History is not ending any time soon

The famous 19th century german philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel coined the term “End of History” to signify the point in time when all fundamental human issues relating to existence have been resolved. He believed that History had ended when Napoleon beat the prussian army in the battle of Jena. For Hegel Napoleon signified the aspirations of the french revolution for: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity and Secularism. These are the fundamental human values that solve all human issues.

Francis Fukuyama the Neoconservative american political scientist would claim that history has ended in the 1990s with the end of the cold war. For him, western democracy and capitalism are the triumphant principles that all human beings will aspire to implement in their nations. Yet, today writing in 2015 we see that history is doesn’t seem to have ended.

Secular Democracy is challenged in the islamic world with the concepts of islamic democracy and islamic theocracy. ISIS while being far removed from Islam according to a number of scholars, is trying to fulfil an islamic longing for a worldwide caliphate: a religious state that is lead by an enlightened individual chosen by God. This principle is fundamental in islam and doesn’t go challenged, except that most muslims believe that such a state needs a very broad consensus and the arrival of special God chosen messengers at the End of Days. Still even in their democratic nations, muslims have resisted secularism and implemented a type of islamic judicial system.

Capitalism on the other hand is challenged in western nations today. The 2014 book “Capital in the 21st Century” by French economist Thomas Piketty, symbolised the zeitgeist of the western middle class who got disenchanted with the excesses of Wall Street and Capitalism. These excesses have ravaged and brought havoc to the global economy since the financial crisis of 2007-2008. Piketty’s through thorough historical and statistical analysis of France, the USA and the British economies dating back to the 18th century, showed that capitalism will produce systematic social inequality. This equality happens as a direct result of the proper implementation of capitalism and comes from the fact that the rate of return of capital exceeds the rate of growth of the economy. This will allow rentiers and people with inherited wealth to keep getting richer without having to work. Thus producing inequality. His solution was to impose a global wealth tax. A tax that gets levied on the capital held by individuals and that can’t be dodged by transferring assets to different countries. In a way this is a 21st century market based socialism.

The western global order, while being challenged is still getting some level of acceptance worldwide. China the economic success story of the 21st century and the rising global hegemon, has managed to incorporate elements of western democratic capitalism into its socialist maoist system. Indeed, the Communist Party gets a lot of feedback from their people over the policy issues that are vital to them thus moving in a way towards a more open and democratic system. At the same time, its economic system has liberalised in the 1980s and become a lot closer to a free market capitalist system.

Countries like Iran, who have implemented a revolutionary islamic system uses democracy to elect the president and parliament and has a constitution which claims to respect human rights.

In a way universal democratic principles are gaining popularity and traction with most people, despite the challenges. Does this mean that indeed History has ended and that these principles will in the end triumph and be incorporated by the governments of the world?

All hinges on what happens in the cultures that are challenging these ideals and how the western liberal culture will accommodate changes and refinement. It seems clearer today that capitalism needs restraints and most western citizens are moving closer to the ideas of Piketty. What still produces a schism is whether secularism and democracy can be compromised with. The future of the islamic world will have to bring an answer to this. Western hopes have ridden on Turkey. But the rise to power of the islamic party is threatening this. On the democratic front, china will reveal whether human aspiration can be reached without resort to the ballot box. At the same time, the regression of american democracy and the stagnation and big money in the electoral process is threatening the ideal of democracy worldwide.

History might have ended, and we just don’t know it yet. Or the battle of ideas will still go on, waged by political activists and philosophers, until we have all reached a global consensus.