You seem to have missed the whole point of my argument (or maybe I didn't stress it enough). Okay, one more try from another angle!
All people are born different. I don't think that you will deny this, but how does this knowledge actually enlighten us? In effect this means that in the long run societies with
natural inequality (due to the difference between people) will prevail over societies where
artificial equality (as well as inequality) would be greater than predetermined by natural causes (since the former would be more efficient in their struggle for existence than the latter). What will make this discrepancy (excessive equality or inequality) happen doesn't actually matter (education, direct coercion, whatever); all these factors will be external in respect to natural causes...
But don't take my words too superficial, people often confuse
real natural inequality with what they are (or were) taught or lived with. Here I can use your own examples (slavery, constituent rights and so on), but I talk here about what really exists (and works its way despite our knowledge about this - or lack thereof) and is predetermined by nature...
So, in a sense, it does necessarily follow that hierarchical societies have a natural advantage over non-hierarchical ones!
You're right, people are born different and have different abilities; sure. This is the human nature argument I alluded to in a previous post. And one flaw in that argument is that it assumes these differences must automatically be translated from people to society as a whole, while ignoring that there are gaps that you need to bridge before you can take that step. Let me try and detail a few of the reasons for why this is so:
First, the structures that are needed for a hierarchical society to function, either don't exist in a non-hierarchical society or are fundamentally different. There is no central government you can enter and use to climb the ladder of power, or enforce your interests. Worker managed and controlled companies are very different from most companies you have today. Most other structures would be decentralized. Etc..
Second, despite the differences between people in a society, you don't have people who are capable and have the opportunity to do everything; you don't have many super-humans running around (if any). What this means is that no matter how good you are in a given field, you will need others to complement your flaws elsewhere; you need other people. Looking at the previous point, in a hierarchical society you already have all the structures in place, with people already forced to fill all the roles to support you, and you just need to climb the ladder to power if you have the skill. In "horizontal" forms of organization, it's pretty hard to create any form of large scale hierarchy, coercing people left and right to fill roles they likely don't want to, and particularly, don't need to fill.
Third, "natural inequalities", social hierarchies, the workings of established power, and so on, can only account for so much; I don't want to repeat the examples I previously gave, since you can just scroll back to find them, but the social changes that were brought about can't be easily explained in these terms alone. The truth of the matter is that, regardless of what inequalities exist among people, be they wealth, access, power, genes, education, or whatever, people still struggle to change society towards greater equality, to prevent wars with people they barely have any contact with, and realistically speaking, wars they would probably not even notice in their day to day lives if not for the media, etc.. Like it or not, things like social awareness, and education as Mike Christ mentioned, hold far greater sway than the (relatively small) natural differences people might have between them and the opportunism of the few.
You see, it's not that a non-hierarchical society would need to force people to conform to some artificial level of equality; rather, these differences would still be there adding to the society, but even if abused, would still not be able to break the anarchic nature of said society.
It is rather simple why technology will save us from feudalism, and why the group taking power will ultimately end up where we are now, despite how far from it their desires are at the start, and that will happen pretty fast (provided their leaders are rational, but otherwise they wouldn't grab power in the first place). I've been talking about this two or three times already in this thread...
To see why we won't descend into feudalism (at least, for a long time), it is necessary to understand why we are not in feudalism right now and don't have slavery (well, we have but why we do actually confirms why we don't have it everywhere, lol). It is not that people changed since ancient times or some moral nonsense they might tell you. The reason is quite simple and evident. Feudalism and slavery are just not economically effective at the present level of technological development compared to capitalism, so, as you may guess, if we stay at this level, there will be no slavery or feudalism...
In short, the very greed and egoism of those in power would dictate them to ban slavery and switch from feudalism to capitalism!
Slavery is not just manual labor, it is forced work under the threat of physical abuse. A slave working with technology is an oxymoron, lol...
Someone receiving a couple of cents an hour is virtually a slave and there are many ways to control people; physical coercion is only one way and arguably, one of the least effective ones. Slavery would be just as profitable today for the jobs you can't replace with machines (or for which the replacements would still be too expensive, which is most cases). And by the way, despite the cold war propaganda, capitalism works best the least democratic the society is. Yet, despite being more profitable, we haven't descended to totalitarian states yet and depending on where you live, you might even have minimum wage and stuff.
Yes, the fact that only hierarchical societies exist still remains a fact, but as I said I don't try to clinch to it but rather look for the reasons behind in an effort to explain why this is so. And, to tell the truth, you didn't address this issue (at least, not in the way how I would like to see it addressed). What you said later can be reduced to just saying that in due course something might happen that will change the current situation (or might not, lol)...
In short, you didn't provide the logic that would make the change you hope for inevitable (or at least feasible) and the facts are on my side even if you don't see the fatal logic behind them!
No, I didn't say that in 200 years we will all be living in non-hierarchical societies, without exception (I'm not a soothsayer); but I did provide the reasoning for why looking at the tendencies in society, that seems to me to be the eventual outcome. Now, you might not have liked my conclusion or how I went about reaching it, but the examples I gave are real, to the point, and touch upon the facts you believe are on your side. If you just continue to ignore them and cherry pick what you want to analyze, you can't be serious about trying to understand the reasons behind how these things work.
Like I said several times now, the human nature argument is not only a defeatist argument (which is always at least a red flag in itself), but is also a line of reasoning that tends to ignore whatever doesn't fit; mainly because there is no other way for it to work.
