EXPIRES: 2000

WRITTEN: 1989

What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.

Francis Fukuyama

"The End of History?" The National Interest, No. 16, Summer 1989, p. 4

Written: 1989

Addressed to: the post-Cold War era

Source: "The End of History?" The National Interest

Author: Francis Fukuyama

Category: Governance

Annotation

Published months before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Fukuyama's thesis captured the triumphalist mood of 1989 with philosophical precision. The essay is routinely caricatured, but its actual argument about thymos and recognition is more subtle than the headline. Still, the subsequent rise of authoritarian capitalism, jihadism, and right-wing populism made it the most cited wrong prediction in political science.

What Actually Happened

Liberal democracy retreated in the 2010s. Freedom House documented 16 consecutive years of global democratic decline beginning in 2006. Authoritarian China emerged as a systemic rival.

#democracy#liberalism#cold-war#political-philosophy#triumphalism

2000

This is our basic conclusion: Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white — separate and unequal. Reaction to last summer's disorders has quickened the movement and deepened the division. Discrimination and segregation have long permeated much of American life; they now threaten the future of every American.

National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (Otto Kerner, chair)

2005

The Soviet economy is proof that, contrary to what many skeptics had earlier believed, a socialist command economy can function and even thrive.

Paul A. Samuelson

1984

The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it; moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard.

George Orwell