The End of History and the Loss of the Possible

When the possible becomes inevitable

In 1989, a year that certainly marks a watershed in recent history, Francis Fukuyama published an essay in *The National Interest* that was destined to become famous. It was entitled ‘The End of History?’. The defeat of fascism and the now evident crisis of Soviet communism seemed to leave liberal democracy without any ideological alternatives capable of competing with its claim to universality. Fukuyama wonders whether we are witnessing the culmination of the evolution of forms of political legitimacy. The clash between major alternative principles of social organisation may have run its course. Liberal democracy appears to be the political form in which the human desire for freedom and recognition finds its most complete institutional expression.

It is not difficult to understand the appeal of this interpretation. After a century marked by two world wars, totalitarian regimes and the delicate nuclear balance, the idea that humanity had finally found a way of living together that recognised and practised freedom and equality for all possessed considerable moral force. The fall of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe seemed to confirm this. Millions of citizens were demanding precisely those political and civil rights that Western democracies had placed at the heart of their own legitimacy. But amidst the enthusiasm of those years, a conflation took place that was destined to have profound consequences. The conviction that liberal democracy represents a historic achievement that is difficult to replace began to be accompanied by the idea that the economic model established in the West also constituted the almost inevitable result of social evolution. The distinction between democratic institutions and the capitalist organisation of the economy gradually became blurred. Political freedom, the opening up of markets, the international movement of capital, the privatisation of public enterprises and the reduction of certain forms of state intervention came to be portrayed as stages in a single process of modernisation.

However, the principles of constitutional democracy do not impose any particular model of economic organisation, nor do they stipulate how wealth should be distributed, what level of protection should be guaranteed for labour, or how extensive public ownership should be. Democratic societies have experienced very different forms of capitalism, tax systems that are more or less progressive, diverse welfare systems, and shifting relationships between the state, the market and intermediary bodies. Their economic institutions are the result of conflicts, compromises, experiments and political decisions. The possibility of changing them is as much a part of the history of democracy as universal suffrage or the recognition of civil rights. In the years following the Cold War, however, this possibility seems to be narrowing. Politicians continue to make choices, but increasingly within a framework that is presented as already defined.

The policy of forced choices

This is not a deception entirely fabricated by political rhetoric. Economic constraints do exist and are often severe. Businesses may lose their competitive edge, investment may shift elsewhere, debt may become unsustainable, and technological progress can render skills and productive activities obsolete very rapidly. To ignore these conditions would be irresponsible. The problem arises when their existence is taken as proof that it is impossible to organise responses according to alternative principles. A constraint limits the scope of decision-making but does not automatically determine its content. Determining which costs to accept, who should bear them, and which objectives to pursue remains a political matter. The most significant change occurs precisely here, in the transition whereby a choice is removed from public debate and presented as the inevitable consequence of an impersonal law. The economic argument ceases to contribute to the deliberation and claims to bring it to a close. Anyone proposing an alternative is urged to take note of reality, as if reality already contained, alongside the description of the facts, the prescription for the decisions to be taken.

Here, democracy faces a challenge that Dani Rodrik articulated with particular clarity in *The Globalisation Paradox* (2011), in which the Harvard economist describes a trilemma according to which democracy, national sovereignty and extremely deep international economic integration cannot all be pursued simultaneously to their ultimate consequences. Two objectives may be prioritised, but the third is necessarily compromised. A fully integrated global economy requires common rules and constraints capable of ensuring the free movement of goods, services and capital. If these rules are established whilst preserving state sovereignty, the scope for national democratic decision-making is reduced. If sovereignty and democracy are to be preserved, limits on economic integration must be accepted. Reconciling democracy with deeply integrated markets, on the other hand, requires supranational political institutions endowed with adequate legitimacy. The trilemma is not a condemnation of globalisation. It is a call to recognise the political nature of the process, and not merely its economic aspects. The opening up of markets can yield considerable benefits, promote the dissemination of knowledge, expand productive opportunities and contribute to poverty reduction. It can also increase the vulnerability of certain regions, weaken specific forms of social protection and alter the balance of power between businesses, workers and public institutions. The paradox arises when a democratic society agrees to discuss only the consequences of its choices, having foregone any discussion of the premises on which they are based. It is then possible to vote for different governments, alternate ruling parties and change social policies, whilst the fundamental rules governing the distribution of opportunities and power remain largely outside the scope of deliberation. Elections continue to decide who governs. It becomes less clear to what extent they can determine what is governed.

The deepest sacrifice

The story of Adriano Alessandria takes on a particular significance at this point. In February 1980, when he decided to join the trade union, he was simply taking an ordinary step. He joined an organisation that offered him the chance to tackle certain issues alongside other workers. A few months later, he took part in a protest that ended in defeat. His account does not justify turning that experience into a parable of powerlessness. On the contrary, in the pride with which he recalls entering the factory in the days following the debacle, one can also recognise a determination not to let the defeat erase the significance of his commitment.

Anyone who has taken part in collective action and experienced defeat retains, at the very least, an awareness of what it means to try to bring about change together with others. They know that decisions can be challenged, that interests can be organised, and that power must face resistance. The outcome may be disappointing and even painful, but it is still part of the political experience. True defeat has a different root. It arises when the very possibility of acting collectively ceases to seem credible. When the future is perceived as a succession of changes for which one must prepare, without being able to help determine their direction.

The end of history, in its most insidious form, coincides with this loss of confidence in human beings’ ability to play a part in shaping their own future. Society continues to change, but citizens are learning to view these changes as something that happens to them, rather than as processes in which they can take part.

This, perhaps, is the greatest difference between the world of Adriano Alessandria and the one in which we live today. That young worker might have lost a battle, but he knew he had fought it alongside others. He had experienced the possibility of organising, of challenging decisions, of demanding a say in shaping his own living conditions. Defeat did not erase that experience. Today, the risk runs deeper and concerns not only the loss of the ability to influence decisions, but even the very idea that it is possible to do so. That politics is reduced to the administration of processes deemed inevitable, and citizenship to the individual’s search for a way to adapt to them.

History, of course, is not over. It continues to be written, every day, through decisions that allocate opportunities, resources and power, opening up some possibilities whilst closing off others. The question is who has the opportunity to participate in these decisions and who must simply endure their consequences. For a democracy can retain all its procedures whilst, at the same time, seeing the ability of its citizens to shape their shared destiny gradually eroded. The most serious sacrifice, then, is not that of a particular vision for society. It is the sacrifice of believing that such a vision can still be discussed, imagined and built together.