François-Xavier Roucaut, Franco-Canadian, is a psychiatrist and clinical assistant professor at the University of Montreal. He is the author of several articles published in the “Revue Politique et Parlementaire” dealing with the liberal State and the comparative analysis of French and North American cultures.
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The End of History and the Last Man
, Francis Fukuyama's seminal work, published in 1992, is a prophetic essay. Not for its main thesis - extensively commented on and mocked - which announced, in the din of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the final advent, orbi, of a liberal democracy having triumphed over fascism, then communism, in the last hours of the 20th century. But for his secondary thesis, that of the urbi triumph, within the Western sphere, of
“liberal democracy”
, not in the political meaning of the term, but in its ideological sense:
“liberal democracy in its Anglo- Saxon”
, that is to say a
“chemically pure liberalism”
, embodied by
the “liberal State”
.
The polysemy of the terms “liberal” and “democratic” in fact makes possible this conceptual substitution which has taken place surreptitiously in the West in recent decades. Societal liberalism, which promotes the preponderance of the individual over the group, has replaced political liberalism, guaranteeing political pluralism and respect for certain individual freedoms vis-à-vis the power of the State. It also replaced so-called classical liberalism, which advocated, among other things, individual responsibility and the principle of subsidiarity, without freeing itself from any collective consideration. Political democratism - governance
"of the people, by the people, for the people"
- was replaced by democratism conceived as a "social state", according to the Tocquevillian concept, promoting a strictly egalitarian society in terms of social status independently of any notion of demos, therefore of any collectivist constraint. “Liberal democracy”, in the current meaning of the term, is thus the ideological counterpart of the “socialist democracy” of the last century, that is to say a political regime governed by an egalitarian doctrine; with the difference that this is not collectivist, as in the case of socialism, but individualist. This liberal ideology, as Fukuyama states in his latest opus
Liberalism and its discontents
, using the terms of the British philosopher John Gray, is based on four pillars: individualism, egalitarianism, universalism, and meliorism.
Also read: Francis Fukuyama: “There is a risk of defeat for democracy”
The liberal State is therefore first and foremost “individualist”: the individual becomes the measure of everything. The latter is fully sovereign and careful about his rights, having on the other hand no longer any duty towards the group, except simple respect for the laws:
"According to the Anglo-Saxon version of the theory liberal, reference for the founding of the United States, men have perfect rights but not perfect duties towards their communities
. It must be freed from its cultural contingencies:
“The proclaimed aim of modern education is to “liberate” people from prejudices and traditional forms of authority”
. He must also be protected from any pressure or aggression that his environment inflicts on him. The “harm-principle” of John Stuart Mill also guarantees that the individual can fully assume his singularity, as long as he does not harm others in this way. The individual's feelings are therefore binding on everyone, since he is the only judge, and he expects institutions to be the guarantors of his development, his security, his health, the defense of his individuality, and more generally of his
“pursuit of happiness”
. This individualist claim finds its extension in communitarian claims, the community being in essence this association of individuals having a shared characteristic. From then on, individuals and communities come together to advance their respective demands, and challenge established norms, within this legal Leviathan that is the liberal State. This is effectively based on the legal framework emanating from liberal ideology, and it rejects in principle any jurisprudence resulting from “secular tradition”, any “dictatorship of the majority”.
This legalist state therefore ultimately enters into conflict with "the organic moral community", which has its own language of "good and evil":
"It engages in a prolonged struggle with its own people"
, the governance of judges thus having precedence over popular expression. The liberal State is, moreover, “a cold monster”, resolutely neutral on the cultural level, which must refrain
“from promoting a particular way of life as superior or preferable to another”
. Culture can even “constitute an obstacle to democratization”, which must be overcome. The liberal State is therefore destined to become post-national, national identity, following the state religion, being condemned to disappear from the public sphere -
"All this will remain strictly in the sphere of private life"
. Finally, it is essentially multicultural:
“The government is in fact responsible for tolerating different “lifestyles”, except when the exercise of one right encroaches on that of another”
. And it asserts itself as the guarantor, and promoter, of diversity, since it poses itself as the only political regime capable of administering it.
The liberal State is then “egalitarian”, governed by what Fukuyama calls
“isothymia”
, strict statutory equality between fellow citizens. The liberal State ultimately fulfills the promise, not kept by the socialist State, of a fully democratic society, but in the societal sense of the term, and no longer economic. If liberalism, on its economic side embodied by capitalism, is intrinsically unequal with regard to the economy of resources, it is on the other hand egalitarian with regard to the economy of "recognition", that of social statuses. . Thus liberalism shares with socialism the project of abolishing hierarchies, which they both summarize only in its predatory form, embodied by the Hegelian dyad “master-slave”, “dominant-dominated”. The liberal State therefore tracks status inequalities, and relationships of power or domination - what Fukuyama calls "megalothymia" - between individuals, as well as between communities. It strives to reduce inequalities through positive actions, motivated by a concern for equity and societal justice, by abolishing recognition differentials through compensation or discrimination measures, in order to finally establish inclusive and equal representation. of all individuals and all communities.
The liberal State poses as a force in perpetual movement, carried by juvenility and enthusiasm, and it uses a semantics dominated by hope, rebirth, renewal.
François-Xavier Roucaut
And if so-called classical liberalism stopped at equality in law, contemporary liberalism aims for “real equality” between individuals and communities, associating its absence with phenomena of systemic domination. Freedom must be the same for everyone, or it will not be; real equality is therefore the aim of liberal society, because the residue of status inequality remains the source of
“the struggle for recognition”
:
“Once established the principle of equal recognition of the human dignity of every person (isothymia), there is no guarantee that people will continue to accept the existence of natural or naturally residual forms of inequality
. This existential mission therefore becomes particularly invested -
"Today, in democratic America, a multitude of people are devoting their lives to the complete elimination of all vestiges of inequality that come to their attention"
- particularly in the academic circles, where the liberal State, like the ideological regimes which preceded it, the socialist State and the fascist State, must in fact generate a scientific sum which justifies a posteriori this ideological axiom which founds it.
This ideology also gives rise to an extremist offshoot,
"a more radical form of egalitarianism"
, particularly active in American universities, where we see the moderate and institutional form of liberal egalitarianism, defended by liberals, and its militant and revolutionary form, promoted by progressives - the wokists. This last militant form also comes into contradiction with original liberalism:
“On the campuses of American universities, freedom of expression is reduced by “speech codes” which prohibit saying certain things considered offensive to certain minority groups”
. Following the exact example of socialism, which experienced rivalry between Mensheviks and Bolsheviks, between socialists and communists, in the name of the same egalitarian ideology:
"Unlike the challenge openly launched to liberal rights by communism, this modification is much more insidious because it claims to be undertaken in the name of the “modernization” of liberal democracy, while using the same legal language
.
The liberal State is still “universalist”, and aims to free itself from different cultural particularities and to internationalize. It is a
“universal and homogeneous State”
in the words of Alexandre Kojève, the great inspiration for Fukuyama’s “End of History”. Universal, because
“it must grant recognition to all citizens because they are human beings, not because they are members of this or that national, ethnic or racial group”
. Homogeneous, to the extent
“that it creates a classless society based on the abolition of the distinction between masters and slaves”
. The Liberal International thus replaces the Socialist International in the establishment of a universal egalitarian society; and without borders, since liberal ideology finds itself unable to
“formulate a just principle of exclusion of foreigners which does not appear to violate the principles of universal law to which liberal democracies are committed, and which neither are nor seem racist or nationalist
.
Also read: 1830-1848: the golden age of French liberalism?
Furthermore, the liberal rational claims to embody "reason" in itself by putting the individual's own interest ahead of the passions of the group, and by positing contractual relationships as the only mode of reasonable interpersonal relationship. It thus claims to be the only type of "rational" government, and it therefore leads the final struggle against
"the different irrational forms - such as those represented by the multiple forms of religion and nationalism - before transforming into universal and egalitarian recognition"
. The liberal State also replaces the nation-State, since a
"State in which citizenship is restricted to members of a national group"
represents
"a form of irrational recognition"
, and since the rivalry between States- nations
“leads on an international scale to the same impasse as the battle for prestige between aristocratic masters”
. The nation-state must therefore be overcome in favor of the universal establishment of the liberal state, to fulfill the eschatology of the “End of History”. Federalisms, European or American, thus become the vectors of this overcoming of the nation-state, in particular the “European Community”,
“perfectly adequate institutional embodiment of the “end of History””
. Technocracy therefore comes to rule this post-historical world, that of the “last men”, following the example of Alexandre Kojève,
“who was content to spend the rest of his life working in this bureaucracy which was supposed to supervise the construction of the final resting place of the “last man”: the European Commission
.
The liberal State is finally “meliorist”, intrinsically progressive, turned towards an ever more just and prosperous society, correcting the injustices of more primitive times, and repairing the
“megalothymic”
errors of the past. Like socialism, and unlike conservatism, the liberal ideal is therefore nestled in the future, and the past is a foil that must be overcome, or erased. The liberal State poses as a force in perpetual movement, carried by juvenility and enthusiasm, and it uses a semantics dominated by hope, rebirth, renewal; in contrast with an old, decayed, rancid, even criminal world, which must therefore be overcome. Society must adopt
“a new set of democratic values”
: being “participant”, “rational”, “secular”, “flexible”, “compassionate” and “tolerant”. And the State must shape new men, ensuring
“the assimilation of democratic values into the personal conscience of each citizen”
. Furthermore, there is an
“interrelation between economic and political liberalism”
: the liberal State is intrinsically linked to capitalism, in a constant search for the increase in the production of wealth, since it is the satisfaction of material needs that comes distract men from their confrontational impulses, from their thirst for domination, in a word from their “megalothymia”. Consumption allows in short
“the domestication of the master and his metamorphosis into homo economicus”
, and virile values are therefore discredited, even denounced, in favor of antagonistic values, such as compassion and cooperation.
Driven by the utilitarian philosophy, which aims for the happiness of the greatest number, without consideration for the selfishness of different cultural groups, “neoliberal” economic liberalism is therefore shaping a globalized world.
François-Xavier Roucaut
Thus, Western societies would see their agonistic and warrior totems evolve towards markers of empathy and domestication, and
"military and diplomatic history towards social history, the history of women and minority groups, or the history of “everyday life””
. The liberal State is therefore marked by an active optimism, which conceives the consumer society
“as its own purpose”
, since
“in the absence of “higher” positive objectives, at the heart of liberalism according to Locke, which filling the void is the unbridled accumulation of wealth, now freed from the traditional constraints of need and scarcity
. The freedom of movement of capital and workers, whether with low or high added value, allows the optimization of the economic machinery, towards ever greater productivity. Driven by the utilitarian philosophy, which aims for the happiness of the greatest number, without consideration for the selfishness of different cultural groups, economic liberalism, “neoliberal”, therefore shapes a globalized world: “
These same economic forces now favor abolition of national barriers through the creation of a single and integrated global market"
, ultimately leading to
"a homogenization of humanity"
.
Finally,
“the universal and homogeneous State which appears at the end of History can thus be seen as resting on the double pillar of economy and recognition”
. It therefore forges the alliance of economic competition and societal egalitarianism, in overcoming the traditional right and left divide, which saw these two components confront each other, associated with their respective doubles, the economic egalitarianism promoted by the left and the societal hierarchies defended by the right. The liberal State which
“would be the last State in human history, because it is entirely satisfactory for man”
thus sounds the death knell of politics, and opens the way to a technocratic era which offers syncretism to the different psyches of the political world: the right-wing psyche, hierarchical, invests in the immense potential for individual success that economic liberalism releases, and the left-wing psyche, egalitarian, vents its passions in
“the struggles for recognition”
that liberalism offers societal, as for the psyche of the center, manager, it flourishes in the technocratism of the liberal “End of History”.
In conclusion, if the “End of History” did not come to pass, Francis Fukuyama nevertheless announced in the 1990s, with remarkable prescience, the evolution of Western liberal democracies towards the model of the liberal State; so much so that they are now confused with it. The liberal State now constitutes the ideological guardian of the Western world - whether within the Anglosphere, the European Union, or macronia -, and it poses itself as the final form of human governance, the terminus of an “End of History” that he will accomplish within himself, if not imposing it on the world. This shift of Western nations towards the model of the liberal State is at the source of the profound societal changes of our time, as well as the upheaval of the political spectrum, which is now defined according to its adherence, or its rejection, of this ideology. All things that Fukuyama anticipated elsewhere, and which constitute the theme of this addition to the title of his original article “The end of history?”, which precedes the homonymous essay: the Nietzschean concept of the “last man”.