It's very interesting indeed. A while ago I read Carl Popper's Open Society and it's Enemies. In that book he argues that Plato and to some extent Aristotle have developed underlying philosophical tools to support, for a lack of better term, "closed" societies. For example slaves rather remain slaves, farmers remain farmers, and rulers remain rulers. He argues that they contribute to a totalitarianism, and undermine democracy by discouraging being equal and in general "change".

Take all this with a grain of salt, since it's a while I've read the book, so can't articulate it better. But your comment reminded me of all this, so I thought it might be interesting for you and other readers.

ps: I personally think there is no natural place for things, that's us, sentient beings, who define that and give things meanings.