After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, Francis Fukuyama famously declared an end to history. Things, of course, would continue to happen, he said, but the clash of rival ideologies was over with the "unabashed victory of economic and political liberalism." It was 1992, and it was a time to celebrate. "What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of postwar history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government," he wrote in his landmark essay-turned-book. With Germany and its Eurozone squeezing the life out of Greece on Sunday night -- and the hashtag #ThisIsACoup trending -- it became clearer than ever that only one half of that bargain -- the economics -- remained alive. Within just a few years of Fukuyama's pronouncement, protesters in Western nations, and governments and people in the global South, began suggesting that the new democratic system was, in the end, perhaps not so democratic. The International Monetary Fund and other global creditors began writing laws, mostly for Third World countries, enforcing what they called "structural adjustment" -- which was bloodless bureaucratic language referring to the pillaging of a nation's assets and resources, coupled with the gutting of its social services, pensions and other advances that came in the 20th Century. The first major protest to capture global attention was in Seattle, Washington, in 1999, at a World Trade Organization meeting. The movement spread around the globe, with protests hitting capital after capital, wherever economic leaders gathered, until the attacks of September 11, 2001. A planned protest in Washington, D.C., against the IMF and World Bank was supplanted by a peace march. The world's rich nations assumed that what institutions like the IMF did in the South wouldn't hit the North. Capital, however, marched on. And on Sunday night, it marched into Athens with an offer to Greece that would end the idea that capitalism and democracy can survive together there. Reads the offer, provided by a source close to the talks , from the European financial elite, which call themselves the institutions: "The [Greek] government needs to consult and agree with the institutions on all draft legislation in relevant areas with adequate time before submitting it for public consultation or to Parliament." It would be a government in name only. Not only would the Greek people be forced to accept the kind of deal they rejected overwhelmingly at the polls just a week earlier, but they'd be blocked from implementing any future policies Germany disapproved of. "The triumph of the West, of the Western idea, is evident first of all in the total exhaustion of viable systematic alternatives to Western liberalism," Fukuyama wrote. But, instead, the absence of a viable alternative emboldened capital: with the threat of socialism gone, there is less need for either half of what's known in Europe as social democracy. In a previous interview with HuffPost, French economist Thomas Piketty highlighted the interaction. "The existence of a counter model was one of the reasons that a number of reforms or policies were accepted," he said, arguing that people in capitalist countries fared better thanks to the threat of communism. "In France, it's very striking to see that in 1920, the political majorities adopted steeply progressive taxation. Exactly the same people refused the income tax in 1914 with a 2 percent tax rate. And in between, the Bolshevik revolution made them feel, after all, that progressive taxation is not so dangerous as revolution." During negotiations over the future of Greece, the Greek Syriza government repeatedly offered such progressive taxation as a way of achieving some of the budget surpluses the institutions were demanding. The offer was rejected, however, with the institutions arguing that higher taxes on the rich might slow growth. With no fear of revolution, the interest in progressive taxation is gone. Paul Krugman, under the headline "Killing the European Project," put the blame squarely on Germany: The trending hashtag ThisIsACoup is exactly right. This goes beyond harsh into pure vindictiveness, complete destruction of national sovereignty, and no hope of relief. It is, presumably, meant to be an offer Greece can’t accept; but even so, it’s a grotesque betrayal of everything the European project was supposed to stand for. Rena Dourou, a member of Syriza, wrote for HuffPost Greece that the next few days and hours "will either meet the goals of its founders -- Democracy and Solidarity for the prosperity of the people of Europe -- or enter on a path of decay." Yanis Varoufakis, the economist who was until recently Greece's finance minister, said in a blog post Sunday that his German counterpart, Wolfgang Schäuble, flat-out told him that his end goal was to ease Greece out of the Eurozone in order to teach a lesson to other nations that might want to pursue political paths at odds with his vision. Fox Business reported Sunday that the IMF was demanding Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras resign, a claim the bank later denied. Italy's Prime Minister, meanwhile, begged Germany to call off the dogs. "Now common sense must prevail and an agreement must be reached. Italy does not want Greece to exit the euro and to Germany I say: enough is enough," Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said. "Now that Tsipras has made proposals in line with the European demands, we must absolutely sign a deal. Humiliating a European partner after Greece has given up on just about everything is unthinkable." The United States has done precious little to support Greece or the principle of democracy in Europe. The Soviet Union may be gone, but the U.S. reluctance to intervene comes largely from the desire to keep Germany as a strong ally while the U.S. wages a proxy war against Russia in the Ukraine. If European history is any guide, the too-clever calculations and the petty vindictiveness will backfire in a bad way. As Dourou put it: Greece is at a crossroads, between Europe, the Balkans, the Mediterranean Basin and the Middle East -- between the West and the East. It is at the junction of important geostrategic interests. It is situated in an area where the established interests of the great powers are pitted against those of rising regional powers, against the backdrop of a reemergence of blind religious fundamentalism, in the form of the Islamic State -- a serious menace to universal human rights and a threat to the principles and values of rationalism. The weakening of a country in this specific area and under these specific circumstances would constitute not just a failure, but a choice with grave strategic consequences. Sign up to get an email when reporter Ryan Grim publishes a new story. center;" Enter your email address: -- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
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