This: "Humans have existed for about 500,000 years. For 99.8% of that time, we were serfs, peasants and slaves..." is absent relevant context - which is a polite way of saying it's incorrect. This ignores that in that 500,000 years, humans in all different parts of the world lived an immense diversity of societies and cultures, many of which were not composed primarily of serfs and slaves, and some at least that provided more equivalence and dignity than any recent "western" society yet has. Some of these could be models for us, as our current empires collapse and we seek alternatives to impending totalitarian societies.