The end of history and the last man

Philosophical study of the idea that, with the end of the Cold War and the collapse of communism, liberal democracy founded on the twin principles of liberty and equality has emerged as the ideal world model for social and politicial development, and that it is unlikely to be surpassed as a working system of government. This is the basis for the proposition that history (in the sense of the culmination of the process of human social evolution propounded by the German philosopher Hegel and later by Marx) has ended i.e. eventually all states will become liberal democracies and no better alternative system will be produced. Fukuyama finds that the proposition is valid because of economic development and the human struggle for recognition. Logically such a social system might eventually produce people who are satisfied with comfortable self preservation rather than recognition. The "last man" in this concept has no desire to be considered greater than others and as a consequence no excellence or achievement is possible. Conversely Fukuyama notes that de Tocqueville and Nietzsche's ideas about human satisfaction suggest that for some humans satisfaction may depend on recognition that is inherently unequal, and that this need for superiority may be demonstrated in new and unforseen methods of assertiveness. In extreme cases this may even be achieved by returning to the primal methods of bloody prestige battle of first men. In the latter scenario history may be considered as a cycle rather than a finite evolutionary process.