A THREAD on interesting ideas by Francis Fukuyama:
1/
It was the slave's continuing desire for recognition that was the motor which propelled history forward, not the idle complacency and unchanging self-identity of the master.
1/
It was the slave's continuing desire for recognition that was the motor which propelled history forward, not the idle complacency and unchanging self-identity of the master.
2/
Free markets are necessary to promote long-term growth, but they are not self-regulating, particularly when it comes to banks and other large financial institutions.
Free markets are necessary to promote long-term growth, but they are not self-regulating, particularly when it comes to banks and other large financial institutions.
3/
Human beings are rule-following animals by nature; they are born to conform to the social norms they see around them, and they entrench those rules with often transcendent meaning and value.
Human beings are rule-following animals by nature; they are born to conform to the social norms they see around them, and they entrench those rules with often transcendent meaning and value.
4/
Freedom does not mean the freedom to live in nature or according to nature; rather, freedom begins only where nature ends.
Human freedom emerges only when man is able to transcend his natural, animal existence, and to create a new self for himself...
Freedom does not mean the freedom to live in nature or according to nature; rather, freedom begins only where nature ends.
Human freedom emerges only when man is able to transcend his natural, animal existence, and to create a new self for himself...
...The emblematic starting point for this process of self-creation is the struggle to the death for pure prestige.
5/
To truly esteem oneself means that one must be capable of feeling shame or self-disgust when one does not live up to a certain standard.
To truly esteem oneself means that one must be capable of feeling shame or self-disgust when one does not live up to a certain standard.
6/
Many people, observing religious conflict in the contemporary world, have become hostile to religion as such and regard it as a source of violence and intolerance.
But they fail to put religion in its broader historical context, where it was a critical factor...
Many people, observing religious conflict in the contemporary world, have become hostile to religion as such and regard it as a source of violence and intolerance.
But they fail to put religion in its broader historical context, where it was a critical factor...
...in permitting broad social cooperation that transcended kin and friends as a source of social relationships.
7/
Widespread distrust in a society imposes a kind of tax on all forms of economic activity, a tax that high-trust societies do not have to pay.
People who do not trust one another will end up cooperating only under a system of formal rules and regulations, which have...
Widespread distrust in a society imposes a kind of tax on all forms of economic activity, a tax that high-trust societies do not have to pay.
People who do not trust one another will end up cooperating only under a system of formal rules and regulations, which have...
... to be negotiated, agreed to, litigated, and enforced, sometimes by coercive means.
This legal apparatus, serving as a substitute for trust, entails what economists call “transaction costs.”
This legal apparatus, serving as a substitute for trust, entails what economists call “transaction costs.”
8/
What Asia's postwar economic miracle demonstrates is that capitalism is a path toward economic development that is potentially available to all countries.
No underdeveloped country in the Third World is disadvantaged simply because...
What Asia's postwar economic miracle demonstrates is that capitalism is a path toward economic development that is potentially available to all countries.
No underdeveloped country in the Third World is disadvantaged simply because...
... it began the growth process later than Europe, nor are the established industrial powers capable of blocking the development of a latecomer, provided that country plays by the rules of economic liberalism.
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