Double helix of the modern world

A couple of years ago I read a book entitled the Cash Nexus written by Niall Ferguson. The subject of the book, as outlined on the jacket, was about money and power in the modern world. However, that’s beside the point. In it Ferguson asked an intriguing question that has stayed with me: “Are capitalism and democracy [liberal democracy] - to borrow an analogy from the field of genetics - the ‘double helix’ of the modern world?“

Ferguson’s question was provoked by a grand theory postulated by Francis Fukuyama in his book “The End of History”, written ten years earlier. Fukuyama came to the conclusion that with the collapse of communism , ‘liberal democracy‘, its only rival, was now the only form of government left in the world. Why it triumphed over communism and all other forms of government, Fukuyama explained, is because it only can fulfill humankind's needs and aspirations in and for the modern world. Humankind has inherently two great needs to satisfy, its economic well-being and its desire for recognition and freedom. Fukuyama concluded that the ‘liberal’ part of liberal democracy satisfied humankind’s economic needs and the ‘democracy’ part the desire for freedom and recognition. With his question Ferguson was wondering if Fukuyama had truly discovered the holy grail, the secret, the DNA of modern human governance.

With the term ‘liberal democracy’ Fukuyama was talking about the two aspects of human governance known to western Democracy; capitalism and democracy. He used the term liberal instead of capitalism because, he explained, it sounded less negative. Some intellectuals, though, regard capitalism and democracy as two opposing philosophies of governance, incompatible. However, Fukuyama concluded differently. He sensed that in combination they are both necessary in order to have a legitimate and viable form of governance that can and will meet the needs of modern humankind. Communism obviously didn’t have these two branches of governance, hence its collapse.

Ferguson’s question is intriguing because it points to something profound, that everything in the universe, the world, nature and humankind is composed of, two halves or aspects of itself. Everything has a ‘double helix’. However, the concept of a double helix or DNA has never been associated with human governance. Why hasn’t it? I wondered. Human governance should be no exception. It’s not removed from the natural world or its fundamental laws. It is also an organic system which requires a binary system to keep it alive and functioning.

The discovery of the double helix in human governance is a coming of age for humankind. Fukuyama’s ‘end of history’ is a metaphor for this coming of age. However, his idea of the end of history shouldn’t be interpreted as the end of history as such because as long as humankind is around, history will still be made. For example, there is still history to be made in the fine tuning and in the full implementation of the double helix of liberal democracy so that all of humankind can benefit from it.

Next I will explain what makes liberal democracy the double helix I think it is.