tougher adversary than “free trading”rnWashington.rnIn contrast to the economic gainsrnmade by Japan and Asia in the 1980’s,rnAmerican growth has slowed dramaticallyrnsince the mid-1970’s. Aside fromrnthose employed in the export sector, realrnincome among workers in the privaternsphere fell during the 1980’s. Americansrncontinued to live as if they werernstill in a medium-growth economy, financingrnthe difference between dreamsrnand reality with mountains of debt. Butrntoday Americans must either acceptrnstagnation or adopt radical reforms thatrnwill put the country back on a fasterrntrack. Though the economy was slidingrninto a recession as Johnson wrote,rnher book is concerned with structuralrnchanges rather than cyclical ones. Yetrnit seems clear that any combination ofrn”quick fix” recovery schemes, financedrnby more red ink and burdened with environmentalrnregulations and mandatedrnbenefits for businesses, will keep thernAmerican economy derailed.rnJohnson encourages the United Statesrnto integrate Latin America into its economicrnsystem as Japan is doing withrnAsia. She warns that without strong economicrngrowth in Latin America “an unbearablernimmigration problem” willrnthreaten America. Unfortunately, LatinrnAmerica’s misuse of past capital flowsrnhas left it with huge debts it cannot repay.rnDuring the 1980’s, the regionrnmade debt payments of $518 billion butrnearned only $ 188 billion from trade surpluses.rnThe rest was financed by newrndebt ($191 billion) and by domestic austerityrnmeasures ($139 billion) that furtherrnweakened the region.rnJohnson proposes a mixture of writeoffsrnand zero-coupon refinancing. Shernalso suggests supervision by a consortiumrnof banks to insure that future investmentsrngo to productive uses. Herrnplan, however, depends on the UnitedrnStates getting its own house in orderrnfirst. If the United States cannot abandonrnthe pernicious trade and fiscal policiesrnthat prevent it from generatingrnenough capital for its own development,rnit can hardly be expected to generaternenough additional capital to financernLatin American growth.rnJohnson pays special attention to Sub-rnSaharan Africa, the only region to experiencernnegative economic growth in thern1980’s (with an annual decline of 4.3rnpercent). Though Africa has abundantrnlabor and is rich in natural resources.rnthere is no nation on the continent tornserve as the engine of growth (Johnsonrnavoids mention of South Africa, whichrnnow seems destined to fall to the samernforces that have ruined the rest of thernregion), nor is Africa linked to anyrnstronger region. Its ties have been withrnEurope, but a unified Western Europernwill turn now to brighter prospects inrnthe former Soviet empire. The oil-richrnArab states have capital to invest in theirrnneighboring region but have not donernso because Arabs “continue to treatrnBlack Africans as inferior beings” fit onlyrnfor the continuing slave trade.rnObviously a universal feeling ofrnbrotherhood is a long way off. Johnsonrnbelieves, however, that the United Statesrncan still prosper in a world of competingrnregional empires if it deploys its assetsrnwisely. But to do so Americans mustrnperform the most difficult of all tasks.rnThey must “view the world as it is ratherrnthan as they would like it to be.”rnWilliam R. Hawkins is director of thernEconomic Security Advocacy Center ofrnthe U.S. Business and IndustrialrnCouncil.rnClap & Traprnby John LukacsrnThe End of History and thernLast Manrnby Francis FukuyamarnNew York: The Free Press;rn400 pp., $24.95rnThe Democracy Trap: Pitfalls of thernPost-Cold War Worldrnby Graham E. FullerrnNew York: Button; 285 pp., $20.00rnI had heard about, but not read, “ThernEnd of History?” Francis Fukuyama’srnstar-burst essay published in 1989; but 1rnfelt a twinge of sympathy for him as hisrncritics chortled and pointed at historyrnrumbling anew: people dancing atop thernBerlin Wall, the Soviet Union falling tornpieces, an American Army flying intornArabia. The end of history? I thoughtrnthat perhaps that was not really whatrnEukuyama meant, that what he was espyingrnwas a new structure for history afterrnthe idea of democracy—of popularrnsovereignty—^had been instituted everywherernin the world. But after readingrnFukuyama’s ideas in full elaboration, Irnregret to say that I was wrong; and I amrnappalled to find that Fukuyama is a fool.rnI do not use the epithet lightly. Fukuyamarnis “a former deputy director of thernU. S. State Department’s Policy PlanningrnStaff.” To paraphrase HenryrnAdams, the evolution of American foreignrnpolicy planning from George Kennanrnto Francis Fukuyama is sufficientrnevidence to disprove all the theories ofrnDarwin.rnFukuyama thinks that liberal democracyrnhas conquered the world. Totalitarianismrnis gone forever. Nationalism isrnsomething that he does not, or cannot,rnconsider. The globe is becoming onernvast international network. Freedomrnand the market economy (whateverrnthat is) have become, or are about tornbecome, nearly universal. He is concernedrnwith a world bereft of useful andrnuseless strife. Yet that, according tornFukuyama, may become a moral problem.rnHistory will not only become unintelligible,rnbut will cease to exist. Thisrnmay or may not be regrettable, but “ThernWorldwide Liberal Revolution”—therntitle of his central chapter—has seenrnthat it will happen.rnThe world as seen by Fukuyama consistsrnalmost entirely of “Liberal Nations,”rnwith Bosnia or Georgia or Cambodiarnor Zambia awash with peoplernincarnating the ideas of John Locke,rnWilliam Gladstone, Benjamin Constant,rnand Felix Frankfurter. But of course thernvery opposite is true. Intellectuals notrnonly excel at not seeing forests for trees;rnthey often cannot sec a hog from a log.rnLiberalism is dying throughout thernworld, including in the United States,rnwhere its decay and the rise of the “conservative”rnmovement began at the precisernmoment—1955—when another intellectual,rnthe Harvard professor LouisrnHartz, published his prize-winning bookrnThe Liberal Tradition in America, pronouncingrnthe liberal tradition as the onlyrnpolitical reality in America. Hartz,rnthough an academic plodder, was byrncomparison with Fukuyama a sage.rnFukuyama’s mind is philosophical,rnwhence his troubles arise. Like his mentorrnLeo Strauss he knows (or thinks hernknows) plenty of philosophy, while hisrnignorance of history is lamentable andrnabysmal. Among other things, Fukuva-rnDECEMBER 1992/39rnrnrn