At what point did equality and democracy ever exist? The only things that substantially changed were who the lords were, the method of gaining power, and what shape the power structure took. At no point was there ever meaningful equality, not even before the law.
I think that's an overly simplified view of 2000 years of history. We've never had a utopia, but its safe to say we have more democracy now than in the feudal ages. There have been periods of greater concentration of unchecked power and lesser in history, some periods where government was stronger and wasn't captured as much by private interests.
The USA is currently a “democracy” and the government of the USA is the single largest human organization in history, and has powers that monarchs could only ever have dreamed of. Surely, you are correct that governments have had varying levels of power, but they were at all times comprised of or bought by oligarchs.
I agree with your point. I'll just add that in my country, at least, the facade of democracy seemed to provide society with infectious glimmers of hope. The hope is fading quickly, and the general mood is both sour and bitter, straining interpersonal relationships.
Anyway, I'm not sure how democracy can really work in huge super-complex societies. This is why we have the "iron law of oligarchy".
Democracy in the sense of representative majoritarianism cannot work as the representatives will be bought, coerced, or murdered. In an absolute democracy, when the majority cease to be useful the powerful will launch propaganda campaigns and/or manipulate the vote outcome.
