https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_History_and_the_Last_Man
The End of History and the Last Man is a 1992 book of political philosophy by American political scientist Francis Fukuyama which argues that with the ascendancy of Western liberal democracy—which occurred after the Cold War (1945–1991) and the dissolution of the Soviet Union (1991)—humanity has reached "not just ... the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such
It now seems to me that Fukuyama was wrong, and that Samuel Huntington was right --
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clash_of_Civilizations
The Clash of Civilizations is a thesis that people's cultural and religious identities will be the primary source of conflict in the post–Cold War world. The American political scientist Samuel P. Huntington argued that future wars would be fought not between countries, but between cultures. It was proposed in a 1992 lecture at the American Enterprise Institute, which was then developed in a 1993 Foreign Affairs article titled "The Clash of Civilizations?", in response to his former student Francis Fukuyama's 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man.
Western liberal democracy is now descending. What are the alternatives, and how do we get from here to there?
Note the issue of agency. Biden the person has little agency. He is credited or blamed, but few believe that he is running things. Compare this to Putin. People, in the West especially, believe that he is running the Russian show and deserves all the blame (but strangely not the credit). My view is that this reflects Western corruption. Accountability is masked by weak and expendable political leaders.
As an example of this, see Senate Report: Nearly 700 Former High-Ranking Pentagon and Other Government Officials Now Work at the Top 20 Defense Contractors.
Derek Seidman details in a recent article in Truthout how many of the key architects of the Iraq War have benefited from the revolving door, finding positions with defense industry giants, tech firms and Wall Street investors, and enjoying the good life, raking in consulting and speaker fees, their images washed as they profit handsomely from the insider access they provide.
Where is the accountability in our democratic system for this disastrous war? Putin and Xi are personally accountable and have lost zero wars between them in a combined 30 plus years of rule. Perhaps the Russian and Chinese systems have certain advantages that we should consider?
My knee jerk reaction is that the Russian and Chinese systems merely look good because the West is self-destructing. These are autocracies. I am a child of the enlightenment and want to believe in democracy. But democracy does not seem to have the record of success that is the conventional wisdom in the West. I believed in this conventional wisdom, but now have doubts.
Neither liberal democracy nor conservative dictatorship (where fascism is an extreme outlier) can claim an obvious historical advantage in terms of social coordination at scale. For example, the Roman Empire started out as a democracy of sorts (a republic), but morphed midway into an autocratic empire. Similarly, Greek democracy burned brightly for only a short time. American democracy has been going for a couple of hundred years, but is showing increasing signs of burning out as a liberal enterprise. Neither China nor Russia have ever been liberal democracies, but are two of the most powerful states today. European countries are mostly liberal democracies today, but came to power as conservative kingdoms
The first step to building a better system of government is to recognize the deficiencies of our current system. I favor an incremental approach, leveraging what works in our current system, and addressing our failings in light of what currently work elsewhere. In subsequent posts, I will consider alternatives in a more detailed manner.
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