So if this is the culprit why not abolish income disparity? You think income equality would not be a material source for coercive power?
Who would do this? We would have to give them money too, and they would have to use that money to increase their power. A bit circular, don’t you think?
I’d rather promote people’s empowerment.
Notice I said exactly. Requesting for a detailed explanation. Here is your non-sequitur.
Explain how one follows from the other, without having to amend your whole position.
One does not have the means to coerce people without also having the resources to do so.
Clever ruse, but it didn’t work. (I’ll grant you that we’re talking about wealth inequality. “income” in this sense is an improper label.")
And what manner of empiricism are you employing to come to this conclusion historically.
Generally surveying the power and economic structures of past societies and their relationship to the prosperity and/or progress of said societies.
One example is the plague. It killed a lot of people. This was terrible. But what occured because of it was a massive change in the general person’s bargaining power against the empowered class. This provided access to a lot of wealth for the common man, which equalized power, comparably. This gave more people more time for non-laborly pursuits. This rising “middle class” was largely the source of the enlightenment and the later democratic movements and the industrial revolution. “First you get the money, then you get the women, then you get the power.” ~Tony Montana (I think)
Of course I have to ascribe a moral/ethical state of betterment to the enlightenment, the democratic revolutions, and the industrial revolution, but I’m fine with that charge.