Wonderful article and I agree with all the merits. A lot of the points you make w.r.t to improvement/mastery over yourself is echoed by several philosophies, especially the old but newly popular stoicism.

Yet the danger in this "power over yourself" can be easily perverted to having "power over others" when not taken in a broader social construct. I agree that for a healthy and well functioning society we need to take the approach of "power to" and "power with."

The irony of my B school education is that we were taught to be very team oriented, very "enlarge the pie", "win-win", and the "sum is greater than the whole" but we were taught to be very competitive with each other because that's what the corporations wanted.

I do believe that a shift is currently underway, especially in challenging the economic structures that support and reinforce the dominance hierarchy. After all, we hear (feel it) all the time that money is the biggest indicator for success in this world.

What if the biggest success in the world is you being a bit better than the day before? A better parent than the day before? A better partner than the day before? A better person in your community than the day before?

I recently posted a funny meme in another group with the caption:

"All our Ancient Greek ancestors looking at us having all these complex machines than can do the work of 1000's of men but yet we still all have jobs instead of having orgies outside and eating figs."

I believe that the desire to be free from the dominance hierarchy is there, even if many people can't articulate what it truly is. If money weren't an option nearly every person I know would choose to work on some aspect of their life. I think that is the true natural state of humans, to be creative, learning and, to kind to one another.