Francis Fukuyama, the American political scientist who once said we're at "the end of history" now tells us to be more cautious — we're not there yet.

In fact, he's more than a little worried at the moment about the direction his own country is going in, not to mention the counter-example that China is setting when it comes to liberal democracy.

The whole idea of history coming to an end is, of course, a favourite preoccupation of historians, philosophers, theologians and prophets.

"The end of days" is not only a cherished Hollywood motif but embedded in religious tidings, Christian and otherwise. And in the 19th century, Karl Marx famously thought communism would end history on this mortal plane, as the class struggle replaced capitalism with true socialism.

But when Fukuyama announced in his 1992 book The End of History and the Last Man that the human quest for the most advantageous society was coming to an end, he wasn't being prophetic or utopian.

He was simply saying that liberal democracy, the sort we have in the West, is pretty much what works.

In other words, no great new ideas are needed. Only a little tinkering around the edges.

Democratic capitalism was, for him, what remained at the end of the day.

Political order

Remember, this thesis was being advanced not long after the collapse of Soviet Communism in 1989, when that fake, monstrous consumer of human life and ingenuity simply rolled over on itself.

Political scientist Francis Fukuyama. The end is not so nigh. (Reuters)

Now, Fukuyama has come out with the first volume of what is to be a massive follow-up: The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution.

It's fabulously detailed and, I'm happy to report, jargon free. The prehuman material dives back into evolutionary theory and the vast reams of scholarship about our hunter-gatherer forebears.

And Fukuyama still believes in the benefits of the liberal, democratic capitalist state with its capacity for right governance and wealth creation. But he sees another alternative emerging.

By this he doesn't mean Islamism, which he believes is not a serious problem (though still troublesome and murderous) because it can't supply the right measure of wealth, dignity or freedom for its populations.

For Fukuyama the system that could become the next great model is authoritarian capitalism, like that practised in China and run, you might say, by the Capitalist Party of China, Communist in name only.

China number one

China is the template for those in the developing world who see a workable way of lifting great numbers of people out of poverty — a firm hand, wealth creation through forms of capitalism (crony and otherwise) and a steely-eyed direction.

If Chinese authorities want to build something as massive as the Three Gorges dam, Fukuyama observes, they'll damn well build it. No environmentalist obstruction, no endless policy reviews, no quarreling politicians to appease.

An old-style Communist would be in awe of this formula. The peasants advance while the elites retain social control by censoring information and social media, as well as keeping protests as out of sight as possible.

In just a few short years, it seems as if almost everything is being manufactured in China, the workshop of the world.

Need some cash for your Chinese purchases? Borrow it, from China. Want an upscale Olympics? Command one.

By contrast, the binging and borrowing U.S. looks like a teenager with a drastic eating disorder.

The three principles

We should be clear here, though, that China is not Fukuyama's dream state.

He still believes in liberal democracy as the freest and most humane system of governance on the planet.

But after the global financial disaster of 2008, Western capitalism doesn't seem like much of a model anymore for many people, particularly those who suffered the consequences of the collapse.

Still, from his deep study of history, Fukuyama has come up with three principles that are essential for what he deems the modern flourishing state.

First is centralized power. China has this in spades and developed the prototype centuries before the birth of Christ when its early rulers seized power and staffed an impersonal bureaucracy with a meritocracy, selected by exam.

But the truly complete, contemporary state must contain two more attributes as well: the rule of law, impartial and fair; and accountability, where elites are held in check and tossed out of power if they abuse those they govern.

That last principle is democracy's great contribution to civil order.

An accident of history

But as Fukuyama has grown older, he has also grown more cautious.

Will the Arab Spring bring forth democracy? He doesn't know the answer.

He does know that nations require some sort of "social glue" to be successful and wonders what will be the social glue holding together these tribal, religious and clan-dominated societies.

Fukuyama is also worried him about his own country, the U.S., which seems to be frozen in a rigid and broken brand of politics.

It's a country that is also facing fiscal bankruptcy but seems helpless to do anything about it. A floundering superpower.

Fukuyama reminds us that democracy itself is not inevitable. It is not necessarily the end product of social evolution.

In fact, he calls democracy a fortuitous "accident of history." It sprang up in Britain and was exported at the right moment in time.

What's more, Fukuyama says, it is one of those unexpected gifts that you have to keep working at and repairing. You can't just go out and buy a new version at Wal-Mart. That's because, you might say, it's not made in China. We have to make it work ourselves.