Change?

[Rhyfelwyr]

The more authority has disappeared, the more freedom people are given and the more every individual is allowed to think for himself, the more progress humanity has progressed. Never before has authority been so absent, never before has every individual human been more rational. And never before have we seen progress like we see today.

I don't think you can apply such ideas to every point in human history and expect them to work. The comfortable life we enjoy in today's civilised society is a result of thousands of years of the development of increasingly centralised and powerful systems of government, increasingly concentrated in the hands of fewer individuals with each stage (from tribal chiefs, to nobles, to feudal monarchs, to national absolutist monarchs etc). After all, progress has often been faster during wars.