Very true. We are witnessing how a new aristocracy is being built. This time it’s not based on skills in warfare but around business skills. But the result is the same: you have a small group who thinks they are better than others and deserve to receive the vast majority of the profits society creates. And they manipulate the game to their advantage.

This seems to happen in all societies until a revolution happens and the cycle starts anew just with different actors.

We are going though iterations of societies/empires/cultures. Each round has the same issues but we get to learn from- and bring solutions from the previous one. The collective is much stronger than influential individuals but there has to be a collective will to change the game. It seems to me that we are more humanitarian than many previous cycles but I'm afraid we wont show much of an interest in [epic] game design until things get truly terrible. (Cheran pops to mind: That Mexican town of 16k that got rid of police, politicians and mobsters)

This time we did get game design down to an art with fine mechanics and cheap execution. Perhaps someone with a sharp pen can draw the parallels for us. Surely (if the will is there) it is easy to design something better than the stupid formula where we pretend Personal gain = Collective gain.

“until things get truly terrible. “

That’s the sad part. Big change seems to require a big disruptive event like war or revolution.

But i agree that things seem to get better overall. Unfortunately there are plenty of downs in between and these can last many years.

For what it's worth, I didn't say the world was not divided before the industrial revolution. I just said what lines it became divided along after it.

Before, because of the agricultural revolution, it was divided primarily along lines of land ownership and the familiar inheritance of that.

Oligarchy is as old as civilization. A roman senator was just as beholden to a major olive oil producer 2000 years ago as an American senator to a major oil producer today.