Se še spomnite Francisa Fukuyame? Svetovno slavo si je leta 1992 pridobil z razglasitvijo konca zgodovine v knjigi “The End of History and the Last Man“: po padcu železne zavese naj bi sprega liberalne demokracije in tržnega gospodarstva pomenila nekakšno končno točko v sociokulturni evoluciji človeštva in končno obliko vladavine. No, že nekaj let kasneje se je korigiral in se tudi nekoliko distanciral od neokonzervativnega gibanja, katerega del je bil. Njegova nova knjiga “Political Order and Political Decay“, pa – kot pove že naslov – prinaša manj optimistične vizije. Zgodovine še zdaleč ni konec, pač pa se je v vmesnem času ameriški vzor liberalnega gospodarstva spridil v koruptivno in manipulativno vladavino kapitalskih interesnih skupin na škodo večine, medtem ko na drugi strani vzpon avtokratskih vladavin in ponekod skrajno nazadnjaških in nasilnih masovnih gibanj od Rusije, Kitajske do arabskega sveta nakazuje, da dobre (oziroma boljše) alternative tudi ni na vidiku.

Francis Fukuyama nam dvajset let kasneje riše bistveno manj optimističen svet. Dejansko ne ponuja odgovora, le zaskrbljenost nad tem, da ne vemo niti tega, ali se bo institucionalni sistem evropskih držav spridil v enaki meri kot ameriški, kaj šele tega, v katero smer bodo “alternativne” oblike vladavin popeljale preostale dele sveta.

Kratek izsek iz recenzije v New York Timesu:

Over the past few decades, American political development has gone into reverse, Fukuyama says, as its state has become weaker, less efficient and more corrupt. One cause is growing economic inequality and concentration of wealth, which has allowed elites to purchase immense political power and manipulate the system to further their own interests. Another cause is the permeability of American political institutions to interest groups, allowing an array of factions that “are collectively unrepresentative of the public as a whole” to exercise disproportionate influence on government. The result is a vicious cycle in which the American state deals poorly with major challenges, which reinforces the public’s distrust of the state, which leads to the state’s being starved of resources and authority, which leads to even poorer performance.

Where this cycle leads even the vastly knowledgeable Fukuyama can’t predict, but suffice to say it is nowhere good. And he fears that America’s problems may increasingly come to characterize other liberal democracies as well, including those of Europe, where “the growth of the European Union and the shift of policy making away from national capitals to Brussels” has made “the European system as a whole . . . resemble that of the United States to an increasing degree.”

Fukuyama’s readers are thus left with a depressing paradox. Liberal democracy remains the best system for dealing with the challenges of modernity, and there is little reason to believe that Chinese, Russian or Islamist alternatives can provide the diverse range of economic, social and political goods that all humans crave. But unless liberal democracies can somehow manage to reform themselves and combat institutional decay, history will end not with a bang but with a resounding whimper.

Vir: Sheri Berman, New York Times