Graeber and Wengrow identify "the world's first peasantry" as emerging in Egypt, as a combination of "agronomic and ceremonial" factors
obligated to "provide bread and beer on ceremonial occasions" led to a social class "unable to command such resources," which required them to borrow, "creating networks of obligation and debt"
"Hence important class distinctions and dependencies [began] to emerge, as a sizeable sector of Egypt's population found itself deprived of the means to care independently for ancestors"
they identify a similar pattern in Peru, which replaces a traditional foodstuff regime of freeze-dried potatoes with a new form based on maize and maize beer, a "ritual necessity for rich and poor alike"
"those too poor to grow it [...] had to find other ways of obtaining it, often ending up in debt to the royal estate as a result"
408: "Perhaps this is what a state actually is: a combination of exceptional violence and the creation of a complex social machine, all ostensibly devoted to acts of care and devotion"