ONE CAN'T BRING IN THE HARVEST ALONE

OR FISH WITH LARGE NETS OR HUNT BIG ANIMALS

So unmechanized work must be collective —  as this painting of peasants in 16th-century Flanders implies. People bring in the harvest and relax together.

    The Harvesters by Pieter Breughel the Elder, 1565 / zoom

Pursuing individual gain weakens the community and communal lands become privately owned. Then people leave —"He went off to seek his fortune," many fairy tales begin.

The growing towns let some learn craft or become merchants — that's how a middle class grows up — but most finish as vagabonds, mercenaries or thieves. 

Those who remain on the land become sharecroppers or serfs. 

That menace explains the brakes on gain
that villagers initiate and stronger power extends.  

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Next,
From chiefs to kings