Well, that was sugar, really. (and indigo, a little.) Luxury rather than staple agriculture and the sugar gets you rum and there goes the whole money machine.

The medieval period had a lot of social mechanisms that encouraged things to be relatively flat; it wasn't just economic incapacity. How that changed to the god-king model of the Renaissance is interesting. (not very cheering, but interesting.)

I think your examples of the utility of the classics are far more appropriate to university than middle school. I'd like middle school to manage "cultural assumptions are chosen, and voluntary" and think it was doing well if it did so manage.