In another example I pointed out a Ursala K LeGuin tale. That tale applies to human societies everywhere; in every country there is some elite profiting from the suppression on part of the society.
I think I read that story. If it's the one I was thinking of, it quite moved me.
I sort-of think it's a matter of either greed or self esteem. The people who are greedy and want power have the power to prevent such things, but because of their greed they don't. The people who possess the nobility to prevent such things lack the self esteem or ambition to do so. It's a very rare combination to have both.
And so we end up where we are.
I recently read a piece on this that was quite interesting
http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/
He lists a large number of scenarios and thought experiments that would be better if everyone acted for the good of all rather than considering their own interests. The first example is the prisoner's dilemma. The one example that struck me the most was that of the fish farmers
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As a thought experiment, let’s consider aquaculture (fish farming) in a lake. Imagine a lake with a thousand identical fish farms owned by a thousand competing companies. Each fish farm earns a profit of $1000/month. For a while, all is well.
But each fish farm produces waste, which fouls the water in the lake. Let’s say each fish farm produces enough pollution to lower productivity in the lake by $1/month.
A thousand fish farms produce enough waste to lower productivity by $1000/month, meaning none of the fish farms are making any money. Capitalism to the rescue: someone invents a complex filtering system that removes waste products. It costs $300/month to operate. All fish farms voluntarily install it, the pollution ends, and the fish farms are now making a profit of $700/month – still a respectable sum.
But one farmer (let’s call him Steve) gets tired of spending the money to operate his filter. Now one fish farm worth of waste is polluting the lake, lowering productivity by $1. Steve earns $999 profit, and everyone else earns $699 profit.
Everyone else sees Steve is much more profitable than they are, because he’s not spending the maintenance costs on his filter. They disconnect their filters too.
Once four hundred people disconnect their filters, Steve is earning $600/month – less than he would be if he and everyone else had kept their filters on! And the poor virtuous filter users are only making $300. Steve goes around to everyone, saying “Wait! We all need to make a voluntary pact to use filters! Otherwise, everyone’s productivity goes down.”
Everyone agrees with him, and they all sign the Filter Pact, except one person who is sort of a jerk. Let’s call him Mike. Now everyone is back using filters again, except Mike. Mike earns $999/month, and everyone else earns $699/month. Slowly, people start thinking they too should be getting big bucks like Mike, and disconnect their filter for $300 extra profit…
A self-interested person never has any incentive to use a filter. A self-interested person has some incentive to sign a pact to make everyone use a filter, but in many cases has a stronger incentive to wait for everyone else to sign such a pact but opt out himself. This can lead to an undesirable equilibrium in which no one will sign such a pact.
In a similar way, these semi-selfish actions (acting for the good of one's country, but not the world is an example) have caused to create the state described in the OP.
Unfortunately, as I said before, we need a large number of people willing and able to do it. We need a "philosopher king" from Plato's Republic.