The End of History and the Last Man

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1830) was an important German philosopher associated with the period of German idealism. Hegel is also considered one of the key system-builders in the history of Western thought at large.

Born to a family of a revenue officer, Hegel studied the classics, philosophy, and theology. His early writing was rooted in the works of another German thinker, Immanuel Kant, and focused on theological subjects. Later in life, Hegel moved away from Kant and developed original ideas.

Hegel held academic positions in Jena, Heidelberg, and Nuremberg. His most famous post was serving at the University of Berlin as the chair of philosophy starting from 1818. In 1831, the Prussian King Frederick William III issued Hegel a decoration. The philosopher passed away that same year.

Hegel’s essential texts include The Phenomenology of Spirit, The Philosophy of Right, The Science of Logic, and The Philosophy of History. The thinker is best known for several key concepts which are linked through his philosophical system. One such concept is the dialectic triad: a thesis, an anthesis, and a synthesis. The latter arises from combining two opposites, a thesis and an antithesis, to arrive at a compromise. This process repeats itself becoming more complex each time, and this process is responsible for historical progress. Historical progress is also an important aspect of Hegel’s philosophy and the one that Fukuyama uses in this book. History manifests through its Spirit. According to Hegel, what is right and good is what exists.

Using this Hegelian framework, Fukuyama believes that Liberalism is the ideology toward which the world strives and one that remains on a global scale unlike other ideologies of the Modern period. Therefore, it is good and right.

The way history unfolds is also connected to the state. Hegel believed that the state was a powerful political entity. Finally, another important concept in Hegel’s system is the philosophy of identity or sameness. Sameness allows one to understand contradictions.

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) was an Early Modern English philosopher and historian. His work focused on forms of government and society. He held different positions throughout his life employed by the noble Cavendish family, ranging from a tutor and an official representative to a scientist. Hobbes’s best-known publication is Leviathan.

The English philosopher arrived at several key concepts, including the state of nature and social contract, which are still relevant in history, politics, and philosophy to this day. He perceived the world without government, in its anarchic form, as a chaotic state of nature in which everyone fought everyone else. For this reason, a country needed a strong government. The relationship between the government and the governed was facilitated by a social contract in which the governed lost some freedoms in exchange for safety and security. Despite the notion of a powerful ruler or a strong government, Hobbes’s concept was an early version of popular consent. In addition to Leviathan, his other works include On Liberty and Necessity, The Elements of Law, and De Corpore.

Hobbes’s ideas have been used in a variety of ways that surpass their initial context. One key area is foreign policy, in which international relations are sometimes perceived as a chaotic state of nature without an international legal framework and its checks and balances, as well as the actual military power of different countries.

Francis Fukuyama examines the Hobbesian perspective as a key point in the development of liberal democracy. The author also finds the similarities and differences between the work of Hobbes and Hegel within the framework of his proposed universal history of humankind.

John Locke (1632-1704) was an English medical doctor and philosopher. Locke is best known as one of the earliest theorists of the Liberal ideology who influenced the subsequent Enlightenment thinkers.

Locke worked as a physician treating Lord Anthony Ashley Cooper. He was also a member of Britain’s Royal Society. Locke lived both in England and in the Netherlands where he temporarily escaped for political reasons.

Locke’s philosophical work focused on many key subjects such as the social contract and questions of identity. His publications include An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Two Treatises of Government, and Of the Conduct of the Understanding.

In this book, Francis Fukuyama examines Locke’s contribution to establishing the ideology of Liberalism. In this context, he also compares him to his predecessor, Thomas Hobbes, and his successor, Hegel.

Karl Marx (1818–1883) was a seminal political theorist, economist, and philosopher. Marx was of Jewish-German descent and operated out of Britain for much of his life. He was an interpreter of Hegel’s philosophy which he adapted to his own theories. Like Hegel, he is considered one of the essential system-builders in the entire history of Western thought. His concept of Communism left a significant impact on ideological development in the 20th century.

Marx’s family resided in Trier, Germany and converted to Protestantism to avoid anti-Semitic politics. The young Karl Marx studied philosophy and law at the universities of Bonn, Berlin, and Jena. In Berlin, Marx read the works of Hegel which informed his thinking from then on. He also began to engage in political activism early on for which he was expelled from his residences in Brussels and Paris. The thinker often collaborated with his intellectual ally Friedrich Engels.

Marx’s most important works are The Communist Manifesto (1848) and The Capital (1867–1883). The philosopher examined the unequal social relations under capitalism and made several predictions about the course of historic development that were to occur through class struggle and ultimately lead to the erosion of the state into a utopian, classless society. He was especially interested in material conditions of existence in contrast to Hegel.

Francis Fukuyama focuses on Marx’s interpretation of Hegel because it provides an alternative to his own Liberal ideology and its version of the end of history. Throughout this book, Fukuyama attempts to debunk Marxist ideology based on its own merits and based on historic expressions thereof in the Soviet Union and China.