The reason democracy will always be vulnerable is that, for all too many, it fails to put *the right people* in power. For this reason, proof that it's a superior system for managing our affairs is simply irrelevant to those who think that way (among whom, sadly, we must number Thucydides). Worse yet for Fukuyama, it's not clear that democracy can prevail in a world completely dominated by authoritarian regimes. Democracy arose most likely by a fortuitous chance both in Athens and in the US and without an example to seed the growth elsewhere I'm not all that confident it could return once it's gone.
Timothy Snyder's recent lecture "As Ukraine Goes, So Goes the World" put it well. For freedom to mean anything, it cannot be just the absence of constraint, it must be a positive ethic. Democracy is not the ineluctable outcome of larger structural forces; the larger structural forces are not on the side of democracy. It always requires work to maintain.
The advantages of legislative supremacy are undermined when legislative elections become little more than national referenda as is perhaps inevitable as modern transportation and communications reduce differences in regional and local material interests.
Yes, I was surprised to see Fukuyama double down on this theme. But what he says is simple: authoritarianism is not the "new" end of history; but liberal democracy, the seeming end, is perennially subject to decay. The last observation reflects his big "political order" books, not just the "End." I don't care, personally, for FF's teleological predilections, but his observations are often compelling.
Thucydides' claim is no different from that of thousands of gone-literary disappointed courtiers or over-the-hill politicians. What's different is that he wrote a book that actually backs it up. Only a handful of those!
Baratunde Thurston: Rethinking Democracy After L.A.’s Racism Scandal:
Uh...? Monarchy is looking comparatively better? Hopefully Thurston never thought that Democracy was about identifying THE good guys and giving them power. As the American political philosopher Walter Kelly had Pogo to observe, "We have met the enemy and he is us!"
Nicholas Weaver needs to understand the concept of first mover advantage. Tesla is the frost successful electric car maker in a century. They are steadily accumulating experience in mass manufacturing. The legacy automakers have over a century of mass manufacturing experience which ought to be worth something. However, how much of that experience is relevant to electrics is questionable. Three biggest that too Tesla is Elon Musk's distractabilty and superpower of generating controversy.
Rana Faroohar: Globalism Failed to Deliver the Economy We Need:
"Everything in the Economy We Need"
This framing, "question the old philosophy," makes me fear that either the author does not understand the old philosophy or does but does not want to admit open disagreement.
I really don't like the term "globalism" in this context, rather than "globalization". It implies there's a problem with cosmopolitanism or universalism overall, rather than just trade policy.
The reason democracy will always be vulnerable is that, for all too many, it fails to put *the right people* in power. For this reason, proof that it's a superior system for managing our affairs is simply irrelevant to those who think that way (among whom, sadly, we must number Thucydides). Worse yet for Fukuyama, it's not clear that democracy can prevail in a world completely dominated by authoritarian regimes. Democracy arose most likely by a fortuitous chance both in Athens and in the US and without an example to seed the growth elsewhere I'm not all that confident it could return once it's gone.
Timothy Snyder's recent lecture "As Ukraine Goes, So Goes the World" put it well. For freedom to mean anything, it cannot be just the absence of constraint, it must be a positive ethic. Democracy is not the ineluctable outcome of larger structural forces; the larger structural forces are not on the side of democracy. It always requires work to maintain.
The advantages of legislative supremacy are undermined when legislative elections become little more than national referenda as is perhaps inevitable as modern transportation and communications reduce differences in regional and local material interests.
Yes, I was surprised to see Fukuyama double down on this theme. But what he says is simple: authoritarianism is not the "new" end of history; but liberal democracy, the seeming end, is perennially subject to decay. The last observation reflects his big "political order" books, not just the "End." I don't care, personally, for FF's teleological predilections, but his observations are often compelling.
Thucydides' claim is no different from that of thousands of gone-literary disappointed courtiers or over-the-hill politicians. What's different is that he wrote a book that actually backs it up. Only a handful of those!
Baratunde Thurston: Rethinking Democracy After L.A.’s Racism Scandal:
Uh...? Monarchy is looking comparatively better? Hopefully Thurston never thought that Democracy was about identifying THE good guys and giving them power. As the American political philosopher Walter Kelly had Pogo to observe, "We have met the enemy and he is us!"
"‘I was feeling pretty good about the story of my own newly-adopted city, Los Angeles,"
Someone has a great deal to learn. File under "Things one never expected to hear."
Nicholas Weaver needs to understand the concept of first mover advantage. Tesla is the frost successful electric car maker in a century. They are steadily accumulating experience in mass manufacturing. The legacy automakers have over a century of mass manufacturing experience which ought to be worth something. However, how much of that experience is relevant to electrics is questionable. Three biggest that too Tesla is Elon Musk's distractabilty and superpower of generating controversy.
Rana Faroohar: Globalism Failed to Deliver the Economy We Need:
"Everything in the Economy We Need"
This framing, "question the old philosophy," makes me fear that either the author does not understand the old philosophy or does but does not want to admit open disagreement.
I really don't like the term "globalism" in this context, rather than "globalization". It implies there's a problem with cosmopolitanism or universalism overall, rather than just trade policy.