But how about when there was a drought? Could it be possible that nature was
not simply a random accident just because? People started believing that there probably was some type of superior force that controlled nature. People started believing in gods. Some, probably accidentally, seemed to have some kind of connection to these deities. When they danced a certain way, it would rain. The fact that they may have done it towards the beginning of the rainy season seemed not too important to their comrades. So, naturally, those closer to the gods would have had much power in the decisions of the group as a whole. We have the beginnings of the first theocratic societies.
People were probably happy enough cultivating their fields and worshipping their gods and obbeying their ruler-priests... only to find themselves being attacked by nomadic tribes who may have found taking food just a tad easier than fighting a whooly mammoth. Solution: build a wall around the settlement.
Building walls may have been a brilliant idea for defensive purposes. It had
other effects, however. As more and more villages started building walls, every time of a better material, a process of homogenization of social and cultural values followed quickly. The people who lived within the walls of a village started to talk, act, and think alike. Contact with other groups, consequently, was relegated to one of two forms: either through conflict (war), or commerce (trade).
We mentioned specialization of tasks before. One of those tasks, then, must have concerned itself with defense. Villagers needed some of their members to know how to use weapons not only against animals, but against marauding humans. Little by little, these warriors gained notoriety and power. And the thing about power is that it is not infinite. As one group gains power, necessarily another must lose some power. We have the beginning of warrior-kings. And since they had weapons and armies, it was probably not a bad idea to obey them.
And then we can observe another little interesting phenomenon developing: some of these warrior kings had the idea that, hey, if they were the rulers and nobody seemed to object to their rule, it was probably because the gods had arranged it so... Let's go a little further. What if the gods themselves had taken human form and become rulers? Could it be that I am a god? Um... Things that keep you up all night thinking. Um... And so it happened that some of these warrior-kings decided to get into the theocratic government business and proclaimed that they were gods incarnate. Eventually, some of them even believed it (if you don't believe me, look at Egypt).
In this way, different societies took on different types of government, responding to cultural traditions and religious beliefs on the one hand, and practical considerations on the other. One thing that they all had in common, however, was that the underlying principle of government was the survival of the group (be it a city-state or an empire) and the belief that we are right, which of course implies that they are not.
