the trouble with the "shared sacrifice" call is that it's a euphemism

Far back in the mists of ancient time, in the great and glorious days of the former Galactic Empire, life was wild, rich, and on the whole, tax-free. In those days, spirits were brave; the stakes were high; men were real men, women were real women, and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri. And all dared to brave unknown terrors to do mighty deeds to boldly split infinitives that no man had split before. And thus was the Empire forged. Many men, of course, became extremely rich. But this was perfectly natural and nothing to be ashamed of, because no one was really poor - at least no one worth speaking of. And for these extremely rich merchants life eventually became rather dull and it seemed that none of the worlds they settled on was entirely satisfactory: either the climate wasn’t quite right in the later part of the afternoon, or the day was half an hour too long, or the sea was just the wrong shade of pink. And thus were created the conditions for a staggering new form of industry: custom-made luxury planet building. The home of this industry was the planet Magrathea, where vast hyperspatial engineering works were constructed to suck matter through white holes in space and form it into dream planets, lovingly made to meet the exacting standards of the galaxy’s richest men. And so successful was this venture that very soon Magrathea itself became the richest planet of all time, and the rest of the galaxy was reduced to abject poverty. And so the system broke down, the empire collapsed, and a long, sullen silence settled over the galaxy, disturbed only by the pen-scratchings of scholars as they laboured into the night over smug little treatises on the value of a planned political economy. In these enlightened days, of course, no one believes a word of it. Meanwhile, on Zaphod Beeblebrox’s ship, deep in the darkness of the Horsehead Nebula…