There are a number of factors that led to the victory of liberal democratic capitalism. The scientific method and the Industrial Revolution are crucial among these. With modern science, history could no longer be either merely random or cyclical. Now it could only be, Fukuyama claims, cumulative and directional. Luddites might resist the inevitability of technology and Rousseauists might long for a state of uncorrupted nature, but nothing could reverse the scientific-industrial-technological process once it began. Science and industry effectively modernized society in a forward direction, and in order for any human society to survive, much less progress, there is no alternative.
The economic system that best responds to the scientific and industrial implications of history’s evolving direction is free-market capitalism. Fukuyama argues that the history of the twentieth century proves the triumphant efficiency of capitalism over socialism or communism as economic systems. Only capitalism can provide the greatest economic satisfaction to the greatest number. In the postindustrial age of computers and a worldwide integrated economy, the planned economies of socialist or communist states are simply beyond the abilities of government bureaucrats to control. Fukuyama points to the growth of the market economy even in...