[lit-ideas] Re: Fukuyama and the End of... well...
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 22:42:03 -0800
Globalization, the WTO, et al., fit nicely with Fukuyama's view - no
conflict at all -- unless you imagine a world government - you aren't saying
that are you? Now that is something that would never work. Look how hard
it has been to get the EU constitution passed.
Also, Fukuyama by himself disagrees with exporting democracy. He says he is
no longer a Neocon but a Realistic Wilsonian. He is distancing himself from
the old Neocons. But he admits that the old Neocon agenda is invalid
because the term has been applied to the Bush Administration. Fukuyama
disagrees with the exportation of democracy; which is one of the Old Neocon
line items. As to Fukuyama's current view, in rejecting the Neocon
deviation from his position he is obviously not representing the Neocon
position. Your statement "therefore the war is a failure," can't reasonably
follow from Fukuyama's abandonment of the Neocon label.
You keep saying our economy is about to fail. I'll bet there are notes of
yours in the Phil-Lit archives that are saying the same thing. All the
world rating agencies claim we have the strongest economy in the world.
Sure we spend a lot, but our economic advisors say we can afford it.
As to who won the Cold War, as I have argued in the past, I believe the
credit should go to George Kennan who advanced the theory (during the Truman
administration) that would eventually win the Cold War
Lawrence
-----Original Message-----
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Andreas Ramos
Sent: Wednesday, March 15, 2006 10:21 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Fukuyama and the End of... well...
I don't think Fukuyama is a supporter of globalization. Lawrence thinks that
I would agree
with Fukuyama. I doubt it.
In Fukuyama's End of History argument ("the world is trending towards
liberal democracies"),
he sees that the USSR collapsed and the liberal democracies won. The world
will end up as a
large confederacy of democratic countries.
But that didn't take into account globalization, which undermines the
economic basis of the
idea of the nation-state. The liberal democracies in turn get dissolved into
a New World
Order, as the first Bush put it.
Fukuyama's (and the neocons) main error is their understanding of the end of
the Cold War.
Under Reagan, they all thought that Reagan puffed and the USSR fell down.
Weinberger,
Cheney, Wolfowitz, etc. all think the USA beat the Soviets because the USA
had the audacity
to increase its defense spending such that the Soviets, in trying to keep
up, went bankrupt.
Thus the same lesson can be applied everywhere else: the USA can simply
force/push/attack
other countries into complying. This is the essense of Neocon.
They think this is justified because they think the USA is a better country
and does this
only for the good of mankind (okay, hold down all your laughter.)
The problem is that the Cold War didn't end that way. The USSR collapsed,
but now, looking
at their internal records, we see it was decayed from its inefficiencies.
(Before Lawrence
starts to cheer, that's not good news. The Soviets tried to create a managed
society. It was
General Motors on a large scale. If its not technically possible to manage a
large society,
then it's not good news for the USA.) The USSR would have collapsed anyway,
even if Reagan
had not existed. The Reagan defense buildup (trillions of dollars) was
irrelevant and,
well... wasted.
However, at the time, the neocons didn't realize this, and with Bush Jr.,
they applied the
cure 20X; now we have utterly spectacular debt. It's an entirely possible
risk now that the
USA may collapse. One reason for the massive current problems in the USA is
Reagan's debt.
Bush Jr grew this huge debt yet larger. With such massive debt ($2 trillion
wasted in Iraq
so far), there is no money to fix anything in the USA. A lousy $100 billion
would fix the
entire medical system and all schools in the USA and bring them up to
European/Asian
standards. That's 5% of what we've poured into the Iraqi sand. The Iraq War
may end up
costing the USA $5 trillion dollars.
Fukuyama's February article is remarkable in that he comes around to this
realization. Maybe
the neocon understanding of the Cold War, which has been the dominant theory
in Washington
for the last 25 years, is... wrong? Maybe the entire neocon agenda is... not
possible? The
USA can't export democracy; it can't forcefeed democracy.
Fukuyama writes that the neocon agenda is wrong, and thus Iraq War was based
on a wrong
theory. Therefore, the war is a failure. The neocons have given up in Iraq.
yrs,
andreas
www.andreas.com
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