It's tempting to think that the elite seized control by the direct, crude force of arms. All governments, however, even the most despotic, primarily rely on voluntary obedience. It is considerably more efficient to have willing, cooperative, and occasionalIy even enthusiastic subjects, than to try to govern those who feel oppressed, coerced, or unfairly treated. So how did the leaders of early civilizations convince the farming masses to not only bust their chops working hard all day, but to permanently contribute a generous portion of their hard-won surpluses to the city elite?

First, leaders provided real services. The most important of these was the protection by a full-time army against the armies of other city-states. Nothing ruins a farmer's day faster than being captured or having an attacking horde trample his fields and burn down his house. Another vital service was the production and distribution of farm implements, such as plows and pottery. And public works—especially the development and maintenance of irrigation systems—clearly benefited everyone. Trade with distant city-states expanded the scope of available materials and products. Finally, the maintenance of law and order was an invaluable, albeit much abused, service. Instead of the comfort of small face-to-face tribes and bands, we now depended on total strangers for protection and for many of life's essentials. The state introduced new conventions—values, rituals, and laws—to replace the lost small group, I've-known-you-all-your-life glue.  These have been termed "cultural workarounds" by cultural evolutionary theorists Peter Richerson and Robert Boyd. Such cultural workarounds allow us to function in large groups in spite of our genetic endowment that would, normally, only allow the functioning of small groups.

Besides offering actual services, elites—especially their leaders—provided legitimacy through clever, self-serving claims of supposed service. This included the claim that inequality was not only necessary, but was in the public interest. The Epic of Gilgamesh, humanity's most ancient written story, contains political exhortations by Gilgamesh, an early Sumerian king. The similarities of his proclamations to the speeches of current politicians are amazing. They covered, among other things, protection of the weak from the strong and assistance for the blind and aged. Human psychology hasn't changed significantly since the dawn of civilization. People want to believe. They want to hear the words spoken, even if the vision falls pathetically short of reality. Politicians have routinely offered the masses soothing messages while bleeding them dry.