"Guns, Germs and Steel" has a very succinct take on the origins of this: while people are hunter-gatherers, everyone contributes to food and decision making, an

"Guns, Germs and Steel" has a very succinct take on the origins of this: while people are hunter-gatherers, everyone contributes to food and decision making, and the entire focus is on the immediate needs of the present. As soon as agriculture is invented, people settle in one place, not everyone now needs to be involved in food production so there is a labour surplus and people can start to specialise in eg crafts (pottery, metallurgy). This is the point at which civilisation can kick in, but it is also the point at which you get kings and priests, who are like the craft specialists in that they are fed by the community, but unlike the craft specialists they don't actually create anything useful in return. In my mind it's a form of parasitism that will inevitably spring up spontaneously once any human society reaches that point.