D’s Reviews > The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution > Status Update

The ending of part 3 left me slightly unsatisfied. He asks, Why did China not develop indigenous capitalist institutions? His answer is basically that it did not have to do with a lack of good institutions but with Chinese culture. I don’t automatically dismiss answers involving culture as a cop out, but in this case it feels like he should expand on how the culture came about.

China is forced into statehood through war. Any pocket of China that doesn’t transition from tribe to state is conquered by a state until all of China is unified. This power is noticed by the aristocracy, so when they try to take power they try to infiltrate the existing state’s roles. When they try enforce patrimony (nepotism), the state weakens. India’s religion sits atop the state and so can never do this.

Possible flaw in logic: Fukuyama claims it is not obvious why you’d cooperate with a 4th cousin instead of a familiar nonrelative. He claims this was caused by religious belief, the worship of dead ancestors, but why can you call this behavior found in every tribe around the world not biological and just a religious belief? Seems like a cop out to just label something as religious if it happens every time