Word: fukuyama
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...2012” was not spectacular as a cinematic effort, its premise wasn’t entirely wrong—the end of history is almost here. It’s slightly more than two years away, though, according to the academic Francis Fukuyama. In “The End of History and the Last Man,” Professor Fukuyama famously argued that liberal democracy will become the last form of government, the final product of the evolutionary mechanism that is history. But both the director of this would-be blockbuster and the renowned political scientist got it wrong...
...equilibrium Fukuyama anticipates would likely contain not only a certain regime but also a certain view of liberty. Specifically, the trajectory of modern liberal democracy seems aimed at an apex of liberty in which freedom is maximized within the constraints of the “harm principle.” The harm principle states that the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a political community against his will is to prevent harm to others. Such an idea boils down to a simple but effective approach to life: “Don?...
...world that is good or, for that matter, happy. Empirical studies give some indication that progress is not a recipe for satisfaction, even though citizens are freer—perhaps, at liberty to be as unhappy as they are unconstrained. Society might not be on the path that Fukuyama or the preceding picture suggests, but any reclamation of societal standards—such as those underlying monogamy or speech regulations—would require a firm commitment to the ideal rather than the free...
...haven't come to the end of ideology, as Daniel Bell asserted in 1960 and Francis Fukuyama restated in 1992, but the familiar polarities of right and left are losing their salience. For a while, America will be in a state of ideological flux - which means we'll be unusually free to improvise a fresh course forward. We can have universal health coverage and public schools unbound from the stultifying grip of teachers' unions. We can tax fossil fuels so that solar and wind become more economical and commit seriously to nuclear power. We can impose sensible regulatory mechanisms...
Heady words, indeed. Yet what looked like a transformation turned out to be a fluke - or so argues Robert Kagan, in the wryly titled The Return of History and the End of Dreams. Like Fukuyama, Kagan served in the U.S. State Department (as a speech writer for Secretary of State George Shultz); he now lives in Brussels and is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Best known for the 2003 success Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order, Kagan recently made news as a major influence behind John McCain's most...