Alvarez
into the 1992 book The End of History and the Last Man, Fukuyama proph-
esied that the fall of communism signaled “the end of history as such: that
is, the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization
of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.”
Of course, the “end of history” didn’t mean the end of military
conflicts, social upheavals, or economic booms and busts. It did mean,
however, that all boats were ultimately heading to the same shore; with
no more serious contenders on the world stage, all things were trending
toward a global order in which the marriage of market capitalism and
liberal democracy would enjoy eternal dominance. Thus, in Fukuyama’s
view, the endless roil of intra- and international conflicts that have
continually punctured our world during the past three decades has
nothing to do with any world-historical battle between competing social
orders. Rather, it merely represents the thrashing of those parts of the
world that are still mired “in history” as they are compelled down the
inevitable path to joining the “posthistorical” world.
There is a quasi-religious overtone to all of this—everything in
the past has been moving toward a telos, a predestined end. The age
of global neoliberalism, with a sort of egg wash of liberal democracy,
stands as the inevitable endgame of “mankind’s ideological evolution,”
the output that the entire Rube Goldberg machine of human history
has always been grinding toward.
It is important to note, though, that it never really mattered whether
this was what anyone wanted. If we move beyond all the fancy window
dressing, we see that Fukuyama is describing the final stage not of col-
lective human development, but of historical war and domination—of
empire. In “The End of History?” he writes:
The spectacular abundance of advanced liberal economies and the infinitely
diverse consumer culture made possible by them seem to both foster and