There is no such thing as ‘benign’ power or authority, any more than racial superiority is benign, or wealth inequality is benign, or sociopolitical status is benign. One either holds power and influence and special privilege or one does not, and when police and the propaganda mechanisms of the society are engaged in supporting that power, its existence becomes even more overt and difficult to overlook. There is no benign power, only power we refuse to acknowledge or confront, or that we are disallowed from confronting by wealth and by extension the state itself. Stratification has been known as detrimental to societies, particularly democratic societies, since at least the Classical period in the West. This is not new information. If these concepts are broadly ignored, it is not accidental but rather done with specific intent.