The Root Problem

We have been stuck in a local maximum for around 3000 years. Like these ants we do progress down our chosen branch. But we can never make it to the top of the tree without taking a few backwards steps. Back to where our branch leaves the trunk. Which I believe is somewhere between the time we started trading and the moment we ran out of good places to build new cities.

Trade generates wealth (the concentration of value) and wealth causes a conundrum for 3rd parties which can choose to trade or can choose to steal. To prevent the later becoming the preferred option we developed laws and the means to enforce them which required taxes to cover their costs. But it was cheaper than allowing the stealing to take place. And these law enforcement groups became governments.

For a while cities were sparse enough that new ones could easily be created if people weren't happy with the quality of the government they found themselves living under. The Greeks were particularly quick to become discontent and as a result they created many early cities with new and interesting forms of government. Which other governments copied fairly liberally. But when we ran out of room for new cities we lost that ability. And as a result governments today have no ideas in them that the Greeks wouldn't find familiar. The root mistake was allowing the competitive forces acting on governments to diminish. If we want to gain access to the top of the tree we have to fix this.