> for thousands of years, the human labor required to feed, clothe, and shelter a family wouldn't have allowed anyone to learn, preserve, and advance human knowledge without the labor of many being exploited one way or another by an elite few.
That's quite a claim; is there a basis for it? Is there data? Research? Did manual labor really leave no time for other things - I've heard otherwise too.
And why do all those people working need an elite few taking most of the capital for themselves, e.g., to build massive homes and to guild their castles and churches? That capital could have been invested in the population and greatly improved the standard of living, technology (reducing the need for labor), knowledge, etc.
The elite few spent a lot of that capital fighting each other over power and land, not only consuming capital but destroying it - destroying much of what that labor built. They also use it to oppress many who could have raised humanity to greater fredom, knowledge, and prosperity.
We reside in a living example of the far, far more successful alternative - no authoritarian country, now or in the past, comes close to the prosperity of free, advanced democracies.
The justications for authoritarianism are popular these days.
> I was quite clear that I'm not defending past or present inequality.
How is that reconciled with (from GGP):
> for thousands of years, the human labor required to feed, clothe, and shelter a family wouldn't have allowed anyone to learn, preserve, and advance human knowledge without the labor of many being exploited one way or another by an elite few.
That seems to advocate for or justify exploitation of the poor by the wealthy?
That's quite a claim; is there a basis for it? Is there data? Research? Did manual labor really leave no time for other things - I've heard otherwise too.
And why do all those people working need an elite few taking most of the capital for themselves, e.g., to build massive homes and to guild their castles and churches? That capital could have been invested in the population and greatly improved the standard of living, technology (reducing the need for labor), knowledge, etc.
The elite few spent a lot of that capital fighting each other over power and land, not only consuming capital but destroying it - destroying much of what that labor built. They also use it to oppress many who could have raised humanity to greater fredom, knowledge, and prosperity.
We reside in a living example of the far, far more successful alternative - no authoritarian country, now or in the past, comes close to the prosperity of free, advanced democracies.
The justications for authoritarianism are popular these days.