Moving towards becoming a shit company, you mean.

I agree with you that the systems we have built keep the powerful in power. That’s what they get out of the deal.

But the point of civilization has less to do with them, and more to do with interactions between regular people. If I have a dispute with you, for example, over some property, we can call on lawyers, police, regulatory bodies and similar to help us settle our dispute. We maybe don’t like the resolution, but, by and large, we accept it.

Without those systems, I could just beat you up, and take the property for myself. You’re only real option would be to kill me, and take it back.

Similar, we can do things like vote out our leaders, or move to other places. We have options besides burning down the castle, or setting up a guillotine.

Civilization is about giving us that alternative.

That’s wife material, that is.

Nothing got hijacked, “civilization” structured around the threat of violence was exploitative from the start.

It’s not a threat of violence, it’s a preferable alternative to violence, for both sides. Revolts aren’t great for those in power, but they are catastrophic for a significant number of those not in power.

And you are missing mine.

The government gives the working class a way to have their grievances heard and addressed in a way other than starting a rebellion.

Yes, it serves to keep the powerful in power, but that’s irrelevant to my point. It also serves to make sure the little people get taken care of well enough that we don’t kill the ones in power.

For a more specific example, see unions. The alternative to unions is plant managers getting killed.

That’s not why we built them. They got hijacked for that, and they need fixing.

They were built so we had an alternative to killing each other over disputes.

Violence is almost always the solution. Civilization is an effort to find a better solution. But people who reject the systems we’ve built up seem to forget why we built then.

I don’t think anyone’s taking this seriously.

Some of those I’ve never seen hyphenated in 30 years of being an avid reader. And some of the corrections I see listed, I’ve seen used the other way.

But I’m sure they read more broadly than I do.