4 ideas
In 1897 Graham, an insomniac Victorian, falls into a cataleptic trance and wakes in 2100 to find that his modest estate, enlarged by bequests and compounding under a board of trustees called the White Council, now owns most of the world. The revolutionary leader Ostrog uses the legend of the awakened 'Sleeper' to rally the masses and topple the Council, then sidelines Graham.
Legal ownership and actual power can separate completely when assets are managed by fiduciaries on behalf of an absent or incapacitated owner. Compounding lets the trustees build control that exceeds any government, and the nominal owner becomes a legitimacy token rather than a decision-maker. Whoever holds the administrative machinery rules in the owner's name and has every incentive to keep the owner passive or absent.
A popular uprising needs a unifying symbol, so its organizers raise up a figure the masses already revere and then keep real command for themselves. Once the old rulers fall, the organizer rebuilds the same hierarchy with himself at the top and turns force against the workers who fought for him. Revolt against an oligarchy tends to produce a new oligarch unless the people control the apparatus rather than just cheering the symbol.
The Labour Company began as a charity that promised food and shelter to anyone destitute in exchange for work. Because it was the only guaranteed escape from starvation, it grew into a monopoly employer that bound about a third of London to lifelong, inherited labour, marked by its blue canvas uniform. A safety net run by those who profit from dependence becomes a mechanism for fixing people permanently in the bottom class.