Freedom and The Weak State In one provocative passage of his The
Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French
Revolution, Francis Fukuyama challenges the assumption that
freedom and a strong central state are opposing values:
Progressive enserfment was not, as noted at the beginning of
this chapter beginning of this chapter, limited to Hungary. It
occurred as well in Bohemia, Poland, Prussia, Austria, and
Russia. Nobles throughout the region were pressing to increase
taxation, take away freedoms, and restrict the movement of their
dependent populations. The twentieth century has taught us to
think about tyranny as something perpetrated by powerful
centralized states, but it can also be the work of local
oligarchs. In contemporary China, many of the worst abuses of
peasant rights, violations of environmental and safety laws, and
cases of gross corruption are the work not of the central
government in Beijing but of local party officials or of the
private employers who work hand in hand with the