@rher @Griffith @Groomschild @sickburnbro @jeffcliff It's only efficient to treat the plebs well when there is massive opportunity for growth that needs to be exploited as quickly as possible. At a steady state, when growth is over and the acquisitioin of resources has stabilized, things **always** go preferentially to the elites. This is the way it works in every single biological system-- you have your prosperous core that's meant to survive the lean times, and a sacrificial margin who's meant to feed the predators (or to be ready to go into a feeding frenzy to help the species expand its territory if things suddenly improve)

This is part of why europe was able to punch far above its normal biological weight during the industiral revolution-- tons of low-IQ plebs died off during the middle ages and the children of merchants, lacking any other prospects, had to lose thier social status and start working the factories.