I agree with all of this. But I do wonder, hasn't it always been this way all the way back to the Greeks? I can't imagine they just let anyone in the polity influence weighty matters in the early democracies, they probably gossiped and bickered nonstop like the schoolyard/workplace drama we see today. I don't think its in human nature to just let off the controls and let everyone have an equal part in anything, you have to be some sort of trained monk free of desire and agenda to actually do that, along with everyone else too. I think most prefer to pick their friends and family ahead of strangers, and this in turn snowballs into the sort of world we see today, full of varying shades of nepotism and pulling up the ladder behind you whether you work at the top level of government or at a truck stop.