As we are contemplating a non-insignificant probability of nuclear war, the end of history (that is, the end of social discontent and major wars) envisioned by Francis Fukuyama in his book The End of History and the Last Man (Simon and Schuster, 1992) seems very, very far away. Moreover, his triumphant liberal democracy was conceived as very democratic but still far from liberal in the sense of classical liberalism. In the Fall issue of Regulation, I review Fukuyama’s widely debated book as well as the author’s most recent Liberalism and Its Discontents (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2022). I show how, between the two books, Fukuyama’s thought has moved closer to classical liberalism, although many weaknesses remain. (See “Fukuyama: Interesting Books, With Some Baggage,” Regulation 45:3 [Fall 2022], pp. 48-53; also in html version.)
Fukuyama now clearly admits the need for constraining democracy, but his practical proposals are often incoherent with the theoretical principle. One example I give in my review:
There is no reason, [Fukuyama] explains, “why economic efficiency needs to trump all other social values,” a moot point when one understands that economic efficiency is simply a way in which voluntary exchange reconciles, without coercion, the preferences and values of all individuals.
As an example of desirable democratic choice, Fukuyama proposes the primacy of work over consumer welfare. The question is whether “human beings” are “consuming animals” or “producing animals.” “This is a choice that has not been offered to voters under the hegemony of neoliberal ideas.” The absurdity of putting such a choice before voters is easily shown by imagining a referendum that would ask “the people”: “What animal do you (or we) want to be, a consuming animal or a producing animal?” Ask yourself what would be the meaning of X% (< 100%) deciding one way or another. “We are all producing animals and now get back to work!” More realistically perhaps, we may imagine complex baskets of practical policy measures and electoral promises related to such a choice and proposed to the rationally ignorant voters, who would understand the consequences of the measures even less than their proponents. The only liberal solution, of course, is to let each individual decide for himself what sort of animal he wants to be, given the impersonal constraints generated by the equally free choices of all other individuals.
EconLog readers may find other interesting points in my critique, as well as in Fukuyama’s books themselves. This reflection helps pull together many threads in the critique of illiberalism.
READER COMMENTS
Thomas Lee Hutcheson
Oct 8 2022 at 12:25pm
“one understands that economic efficiency is simply a way in which voluntary exchange reconciles, without coercion, the preferences and values of all individuals.”
With many glaring exceptions.
The recipient of the harm from CO2 emissions is not accepting the harm in exchange for something they value more.
My preferences for living an a society with less extreme income disparities is not reconciled by the existing structure of voluntary exchanges.
Pierre Lemieux
Oct 8 2022 at 3:35pm
Thomas: I recognize your usual objection! Your externality argument is a mighty objection–until you realize that if somebody somewhere does not like something that somebody else somewhere does or thinks about, a peaceful and prosperous society is impossible. See my Regulation article about “The Threat of Externalities.” You’ll find there some powerful replies to your objection from James Buchanan and Carl Dahlman.
Let me illustrate in a very simple (too simple?) way by challenging the strongest case you may be making. I would argue that the person who does not like the risk of CO2 harm (or who just does not like the thought of CO2 emissions) may very well be willing to trade this in exchange for something else–for example being left free to read Lady Chatterley’s Lover if he feels like. They do this trade at the constitutional level, à la Buchanan, by limiting the power of the state to intervene each time somebody does not like something.
David Seltzer
Oct 8 2022 at 5:26pm
Pierre: It seems to me there are always going to be externalities. But degree matters. In a nearby high net worth gated community, a friend, who is a resident, complained about a neighbor who drives a 2015 Honda and parks where it can be seen by the one percenters. The Honda owner is wealthy, but my friend is vexed because the Honda does not belong in the hallowed company Of Porches, MB, Audi’s and the occasional Bentley. In the end he is resigned to being annoyed whenever he sees that unfortunate Civic sedan but, fairly, accepts the Honda owner’s right to choose.
Jeff
Oct 10 2022 at 8:03am
What if they are not willing to make the trade?
Pierre Lemieux
Oct 11 2022 at 10:37am
Jeff: Then they don’t. Trades are like babies: most are not made. The question is who decides: each individual or some coercive authority? That’s the sort of issue that Buchanan (and other liberal theorists) is addressing.
Jeff
Oct 12 2022 at 12:10am
OK, but when the number of affected parties is massive, as in the case of CO2 emissions, you may end up needing to make this trade with everyone on earth. Is that the goal, or is the goal really to buy off as many objectors as possible so as to whittle down their numbers in anticipation of the day when coercion is eventually to be used?
I’ll admit that my own bias is to see these theories as having served chiefly as a salve to the conscience for the polity of the mid to late 20th century. A mythical ideal of noncoercion sanctifies and blesses the use of actual coercion. I quite honestly have a hard time seeing how they can be taken seriously as establishing any systematic framework.
Pierre Lemieux
Oct 13 2022 at 11:06am
Jeff,
Interesting questions. In the Buchanan-Tullock perspective, two things must be understood. First, the agreement that needs to be unanimous is an agreement on rules . Second, the moral criterion is unanimity, not majority (even not a big majority using violence against a small minority). There is no shifting of net costs to other individuals like in cost-benefit analysis.
One may object that the practical meaning of all this is difficult to pinpoint. But it is even more implausible to imagine that rationally ignorant voters can evaluate the complex bundles of policies with unknowable long-term consequences that are proposed by self-interested politicians influenced by self-interested bureaucrats and special interests. If you add the problem of preference aggregation, social choices are, as Riker puts it, “arbitrary nonsense.”
Craig
Oct 8 2022 at 6:19pm
My inner King Soloman says they should split the baby. From what I’ve read ot seems there are areas that genuinely should not be part of the Ukraine. Will he use a tactical nuke? I think he’ll throw some chemical weapons first and he might try to wait for Gaspolitik to be effective?
Ultimately I think he’ll do it and I fear that the sides are adopting positions that have been escalating since 2014.
Status quo ante bellum, the separatist-held areas as of tbe invasion go to Russia.
Pierre Lemieux
Oct 9 2022 at 12:51pm
Craig: If one wants to play King Solomon, the morality of one’s judgement will depend on (1) the starting point of the comparison and (2) on principles versus expediency.* Suppose somebody steals 99% of your income and my Solomon judgement is that he should give you back 50%. “You have to draw the line somewhere,” I say, “and there is no point fighting over that.” Moreover, perhaps 20 years ago, the thief saved your life (perhaps only indirectly: he fixed a tile a rooftop, which would otherwise had fallen right on your head a month later), so you are still much ahead with 50% of the income you would not otherwise have earned.
*On principles and expediency, see chapter 3 of the first volume of Hayek’s Law, Legislation, and Liberty or, as a poor substitute, my Econlib review.
Craig
Oct 9 2022 at 1:34pm
There are a few competing principles at play here. One is the international law concept of the territorial integrity of existing nation states, the other is some appreciation for the self-determination of people.
As you write this: “Suppose somebody steals 99% of your income and my Solomon judgement is that he should give you back 50%”
I don’t think that applies here because we can go back in time and look at the Ukrainian referendum in 2010 and you can see the line drawn between Janujovych and Tymoshenko: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Ukrainian_presidential_election#/media/File:%D0%94%D1%80%D1%83%D0%B3%D0%B8%D0%B9_%D1%82%D1%83%D1%80_2010_%D0%BF%D0%BE_%D0%BE%D0%BA%D1%80%D1%83%D0%B3%D0%B0%D1%85-en.png
Now if I were the mediator and I was going to wave a magic wand (and trust me, I labor under no pretense that I would actually want to be the one to wave that wand), I wouldn’t say that Russia should get all of those blue territories on that map particularly given the current military situation which at this very moment favors the Ukrainians to get more favorable terms.
Still that being said the very bluest of those areas are the areas that on the eve of Russia’s invasion constituted the de facto states of the DPR and LPR which has established themselves, de facto. Under the declarative theory of statehood they existed, under the constitiutive theory of statehood they had started to gain international recognition, obviously only among states like Russia (post invasion), not countries like the US or France.
I would even venture to say, at this juncture, that the DPR and LPR not only should NOT be part of the Ukraine, I would say it would morally wrong to give them BACK to the Ukraine. Of course Putin wanted more than that, but that doesn’t justify the fact that a collective punishment be imposed on the people in those breakaway regions. Its very clear to me that the people in those regions simply do NOT WANT TO BE PART OF THE UKRAINE and they have been fighting since 2014 NOT TO BE. In my opinion that matters and I would think that the totality of those circumstances makes me weigh the self determination of the people in that region over and above any interest the Ukrainians might have in territorial integrity in regions populated mostly with people that have no interest in being part of the Ukraine.
We can go back in time to address the grievances the Ukrainians and Russians might have with each other, but the interests of future peace simply cannot dwell on those topics.
If the Ukrainians are successful in ousting the Russian army and the Russians don’t go nuclear, ultimately the point may be moot. The Russians in the region may actually self-deport like many Germans did from regions like the Polish Corridor after WW1. I have no idea how that will play out, but I can envision a circumstance where the Russians consider the DPR and LPR to be the line where they consider the NATO-supplied Ukrainian military to be the ‘existential’ threat to the Russian state.
I’d suggest the general principle of the self-determination of people be applied and that peace talks should center around the principle that the areas of the Donbass that don’t want to be with Russia should be with the Ukraine and that areas of the Donbass that don’t want to be with the Ukraine should be with Russia. This is a path to de-escalation and peace.
Another consideration is that even if we presume that the Ukrainian military is able to conventionally oust the Russian army from the Donbass. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the DPR and LPR won’t continue fighting, either now, or at some point in the future.
Obstinately insisting on territorial integrity has led to armed conflict going back to 2014 with tens of thousands dead and now its escalating to the point where the Nuclear Sword of Damocles hangs over us all. This is an insane risk to be taking.
This is a border war, treat it like one and draw a new border. The old border has led to nearly a decade of armed conflicts and tens of thousands of people dead.
Aside:
There is an interesting sculpture in the UN in NYC ‘Swords to Ploughshares’ which was a gift of the then-Soviet Union which at the time obviously included both Russia and the Ukraine. Maybe they should hold a meeting there on the East River in NYC. I don’t want this war, I don’t want to be involved in it. I don’t want to be in NATO anymore (and given Russia’s incompetence I’d suggest there’s absolutely NO NEED for the US to be in NATO) and frankly I don’t care who gets the Donbass, it seems to me that both sides want it all and I’m inclined to say that neither side deserves it all, but I am not willing to fight nor would I be willing to sacrifice my son to back the territorial integrity of the Ukraine in the Donbass.
Mactoul
Oct 9 2022 at 9:31pm
Political boundaries always result from conquest or war more generally, morality doesn’t enter into it.
Indeed, I would even say to to moralize on political boundaries is harmful to peace and international order. Witness English sense of guilt on handing over German majority areas to Czech that directly led to 1938.
Mactoul
Oct 9 2022 at 12:51am
Theorists of social contract don’t appear interested in the question of geographical extent of the social contract even though geographic division of mankind is most prominent feature, historically and even at present.
Pierre Lemieux
Oct 9 2022 at 1:01pm
Mactoul: If you read Buchanan’s Why I, Too, Am Not a Conservative, you will see how Buchanan tries to deal with that. (My review of the book provides with a very imperfect substitute.) Moreover, property rights are often the main form of the “geographic division of mankind” (what Hayek calls “the protected domain of each person.” I can’t go uninvited in your living room nor you in mine.
Mactoul
Oct 9 2022 at 9:26pm
Unfortunately, Buchanan is not easy to get hold of where I live so I have to get by on your summaries.
Particularity above the level of the individual person presents a puzzle to the libertarian theory so I am curious how Buchanan solved the conundrum.
There are two levels of geographical separations but libertarian theory accounts for only one (and that imperfectly). How do you account for political boundaries?
Pierre Lemieux
Oct 10 2022 at 12:05pm
Mactoul: Did you not in large part answer your very question in your above comment to Craig? You wrote:
In Buchanan’s perspective, the only exception is or can be a state defending the liberal ideal of a society of natural equals engaged in voluntary trade.
PS: If you live in a place when you can’t get books, fleeing may be the only solution. When one realizes how it is difficult to flee elsewhere, one may wonder whether national and nationalist states are so great!
Mactoul
Oct 11 2022 at 12:38am
But are you allowed to use my answer? In conquest etc scenario, a political order is provided, by the fact of conquest itself. Social contract is superfluous.
The social contract scenario presumes a collection of persons having no political relations.
nobody.really
Oct 9 2022 at 2:54am
The main thrust of Liberalism and its Discontents is that liberalism represents a modest procedural balance between competing maximalists who would skew the process of government in their favor. As a small book, it necessarily glosses over a lot. I noted how often Fukuyama criticized competing views as going “too far,” without really articulating a standard for making this judgment. Lemieux identifies more aspects of the argument that he glosses over.
Nevertheless, I liked the book for two main reasons. First, it provides a summary of contemporary left-wing maximalism. I have read more libertarian-ish stuff than Marxist/post-modernist stuff, so I have only the vaguest understanding of many of these arguments and how they evolved. Doubtless aficionados of those views would find Fukuyama’s summary as unsophisticated as Lemieux did. But I found his summary eye-opening.
Second, the book bolsters my own preference for liberal democracy. A main aspect of Fukuyama’s conclusion is that democratic liberalism is designed with the modest goal of establishing neutral procedures for conflict resolution. Maximalists are free to pursue their objectives in the political realm, but should not seek to gain unfair structural advantages by tampering with the rules. From this, I conclude that the greatest threat to liberal democracy is … HIGH EXPECTATIONS. Expecting government to vindicate your religion is a recipe for frustration—then disillusionment—then corruption and insurrection. We need ideological competitors to focus their attack on each other’s ideas, not on the forum that enables the debate to proceed.
(p.s. If you follow the links, you’ll see the Lemieux has TWO articles in this issue of Regulation.
Show-off.)
Mactoul
Oct 9 2022 at 3:58am
There is always a highest value aka a religion. Can being neutral procedure-wise be the highest value a man can have?
See how quickly homosexuality went from being proscribed to being celebrated.
Man will compromise ie participate in being liberal till their highest values are not being disaffirmed. Particularly when living is easy and comfortable.
nobody.really
Oct 9 2022 at 3:19pm
As a say, Fukuyama glosses over a lot. For example, he appeals to the long tradition of social contract theory or even concepts such as “the public good,” have many before him. Lemieux points out the foundational challenges underlying any interpersonal concepts of value. I can’t fault Lemieux’s argument, but I likewise find it difficult to entirely dismiss the idea of public good.
In the same manner, you note the foundational challenges underlying an embrace of liberalism: Perhaps it’s only possible while your own non-liberal preferences are adequately ascendant.
But perhaps not. Again, the greatest threat to liberalism is HIGH EXPECTATIONS. A lot of liberalism evolved in the context of European religious wars. If people realize that we face a choice of liberalism or endless religious wars, even the devout may come around. (Especially if the devout realize that they’re a minority.)
___
DAUGHTER: Father, that man’s bad.
THOMAS MORE: There’s no law against that.
ROBERT: There is. God’s law.
MORE: Then God can arrest him.
WIFE: While you talk he’s gone.
MORE: And go he should, if he were the Devil himself, until he broke the law.
ROBERT: So, now you would give the Devil benefit of law?
MORE: Yes. What would you do, cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
ROBERT: Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that.
MORE: Oh? And when the last law was down and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, Robert, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws from coast to coast. Man’s laws, not God’s. And if you cut them down – and you’re just the man to do it – do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I give the Devil benefit of law – for my own safety’s sake.
Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons
Pierre Lemieux
Oct 9 2022 at 1:10pm
Nobody: I don’t disagree with your two reserves (“nevertheless…”), although I would have some caveat on the second one.
On my show-off in Regulation, in fact, I have three articles, as I usually do in every issue. (One these articles I don’t like much because it has an edit that I did not approve and which changes the meaning or connotation of an important sentence.)
nobody.really
Oct 9 2022 at 2:51pm
Jeez, Lemieux, THREE articles in EVERY issue? Where do you find the time? And why do you waste it talking to us here?
NO–don’t respond to me; instead, get some sleep! (Or some help.)
Pierre Lemieux
Oct 9 2022 at 4:20pm
I can’t sleep more. It’s turkey hunting season.
Jens
Oct 9 2022 at 3:52pm
Shadow boxing. Democracy consists of constraints, while not all choices are equally free.
Pierre Lemieux
Oct 9 2022 at 4:22pm
Jens: I am not sure I understand what you mean. Care to elaborate?
Mactoul
Oct 9 2022 at 9:42pm
While we may agree that market freedom makes for economic efficiency (with the caveat that market freedom was made possible in the first instance by strong centralizing states), there is still question of non-economic matters such as family law, criminal law.
Unless you take a dogmatic view based upon accidents of the present moment, how would you have a liberal view of matters like homosexuality. Where would you even start?
nobody.really
Oct 9 2022 at 10:05pm
First, there’s Jefferson’s standard from “Notes on the State of Virginia”: “[I]t does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”
Second, there’s the Equal Protection standard: Where government identifies a legitimate object of regulation (archetypically, matters that pick your pocket or break your leg), then government may regulate–provided government adopts a standard relevant to that interest, and applies the standard equally.
Mactoul
Oct 9 2022 at 11:14pm
And do all are bound to agree on definition of “injury”?
I may believe that a state of affairs where homosexuality is not proscribed is highly injurious to my family. Witness the current craze for sexual mutilation of children. What would Jefferson say?
nobody.really
Oct 10 2022 at 4:28am
Spitballing here, but I suspect Jefferson would ask for a clearer statement about how homosexuality picks your pocket or breaks your leg.
He might want to know what specific measures you would propose to “proscribe” homosexuality, and compare the burdens of implementing those measures to the alleged benefits.
And he might want a clearer statement demonstrating how homosexuality necessarily leads to “the current craze for sexual mutilation of children,” and how that “craze” picks your pocket or breaks your leg.
Jeff
Oct 10 2022 at 8:02am
And what if those clearer statements simply elucidate two internally consistent but irreconcilable evaluations of the burdens and benefits?
nobody.really
Oct 10 2022 at 10:16am
Let’s find out.
I think it was Jonathan Haidt in The Righteous Mind who argued that language arose initially for social coordination. That is, we initially evolved speech to persuade others to our point of view, and a large portion of our mental faculties are designed not to find truth, but the justify ourselves to others. While no amount of argumentation can change the laws of nature, argumentation may change the minds of men.
That’s a long way to say, set forth those competing evaluations of burdens and benefits, and let’s see which one strikes us as most appealing.
Jeff
Oct 10 2022 at 3:45pm
Nice answer, but this simply sidesteps the original claim, which was that, unless the debate is resolved in a specific way (and presumably, within a specific timeframe, i.e. before my children are exposed to these ideas), then I am being injured.
nobody.really
Oct 14 2022 at 11:47am
I’ve been reflecting the critiques of Mactoul and Jeff.
Moral Foundations Theory identifies six variables for morality. People raised in Western, industrialized, educated, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) cultures tend to focus on values of harm, fairness, and freedom—and even when they recognize other values, they do not regard those values as a basis for regulation. But people raised outside these cultures also place high value on variables such as loyalty, authority, and sanctity, and think government should regulate to promote ALL these values.
The theory evolved from posing moral dilemmas to people from different nations and classes and seeing how they respond. For example, Joe finds a tattered old American flag in the closet, so he rips it up and uses it to clean his toilet. Does this violate your values? Should government punish this behavior? WEIRD people may see nothing wrong with this conduct (though they often do, but are reluctant to admit it!) But even when they do, they don’t think government should regulate it. Non-WEIRD people tend to disagree.
Mactoul asked, “how would you have a liberal view of matters like homosexuality”? I naturally responded with arguments that focus on harm (does it pick your pocket or break your leg?), fairness (equal protection of the laws), and freedom (don’t regulate unless the matter causes harm or violates fairness).
Let me acknowledge that other have different values, and would expect government to vindicate those values. I would not characterize these people as embracing liberalism.
Pierre Lemieux
Oct 10 2022 at 12:10pm
Nobody: Well said!
Roger McKinney
Oct 10 2022 at 10:52am
I’m surprised that someone like Fukuyama can’t understand that production and consumption are just two sides of the same coin. It’s impossible to have one without the other. Production creates wealth, buy only if someone consumes it. If they don’t, it’s waste. Having less consumption requires less production or waste increases in proportion. People who want less consumption are saying we should be poorer.
nobody.really
Oct 10 2022 at 12:21pm
1: The thrust of Fukuyama’s book is to describe how liberal democracy is under attack from both the left and right. On the right, Fukuyama joins myriad other social observers (maybe nudging J.D. Vance aside to get a better view) gazing upon the disaffection among America’s blue-collar society. What happened here?
Fukuyama seizes upon declining employment as the crucial variable. These were people who made THINGS. Now we get our things from China. That may make things cheaper, but members of our blue-collar society have lost their incomes and social roles. Government contrives to replace a share of the income. (Don’t tell the libertarians, but the ballooning rolls of people qualifying for Social Security Disability looks a lot like a system of transfer payments from those who benefited from free trade to those who lost.) But nothing has yet replaced the social role that employment provided, and thus we observe growing anomie (normlessness). Seeking to speak with compassion for these displaced workers, Fukuyama argues that people value their sense of identity as producers, and implies that our market system fails to take this value into account.
I share Fukuyama’s first observation–but I struggle to see why the labor market fails to account for this dynamic.
I agree that many/most people value the social cache that comes from having a socially recognized role–and for most of us, that’s employment. Of course, our society also recognizes a social role for full-time homemakers, provided they are moms. People don’t seem quite so understanding of homemakers who don’t have kids, and is only gradually coming to recognize stay-at-home dads. And there are various stories of workers (typically men) who lose their jobs, but who refuse to tell their families; instead, they continue to dress for work and leave home anyway–simply because they crave the social recognition that comes from being seen as having a job. I mention this only to illustrate the idea that people care about having a socially-recognized role, above and beyond any concept of income related to those roles.
That said, to the extent that people care about such roles, they should be willing to accept ever less financial compensation to retain those roles. And this dynamic should make it more likely that firms would want to set up or continue operations in the US. So this should imply that the labor market DOES account for people’s desire to have a socially prescribed role such as employee, at least in part.
I sense Fukuyama is hinting at more protectionist/mercantilist policies that would increase employment among blue-collar workers, even at the loss of GDP. But here we arrive at the old question: How far would you go to increase employment through decreasing efficiency?
There’s a much-told story attributed to many august persons, but that actually arose from a little-known Alberta politician in 1935: The politician was grumbling that construction of the local airport was delayed because the contractors were failing to use contemporary building equipment. The contractor explained that he preferred to let men work simply with picks and shovels so as to prolong their employment; it was the Great Depression, after all. If that’s your goal, the politician responded, why not take away their tools and give them spoons and forks?
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