[netcan]

I can almost hear a Scottish accent in that argument.

IDk if a thought experiment about a desert island conducted inside a mind that is already thinking in terms of economic dynamics is... There are plenty of examples in the real world. It's pretty rare that little societies have dynamics like that.

Small groups of people usually share instead of trading. Power structures usually emerge from violence, religion or someone becoming chief. Power built by the sweat of one's (scottish) brow is something more characteristic of modern, monetary, large scale industrial and post-industrial societies.

Pharaoh wasn't pharaoh because his ancestors were marginally better farmers.

[RobertoG]

I think that you are misinterpreting what he is saying.

He is not saying that Pharaons were marginally better farmers but that balance in power is intrinsically unstable.

Losing a simple pawn in the beginning of the game makes you lost the game.