In one of Mark Twain's non fiction books (probably Innocents Abroad) , he recounts the vile actions of a Russian nobleman : The 9 year old child of a serf did something to displease him, so the monster had the child stripped naked and chased by his pack of hunting dogs . When the child was caught , he was torn apart alive by the dogs. A nine year old boy murdered , and given the time-frame, serfdom was at least officially abolished by then...And yet, the monster was still able to get away unpunished, and no doubt was fully convinced of the justice of his actions.

IIRC , the killer in TMDG was a Russian nobleman too, Count Markov...I wonder if the author of that story (which was made into a film ) was inspired by Twain's account?

The wealthy and powerful have always felt they were entitled to treat the less powerful like livestock, and it seems to me that the attitude if anything has got worse over the last 2 or 3 decades : Before 1980-1990, somewhere in there , at least in the west lip service was paid to the equality of humanity. Since 2001, they no longer even try to hide their contempt for us and their desire to see us reduced to tax slaves/livestock, with no real right to property, freedom of speech, or even self defense.