Greed cemented into structure.
Power is what happens after greed succeeds. The accumulation needs defending, so walls go up. Titles are issued. Gatekeepers are hired. A story is written explaining why this arrangement is natural, ordained, and yours to keep.
Every tradition watched this happen and called it out.
Hesus — “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them — not so with you.” (Luke 22:25) He turned the tables in the Temple. He washed his disciples’ feet. His mother sang it before he could speak: “He has brought down the mighty from their thrones.” (Luke 1:52)
Lao Tzu — “The more laws and prohibitions, the poorer the people become.” (Tao Te Ching 57) The sage governs by emptying himself, not by filling the treasury.
The Buddha — left a palace. The story is the lesson.
The Prophet Muhammad — “The best of leaders are those who love you and you love them. The worst are those you hate and who hate you.” (Sahih Muslim)
The Hebrew prophets — Isaiah, Amos, Micah all turned on kings who fed themselves while the poor went hungry.
Power is not evil in itself. A parent has power over a child, a teacher over a student, a surgeon over a patient. Power becomes evil the moment it forgets it was meant to serve, and starts serving itself.
The twenty-first century has refined the forgetting. Power now hides behind quarterly earnings, behind algorithms no one elected, behind borders drawn by men long dead, behind a vocabulary of inevitability. That’s just how it works.
No. That is how it was built.
The test of power is single and old.
Does it lift others up, or does it press them down to stay on top?