Homo Hierarchicus vs.
Homo Aequalis
All state societies are based on inequality. Louis Dumont (1911-1998), a famous expert on India argued that in caste systems such as the one in India, people understood themselves as fundamentally different and could not imagine equality.
However, peasants have a long history of revolting (in India, between 1775 and 1975 there were 77 peasant revolts).
John Ball, a leader of the English Peasant Revolt of 1381, said: "When Adam delved and Even span, who then was the gentleman?"
Next: Class
Homo Hierarchicus, or hierarchical man was the title of Dumont's 1966 work on caste in India. Homo Aequalis, equality man, was the title of his 1976 work on Western Europe. Dumont argued that in India, for cultural reasons, people could not understand themselves as individual but only as members of hierarchically ranked groups. This seemed to them to be the self evident nature of the world. Similarly, in Europe (well, in France anyway) people, for cultural reasons, could not help but think of themselves as individuals and of all humans as equals. There is, no doubt, at least a grain of truth in Dumont in the sense that our cultures certainly predispose us to think in certain ways and India is a strongly hierarchical culture... but then again, so are European cultures! They may not have had the same sort of formal castes, but, for example, aristocrats did believe they were fundamentally different from others.
Reality seems to be that the drive for prestige and hierarchy is present in all (and I do mean 100%) human societies. Culture may either attempt to tamp it down as in foraging societies, or ramp it up as in Indian, European, and most modern societies. But no society has ever disposed of it entirely.
Reality seems to also be that resistance to hierarchy is present in all human societies (and I do mean 100%). Most foragers resist it so strongly as to almost eliminate it. But, even in strongly hierarchical societies, rebellion against authority is a common theme. Dumont tended to think that Indian hierarchy worked fine...but that's because he hung out with people at the top of the hierarchy who emphasized how happy and cooperative everything was. Had he focused on Dalits instead of Brahmin's, he would have heard about systems of oppression held in place by lethal violence.
I like the John Ball (1338-1381) quote (which I have thanks to Gene Bourgeois). Ball was a radical English priest who took part in the Peasants rebellion Against Richard II in 1381 (and was hanged, drawn and quartered and had his head displayed on a pike for his participation). A more full quote is: "When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman? From the beginning all men by nature were created alike, and our bondage or servitude came in by the unjust oppression of naughty men. For if God would have had any bondmen from the beginning, he would have appointed who should be bond, and who free. And therefore I exhort you to consider that now the time is come, appointed to us by God, in which ye may (if ye will) cast off the yoke of bondage, and recover liberty."
One of the things that anthropology shows us (over and over and over) is that forces moving toward hierarchy are always present in society as are those moving toward equality. Slaves will always revolt. The oppressed will always revolt. Most often these revolts are crushed, usually brutally. The arc of history may or may not bend toward justice, but systems of violence are always necessary to keep hierarchies in place.