FUKUYAMA AND THE “LESSER EVIL”

We could easily say that contribution of Francis Fukuyama regarding the conversation of capitalism and democracy has been quite important. Specifically through his work; The end of History, in which he argues that the so-called end of history might not be as utopian as we imagine it to be. According to Fukuyama, many progressive intellectuals in the 1980s and in general in the 20th century thought that as human societies will evolve, eventually will achieve a teleological purpose of taking the form of a communist utopia. Teleological as a term comes from Aristotle and it could mean any action or any occurrence that has a purpose or a goal, from the ancient Greek word of "telos" which meant purpose or objective and ironically is still used today in modern Greek, meaning the end of something. The irony is that even its modern use is still connected with the idea that the end of an action always services a purpose being fulfilled at the moment it ends. But what is the position of Fukuyama on this idea both about the teleological end of history or the belief of the intellectuals of the 20th century that hoped a utopic communist end? Fukuyama even though he mentioned that he agrees with Marxists in the progressive perception of history, with societies becoming more complex and developed in social organization. He disagreed in the terminal point of society being a communist utopia, but rather something more familiar to what we have in most societies today, a form of market orientated liberal democracy (Fukuyama, 2012). He believed that humanity will never reach this "fantasy" of an utopian communist society, but even if we take the Marxist historical model, society will only reach the phase which a Marxist would characterized as a bourgeois democracy. According to Fukuyama after the complete failure of the totally state planned economy of the former socialist states, a market economy is necessary and even the best given form of economic plan. Thus the only model that includes a market economy and includes a political and economic plan is liberal democracy, following of course in the financial sphere the capitalist values of private initiative and economic freedom. For him a high form of human civilization would be the one producing higher levels of prosperity and happiness for the people living in it, and in that case something close to today's liberal democracy (Fukuyama, 2012).

One of the most interesting arguments of Fukuyama comes out of the Hegelian theory, where change occurs when a thesis and an antithesis create a synthesis, when two different things combined create the change which would be formed by both of them. For Fukuyama the final historical synthesis, or at least a hypothesis about the most advanced society, could derive as a form of a Hegelian dialectical synthesis, where the synthesis occurs from the thesis, the ideational/ideological level and the antithesis which is the material one (Fukuyama, 2012). Marx, in his type of Hegelianism argues that material change is the one that drives the ideational one. That ideas can be formed only as a product and reflection of material conditions. On the contrary Fukuyama believes that the level of consciousness, in other words our ideas, are the one that change the world that we live in. Suggesting that humanity follows an ideational/ideologic pattern, towards an ideational perception of the world. Nevertheless humanity no longer believes massively in a moral absolute or having the perception of a final synthesis as the ideal and utopian end. He is against of a teleological perception of the creation of a utopian society guided by one purpose and one and only idea. Humans tend to be open now to all perspectives or ideas and liberal democracies are promising this; that everyone will have the ability of thinking about things on their own (Fukuyama, 2012). In that sense, Fukuyama believes that the ideational perception is the one that directs the material, on contrary to what Marx used to think. As for the material part, the "antithesis", it is obvious that from the direction that we move in capitalism, which is the dominant economic model, and the model of the liberal democracies. It is a direction towards determinacy, meaning that our strong belief towards the capitalist system and market economics has lead us to be able to pursue enormous amounts of wealth. We are determined to pursue certain goals of wealth for our material happiness. In liberal democracies we are indetermined ideologically being open to many ways of thinking and determined towards materialist goals and ideas, of profit and fulfillment. Our tolerance and openness to ideas along with the pursuit of creating a financial well-being, could be perceived as an end to the utopic perception of synthesis and an end in the idea of the existence of an ideological or moral sole truth. The end to teleological perceptions of social systems that included the struggle for recognition, the perception of risking someone's life for purely abstract reasons. The ideological struggle will be replaced by economic calculations, the endless solving of technical issues, like environmental concerns and the satisfaction of consumerist demands. The end of history will be a care taking of the museum of the world history. Without of course this meaning that events will not be occurring after this so-called end (Fukuyama, 2012).

I believe that by using the phrase; the end of history, Fukuyama is not adopting a teleological philosophy, but rather he is trying to explain that even though a utopic society in a form of communism, probably will not exist, we should hypothesize for the future, by looking what is happening and has been happening for centuries and especially after the failure of the soviet socialist economies, maybe we should move to a more realistic point of view based on what has happened. By Fukuyama what has happened is that the developed world evolved towards a liberal consensus that is showing a prospect ending of the ideological wars and the violence that we observed in the past (Fukuyama, 2012). He seems certain of a universalization of the ideology and practicality of liberal democracy and that according to him has been seen through the domination of the capitalist system in the financial sphere. Of course Fukuyama does not deny that capitalism had also its plenty of issues. In my opinion he is trying to say that capitalism might not be the perfect system, but is might be the best he have, in matters of combined with a democratic form. A conclusion which reminds me a phrase that it is usually attributed to Churchill that "it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except from all those forms that have been tried from time to time" (Langworth, 2009). As I mentioned in the beginning, there are plenty of cases which capitalism has seem to work perfectly and those are the cases of authoritarian regimes. To that, Fukuyama replies that liberal democracies will be a more successful capitalist system than authoritarian capitalist systems. His main argument for that is that liberal democracies have accountability mechanisms. I would have agreed if Fukuyama had said or implied that many authoritarian regimes actually have an “expiring date”. In the sense that it's a common phenomenon in history many authoritarian regimes happening to lose their power which was deriving by clear propaganda and oppression. In that circumstances when things are going well for the country with the authoritarian regime, the propaganda and fear or the tactic of creating scapegoats could potentially work on a part of the population, but eventually the revolt of the people eventually is a matter of time. But Fukuyama only justifies his opinion, by saying that liberal democracies will prevail due to accountability mechanism. Someone could be surprised by the fact that Fukuyama seems to ignore a well-known phenomenon in many liberal democracies called corruptions. And since liberal democracies are combining democracy in the state level of the political sphere, and capitalism in the financial sphere, there are plenty of cases regarding both state and corporate corruption. Corruption in a state level can also lead to authoritarian decisions or corruption between the public and the private sector. We saw plenty of times a liberal democratic government becoming authoritarian or over using its power especially against demonstrator through the police force. But an evident example of authoritarian action of a liberal democracy for the corrupted reasons of interfering and stopping news from being published. In order to protect its own interest as well as tactics that would violate the international human rights, is the case of Wikileaks and Julian Assange. With many governments of liberal democracies all over the world, like the one in the UK and in the United States of America, trying to prosecute Assange for reveling through Wikileaks, shocking battle tactics the Americans used in their war in Iraq (Kennedy, 2021). Or for revealing how the central committee of the democratic party favored the election of the liberal Hillary Clinton, and literally sabotaged any possibility for the election of a more social-democrat politician Bernie Sanders (BBC, 2012). Of course the examples of cases of corruption in the capitalist financial sector from private corporations or entrepreneurs are even more. In a way it can be said the show a dysfunction between democracy in a state level and capitalism in the private sector not only, because of causes of corruption or tax evasion and bribery. In many ways it c as a proof that the liberal democracies are unable of providing accountability in cases of the private sector, for many reasons that could mean that liberal democracies are unable to protect the safety and well-being of their citizens, by being unable in many cases to provide accountability against corporate crimes, leading to many cases of injustice against the citizens of a democracy. In this sense democracy and capitalism might contradict each other since liberal democracies that include a capitalist economy, are oftenly proven to be unable to protect the citizens and guarantee their freedom and equality, in cases where corporate sector is responsible for misuse of money and defalcation. As well as in cases of detrimental natural disasters by private companies, even with the administration of justice, the existence of such a disaster could still be a violation of the safety of citizens, something that it is integral for the democratic operation of society. This can show that in cases like this many issues of capitalism seem to contradict and violate principles of democracy (Fukuyama, 2012).

Fukuyama may be right by saying that after the 20th century and the domination of western liberal democracy, we are experiencing a triumph of economic and political liberalism. Against the experiments of strong states with authoritarian-fascist regimes or strong states adopting a socialist model in pursuit of perceiving a communist society. Of course in the next paragraph I will try to actually examine if all authoritarian states and regimes have failed or if they are failing currently, and why the success of some of them has to do with capitalism. For now I want to say that the historical fact that fascist, authoritarian and plenty of socialist-soviet states, have failed, does not mean that there is not any contradiction between capitalism and society. As we have seen in the previous examples. Nor does it mean that capitalism and liberal democracies are not experiencing humanitarian and economic crises, proven to be fatal for the well-being of their citizens and especially for all the citizens of the world. There are plenty of cases in liberal democracies in which we can observe inherent cases of inequality and the same reasons for constant or repetitive financial crises. Cases that along with corruption and injustice are harming the well-being of their citizens and puts their freedom in questioning. In my opinion, Fukuyama mistakenly believes that the class issue has been resolved or it is even controversial if actually has been any positive change for the middle and lower classes. Especially for the working class, who compared to the middle class, the financial crises have lead to many of them being completely helpless and unprotected. Without mentioning of course the global inequality. The inequality between the north and south hemisphere and the inequality even between workers in different countries, but in countries that they are following the liberal model. How can Fukuyama argue that the gap between rich and poor has not grown in the recent years and and that the class issue is going to be successfully resolved? When the worlds 1% consived by the richest people on Earth, have more than twice as much wealth from the rest 6.9 billion (Keeley, 2015). A tremendous form of inequality that works as an obstacle to the democratic process that requires equality and safety between people. I am not stating that all the people should have the same income, but I am arguing that such gap in inequality can create power problems with those who control all these sums of money ending up of inheriting a financial monopoly. That allows them to act like some sort of invincible feudalists. Whereas in many liberal democracies there is no state care or protection for those in need, who are still equal as a citizens in the "eyes:" of democracy. How democracy can function in the United States, where a child from a wealthy family can have an appendicitis surgery in an hour. While a child from a family in need can literally die, if the family cannot afford a private insurance or the best case scenario to condemn his or her family in an endless circle of dept. If in a democracy, the children from two different families, even from the same neighborhood or city, do not have the same chance to survive or the same basic degree of protection and safety, how can these people exercise the same political life?

For Fukuyama the roots of the cause of economic inequality do not have to do with the structure of the current society, which remains as egalitarian and distributive as possible (Fukuyama, 2012). Claim that can be proven to be completely false from the previous examples and the resounding inequality gap of the 1%. He is also arguing that the economic inequality has to do with cultural and social characteristics and the historical circumstances (Fukuyama, 1989). Even though I can understand why he is believing that, isn't it obvious that regularly all these characteristics can be deeply influenced by the socioeconomic system. What sort of exsuse is this? When we justify an unfair political or economic system by saying that its faults were historically and culturally inevitable. Can we say for example that the Stalinist crimes were an inevitable result of the tsarist oppression and brutality? And even if they have a connection, could this justify the wrongdoing of oppressive systems? Does this mean that we cannot change our future and that we are constant victims of our inevitable past which is becoming our fate? Like we are protagonists of an ancient Greek drama. I personally believe that there were many times in the past and there will be many times in the future, in which people regardless of the cultural and historical past, will develop and choose democratically an equal decision. As well as times of tragedy, chaos and misdoing. Even when Fukuyama brings up the example of the case of poverty in the African American communities in the United States, being in that condition as a result of slavery and racism, and not as inherent product of liberalism, I believe that in a sense he is missing the bigger picture (Fukuyama, 1989). Of course the poverty of this community has to do with its historical exploitation by the advocates of racism and white supremacy, howbeit this is not justifying the fact that inequality racism and slavery has existed and is still existing in places who implement the capitalist economic model. The historical facts, might be historical, but they are created are continued for a reason. For that, it is in the hands of every system or government to abolish them. We should not forget that in times of slavery in the United States, the system followed might seem far from today's liberal democracy, but it still had some traces of liberalism and capitalist values, with even private ownership of slaves. Additionally even in more modern system like the Apartheid regime in South Africa, which was a clear regime, exercising racism. It was considered a pro-capitalist state with strong anticommunist sentiment. With their proponents considering their state as a liberal democracy following the capitalist economic model.

Additionally Fukuyama also perceives the problems of religious fanaticism, in other words fundamentalism and nationalism (Fukuyama, 1989). And even though he might agree that they might be a product of broad unhappiness, impersonality and spiritual vacuity of liberal consumerist societies. He is still insisting in the existence of historical and cultural reasons for all these cases. Something that of course it is true, but it cannot be the only case. Otherwise we have such a violent human past that the term democracy would be non-existent due to the so many authoritarian societies that had and they are still existing. The main difference that I have with Fukuyama Here, is that he believes the fact that nationalism does not start because of liberalism. On the contrary, liberalism is te only reason that nationalism has seized of existing in many places of the world (The Pinochet's Case, 1998). However, I do not know in what level has nationalism really seized to exist. We might not have a Nazi Germany ready to begin a world war and commit thousands of crimes, genocides and ethnic cleansing. But the fact that nationalism has been an increasing and persistent issue, from the election of Trump to the Neo-Nazi party of Golden down entering third in the Greek parliament in the state elections of 2015. Along with the ongoing nationalist tensions in Balkans etc. Are clearly showing that even though there are historical reasons, capitalism and the continuous exploitation of the working class, is forcing people in extreme actions and movements. It is well-known that in both case of the nationalist conservative Trump, and the nationalist neo-nazi party of Golden Dawn, most of their supporters came from poor working families, angry towards the so-called liberal establishment. Which in the eyes of Trump supporters was represented by Hillary Clinton. In all these cases capitalism was unable to offer an alternative solutions and lead to the rise of politicians and movements that were a direct threat to democracy. For these reasons people are still justifiable afraid for history repeating itself and experiencing another horrendous period of nationalism like in the 1930s. A period beginning with a bug financial crisis in the capitalist economic model and ended with thousands dead from nationalist hatred and fascist ideology. We should no forget that Hitler's national-socialist party was democratically elected by the people of the Weimar Republic of Germany. Tired of the inefficiency of the liberal system of that time and the economic stagnation of the WW1. With the conservative liberal establishment of the tim, cooperating with Hitler, under the threat of a communist revolution (Fukuyama, 1989).

There are also some other things in Fukuyama's theory that are still in my opinion unclear, or I perceive them with disbelief. For example his critic over Marx and his Hegelian perception that the material change is the one who drives the ideological one (book Fukuyama). I think he might oversimplify Marx's idea the outside world has an distinct independent reality, from human mind, and that human mind obviously is influenced by the material needs and reality. Nevertheless Marx never argued that the human ideology is a slave to material reality. It might be integrally connected to material human needs, but Marx's belief was that people could take their fate into their hands and change the unequal reality. As well as about his belief that market economics have led to the creation of more wealth. But the right question would be, wealth for who? Of course I cannot deny that market economy has created an environment prosperous for the development of technology.

Sergios Saropoulos