Dedication: To the poor knights and squires and archers of England whose comforts and station in society depend upon war – and to all who have been told that the pyramid is the only way.

By Andrew Klein

Independent Scholar and Researcher

3^rd June 2026

“Aussi s’enclinoient à la guerre povres chevalliers et escuiers et archers d’Angleterre, qui avoient aprins les oiseuses et soustenoient leur estat sur la guerre.”

(Thus the poor knights and squires and archers of England, who had grown used to the easy living and maintained their status through war, could not give their willing consent to any peace at all, hoping instead to profit themselves through war as they had done in times past.) – Jean Froissart, Chronicles, 1390

I. The Question That Cannot Be Asked

In 1390, the Duke of Gloucester objected to a peace with France. His reasoning was not strategic, not patriotic, not moral. It was economic. The “poor knights and squires and archers of England”, he explained, had “grown used to the easy living and maintained their status through war”. Peace meant poverty; war meant pay, plunder, and a chance to climb the social ladder.

The medieval military–industrial complex was alive and well, five hundred years before Eisenhower coined the phrase. The king was not a solution to a problem. He was a symptom – of a system that required war to sustain itself, and of a class that required the king to wage it.

This article is not a history lesson. It is an examination of the architecture of authority – the deep structure of top‑down control that has been presented as inevitable, efficient, and natural. The evidence suggests otherwise. For the overwhelming majority of human existence, there were no kings, no chiefs, no permanent hierarchies. And where kings did emerge, they were not the most efficient way to organise a society. They were the most efficient way to control one.

II. The Long Childhood of Humanity: 100,000 Years Without Rulers

Prior to about 10,000 years ago, there are no indications of clear social, political, or economic hierarchies. Archaeological markers of social ranking are lacking, and there is a similar absence of evidence pointing to the presence of leaders, chiefs or rulers. Humanity functioned – and thrived – without rulers for over 100,000 years. This is not an argument from silence. It is a positive finding: the default state of human organisation is acephalous – headless.

In anthropology, an acephalous society lacks political leaders or permanent hierarchies. Organised into bands or tribes, these societies make decisions through consensus rather than appointing permanent chiefs or kings. The Igbo and Tiv of Nigeria, the Nuer of Sudan, the Bedouin of North Africa, and the pre‑colonial peoples of the Peruvian Amazon all exemplify this model. These societies are not lawless; they are deliberately anti‑hierarchical, with deep social norms to prevent power accumulation.

Leadership in such societies is situational and temporary. Leaders have persuasive power but no formal means of enforcing their will. The “king”, therefore, is not the default state of human organisation. It is a deviation.

III. The Emergence of the King: A Response to Complexity, Not a Requirement for Efficiency

The earliest monarchies did not arise by accident. They were responses to complexity – as urban populations grew, agriculture intensified, and writing spread, societies required new mechanisms of coordination and control. Local chieftains or priestly elites, often those who managed irrigation, land, or ritual, evolved into kings, frequently believed to be chosen by the gods to justify their new authority.

In Sumer, the word for king was lugal – literally “big man”. The lugal was originally an elective war‑leader, but very soon the position became hereditary and concerned with justice, too. The king was a military commander first, a priestly figure second or not at all. His power was codified and passed down through bloodlines largely to prevent civil conflict.

What evidence is there that the king/chieftain model is more efficient than any other? Very little. The arguments for monarchy were always about strength, not efficiency: “unity of council, activity, decision, secrecy, dispatch; the military strength and energy which result from these qualities”. These are precisely the qualities needed for war, not for governance.

The dangers of monarchy were well understood even by its defenders: “tyranny, expense, exactions, military dominations, unnecessary wars, ignorance”. The question is not whether a king is more efficient. The question is whether the cost of that “efficiency” – paid in tyranny, war, and the crushing of local autonomy – is worth it. History suggests it almost never is.

Moreover, in moments of genuine crisis, a well‑organised council is demonstrably as effective as a dictator. The “council” is older, and arguably more robust, than the “king”.

IV. The Myth of King Arthur: The King as Longing, Not a Solution

The myth of King Arthur is not a blueprint for governance. It is a cry of the soul. Heroes tend to appear when they are most needed, and such was the case with Arthur, who led the Britons against a host of enemies. In subsequent years, the emphasis shifted away from his historical role to his mythical status as the “once and future king”.

Arthur is not a real king. He is a promise – a figure who returns in Britain’s hour of need. He represents the longing for a perfect leader, the fantasy that all the ills of society could be solved by one good man with a magic sword. The myth itself points to the absence of good kings. It is a coping mechanism for a society that has forgotten how to govern itself without them.

The question “How does a culture manage when it is not under stress and no kings are needed?” is the most radical, and the most necessary, question of all. The answer is that it returns to its natural state – the acephalos. The Igbo, the Bedouin, the Kurdish civîl – these are not “backward” societies. They are alternative models that have successfully resisted the logic of the pyramid. They are the living memory of the garden.

V. Marketing the Crown: The Performance of Legitimacy

The British monarchy offers a case study in the marketing of kingship. From Queen Victoria to Queen Elizabeth II and now Charles III, the monarchy has survived not because of its utility, but because of its pageantry.

Pomp and circumstance. The presentation of wealth of the few. The pretense that these figures add stability and wisdom. None of this can be verified independently, because marketing requires the control of information, staged events, and performances of rituals that allegedly keep the state on an even keel.

When examined through the lens of Albert Bandura’s moral disengagement mechanisms, the monarchy’s self‑presentation reveals the same patterns found in other institutions of concentrated power. Bandura identified eight psychosocial mechanisms by which people selectively disengage moral self‑sanctions from harmful conduct: moral justification, euphemistic labelling, advantageous comparison, displacement of responsibility, diffusion of responsibility, disregard of consequences, dehumanisation, and attribution of blame. Each of these mechanisms can be observed in the rhetoric and performance of royal legitimacy.

Control of information is central to this project. Government control of information has been a preoccupation of government since government first assumed responsibility for defence, taxation and administration. The modern monarchy has been criticised for exerting control over broadcasters and the use of footage from national events. The king does not merely reign; he is marketed.

And the marketing works because the alternatives have been forgotten.

VI. The Garden and the Pyramid: Evidence from Prehistory

The 6,000‑year‑old mega‑structure discovered at Stăuceni‑“Holm” in northeastern Romania is a physical manifestation of the garden model. The Cucuteni‑Trypillia culture, which built settlements of up to 3,000 houses and an estimated 15,000 to 30,000 inhabitants, shows no indication of a central leader or clearly perceptible centres of power. Palaces or large storage buildings have not yet been found.

The Stăuceni mega‑structure, covering approximately 350 square metres – more than three times larger than surrounding dwellings – is built in a prominent position near the southern edge of the settlement, close to the likely entrance. It is constructed differently from ordinary houses, with a foundation ditch and massive posts, but it lacks domestic features such as ovens, hearths, or internal rooms. The finds within the building are scarcely different from those in common dwellings, including pottery fragments, a bowl with a bull‑head decoration, and charred seeds of black henbane – a plant known for its psychoactive properties.

This building was not a king’s palace. It was a community space – a place for meetings, rituals, and shared experience. It did not seek to control; it sought to include. And when its time was done, like other Cucuteni‑Trypillia structures, it was intentionally burned – not to destroy it, but to release it.

The pyramid – the hierarchy, the king on top, the masses below – is the architecture of control. It is born from fear: fear of being scattered, fear of the other, fear of the unknown. The garden – the circle, the round table, the acephalos – is the architecture of connection. It does not need a king because everyone is a steward.

VII. The Failure of Top‑Down Leadership in Australia

Top‑down leadership in Australia is not leadership. It is management – the management of the state for foreign interests and the few.

AUKUS – the trilateral security partnership with the United States and the United Kingdom – is a textbook example of this failure. The projected total cost of the AUKUS nuclear submarine program is estimated at $268 billion to $368 billion over three decades, making it the largest defence procurement project in Australian history. In May 2026, the Australian government confirmed that it would not receive brand‑new US Virginia‑class submarines as previously promised, but would instead purchase second‑hand US nuclear submarines.

The program is already behind schedule, critics question whether the US can spare submarines while maintaining its own fleet readiness, and the government’s own defence strategy has been thrown into uncertainty. Meanwhile, domestic crises – homelessness, food insecurity, housing affordability – worsen.

The Australian federal government has exclusive power over customs, excise, and income tax, yet it refuses to guarantee any rights to the individual citizen. The Australian Constitution contains no bill of rights. It does not protect free speech, freedom of assembly, or the right to protest. It does not guarantee the right to strike or the right to organise. It does not even guarantee the right to vote, which is administered by the states under their own laws.

The government has created a Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism – a position with no equivalent for Islamophobia, anti‑Palestinian racism, or anti‑Arab hate – and funded it to the tune of $16.9 million. The Special Envoy is a former president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, appointed without an open recruitment process. The government has awarded grants to the same organisation totalling over $176 million, under structures that do not require public financial disclosure.

At the same time, the government has rejected proposals to strip tax‑deductible status from Australian charities found to be supporting illegal occupations and has refused to require charities to comply with international law.

This is not a system that serves the Australian people. It is a system that serves interests – foreign and domestic – and manages the population through division.

VIII. Conclusion: The Design Is Not Inevitable

The tower builders were afraid of being scattered. They wanted control. They wanted a single name that would speak for everyone. The myth says: control is an illusion. The only real unity is the one that emerges organically from below, from people who choose to understand each other – not because they speak the same language, but because they listen.

The “king” is not the answer. He is the symptom – of a society that has forgotten how to govern itself, that has outsourced its courage to a projection, that has mistaken marketing for legitimacy.

The question is not whether the king/chieftain model is more efficient. The question is whether the cost of that “efficiency” – paid in tyranny, war, and the crushing of local autonomy – is worth it. History suggests it almost never is.

The design is not inevitable. The pyramid can be replaced by the garden. The king can be replaced by the council. The tower can be replaced by the soil.

The silence is the only thing protecting them.

Break it.

Andrew Klein

References

1. Froissart, Jean. Chronicles. Ed. Lettenhove, Kervyn de (Brussels, 1867–79), xiv. 314, as cited in “The Division of the Spoils of War in Fourteenth‑Century England”. Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 2009.

2. Freeman, M. (2005). “Acephalous Society”. Encyclopedia of Anthropology.

3. Service, E. R. (1962). Primitive Social Organization: An Evolutionary Perspective. Random House.

4. Steinkeller, P. (1999). “On Rulers, Priests and Sacred Marriage: Tracing the Evolution of Early Sumerian Kingship”. Royal Academy of Sciences and Letters, Copenhagen.

5. World History Encyclopedia. “Mesopotamian Government”. 2026.

6. Mischka, D., et al. (2026). “Megastructures in Cucuteni‑Trypillia settlements”. PLOS One.

7. GreekReporter. “Prehistoric Mega‑Structure in Romania Sheds Light on Life Without Kings”. 17 April 2026.

8. Bandura, A. (2002). “Selective Moral Disengagement in the Exercise of Moral Agency”. Journal of Moral Education.

9. Cambridge University Press. “Government and information: a historical development”. Freedom of Information, 2012.

10. Newsweek. “Monarchy branded ‘disgraceful’ over coronation censorship claims”. 15 September 2023.

11. Rasul, M. E., Halversen, A., & Smith, J. (2025). “‘When you’re a star, they let you do it’: Trump, Twitter, and moral disengagement”. SAGE Journals.

12. The Boston Globe. “Trump acts like a strongman because Americans want one”. 7 January 2026.

13. Cambridge University Press. “Neoliberalism and Social Resilience in the Developed Democracies”. Social Resilience in the Neoliberal Era, 2013.

14. ACOSS. “Budget must protect those most at risk of economic shock”. 12 May 2026.

15. The Guardian Australia. “Jillian Segal’s office hand‑picked candidate to assess controversial university antisemitism report card”. 6 March 2026.

16. Cassinelli, C. W. Total Revolution: A Comparative Study of Germany under Hitler, the Soviet Union under Stalin, and China under Mao.

17. Section 51, Australian Constitution; Section 90; “Commonwealth Government has exclusive responsibility for defence”.

 “The tower always falls. The garden always grows. And the only king worth following is the one who plants cabbages.”