SODOM & GOMORRAH: Bonald looks back on the end of history and concludes that it may well be the end.
In this depressing piece, Bonald asks us to consider if Francis Fukuyama was correct in his book The End of History. Fukuyama stated what everyone believed, that history is the story of a progressive development of capitalism and democracy. Now that such things are the norm, history, so the saying goes, has ended. Continued liberal advance, says Bonald, seems like a good bet.
Bonald’s right if two things don’t happen.
First, that Europeans and Americans decide that they can’t live with the consequences. Familial destruction, rampant hedonism, etc. have all come to pass. If we find, as the conservative hypothesis states, that such things do destroy a society’s ability to survive, then eventually these societies may cast off the bonds of liberalism.
Second, and Bonald raises this as a possibility, scarcity of resources may put a damper on the eternal progress we’re now supposed to experience.
The second possibility is less likely; the climate science movement has already proven that liberalism can adapt to a world of scarcity. The first works only in a world where people wake up (unlikely) or where there’s significant collapse.