CHAPTER NINE
THE BODY POLITIC
Government in the Autonomous Revolution
IN 1992, FRANCIS FUKUYAMA published his acclaimed book The End of History and the Last Man, which proclaimed that, with the fall of the USSR, government had completed its evolution. As he put it, civilization had arrived at “the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of liberal democracy as the final form of human government.”1 In the decades since, the rise of authoritarian regimes (roughly one nominally democratic country has reverted to tyranny every year for the last two decades) and the surge of right- and left-wing populism have cast a pall over Fukuyama’s optimistic vision.
While there are many reasons ...
Get The Autonomous Revolution now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
