Hello everynyan :3, today is a very special day because it's the day I've decided to write this post, these last few weeks I've been torturing myself reading Francis Fukuyama's "The End of History and the Last Man" inspired by this wholesome marsey 
made by @Most_Hated_Man_Alive.
This will be a refutation of the whole book, not point by point because that's boring, but I will try my best to explain why Fukuyama is a talentless cute twink too far up his own butt.
The book's first mistake is contradicting itself in the first few sentences, it's not akshually the end of herstory, that's just a figure of speech. According to Fukuyama, the science is settled, with the fall of the USSR, liberal democracy is the most perfect system in all of human history, nothing can compare to it. When shown that things like the Iraq War and the Chinaman protests of 89' still happen, he explaind that it is not a literal end of history, things will continue to happen, it's just that liberal democracy is the greatest system ever and I FRICKING LOVE SCIENCE! 
That is, while earlier forms of government were characterized by grave defects an irrationalities that led to their eventual
collapse, liberal democracy was arguably free from such fundamental internal contradictions. This was not to say that today's
stable democracies, like the United States, France, or Switzerland,
were not without injustice or serious social problems. But these
problems were ones of incomplete implementation of the twin principles of liberty an d equality on which moder n democracy is
founded, rather than of flaws in the principles themselves. While
some present-day countries might fail to achieve stable liberal
democracy, and others might lapse back into other, mor e primitive forms of rule like theocracy or military dictatorship, the ideal
of liberal democracy could not be improved on.
When shown with the existence of systems that are neither liberal nor democratic in the modern world, he understandably says "liberal democracy le good doe". When shown the faults of liberal democracies across the world, he convincingly says "liberal democracy le good doe". When shown that the world as a whole isn't heading to a unitary world government led by liberal democracies, he succintly states "uh, the science is settled chud, trust the science." 
But in addition, human beings seek recognition of their own worth,
Yes, according to Fukuyama most of human history is just a twitter attention seeking tournament, how heckin revolutionary oh my science! 
Assuming that liberal democracy is, for the moment, safe from external enemies, could we assume that successful democratic societies could remain that way indefinitely Or is liberal democracy prey to serious internal contradictions, contradictions so serious that they will eventually undermine it as a political system? There is no doubt that contemporary democracies face any number of serious problems, from drugs, homelessness, and crime to environmental damage and the frivolity of consumerism. But these problems are not obviously insoluble on the basis of liberal principles, nor so serious that they would necessarily lead to the collapse of society as a whole, as communism collapsed in the 1980s.
In case you haven't noticed, his entire argument is "Liberal democracy is the main characterino so there's no way it could fall, liberal democracy will live on forrevaaaaar 
"
He then tries to use the words of this guy called Hegel (the character from Fallout New Vegas) to argue why human history is just attention seekers and therefore liberal democracy le good. To my knowledge Hegels is @COMMUNISTHOMOGROYPER 's grandpa or something so trying to explain why liberal democracy le good with his words is like trying to explain why zionism is le good using Mein Kampf, total nonsense.
To summarize, liberal democracy le good, the science is settled, liberal democracy will thriumph over nationalism fascism communism indians etc. Liberal democracy will live on forever and nothing is better so stop trying to better the system the new world order is here. You cannot change anything it's perfect as it is. Any argument saying it's not perfect or that it has its faults is wrong because it just is, chud. DO NOT QUESTION THE NEW WORLD ORDER DO NOT QUESTION THE NEW WORLD ORDER DO NOT QUESTION THE NEW WORLD ORDER DO NOT QUESTION THE NEW WORLD ORDER
Fukuyama is a literal 
in writer form, nuff' said.
The rest of the book summarized: 
That is my whole review, @neoconshill please pin this post in /h/lit I put a lot of effort into it.
@COMMUNISTHOMOGROYPER please do the needful and post DNA
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This but unironically and is a good thing
Seriously though, Fukuyama kind of retracted himself from his original thesis in recent years.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/09/03/francis-fukuyama-postpones-the-end-of-history
Sal, eu te recomendo também ler Origins of Political Order. Também escrito por esse japa, é mais sobre história em geral e menos político no sentido atual
!neolibs what do you guys think?
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To be fair, 95% of people who read this book do the same, because the first Part of the book is boring, poorly-aged, arrogant, and 30 IQ points lower than the rest of the book.
The last Part of the book is the most important, relevant, and interesting. It is where Fukuyama writes that liberalism is intrisincally flawed and the end of history will be depressing, meaningless, and unfulfilling.
To quote his essay:
Fukuyama predicts the rise of a zealous Left who will take the struggle for equality to crazier and crazier conclusions. He also predicts the rise of populist Right who rejects cold liberal consumerism in favor of nationalism, war, and strength. He wonders if the ambitious, glory-seeking leaders among us will accept the egalitarianism of liberal democracy, or if they might try to overthrow it. As an example of such a person, he used the outdated 90s reference of real estate tycoon Donald Trump.
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Watch this go nowhere in 2 weeks
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É profético, basicamente o japa disse que “consoooooom” é o futuro
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Ele previu aos zoomers com internet basicamente, mas ele não previu todos os horrores que isso traria.
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Basically the point of “just consoom” we’re currently reaching. My interpretation was that The End of History he meant was that Liberal Democracy is like the best we can realistically achieve as the alternatives are just terrible, not that there wouldn’t be any dictatorship or populist regimes anymore, but rather that what they offered was shit compared with liberal democracy. Even our current culture wars are not the same as say the French or Russian Revolutions, magacel boomers are not going to overthrow the US government anymore than crazy progs are not going to turn the US into a socialist commune, today is mostly online bitching, not real take the streets change. Also in his portuguese comment Sal said he mostly agreed with the book, but thought Fukuyama was kind of arrogant and simplistic with his claims.
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He is in the first Part, but by the last Part he's so pessimistic about the end of history you wonder if he's secretly rooting against it
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Liberal Autocracy>Liberal Democracy>Illiberal Democracy>Illiberal Autocracy
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Yeah, people have had this boring Salon dot com response to the book since it came it. They never grapple with any of the overarching themes or details and just go "Yeah, but look at this one thing! It's wrong." It makes me think of all of the people who collapse-cried in response to Stephen Pinker's Better Angels and Enlightenment Now.
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Honestamente acho que muitas coisas que esse cara diz não estão erradas, pelo menos em uma certa maneira. Mas Fukuyama tem uma visão muito simplista do mundo e a politica, e a tese é muito pretensiosa com isso de "O meu sistema é perfeito e nada pode se comparar, portanto é o fim do mundo" Mas vou ler isse livro, obrigado pela recomendação.
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Eu acho que o livro encaixa no contexto do fim da Guerra Fria, capturou o “Zeitgeist” daquele então. Mas sim, qualquer livro que oferece uma visão simplista demais vai estar errado em vários aspectos, em geral isso e certo pra qualquer livro tentando adivinhar o futuro. Por isso eu acho que ele é melhor fazendo análise histórico do que suas previsões que envelheceram como leite.
A propósito, como é que se faz pin só no /h/lit? Eu só vi pra fazer o pin em geral, seria esse?
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Pergunte a carp, eu não sei.
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Drafting the thread as we speak.
Isn't that the understatement of the century. The main thesis of the book got absolutely GOT lmao.
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For extra humour, when the war in Ukraine started, Fukuyama made several predictions stating that
for Russia and the war will be ovah in 2 weeks.
Needles to say it went nowhere.
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Just for the record, I argued with folx here about muh sanctions on Russia a year ago when they hit. The last year has shown that I was right. Completely on the fucking money.
chuds btfo (again). Wack how that keeps happening, no?
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Not really. The end of history means that no ideology will successfully supplant liberal capitalism as the dominant ideology. There can be illiberal states, even forever, but illiberal ideologies will fail to get very popular.
Even if Russia never collapses, even if they win the war, Putinism is a discredited laughingstock not even the CIS will touch.
China is the greater threat, but even they have failed to export their ideology. They can't even beat their tiny ex-vassal South Korea in popularizing their culture, much less Xi Jinping Thought.
It's the same world history as Marx or Hegel. It's not a difficult concept.
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I wouldn’t count China out yet.
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btw the end of history was originally invented by a Stalinist. It was the beginning of the Cold War and he thought it would be a weird Stalin-burger hybrid. Fukuyama modified the theory to be more capitalist but he didn't change as much as one would think
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!neolibs
Look at this cute twink thinking its over
10000 year democratic reign
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Imagine writing all those words where "I'm r-slurred" would have sufficed.
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I can't take any moid named Francis seriously
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Ikr, 486 Pages of saying "I'm r-slurred" in slightly different ways, what a scam.
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OK, what do you believe is the alternative to liberal democracy? Isn't that the point of the book? That the only competitors of liberal democracy since the fall of the soviet union are gangster states who have no appeal outside of their own borders and marginal crackpots with no chance of winning.
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Liberal dictatorship r-slur. Why do you think the elites love shoving the gock down everyone's throat.
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Starship troopers or dark elf yarv?
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Starship troopers book was based
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So the problem is selfish elites, the solution is a period of arduous service in the military or terraforming remote moons in order to vote, hold public office, or teach moral philosophy?
I guess the problems with using this to contra fukuyama is that a liberal republic would not be that different from liberal democracy and that few people actually advocate for this.
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If we are going to serious post, I believe Fukuyama was right about liberal democracy being the best way of government, or at least the lesser evil according to other people. It ain’t perfect, far from it, but the alternatives suck bad, I don’t know how one can seriously look at Putin’s Russia or China and say: “that’s so much better than democracy, those dictators actually care and defend our values 😍”
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The core argument is that liberal democracy on average works better than its alternatives on the political level because peoples "animal spirits"(neuroticisms, entitlements, status seeking) can be more easily directed towards harmless things in the private sector or democratic politics as opposed to overthrowing the government or grinding against ideological mandates from the state.
The starship troopers selfish elite theory is inherently platonian. Plato advocated class stratification where roles were more calcified and the elites job was millitary service and deviations of that would be suppressed. The problem being that peoples wills across all classes will chafe or rabidly defend class restrictions that prevent them from making money, deprive them of time, opportunities and political representation without a state of potential war. It would be like the jainissary corp all over again. Political will instead of being directed towards low stakes stuff like blacktranslivesmatters becomes directed at maintaining or tearing down class systems. Its fine if your society recognizes the need for a renewable crop of self funded soldiers but that doesn't mean their interests are aligned with that of the state and its other constituints no matter how hard or long the center tries to impose ideological purity.
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but fr keep yourself safe neighbor dis sum straight midwit shiet aight?
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It's a pretty obsolete book today. Today, liberal democracies on the west have seen a huge rise in extremism and China is showing a mew model of autocracy that can also bring prosperity and economic growth.
However, I think his point of view was pretty mainstream for the period between 1991 and the fall of the USSR to 9/11.
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China's ridiculous frickup of zerocovid shows this period has come to an end. In general with Xi appointing commies and hardliners to high economic positions China's growth and growth predictions took a nose dive. And that's not even going into their demographic crisis or how hard they lie in official data.
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China’s response to Covid is proof that dictatorships are just as or even more incompetent than democracies and the whole “efficient autocracy” is just a myth. I don’t understand why so many people believe an army of shady and powerful bureaucrats with zero accountability is a good idea. In a democracy we know the frickups, that’s the whole point, government is made of people, and people make mistakes, we can vote them out, scrutinize them and make them do a better job next time. Authoritarian regimes just tell you to shut up as the government can do no wrong.
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China's just about to fall
But I really hope they don't, or at least that it is a slow burn. A chinese economic crash will be like a second covid for the economy as all our shit is made there.
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No it isn't, tons of countries get into terrible economic straits (Turkey) or struggle with demographics (Yuros) and not collapse.
But what I listed above shows that "China will overtake the US in
102030 years is just as true as predictions USSR will in 50-60s and Japan in 70s.Even if China takes Taiwan and wins some wars against their neighbours, they will never get to decide the World Order as US had.
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Demographics are going to hit China hard. When the current working generation is taking care of their parents and grandparents they aren't going to have kids. That on top of the one child policy being only repealed a few years ago, to the point where the CCP is begging millennials and zoomers to have kids. You need 2.5 births per couple to keep a population stable.
They're also fricked by the middle income trap, basically they can build all the cheap shit but can not transfer into a service economy when it becomes too expensive to build. No one will want to invest in the Chinese service economy since the legal institutions just aren't there. It's like India in some respects. Investing in emerging or developing markets are a collosal gamble.
They're is a reason they're saber rattling about Taiwan now and that's because it's kinda now or never. Their military while large, doesn't have experience. The last foreign conflict China was in they got buttfricked by Vietnam in the 70's.
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That’s China’s demographic pyramid. Within 20 years they will have a serious pension problems and labor shortages.
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Yeah but have you seen their military parades?
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Meanwhile
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It's really sad. There's a book called Vodka Politics, there's a section that talks about how abortion was the main contraceptive method in Russian and the USSR. It was something like half of all women had one. Some reported up to 9 which will basically render someone infertile. Funny how closed/authoritarian societies can hide or fudge data to make themselves look better and r-slurs will eat that shit up. I would also recommend Vodka Politics on audiobook because the book is a doorstop.
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In the early to middle part of the twentieth century there was a big fear that the USSR would outpace America and become the world's largest economy. This looked possible to observers at the time because while America was lucky to get 3% growth in a given year, the Soviets were growing 5-10% per year for decades at a time.
But much of this was catch-up growth. Russia could become more vastly productive by moving illiterate farmers into ball bearing factories, while the West could only become more productive by inventing new methods and technology. Once Russia began to run out of farmers they could schlup into factories, their growth began to slow and eventually stagnate.
I'm of the opinion China will face a similar situation once they begin to run out of rural masses they can shove into toy factories.
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Russia/China simps ignore the catch up part which is why growth percentage was higher, and gloss over the fact the US economy is super diversified and that the US is still the largest receptor of immigrants. No one wants to move to China, their military is not comparable neither, they don’t have several bases all around the world, their navy is still small when compared with the US navy. Their economy look a lot like 1980s Japan, with the housing bubble and demographic problems included. Mandarin is not going to be the “language of the future” neither as even the Chinese are learning English.
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I feel like china has caught with the time better than the USSR who was still trying to outproduce steel beams in the 80's while the west was building computers.
There's actual chinese tech companies who are kinda good (I think?). That plus their huge population makes me think they could stay the 1# economy for a bit.
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The end of history means liberal capitalism is the dominant ideology. Despite China's economic success, it has failed to promote Chinese communism. Not to her allies except maybe North Korea. Not to the rest of East Asia. Not to ethnic Chinese states like Singapore or Taiwan.
China can't even export their culture. You've probably seen and heard more Korean culture than Chinese.
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Very true.
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Which Fukuyama predicted in The End of History, which goes to show no one has actually read this book
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Never read this book (and probably never will), posting just to see the new salmote
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why do you hate the ultimate "watch this go nowhere in 2 weeks" book?
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