** #8 Social justice demands that mns die or be dislocated: Only four things can force equality or “large-scale levelling”: epidemics and pandemics, complete collapse of whole states and economic systems, total revolutions, and wars of mass mobilisation. Or so Walter Scheidel argues in his book “The Great Leveller: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century.”

The Vienna-born historian concludes that (the Great Depression aside) financial crises and political reforms seldom have a major impact on bridging the gap between the poor and rich, according to a book review by The Economist. Scheidel notes that democracy and popular social movements have also largely proven ineffective. Large scale conflict and warfare, however, have proven effective at equalizing the economic scales.

Change could be driven by non-human intelligence, collapse of a civilization? The Austrian author doesn’t see the kind of catastrophes that have historically lead to a decline in inequality happening any time soon. Scheidel suggests however that the future might usher in more possibilities for change, perhaps one led by non-human intelligence or a civilisational collapse.