“Nevertheless, ancient hunter-gatherer bands were still more egalitarian than any subsequent human society, because they had very little property. Property is a prerequisite for long-term inequality. Following the Agricultural Revolution, property multiplied and with it inequality. As humans gained ownership of land, animals, plants, and tools, rigid hierarchical societies emerged, in which small elites monopolized most wealth and power for generation after generation. Humans came to accept this arrangement as natural and even divinely ordained. Hierarchy was not just the norm but also the ideal. How could there be order without a clear hierarchy between aristocrats and commoners, between men and women, or between parents and children? Priests, philosophers, and poets all over the world patiently explained that just as in the human body not all members are equal—the feet must obey the head—so also in human society equality would bring nothing but chaos. In the late modern era, however, equality became an ideal in almost all human societies. This was partly due to the rise of the new ideologies of communism and liberalism. But it was also due to the Industrial Revolution, which made the masses more important than ever before. Industrial economies relied on masses of common workers, while industrial armies relied on masses of common soldiers.”
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