Optimization > Competition
I keep revisiting Francis Fukuyama's, and in general the idea of the "end of history," a popular sentiment that arose at the close of the Cold War. Fukuyama argued that this "End of History" was the ultimate triumph of liberal democracy as the final form of government, the capstone to an extensive ideological debate. It's an attractive idea in itself, but Fukuyama's vision has ultimately been proven incorrect on a couple of different levels. The idea that there would be no more conflict between nations in the future is flawed, because knowledge disparities still exist between nations; not everyone has followed this ideological debate and hence knowledge disparities will continue to work to reduce themselves, through conflict or through networking (as we are seeing from modern globalization). Fukuyama's "End of History" is also very Western Philosophy centric. Maybe it can be argued that Hegel's and Marx's philosophies are built ...