this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2025
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When has this ever not been the case?
My thoughts exactly. When has the world not looked like this?
Before we invented agriculture. Looked worse though.
Plenty of areas have looked plenty of ways, and before global imperialism was practical, the inequality between those regions was not always exploitative.
There are entire continents that never had feudalism except in colonies.
I don't even know where to start with this. Every single thing you've said or implied is so wrong it's also based on something wrong.
If I had to guess I'd say your view of ancient and even slightly pre-modern societies is entirely extrapolated backwards from eurocentric capitalist just-so stories and takes no account of anything else–not to mention that my mention of global imperialism just meant a relatively wealthy north American culture 2000 years ago wasn't necessarily exploiting a devastatingly poor European one, because that would have been impractical, so only regarding cultures within practical reach of one another is more sensible than a global comparison is a more sensible measure of this for most of human history.
Except the Antarctica thing. Maybe.
You said the, "The inequality was not always exploitive."
Inequality only happens from exploitation. Royalty existed on the backs of the working class. Royalty in ancient times wasn't an exclusively Western feature.
Sure, but in, for example, North America monarchism was extremely rare and as far as I know they were only significant in the Mississippian Culture, for a certain value of monarchism.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippian_culture
This culture is fascinating precisely because it both collapsed from the strain of the European-brought plagues and because the implicit heirarchy was both rare and yet still incredibly egalitarian compared to any Old World standard. It's precisely interesting because it seems to represent the very growth of inequality that begins with the creation of a noble class.
I'm not as familiar with Australia's tribal systems but my understanding is they also didn't have monarchism. That's two continents free or relatively free of the scourge of monarchy.
Antarctica too.
Australia had a population between 350k and 1m around 1000 AD. In 1000 AD, the global population was between 350m and 425 M.
Claiming "it's an entire continent without monarchy" when that continent was empty isn't a rebuttal.
Without feudalism. Not without monarchy. You can have non-feudal monarchism.
Kinda of feel like "those people don't count because I'm a racist and don't want them to count" was the bigger issue there
I can't find the original comment, but I'm pretty sure I'm not the one who brought up monarchy. I can't actually tell what you're arguing about.
The other person just said Australia doesn't count because they don't matter, fam, but you're arguing about feudalism vs monarchism when, just as an fyi, feudalism as a system is disputed as a modern abstraction in the first place.
I'm kind of not. I think i was arguing that geographically disparate differences in well being were less likely to be exploitative in the pre-modern world. Being earnest on the internet is the worst experience and I need to stop.
https://anarchist.nexus/comment/476279
I could swear that was a reply to some dumb bullshit. Sorry this is like five layers if pedantry deep with zero whimsy or fun. Every second I spend looking at this I lose respect for everyone involved.
Never said anything abou that. It was not meant as a political view. Just a funny little tangent.
Before agriculture I dont think any of the pictures could have happened.
Well yeah of course not. We didn't have cameras back then
That is true@– I won't bother to delve into exactly when, but I think we invented photography way later.