However, liberal democracy needs continuing economic growth and a distribution of wealth such that all vested interests (or almost all) are satisfied. In a resource-constrained world this is manifestly not possible over the long term. In fact we are seeing the breakdown of liberal democracy all over the world, as the economies on which they depend falter and crumble.

We are also seeing the growth in authoritarian regimes, which are needed to control human populations where wealth and power distribution are skewed and many groups are suppressed based on their “otherness”. In some areas, eg in Muslim societies, it is women; in Sudan or Rwanda, it is the non-dominant ethnicities etc.

Perhaps there will soon be a book, “The End of Liberal Democracy”.

this grand neocon pajandrum is still repackaging his odious vacuities expecting that we should just forget what the straussian cause he peddles entails: specifically, the noble lie, and the elevation of the elite.

the long now organization rightly places patience in their seven cardinal virtues slot, but by including this self-aggrandizing and boring little twerp in it’s list of funky intellectuals, it is testing that of it’s most devoted followers. although I suppose, from the meagre discussion that seems to have followed, silence is still the most perfect expression of scorn.

Where Fukuyama has changed his focus of late is exactly where Kojeve was pointing; there exists and will continue to exist a kind of capitalist-socialist synthesis. The large state infrastructures are not going away pace our libertarian fantasists. In fact, if you were surprised that the Bush admin grew the state infrastructure, you would do well to give Kojeve a quick glance.

Your comment does not strike me as coherent. Fukuyama is rather updating some of the most cogent political economy of the last century, namely the work of Kojeve, who still looms large. Any person interested in political economics would be served well by thinking about Kojeve’s and Fukuyama’s work. The present is less blood soaked than the past largely due to the rationalization of state and economic institutions is one simple way of summing up an aspect of Kojeve.

There are those enlightened few whose ideas are leading us into the future, and others whose ideas are dragging the ‘present tense’ back into our blood-soaked and all too predictable past. I hope the LNF can make the distinction.