Fukuyama on the End Of America
This really is doin’ a Barnett:
ARTICLE: The Fall of America, Inc., Francis Fukuyama, Newsweek, 4 October 2008: Along with some of Wall Street’s most storied firms, a certain vision of capitalism has collapsed. How we restore faith in our brand.
The implosion of America’s most storied investment banks. The vanishing of more than a trillion dollars in stock-market wealth in a day. A $700 billion tab for U.S. taxpayers. The scale of the crackup could scarcely be more gargantuan. Yet even as Americans ask why they’re having to pay such mind-bending sums to prevent the economy from imploding, few are discussing a more intangible, yet potentially much greater cost to the United States—the damage that the financial meltdown is doing to America’s “brand.”
I know where he’s coming from, I just don’t buy it. This ‘brand’ business is masking too much. Get past the market analogues and we might be getting somewhere … [h/t Amal].
Hi Tim.
Now i’m not well read, but Fukuyama strikes me as confined by his era/context (hence the relentless marketing analogies). The thrust of his article seems to be that whats needed is a new logo and some new products and bang, America’s influence can be “restored”. Time moves on inexorably and America’s influence can be regenerated, but not restored (in italics) to its height. With what rebranding and products would the British empire be restored? Or the Ottoman empire? Contexts change.
He invokes the innate dynamism of the American culture as its unique route to re-emergence, and yes that culture’s relative youth allows for a good dollop of dynamism, confidence and re-invention, but has not China seen a massive re-invention – from Mao to now – in a similarly short space of time? And that is one of the worlds oldest cultures.
Its quite possible that geopolitical orbits and variables are too complex to re-align themselves to return America’s hegemony anytime soon. The idea that the American proposition is a spent force (morally hollow and politically out of ideas) has gained ground around the world for some decades now, and it has reached a critical mass. No amount of marketing, re-branding, or even military force can suppress an idea whose time has come. America can now take its place as a major world player, but far less likely to be the dominator. I didn’t get the impression that Fukuyama grasped that from reading his article.
Hi Zia,
I second that last sentiment. I would also say that the demise of the US is overstated. It will retain political pre-eminence for some time to come, despite its recent battering, although it is hard to see how it will be quite the global economic force it was in the 20th century. As you say, Fukuyama seems to think it just needs a lick of paint and the world will forget the events of recent years.
A unipolar world is not healthy (although nor was a bipolar one during the Cold War). How a multipolar global society plays out remains to be seen. What is remarkable is that although commentators have been saying for a while that the age of the American ‘empire’ is gone, the US shows little sign of disappearing like empires of the past.
Far from it, in fact. What Fukuyama seems to believe – although he doesn’t state this as such – is that because the world is as gripped by the presidential elections as Americans themselves, this is a sign that the world believes in America. Not quite the truth, of course – the world wants a stable America, and one whose administration isn’t going to appear as belligerent as the last one. We would be saying the same thing of China if it had a recent track record of unilateral military action in Africa, say.
The last thing to remember is that Fukuyama loves the big statement. The end of history, the end of America, Inc. Plus ca change, plus c’est le meme chose…