Francis Fukuyama?s 1992 book pronouncing a post-Cold War ?end of history? once defined the most triumphantly optimistic pole in American politics. But it?s been a long, hard couple of decades. Many books later, Fukuyama is having much darker thoughts, writing about the process of political decay and drawing sobering lessons about the United States in a historically rich and analytically audacious essay for Foreign Affairs.

Up through the end of the 19th century, he points out, the federal government was weak and corrupt. But then thanks to Progressive and New Deal reforms, it became stronger, more efficient, and bureaucratically rationalized?all of which was made possible by a wave of industrialization and economic growth, which was then extended for decades, in part by the work of the newly effective government.

But over the past few decades, the process has begun to reverse itself, because of a combination of factors: an explosion of factional special-interest groups in Washington, a decline in the prestige of civil-service jobs, the rise of anti-government ideology on the political right, growing social and economic inequality, and the gutting of campaign-finance regulations by the courts. They have conspired to make the government weaker, more corrupt, and less efficient. That leads to poorer performance, which inspires increased distrust of the public sector, which provokes further rounds of tax cuts and regulatory reversals, which makes things even worse. And on we go through a vicious, self-reinforcing cycle of decay.

It?s a cogent and chilling account of life in the United States in the early years of the 21st century?one rendered even more alarming by Fukuyama?s conclusion that there?s no reasonable hope for improvement from within the decaying system itself. Instead, we must wait ?until some external shock comes along to catalyze a true reform coalition and galvanize it into action.?