Volkswirtschaft I, Wirtschaftsordnung

Francis Fukuyama

On the Human Situation at the End of History

As we approach the twenty-first century, a remarkable convergence of political and economic institutions has taken place around the world. Earlier in this century, deep ideological cleavages divided the world's societies. Monarchy, fascism, liberal democracy, and communism were bitter competitors for political supremacy, while different countries chose the divergent economic paths of protectionism, corporatism, the free market, and socialist centralized planning. Today virtually all advanced countries have adopted, or are trying to adopt, liberal democratic political institutions, and a great number have simultaneously moved in the direction of market-oriented economies and integration into the global capitalist division of labor.

As I have argued elsewhere, this movement constitutes an "end of history" in the Marxist-Hegelian sense of History as a broad evolution of human societies advancing toward a final goal. As modern technology unfolds, it shapes national economies in a coherent fashion, interlocking them in a vast global economy. The increasing complexity and information intensity of modern life at the same time renders centralized economic planning extremely difficult. The enormous prosperity created by technology-driven capitalism, in turn, serves as an incubator for a liberal regime of universal and equal rights, in which the struggle for recognition of human dignity culminates. While many countries have had trouble creating the institutions of democracy and free markets, and others, especially in parts of the former communist world, have slid backward into fascism or anarchy, the world's advanced countries have no alternative model of political and economic organization other than democratic capitalism to which they can aspire.

This convergence of institutions around the model of democratic capitalism, however, has not meant an end to society's challenges. Within a given institutional framework, societies can be richer or poorer, or have more or less satisfying social and spiritual lives. But a corollary to the convergence of institutions at the "end of history" is the widespread acknowledgment that in postindustrial societies, further improvements cannot be achieved through ambitious social engineering. ... Today, having abandoned the promise of social engineering, virtually all serious observers understand that liberal and economic institutions depend on a healthy and dynamic civil society for their vitality.

Quelle:
Francis Fukuyama
Trust
The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity
Penguin Books Ltd, London, 1996
Seiten 3 und 4

Quelle des Photos:
Homepage von Prof. Francis Fukuyama, Ph.D.,
Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies
of Johns Hopkins University, U.S.A.

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