"The few had determined how to extract taxes and labor from the many, and they became rich doing it.

[drokhole]

Sounds familiar, right?

Heard it on a series called Out of Egypt, in an episode titled "Sins of the City" (it aired a few years back on Discovery, replayed on Planet Green). It detailed the move from hunter/gather/forager societies based on partnership, sharing and equality, to the spread of agricultural based societies that take root in one location. Initial city-societies - like Jericho (9000 BCE) and Çatalhöyük (8500 BCE - 5700 BCE) - retained markings of our early migratory ancestors, as there was little difference in size or luxury of houses (so it appears that there was no wealthy elite).

But over thousands of years, as cities evolved, the idea of rich and poor - and the gap between haves and have nots - became more familiar and accepted. One of the earliest examples of this is the ancient Greek city of Ephesus (4th century BCE), where wealthy merchants, middle-class craftsmen, and dirt poor slaves all resided. Ephesus had all the markings of a modern city - out-of-control population growth (over 500,000 citizens), all the way up to the opulent homes of the ruling elite. It was here that the exploitative relationship between the rich and poor was in full effect (this is when the narrator used the aforementioned line).

Later, in a South American city (around 1000 CE), the rich would erect walls separating them from the poor, while depending on the poor entirely to harvest their food (literally taking from them the "fruits" of their labor), to create their ornate belongings, and to build the very walls that divided them.

Both of these civilizations fell, as have most others since. They all suffered from the same problems - disparity of wealth, over population, unchecked growth, and depletion of resources. This is the exact same shit we're dealing with today, only on a much grander scale. The wealth gap has never been wider, the earth is struggling to support 7 billion people, and what's being done to our environment, in the name of capitalism, is criminal. And yet, the poor/working-class are being forced to contribute more labor/taxes for less pay, a record number of children are being born as societies fail to implement proper sex education, and the fucking Republicans in the House want to dismantle the EPA.

How the fuck do we allow this shit to continue? You'd think after centuries of the same song and dance, we'd get our fucking act together by now.

[BeFree]

1. How did we get here?

Simply put, many want to take. They want to be behind the wall away from the poor.

It is understandable. Who does not want to be king of the mountain?

[Scuba]

2. If the rich could hire the poor to die for them....

...the poor could make a good living at it.

[Lorien]

4. They do: it's called the U.S. military

but unfortunately not many of the poor are making a good living from it.

[Scuba]

5. And working in Koch brothers mines, refineries...

...and a host of other enterprises that suffer safety problems.

The adage is at least 50 years old, and never more true despite being an oxymoron of sorts.

[lostnfound]

3. The struggle of people against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting. nt

[Siouxmealso]

6. Times change ... or do they?

During those early times, the merchants, middle-class craftsmen, and dirt poor slaves were separated by what they contributed to society. Craftsmen created goods that people otherwise had made for themselves (such as shoes, clothing, tools, etc.), freeing their customers' time up for other things. The merchants bought the goods from the craftsmen, alleviating them from having to set up shop for themselves so they could concentrate on doing what they did best, designing and creating their products. Both the merchant and craftsman were skilled at what they did and were paid accordingly for it.

Those who couldn't either create a product or sell one were left to make their living with the only asset they had ... their manual labor, which was also in demand, as people didn't want to do all their chores themselves.

Nothing changed over the centuries until societies began offering education to all, which enabled everyone to support themselves via something other than their manual labor, which was still and will always be, in demand, by the way. The difference is that at least theoretically, your lot is not pre-ordained by who your father was and how he made his living but by how you choose to pursue happiness.

So nothing's changed in that today we still have merchants (business owners), craftsmen (skilled employees) and manual laborers (unskilled employees).

[drokhole]

7. "The Empire Never Ended"

For any Philip K Dick fans out there, forgot to add this to the OP. He saw Rome as the pinnacle of materialism and despotism, which had kept the population of Earth enslaved to worldly possessions - and that we never really progressed past that level, even when Rome "fell."

[drokhole]

8. kick