The Politics of Futures Past
25th July 2024
Francis Fukuyama saw liberal democracy as the optimal political system because it allowed all to satisfy their “desire for recognition” but, he warned, absent an external threat, such a society could become moribund, the levelling of recognition dissuading any from pursuing it through the achievement of great deeds. “It would have little art or literature, music or intellectual life. It would be incompetently governed, for few people of quality would choose a life of public service. It would not have much in the way of economic dynamism; its crafts and industries would be pedestrian and unchanging; its technology second rate.” Look around and say it is not so.