The American political scientist Francis Fukuyama gained worldwide notoriety thanks to an essay published in 1992 in which, commenting on the disappearance of the USSR, he postulated the “end of history”. Thus ironically alluding to a famous expression of Karl Marx, he affirmed, contrary to Marxist theories, the intrinsic superiority and historical solidity of democracy and liberalism. His purpose, which was not to claim that humanity was entering a period of serenity and political calm, has unfortunately been abundantly caricatured.
Thirty years after this coup, he returned to the benefits of liberalism in a book published in French under the title Liberalism, Headwinds. For the author, the primary strength of liberalism stems from the weakness of its adversaries. The left is now lost in considerations of sexual or racial discrimination, the extremism of which alienates it from a large majority of the population and condemns it to seek cultural preeminence rather than the concrete exercise of political power. As for the radical right, once in power, it disappoints its voters by maintaining a discourse based on morality, even religion, and national greatness, without showing itself capable of responding to the problems of its supporters.
More positively, liberalism has the advantage of offering individual well-being born of freedom, economic well-being resulting from the growth it promotes, political well-being resulting from the establishment of democratic institutions. However, the book speaks about it of “headwinds”… Indeed, since the fall of the communist regimes of Eastern Europe, Western democracies have accumulated disappointments. The severe recession of 2009, the descent into hell of Greece in 2010, the election of Trump, Brexit, so many shocks that shook certainties about the future of liberalism.
For Fukuyama, the current problem of liberalism would be its deviation into “neoliberalism”, symbolized by Reagan and Thatcher. This “neoliberalism” would have been wrong to ignore the widening of inequalities, the deindustrialization resulting from globalization, the danger of favoring the consumer over the producer. However, on closer inspection, this neoliberalism simply takes up the defense of national and international competition and the call for a modest state that were found in the historical liberalism of Adam Smith, David Ricardo or Benjamin Constant, of whom he claims. In reality, this opposition that the author of “The End of History” raises between liberalism and its recent version should lead the neoliberal partisans of today to refine their program, if they want to continue to convince.
Liberalism, Headwinds
by Francis Fukuyama. Saint-Simon, 170 pages, €21.
Rating: 4/5