkers such as Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Karl Marx came up with notable ones that, like Fukayama’s, are directional. To them, there is a forward-moving progression of history that leads to a final destination, an “end of history” that is the culmination of all progress. Hegel’s philosophy is pioneering, inspiring Marx and Fukayama to arrive at different but similar historical narratives. The “end of history” is also deeply ingrained in Christianity. In a way, Hegel’s philosophy is a secularized version of God’s kingdom arriving on earth. In Hegelian philosophy, history is one of progress towards a utopia of freedom; conflict and resolution yield to progress over time. The means and end to the described historical process largely resembles that of Fukayama. That said, his endpoint is more pragmatic than Hegel and Marx’s “end,” in that it describes an imperfect endpoint. There are serious gaps in his thesis (many of which he acknowledges): one of the most notable is the “the last man” paradox; the concept is derived from Nietzche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra, which I will discuss in the third and final part of the (In)inevitability series.
History is largely unpredictable, but some aspects are low on entropy. Fukayama notes science and technology. Our understanding of the physical world and ability to manipulate it is constantly accumulating, being propelled forward in spite of various missteps. In a way, this is true for governmental and economic structures, which become increasingly complex, and arguably, more effective over time. However, a Fukayaman “end of history” has faced formidable obstacles, whether or not certain people are willing to describe them as such. He describes two ways through which the trajectory of society can revert from one of progress to regression. The first is a widespread rejection of technology. The second is a cataclysm–war, climate, or otherwise–that might lead to decay. The latter he acknowledges, but says that new technology will likely be employed in order to counteract the effect. There is an impending phenomenon that may become a definitive affirmation or negation of this theory: Global Warming. So far, technology hasn’t been able to sufficiently mitigate much of its worsening effects. He deems the other scenario implausible due to the relative improvement afforded by modernization. Anarcho-primitivist ideas only affect very marginal communities such as the Amish. Modernity is sometimes rejected, but it generally strides forward unchallenged. Time has not disqualified Fukayama’s argument, and there are powerful facts that testify in favor of it; liberal democracy remains dominant and sought after to a large extent. That said, many nations have been detracting from its universality. This warrants an inquiry.
Soviet communism posed the greatest threat to the democratic order. Yet, decades after the USSR’s dissolution, there are still formidable obstacles that render an “end” to history unapproachable. There is one system that appears to have modernized and stabilized itself, one that challenges the ostensibly unassailable universality of liberal democracy: China, a wholly undemocratic state, is thriving in the capitalist market; it has modernized successfully by practically every metric. It does abuse its powers, committing crimes against humanity towards the Uighyurs, jailing journalists, accounting for nearly thirty percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the world, abusing foreign and domestic labor, and much more. The point of this is not to center a new end of history, a narrative which would exalt the Chinese Neo-Neo Confucius autocratic-capitalistic alternative, rather to note that technology and the capitalist market does not seem to be overwhelmingly dominated by liberal democracies. Market-oriented technocrats often foster economic growth, more so than wildly polarized democracies or ones with incompetent leadership.
Post-cultural revolution China has a higher standard of living but civil liberties continue to elude the people. These civil liberties are under threat in multiple democracies too. Modern populism has damaged the “liberal” aspect of the “liberal democracy." This is a startling trend in recent years. Dangerous leaders are able to gain legitimacy through democracy; not only does democracy fail to protect liberalism in such instances, but it emboldens leaders with anti-democratic tendencies to weaken liberal institutions. “I have been given legitimacy by the people, therefore, I can defy liberal values like the ruler that I am,” thinks the populist. This mindset is virulent and impactful throughout the world today: Modi jails opposition leaders in India, Orbán rigs Hungarian elections, Erdoğan arrests dissident journalists in Turkey, Netanyahu and his coalition push towards an overhaul of the judicial system in order to dismantle checks and balances (even in spite of the ongoing war), and… Trump–who has always unapologetically attacked liberal institutions–has undermined the ‘democracy’ aspect of the ‘liberal democracy’ by rejecting election results. The unprecedented deterioration to civil liberties in India and the U.S.–the two largest democracies in the world–paints a bleak picture of liberal democracy. The ability of manipulative figures to ascend to the status of world leaders is an affirmation of Machiavellian cynicism. Most absurdly, Donald Trump’s hierarchies are antithetical to the anti-elitist component of populism; he regularly acts in a way that benefits the rich at the expense of the lower classes, whether they be MAGA Republicans or Democrats. Still, most of Fukayama’s argument revolves around the contention that liberal democracy is the goal; well?
In the developing world, capitalism has had many shortcomings. Fukayama introduces the dependency theory, which argues against the idea that there is a leveled economic playing field in the age of globalism (what Thomas Friedman calls a “flattened earth”). It laments the disparities that exist under globalization, claiming that latecomers to industrialization are doomed to fall behind, unable to move past being exporters of commodities to the precocious, therefore, powerful nations. This has and will continue to leave certain countries in a state of dependency and deprivation. Whether liberal democracy is generalizable throughout all regions and cultures of the world is central to the book, and even more so, the discourse which surrounds it. The extent to which this ideology is a product of a particular time and place will soon be discussed, but first of all, Fukayama has a few economic case studies that testify against the dependency theory. He contrasts economic stagnation in Latin America to remarkable growth in East Asia. South Korea is a fine example of successful recent modernization. During the early 1960s, it shifted from an agricultural economy to an industrial one, becoming one of the largest economies in the world by the end of the twentieth century. It should also be mentioned that South Korea has relatively few natural resources (certainly less than North Korea). His second example is weaker. He mentions Japan, probably because of its cultural and geographical distance from Western Europe. However, Japanese modernization was not a new phenomenon. During the Meiji Restoration, Japan underwent “defensive modernization,” as it sought to curb Western influence; the restoration was during the late 19th century. The dependency theory posed an existential threat to global capitalism during the cold war. Fukayama claims that “without the Third World, Marxism would have died a much quicker death…” As much as some might want to homogenize political structures throughout the world, it cannot be done… it can to a certain extent.
The origin of liberal democracy is one of particular cultural and historical circumstances. Just as Hegelian philosophy has roots in Christian theology, so too does liberalism. Liberal democratic values arose in a highly specific political and cultural Western European landscape–from a fundamental Christian concept: equality of all men before god. The fact that it started out a niche phenomenon doesn’t necessarily disprove its long-term universality. In the article and book Clash of Civilizations, Samuel P. Huntington thinks it does–that communism and capitalism will simply be replaced by a new conflict of a few disputing cultural entities, that certain cultures are incompatible with liberal democratic values, and therefore, will not adapt to them. He cites, for example, Islamic fundamentalist groups who reject modernity. Although the arguments are worthy of consideration, Fukuyama has convincing retorts in the book that testify to its universality. Besides, many countries outside of Western Europe have successfully emulated this system, including Muslim-majority countries. The Arab Springs and Tianmeng Square testify to the shortcomings of the system, but simultaneously, their ubiquity. Underlying all such movements, whether or not they are or are not able to be repressed, is the universal desire for recognition.
Fukayama wrote the following: “What is at stake for us when we choose to live in a liberal democracy is not merely the fact that it allows us the freedom to make money and satisfy the desiring parts of our souls. The more important and ultimately more satisfying thing it provides us is recognition of our freedom.” He interprets Hegel’s idea of a fundamental desire for recognition, claiming that it is a fundamental motivator for human beings, and that it is capable of describing historical development–past to future–more effectively than the economic theories at the forefront of social discourse. It should be mentioned that this idea of “recognition” is Alexandre Kojève’s interpretation of Hegel, and some find it to be inconsistent with the original texts, therefore, proclaiming it to be Kojève’s idea. Fukayama is indirectly commenting on Hegel. He chooses to discuss Kojève’s commentary on the Hegelian conception of “recognition” and an “end of history.”
The desire for recognition is called thymos or thumos in Plato’s The Republic (it can also be translated as “spirited”). Thymos is not limited to one’s own self. It is not always solipsistic, nor tribalistic. It’s merely a desire that can be directed towards oneself and/or others. The political implications of this are massive. Workers with a damaged thymos may feel indignant when paid inadequately, compelling them to strike until they are “recognized.” Politicians and liberal democratic voters are capable of feeling the indignity of a person who isn’t afforded “recognition” in a war zone, then acting upon the aroused sentiments. This relates to liberalism. The liberal connection to recognition is the idea of civil liberties–that they serve as the binding metric of recognition; the democratic connection is that democracy serves as a way for the civilians’ desire for recognition to be amplified in a way that is more often than not satisfactory.
When the tsar’s wars (alongside WWI, there was the humiliating Russo-Japanese War) and lack of workers recognition became too unbearable, there arose a crisis of thymos. It manifested itself in a revolution. Nearly a century later, the homogenizing and humiliating realities of Soviet Communism became too unbearable, such that a crisis of thymos toppled the government. Recognition–in its subjective and microcosmic form–is the backbone of any government’s legitimacy, whether it be authoritarian or democratic, large or small. In authoritarian governments, it is difficult to act such that the population feels recognition. Democracy is in essence, a system that capitalizes on this desire. It is not subject to the constant crisis of authority, an indisputable fact of totalitarian and authoritarian governments.
How do non-democratic governments gain legitimacy? What does accountability look like without voters? Does the neglect of thymos weaken authoritarian regimes or vice versa? An authoritarian government, like any government, must maintain the economy and address social problems in a way that satisfies people to some extent. However, legitimacy in undemocratic governments is convoluted, less methodical and less robust than majority-rule. The legitimacy that a Democracy provides is simple: the loser loses, the winner wins. Authoritarian governments need legitimacy like Democratic ones, but the form of legitimacy varies, often being unimpressive. There needs to be some vague network of inter-subjective belief and militaristic hold. For example, the Islamic Regime of Iran doesn’t enjoy the support of a “legitimate” ruler. No more than twenty percent of the population vouches for them. There are, however, enough rural conservatives who enlist and compensate for the gap. A revolution that erects or topples an authoritarian regime doesn’t stem from the passive contempt of the masses, more often than not from the impassioned and violent dissidence of a minority. A tedious majority is the only sensible route to legitimacy, although it too, fails to rectify certain injustices. For example, there is the injustice of polarization. A country usually has multitudes of people, all of which must be represented by the same officeholder(s). Because of a distance in ideology, personal and community interest, and cultural values, a large minority of people may end up being given little to no recognition by the government. When there are two opposing groups of voters, an elected official has a vested interest in serving their faction over the other. Therefore, the legitimacy that democracy has to offer is horribly impure. It is often unjust to a large minority. Still, it has a deeply ingrained accountability mechanism that should allow a sense of legitimacy to be more stable and enduring (as long as the media communicates the progress and shortcomings of a government effectively…) Legitimacy is derived from nuanced and inconsistent origins that are difficult to come by; there is no way to recognize the humanity of an entire population unless the people reach an impossible degree of homogeneity.
Powerful authoritarian regimes were ultimately weakened by crises of legitimacy. To Fukayama, they had always been weak, doomed to be placeholders–negligible stains in the methodically woven tapestry of history. The ethos of authoritarianism lies in its militaristic strength, among other things. So, history, why do they keep self-imploding all over the world? Let’s look at totalitarianism–the pinnacle of national strength and infamous bully of world order–which was introduced in the 20th century by Nazi Germany and the USSR. Both sought to control everyone and everything, imposing a structure that was supposed to serve the interest of the state (and some of its people). In doing so, they were allowing their people the opportunity to be part of something larger than themselves, a collective. I will elaborate upon this in part two of (In)inevitability. While communism is, in principle, an ideology that recognizes all, Soviet communism grossly underdelivered in this regard. People were arbitrarily put in gulags and confined to illiberal restrictions. Mikhail Gorbachev was forced to loosen the screws that held the USSR together. For Nazi Germany, it was warfare that ultimately weakened, not empowered, the nation. They moved through Europe, provoking others to fight for recognition of their humanity. Such a regime is bound to eventually be defeated. Hannah Arendt offers a compelling counterargument: The longevity of twentieth century dictators can be owed to their making large promises and then neglecting them (“The Origins of Totalitarianism”). Leaving the citizens with instability imposes upon them a perpetual state of dependency on the regime.
Recognition of one’s humanity deters many people from inflicting horrors, but it has a deep and dark shadow. The Treaty of Versailles deprived Germans of recognition, whereas Nazism gave Germans an inflated sense of worth. This reflects the darkest facet of thymos. While this urge is what makes us social animals, also serving as a solid compass to virtue, it also lays the foundation for tyranny. This is why the claim that these atrocities are aberrations, inconsequential to the long term trajectory of humanity is problematic. The way that recognition relates to freedom is profound, but so is selfishness, whether it be of the consequential or inconsequential kind.
While the desire for recognition can manifest itself in virtues (e.g. standing up against tyranny and for the civil liberties of others), it has a problematic offspring. Megalothymia is a desire to be recognized as superior to others. There is also isothymia, a desire to be recognized as equal to others. The former is at the core of a tyrant’s inflated self-importance and the urge to dominate. Once the tyrant has dominated the other(s), Hegel’s Master-Slave Dialectic occurs (a concept soon to be analyzed). Every proponent of imperialism is saturated with this impulse, so too is every megalomaniac acting upon their tyrannical case of thymos. The hate of a white supremacist is rooted in the desire to be recognized as superior to other people, so too is the imperialist who wants their nation to exert influence throughout the world, and the fascist who wants to exalt the recognition of his people over all others. Many democracies also suffer from bad cases of megalothymia. Its effects are clear in cases such as Brexit in the U.K., Donald Trump’s draconian immigration policies, and Nadredi Modi’s scapegoating and targeting of muslim “infiltrators.” The othering of people is done in order to separate people into those who “deserve” x amount of recognition versus y amount of recognition. The Republic too, concerns itself with the duality of thyros: Plato lauded it for the noble role it fills in politics while acknowledging its troubling propensity for destruction. Megalothymia is not all bad. It is the source of ambition and excellence. It is seen in public service and is a catalyst for competition in any healthy market economy. Yet, it alone is responsible for the dehumanization known to this day.
Nationalism is a symptom of megalothymia, offering recognition only to a particular national or ethnic in-group. Fukayama claims the existence of international organizations such as the EU and UN won’t allow it to exist at some point. However, megalothymia and tribalistic behaviors seem to be irrepressible. He acknowledges this as a short term reality, but believes that liberal democracy will ultimately eradicate all such influence. In the age of post-history/when liberal democracy prevails, there will still be nations who succumb to cultural conflicts and retain their nationalistic tendencies, thinks Fukayama. He calls these countries “historical” as opposed to “post-historical.” But again, liberal democracies can change, as Fukayama himself admitted. If a “post-historical” country is capable of reverting to a “historical” status, in what way has history ended?
Friedrich Nietzche challenges the notion of universal “recognition,” for if recognition were ubiquitous, it would cease to retain its value. The problem is ultimately unsolvable, not by Marxism nor liberal democracy. It will always propel history forward, never stabilizing. The end of history would mean absolute homogenization, a dulling of the human character and art. It is neither feasible nor desirable. Moreover, there are inherent differences between people, ones that preclude any possibility of equality. Both communism and liberalism conveniently bypass this fact. A lot of inequality can be alleviated upon people by a government, but it is difficult to do so adequately. Still, liberal democracy is superiorly pragmatic in this regard. It generally creates a larger middle class than any other system. The size of a society’s middle class has a positive correlation with its egalitarian potency.
Thymos also relates to Hegel’s famous Master-Slave Dialectic, which states that the need for recognition manifests in perpetual conflict, a power struggle between two actors. Two parties involved are essentially fighting in conquest of the other’s recognition. One of these is the master; he seeks to achieve recognition through domination, seeking to acquire the deference and recognition owed to the superior being that he believes himself to be. Conversely, the slaves seek to be recognized as an equal through labor and resistance. This process is ultimately unstable, leading to a reevaluation of power structures. The slave will ultimately gain autonomy as the master suffers from a crisis of legitimacy. Fukayama ascribes the liberalization process to the inherent longing for recognition and the unstable dynamic illustrated by Hegel.
The slaves self-worth is fulfilled through labor. What compelled the slave to seek recognition can be seen through the lens of Christianity. Liberal egalitarianism emerged in feudal Western Europe; civil liberties came about in a specific cultural and economic landscape. The peasants were essentially “the slave,” and before their master, they insisted that the Christian God deems all men to be equal. Liberal values have become “secularized,” but they’re essentially derived from the idea that all are “endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.” It’s appalling how mundane these liberal views have become, as if universal human rights simply are. They are contrived human stories owed to pure fortuity. Fukayama’s narrative deems them to be part of a natural progression rooted in thymos, but it’s important to appreciate what he himself knows to be true: history isn’t deterministic. To say that the road towards liberal democracy was already paved is reductive, yet to reject any sense of order is too.
Thomas Hobbes’ definition of freedom is as such: to be free of all external constraints that might impede upon one’s ability to do something. Although social cooperation and reason is at the center of his philosophy, and although he describes human beings as distinctly more complex than any other animal, he still contends that primitive self-preservation has a monopoly on a person’s decisions. The discoveries of Charles Darwin have since strengthened this contention. Conversely, Hegel emphasizes the human capacity for “free moral choice.” The virtue of man lies not in his cleverness, rather his freedom. He doesn’t reject the influence of self-preservation altogether, but he does insist that there is a path to overcome this struggle. Through risking one’s own life, one defies the instinct for preservation, therefore, becoming human. That is the struggle for freedom, one that must pose an existential threat. Most agree that Hegel (Kant too) underestimated the influence of biology on human decision, but the nature of freedom described by Hegel is compelling in that it illustrates a reality inconsistent with our most fundamental understanding of nature. Furthermore, whether or not animality can ever be bypassed, the desire to transcend it is a motivator of history. Fukuyama analyzes an excerpt from a memoir by former anti-Soviet dissident and first president of the Czech Republic Václav Havel, which relates the story of a grocer who is impoverished and oppressed under the Communist regime, but nonetheless posts a propaganda poster on his shop window. This serves as a double-front of self-preservation and the veiling of a biological motivator by a cloak of high-minded ideology. "Why, then, not admit that one is a human being and therefore afraid?"
There are many historical examples in which people seem to overcome their animal instincts and fight for freedom. To Hegel, the French Revolution was the realization of human potential to overcome animality. The dissidents risked death, and in doing so, they were able to destroy the cycle of self preservation that kept them as “slaves,” a people without freedom nor recognition. Essentially, the slave overcame his fear of death and achieved recognition. The slave became the master of himself, the master too. Voilà, a permanent solution to the crisis of recognition…
In conclusion, the alternatives to liberal democracy are unlikely to disappear in the foreseeable future. Moreover, established liberal democracies do not exist indefinitely. Polarization weakens democracy, populism weakens liberalism. A democratic state is meant to unite, but if loyalty lies in a community or faction of a nation, the entire structure of recognition is hollowed, used cynically. The free market, though it improves standards of living overall, leaves many in the shadow of globalization. The Western values of recognition don’t necessarily manifest themselves in democracies. They usually do, in part. Liberal democracy may be the best current system, but relying on a population of often fallible and irrational people makes sufficient liberal qualities difficult to come by. Fukayama didn’t acknowledge the ability of democracy to weaken liberalism, only time has. The state of global politics makes an “end of history” unlikely, yet liberal democracy remains highly idealized throughout the world. In a time in which people are losing faith in institutions, it's important for people to familiarize themselves with the history and current processes of the stratified world order. In doing so, we can protect, revise, or dispose of certain prevailing paradigms until the alleged "end" of history descends upon the world...