There's a limit to the power you can have that people can't take away from you (I believe one of the Name of the Wind books had a nice quote about that). If you want more power than a self-sufficient farmer, you have to rely on other people for that power.

For that matter, a lot of the things the IT guys want, the poor workers don't have. If something happens to those workers, the IT guys might drop down a few rungs on the hierarchy, say to just about where the poor workers are, or maybe still a bit higher. They're still no worse off than they would've been if they tried not to depend on anyone.