Emphasis on no. 4

     “By now, it should be obvious that chiefdoms introduced the dilemma fundamental to all centrally governed, non-egalitarian societies. At best, they do good by providing expensive services impossible to contract on an individual basis. At worst, they function unabashedly as kleptocracies, transferring net wealth from the commoners to upper classes. These noble and selfish functions are inextricably linked, although some governments emphasize much more of one function than the other. The difference between a kleptocrat and a wise statesman, between robber baron and a public benefactor, is merely one of degree; a matter of just how large a percentage of the tribute extracted from producers is retained by the elite, and how much the commoners like the public uses to which the redistribution tribute is put. We consider President Mobutu of Zaire a kleptocrat because he keeps too much tribute (the equivalent of millions of dollars) and redistributes too little tribute (no functioning phone system in Zaire.) We consider George Washington a statesman because he spent tax money on widely admired programs and did not enrich himself as president. Nevertheless, George Washington was born into wealth, which is much more unequally distributed in the United States than in New Guinea villages.
     For any ranked society, whether a chiefdom or state, one thus has to ask: why do commoners transfer the fruits of their hard labors to kleptocrats? This question, raised by political theorists from Plato to Marx, is raised anew by voters in every modern election. Kleptocracies with little public support run the risk of being overthrown, either by downtrodden commoners or by upstart would-be replacement kleptocrats seeking public support by promising a higher ratio of services rendered to fruits stolen. For example, Hawaiian history was repeatedly punctuated by revolts against repressive chiefs, usually led by the younger brothers promising less oppression. This may sound funny to us in the context of old Hawaii, until we reflect on all the misery still being caused by such struggles in the modern world.
     What should the elite do to gain popular support while still maintaining a more comfortable lifestyle than the commoners? Kleptocrats throughout the ages have resorted to a mixture of four solutions:
     1. Disarm the populace and arm the elite. That’s much easier in these days of high-tech weaponry, produced only in industrial plants and easily monopolized by the elite, than in ancient times of spears and clubs easily made at home.
     2. Make the masses happy by redistributing much of the tribute received, in popular ways. Thus principle was as valid for Hawaiian chiefs as it is for American politicians today.
     3. Use the monopoly of force to promote happiness, by maintaining public order and curbing violence. This is potentially a big and underappreciated advantage of centralized societies over noncentralized ones. Anthropologists formerly idealized band and tribal societies as gentle and nonviolent, because visiting anthropologists observed no murder in a band of 25 people in the course of a three-year study. Of course they didn’t; it’s easy to calculate that a band of a dozen adults and a dozen children, subject to the inevitable deaths occurring anyway for the usual reasons other than murder, could perpetuate itself if in addition one of its dozen adults murdered another adult every three years. Much more extensive long-term information about band and tribal societies reveal that murder is the leading cause of death….
     4. The remaining way for kleptocrats to gain public support is to construct an ideology or religion justifying kleptocracy. Bands and tribes already had supernatural beliefs, just as do modern established religions. But the supernatural beliefs of bands and tribes did not serve to justify central authority, justify transfer of wealth, or maintain peace between unrelated individuals. When supernatural beliefs gained those functions and became institutionalized, they were thereby transformed into what we term a religion. Hawaiian chiefs were typical of chiefs elsewhere, in asserting divinity, divine descent, or at least a hotline to the gods. The chief claimed to serve the people by interceding for them with the gods and reciting the ritual formulas required to obtain rain, good harvests, and success in fishing.
     Chiefdoms characteristically have an ideology, precursor to an institutionalized religion, that buttresses the chief’s authority. The chief may either combine the offices of political leader and priest into a single person or may support a separate group of kleptocrats (that is, priests) whose function is to provide ideological justification for the chiefs. That is why chiefdoms devote so much collected tribute to constructing temples and other public works, which serve as centers of the official religion and visible signs of the chief’s power.
     Beside justifying the transfer of wealth to kleptocrats, institutionalized religion brings two other important benefits to centralized societies. First, shared ideology or religion helps solve the problem of how unrelated individuals are to live together without killing each other – by providing them with a bond not based on kinship. Second, it gives people a motive, other than generic self-interest, for sacrificing their lives on behalf of others. At the cost of a few society members who die in battle as soldiers, the whole society becomes more effective at conquering other societies or resisting attacks.”

From Guns, Germs, and Steel  by Jared Diamond