privilege
Do you think that privilege comes from the enlightenment of our politicians? From the population as a whole just working harder than in other places? Is it perhaps conjured from magic? Or would you consider that it was privilege derived from the well-documented and brutal exploitation of the global south?
Politics was ever-present before that, it's ever present in human society, it's just that some privileged middle class people choose to ignore it and largely succeed when their NPR ASMR isn't blasting them with "ORANG MAN BAD" every hour of the day to brow beat them into caring.