Historically, all ruling classes have achieved status and wealth by controlling society through some form of puritanical ethic. The harder the underlings work, and the more meager their pleasures, the richer the ruling system will be, whether it be a theocracy, aristocracy, oligarchy, or corporate industrial barony. Such power is built upon the forfeited pleasure of workers. Experientially, as we have seen, pleasure is merely high energy. The energies of the masses have been co-opted over the centuries to produce for the over-classes the very wealth of pleasures denied the under-classes.
