Patches over the tears in the previous patches.

How far back does it go?

For one thing, democracy and republicanism originated in pantheistic cultures. To the Ancients, gods were metaphors.

Monotheism meant monoculture. One people, one rule, one god. Ancient Israel was a monarchy. The Big Guy Rules. Like the religion.

Constantine co-opted Christianity for the monotheism as the sides of the Empire came together, burying the Pantheism in the Trinity.

The Catholic Church was the eschatological basis for European monarchy. Divine right of kings as opposed to consent of the governed.

When the West went back to popular forms of government, it required separation of church and state, culture and civics, morality and law.

Leaving this void, where status is a function what one can extract from society, not what one adds to it.

These last 3000 years, going from mostly tribal societies, to nation states of millions and now billions of people, might seem like a long time, but in evolutionary terms, it is an eye blink.

Our technology might be evolved, but much of our sociology is stuck back in the Iron Age. That's where the growth has to be now.