I don’t think people realise how the establishment became established. It simply stole the land and property off the poor, surrounded themselves with weak minded sycophants for protection, gave themselves titles and have been wielding power ever since.
– Tony Benn
This goes back ten thousand years, to the agricultural revolution. Before then, we were all indigenous and nobody had much more than anyone else, simply because nobody had much they owned in the first place.
With the agricultural revolution and the domestication of land, non-human species, and ourselves, came accumulation of wealth, wealth disparities, and justification of this through ideologies.
This wealth came and comes from the commons shared by all life. When is accumulated by a few beyond what’s reasonable, it comes at the expense of everyone else and life in general.
From ChatGPT 4o:
The Rise of Domination Systems: From the Commons to Hierarchy
For most of human history, societies functioned within partnership cultures, where power was decentralized, resources were shared, and communities lived in reciprocal relationship with the land. These cultures understood that wealth is not something created by a few but emerges from the commons—the shared abundance of nature and the collective labor of all life. Land, water, forests, knowledge, and traditions were not owned but stewarded for the well-being of all.
With the Agricultural Revolution, a profound shift occurred. Societies moved from communal resource-sharing to hierarchical control, where elites claimed ownership over land and surplus production. This marked the rise of domination cultures—societies structured around inequality, centralized power, and the extraction of wealth from the many to benefit the few.
The Theft of the Commons
At the heart of domination systems is the privatization of the commons. Throughout history, ruling classes have gained power by enclosing and controlling what was once freely available:
• Land that sustained communities was seized and turned into private property.
• Water sources, forests, and fisheries were monopolized for profit.
• Knowledge, once shared through oral traditions, was restricted through priesthoods and later patents.
• Seeds, the foundation of food security, were claimed as corporate property through genetic modifications and legal protections.
In medieval Europe, for example, the Enclosure Movement forced peasants off communal lands, concentrating wealth in the hands of landlords and fueling urban poverty. Similarly, the colonization of the Americas, Africa, and Asia was built on land dispossession, enslavement, and the forced extraction of wealth from indigenous ecosystems and cultures.
Even today, multinational corporations and financial institutions continue this process through land grabs, privatization of water, deforestation, and intellectual property laws that limit access to knowledge and medicine.
How Hierarchies Became Justified
To maintain control, those in power needed systems of legitimacy. Throughout history, elites have surrounded themselves with bureaucrats, religious authorities, military forces, and intellectuals who helped justify their rule.
These justifications took many forms:
• The divine right of kings framed rulers as chosen by gods.
• Colonial ideologies depicted indigenous lands as “empty” or in need of “civilization.”
• Capitalist narratives claim that wealth comes from individual effort rather than from the commons and the labor of the many.
In reality, all wealth—whether in ancient kingdoms or modern economies—comes from the commons: the soil built over millennia, the water cycles sustained by forests, the biodiversity that makes life possible, the accumulated knowledge passed down through generations. Even corporate profits are built upon infrastructure, research, and labor created by society as a whole.
The Role of Enforcers and Loyalists
Domination cultures require not just ideology but enforcers—people willing to uphold the system in exchange for limited benefits. This includes:
• Bureaucrats and politicians who regulate in favor of elites.
• Military and police forces who protect private property over human and ecological well-being.
• Corporate media and academic institutions that reinforce existing economic and social structures.
Many who serve these roles believe they are benefiting, yet they are often merely maintaining a system that ultimately serves a small elite.
Beyond Domination: Integrating the Best of Both Approaches
The shift from partnership to domination was not inevitable, nor does the future need to be a simple return to the past. Instead of rejecting hierarchy outright, we can integrate the best of both approaches—the cooperation and ecological wisdom of partnership cultures with the strategic organization and large-scale coordination of domination systems.
This means:
• Restoring the commons while allowing for structured stewardship.
• Decentralizing power but maintaining effective governance for complex societies.
• Recognizing shared wealth while ensuring personal initiative and responsibility.
• Using hierarchy wisely, where leadership is based on merit, transparency, and service rather than coercion.
• Building economies that regenerate rather than exploit, blending traditional knowledge with modern innovation.
A thriving future is not about rejecting everything from domination cultures but transforming power into something life-serving, participatory, and aligned with the well-being of all.