De-evolucion

Luke Kemp's anthropological perspectives in just published Goliath's Curse are along the right lines: fundamentally we are an #egalitarian species. That's how we function best. But a mega societal collapse is likely given the Machiavellian psychopaths and narcissists who gain control under the severe inequalities of capitalism. As he says: "I’m pessimistic about the future,” he says. “But I’m optimistic about people.”
This is spot on:
'His first step was to ditch the word civilisation, a term he argues is really propaganda by rulers. “When you look at the near east, China, Mesoamerica or the Andes, where the first kingdoms and empires arose, you don’t see civilised conduct, you see war, patriarchy and human sacrifice,” he says'
And more
'This was a form of evolutionary backsliding from the egalitarian and mobile hunter-gatherer societies which shared tools and culture widely and survived for hundreds of thousands of years. “Instead, we started to resemble the hierarchies of chimpanzees and the harems of gorillas.”'