Big vs Small

Our political systems grew out of tribes and villages, where the headman only had the power of command over a small number of people, and maybe, if necessary, a small group of henchmen who thought as he did, and could enforce his commands.  But each other person in the group also had in principle a group of friends, who could rally around his cause, if necessary.  Because these groups were small, there was little opportunity for the leader to take irreversible control over the whole group.  Another person who saw that things were not right had an acheivable mechanism to rally enough support, using a force sufficient to out-argue, or even overpower the group currently in control.

But we have allowed this same system to grow exponentially out of control, without analysing what its effects are when the group size gets very large.  Of course all this growth happened many years ago, when city-states first evolved, and there is no way to go back and change that history.  But I really doubt we ever analysed it with respect to exactly what effect that growth had.  And of course the people at the top had ( and still have ) no incentive to change the situation, and every reason not to.

I still think this is a better way of analysing the situation than many other attempts, like the Communist manifesto, or the endless bickering between the Liberals and Labour, or Workers vs Capitalists etc that we indulge in.  Most of those attempts seem to just be the Us vs Them divisive arguments which solve no problems.

The current system has essentially invincible power invested in at most a few people, the political leaders, law system, army,  religious system, etc.  And no one else can command anything like enough followers, or even arguments, when a change becomes necessary.  Even then, there are so many differences of opinion about 'what to do' that each individual effort is never heard, let alone acted upon.

Maybe its time to find a way to get back to where individuals have much more power over what affects them and their immediate associates.