this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2025
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Late Stage Capitalism
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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.