08/05/2026
https://blackd.substack.com/p/history-never-ended
In 1989, Francis Fukuyama, working at the Rand Corporation, wrote a policy paper for the US State Department entitled ‘The End of History?’ Published in National Interest magazine, it soon became a talking point amongst celebrants of the collapse of communism and was expanded into a best-selling book, The End of History and the Last Man (1992).
Fukuyama’s thesis was that liberal democracy and its market economy was, to use Hegel’s term, ‘an idea whose time had come’. Fukuyama argued that if there was to be any future for Civilisation, this was it - there was no alternative and it didn’t matter what ‘strange thoughts’ might occur to those who still thought there might be one.
Fukuyama, 35 years later, knows that History didn’t end in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Resistance to (neo)liberal ideals has prevailed: amongst History’s discontents as well as authoritarian regimes. In the latter case, he insists that ‘illiberal’ societies – particularly Russia and China – are inherently vulnerable. Reliance on a single leader or clique tends to make governance ineffective, incompetent and corrupt. The absence of a free press and public participation in decision-making processes means that support for incumbent leaders can turn volatile. Fukuyama suggests that the USA - for centuries the beacon of liberty - has taken a decidedly illiberal turn:
‘Donald Trump is fundamentally a bully who wants to dominate everyone around him. Trying to placate him with concessions is a fool’s errand: he despises weakness and those who display it. Last spring, the EU cut a trade deal with him that accepted a 15 percent tariff on all European goods with no retaliation against American products. This was a bad decision…What makes any European think that conceding Greenland will mollify Trump? He will simply come back for more, later…
Fukuyama hopes the neoliberal centrism of European Union leaders will prevail and overcome ethnonationalism.
