The feudal society was constructed for one reason: security. ( Sounds like how the Bush administration got away with taking away some civil liberties in order to fight terrorists. )

The nobles wanted the security of maintaining control over their far-reaching kingdoms, so they were forced to delegate power to local control. ( State and local governments. In some cases large corporate entities. ) The peasants ( the middle class ) wanted security from marauders and barbarians from neighboring lands. They also wanted security from invading armies. ( Terrorists aka. militant Islamists ) And thus the development of the feudal system and the fief structure was almost inevitable. However, all this came at the great expense of the common man. He gave up many freedoms for his security. ( Our current “state of emergency”, searching everyone at airports, arresting protesters, fighting a never ending war on a theoretical enemy… )

*The italics are my thoughts*
The original text came from library.thinkquest.org.

I am no expert, by any means, of history or politics. This is just to start a conversation with people much more knowledgeable than I in this topic.