One way in which history develops is through painful, not always consistent, progress towards the recognition of the other, regardless of contingent events. Of course lapses and regressions have been frequent and significant, but I think it is undeniable that, in general, the ability to see a fellow person in the other has gradually spread. This is the precondition to imagining a truly horizontal organisation.

The horizontal society is opposed by interests of various natures. First and foremost, as we mentioned, resistance comes from people who have access to positions of privilege and wish to preserve them. The drive to do so is strong, even when it threatens their peace of mind and future.

The appeal of privilege, of course, is not exclusively rooted in the personal advantages it brings. Anyone would prefer to live in a comfortable apartment, to use means of transportation that are fast, always available, and can avoid traffic jams; to be treated medically in the shortest possible time by the best doctors, rather than experience the opposite. Everyone cares for their own well-being and, when the latter derives from a situation of privilege, they tend to hold on to such privileges in order not lo lose that level of well-being. Therefore there is a widespread, selfish interest in preserving the vertical society when this is instrumental to maintaining a situation of well-being that results from privilege and unequal distribution.

This interest, however, also involves other factors that have to do with instinct, or the irrational part of the individual. It has to do with the perception of having the power to do what others cannot do, the feeling of being different from all the others, and the satisfaction derived from it. Privilege does not only entail the ability to satisfy better and more easily one's need for well-being. It also delineates clearly recognisable differences between one's own limits and those allotted to others whose standing is clearly lower, subordinate. This need for constant comparison between one's own privileges and the disadvantages of others is due to the fact that people are constantly competing, and take the place they hold in the hierarchical social scale as the sole yardstick of self-evaluation.