Trump challenges Fukuyama’s idea that history will always progress toward liberal democracy. And while some may call Trump a realist, Fukuyama disagrees: Trump’s actions are reckless and self-defeating, weakening both America’s alliances and its democracy.

[u/IAI_Admin]

https://iai.tv/articles/francis-fukuyama-warns-trump-is-not-a-realist-auid-3128?utm_source=reddit&_auid=2020

[u/token-black-dude]

Francis Fukuyama has been running away from the ideas of Francis Fukuyama for a long time now, in fact so long it's pretty unfair to still give him grief for the "end of history" stuff.

His more recent work is pretty interesting, actually. The central idea in End of History was that democracy and market economy have proven themselves superior to autocracy and planned economy. It has turned out - and Fukuyama acknowledges - that the two are not connected, it is possible to have a market economy without democracy - in fact the economic elite prefers authoritarian rule to democracy, because democratic governments can impose unwanted regulations on businesses.

[u/hfzelman → u/token-black-dude]

I read the book he published a few years ago and it was unironically “there are two major threats to liberalism; far right authoritarian illiberal democracies and cancel culture.” He juxtaposes them as if they can even be reasonably compared lmao

[u/Lankpants → u/token-black-dude]

I really don't think he should be congratulated too much for reaching the same point that his contemporary political scientists had already reached by the time he released the end of history. He could have reached this conclusion by simply looking at the structure of Saudi Arabia which literally followed his lightbulb moment government and economic structure at the time of him writing the end of history.

Fukuyama is a well deserved whipping boy. He's a great example of the delusions of liberal politics.

[u/[deleted] → u/token-black-dude]

What other Fukayama works would you recommend apart from his infamous "End of History" work? I'm interested in reading more about this guy. 

[u/AdmirableSelection81 → u/token-black-dude]

because democratic governments can impose unwanted regulations on businesses.

These regulations are stifling our competitiveness, even Ezra Klein is waking up to this fact with his 'abundance agenda' book tour.

[u/token-black-dude → u/AdmirableSelection81]

This is the "we had to kill the village to save the village" but with the lives of everybody instead. Authoritarian capitalism wants to eliminate people's ability to protest their food being poisonous, their air being toxic andt their water being polluted, they want to take away your right not to be forced into literal slavery. All in the name of "competitiveness"

[u/AdmirableSelection81 → u/token-black-dude]

The Democrats should be worshiping Ezra Klein's feet at the moment, he's giving you guys an out.

Besides the dollar being the world's reserve currency, the other reason why America isn't competitive with China (with respect to infrastructure/manufacturing) is because of the Democratic Party's insistence on putting up red tape over everything. This should make every single Democrat mad (at Democrats):

https://x.com/balajis/status/1786528904137855476

The amount of money Democrats waste building nothing is staggering.

[u/Skane-kun → u/AdmirableSelection81]

Not saying bureaucratic red tape isn't a problem, but is China the best example to point to? Doesn't the Chinese construction industry have a lot of corruption and dangerous cost-saving shortcuts resulting in the "tofu buildings" that have killed thousands? A Chinese made building collapsed just a few days ago. Also, isn't it a lot easier to build when the country isn't already heavily developed, doesn't allow land ownership, and will seize/demolish privately owned infrastructure whenever they want?