From the Literary Review of Canada November issue. I think this article by James Brooke-Smith sums up where we are today. It seems a reality that is very clear has now emerged.

 

“Checkmate against Fukuyama, then? Well, maybe check, but certainly not mate. In fact, some of the most intriguing sections of The End of History and the Last Man are the ones in which Fukuyama speculated on the possible conditions that might bring about the end of the end of history, not least because they foreshadowed much of what is happening today. Even back in the triumphalist atmosphere of the early ’90s, Fukuyama recognized that the principal threat to liberalism is economic inequality. He predicted that any future alternative to liberal democracy would emerge either from “those who for cultural reasons experience persistent economic failure” or from “those who are inordinately successful at the capitalist game”— what we would today call the economically “left behind” and the global billionaire class. These two groups exist at the radical edges of the liberal order because they have the most to gain from its discontinuation. They have already proven fertile ground for post-liberal, even anti-democratic political ideas, from far‑right authoritarianism to the secessionist fantasies of Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, who dream of a purer, more heroic form of capitalism in their offshore enclaves and future Martian colonies.”