To be clear: I'm a big fan of social-contract theory and I think it is really quite useful to frame the discourse. ... but the anthropological record suggests

To be clear: I'm a big fan of social-contract theory and I think it is really quite useful to frame the discourse. ... but the anthropological record suggests that human governments formed from the strongest guy with the biggest club organizing the other strong guys with big clubs to go beat their neighbors into following their rules, with more rare instances of confederations and democracies (often a side-effect of two or more groups of strong guys with big clubs realizing that power-sharing was the only option because if they just tried to fight it out, they'd end up either killing themselves off or so weak that yet another strong guy with a big club would swoop in and pick up the remains).