[tardedmeme]

Extreme power inequality seems to be the default state of human society. Power concentrates until it's maximally concentrated, then stays there. Power shakeups seem to usually replace one group of elites with another group of smaller or the same size.

Exceptions to this rule come about for specific reasons. Before the industrial revolution, there just wasn't that much power to go around. Everyone was working their land for sustenance, and the rent-seeking nobility extracted some percent of production because that's what there was to extract. When the industrial revolution came, those who figured out how to exploit it became the new nobility and worked their employees to the bone. It was only after actual, bloody, war between the factory owners and the employees that we got labor rights, which were a truce agreement. And that agreement's been steadily declining since Reagan. It took a while because the beneficiaries of the labor rights era were able to hold onto their wealth and pass it down to their children, but now we're back in the same factory feudalism situation again, but with different technological status.

[harimau777]

That sounds like the same observation that Thomas Jefferson made:

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

[Obscurity4340]

He always knew just what to say

[bryanrasmussen]

generally the power shakeup that replaces an elite with another elite is one that replaces an old elite with a rising elite better able to take advantage of some economic conditions the old elite is ill-equipped to take advantage of

https://medium.com/luminasticity/the-new-exploiters-9d8a0684...

[6AA4FD]

Great works on this subject, to my mind refuting your nebulous thesis, include Debt by Graeber, Dawn of Everything by Graeber and Wengrow, and Mutual Aid by Kropotkin.

[thrance]

I think you'll find that any specific change in political directions come about from specific reasons (what would even be the alternative?).

[joe_mamba]

>Everyone was working their land for sustenance, and the rent-seeking nobility extracted some percent of production because that's what there was to extract

Until the black death came in the 1300's and killed an estimated 30–60% of Europe's population, and now the nobility had nobody to rent seek or even to work their land.

So then, for the first time ever, the surviving workers gained bargaining power as landowners (lords) competed for labor, leading to high cash wages, better working conditions, and more freedom for peasants, because the feudal lords hadn't yet figured out how to replace the peasants with slaves, H1-Bs and illegals from across the planet.

So according to history, including your post-WW1 example, the only times peasants gained bargaining power was when millions of them died through world wars and global pestilence.

Looking at recent unfolding history, "There's something very familiar about all this" -Biff Tannen

[readthenotes1]

I don't know why you're down voted. Perhaps the observation that inequality is often and the noble savage utopian dream of "all pigs are equal" is not the norm is too a bitter pill to swallow

[goatlover]

We do need to include the vast human pre-history when makings sweeping claims about the natural state of human society. There might be something about civilizations that concentrate power which wasn't seen nearly as much among hunter-gatherer groups. If so, there might be steps that can be taken to counter it (indeed the past several centuries would strongly suggest so).

[red-iron-pine]

as someone else put it, the best loved, most successful hunter-gatherer still wore skins and slept in a cave with the rest of the tribe.

the surpluses of the agrarian farmers meant that the pharaoh lived a life vastly different from anyone in his kingdom.

[verall]

I believe it's because in many cases, the unspoken follow on to "inequality is the norm" is "and so it's useless (or actively harmful) to try to defy that norm."

Not that above commentator is meaning that.

But many "thought leaders" i.e. Jordan Petersen play around with similar motte-and-bailey - "hierarchies are natural" (examples with lobsters, apes, whatever) --> "existing hierarchies should be preserved" (not defended in the argument but implied).

Probably some downvoters are reacting to the structural similarity, although taken in good faith i think above commenter makes a fine point about the historical pattern of periods of equality being short lived and brought about by great intentional effort while sliding back to inequality seems to occur all of the time.