Governance is a function society gives to a select few - through consensus/competition in a democracy and through coercion in a dictatorship. The imbalance of social,political and economic power may never completely cease to exist but the trend in human history, as I see it, has been pointing to a more egalitarian distribution of power among the diffent interest groups in a society. Of course, the re-distribution of power by itself creates new elites, thus the playing field will never be flat for everyone all the time. Therfore there will always be be new elities and new underclasses and the cycle will continue. But with each cycle the rules will probably (or hopefully) change in favor of the underclass and the degree of disparity between the haves and have-nots, while still existing, will get narrower. Just my thoughts ...