How we got here, and why today's far right are the same dweebs from thousands of years ago.
Today's reactionaries like to think they are something special or new. They are dead wrong. At the very least as far back as Sumeria we can see in their written history the exact same story played out again and again. These prudish, insecure little dweebs have been throwing the exact same tantrum for thousands of years. They pillaged their own species, took credit for the progress of others while stiffling any further innovation. They call it civilization, and the worst of them "kings" and "warriors".
After decades on this earth experiencing today's reality, studying anthropology, and learning that today is just a rehash of the same tired process, I need a catharsis. So here is the condensed version of how hierarchy, patriarchy, scarcity, debt, and currency keep playing out over and over:
Permanent hierarchies emerge out of scarcity. Natural or man-made, resources or information, these entities ransom access in exchange for any kind of authority that coerces or otherwise invalidates consent.
Hierarchies need a monopoly on legitimate violence to survive. So-called middlemen with access to the resources or manpower to sustain this monopoly on violence at increasingly larger scales emerge and cut deals in exchange for a place of power in the hierarchy.
Males, (by a slim average) having an advantage in physical violence and size relative to the average woman, have historically used these factors to dominate most hierarchical leadership classes.
The more powerful that leadership class becomes, the more rigid and less inclusive the system subsequently gets. Less inclusivity limits the pool of available minds. Any remaining innovations that threaten the monopoly of those in charge, are suppressed. Stagnation sets in.
Leaders need consistent growth to satisfy their brokers, but growth without physical expansion has a limit. Constant growth eventually requires conquest, and acquiring means of increasing conquest incurs debt.
That kind of debt requires taxation to sustain the relationship between the in debt leading class and their creditors. Currency is the most efficient means of quantifying debt in a transactional relationship. Once something is quantified in such a mindset, you can maximize gain while minimizing give: exploitation is perfected. The economy that emerges is essentially a protection racket, so large in complexity that it is forced to provide actual services in order to be stable and tolerable by its victims.
In this hierarchy the most disadvantaged women, being lowest in ranking and artificially limited in their means of surviving, are de facto funneled into using their bodies and sex to gain currency and power; both often intertwined.
The most effective place to access an abundance of clients and seats of power, in contrast to scarcity, is in cities.
If women succeed, they gain empowerment, achieve social mobility, and secure an education for subsequent generations. It opens up increasing inclusivity, which in turn erodes hierarchy. Inclusivity encourages or can even force innovation, which in turn creates increasing abundance. Abundance erodes scarcity and without the latter, hierarchy loses its ideal environment.
However, empowerment is not always synonymous with liberation. Women's empowerment within the ranks of hierarchy will create real problems, and those issues will become an excuse to say that said empowerment is harmful rather than the environment of permanent hierarchy itself. Hierarchically minded people, mostly men from the cities, migrate out of urban abundance. Either figuratively or literally, they enter a state of scarcity. A desire for women emerges amidst isolation and feelings of alienation.
The empowerment of women and the men's refusal to give up hierarchy leads to a certain narrative for the latter: women’s empowerment via sexual liberation took away my power and starved me of women. Therefore, both are undesirable and “degenerate”. Exactly like the conditions that the Bible and Quran emerged from, these mostly rural patriarchies will view the cities as "dens degeneracy".
Growth within the hierarchy hits its limit, and stagnation leads to the death of the dominant currency. Without sustainment, the monopoly on violence is eroded before evaporating entirely. A crisis emerges.
Whichever faction is most organized at the time of crisis will decide which form of power cements itself in the societies that emerge.
Either before, during, or after this crisis anarchic systems spontaneously emerge to meet needs and satisfy desires for consent. New hierarchies compete with each other and the previously dominant political class. Regardless of past rivalries or incompatible ideologies, hierarchies will unite against anarchic governments should they become a viable and widespread enough alternative to the former.
If a hierarchy reestablishes that form of power over a given area, it will concern itself with acquiring resources to keep the loyalty of its manpower. Their most important one will be women. Getting them means conquering the cities, a place they hate for having empowered women which broke their power in the first place. Conquest, however, needs resources to achieve it in the first place. Brokers will emerge to back this hierarchy if it preserves their own power. This creates debt, and the most effective means of paying debt is through the taxation and exploitation of conquered people, primarily their women. To prevent these women from having power, they will require that their bodies be covered up and their education curtailed or even eliminated entirely. Currency is implemented to enable the accounting of debt and facilitate further growth. With a monopoly on violence and scarcity reestablished, the new hierarchy achieves stability.