AN UNDERSTANDING OF FRANCIS FUKUYAMA’S THEORY OF ‘END OF HISTORY’

Abstract

There has been a trend in 19th century philosophy that human history has a direction and meaning. It believes that the evolutionary process of history will ultimately lead human society to an ‘end’; that will be a fully developed society. But this trend was almost abandoned in 20th century philosophical discourses. 20th century philosophy concludes that human history as a meaningful process does not exist at all. Fukuyama wants to revive the tradition that regards history a meaningful process. For Fukuyama, it makes sense to believe that history is directional and has an ‘end’. Through an analysis of the political and economic evolution of the contemporary world, he develops his theory of ‘end of history’. Fukuyama asserts that in the contemporary world, most of the national states, through an economic and political evolutionary process of history, have reached the structures of a capitalist free market and liberal constitution. The structures of the free economy and of liberalism are now in their complete forms. The historical process has made them complete. This leads Fukuyama to assert that the ideals of liberal democracy have survived and endorsed itself as a goal of history. For Fukuyama
there is no other goal in the contemporary world. This
paper analyzes Fukuyama theory of ‘end of history’.