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briandmyers · 3814 days ago · link · · parent · post: Fourth Bi-Weekly Give Me a Quote from Something You've Been Reading Lately
- Chris Harman, A People's History of the WorldThe emergence of civilisation is usually thought of as one of the great steps forward in human history – indeed, as the step that separates history from prehistory. But it was accompanied wherever it happened by other, negative changes: by the development for the first time of class divisions, with a privileged minority living off the labour of everyone else, and by the setting up of bodies of armed men, of soldiers and secret police – in other words, a state machine – so as to enforce this minority’s rule on the rest of society.