It's not certain how we lived before, but a story you could tell is that we all needed to work together in order to provide ourselves with the supplies and labor for day-to-day living. At some point, some efficiency was discovered or created that relieved some of the immediate need for labor. Efficiency became distributed and iterated across the group's needs. Those who were responsible for these efficiencies became those in charge, and those who could not provide such efficiencies probably still worked to some extent, but simply could not provide to the extent of those in charge. This may be thought of as the birth of social class.

Many many years rolled on in this fictionalized retelling of the history of the human race in which we invented monarchies, slavery, academia, religion. Lots of things. What caught my eye in writing this was noticing that a lesser-told history regarding the invention of the hospital was to get beggars, those unemployed and idle, off the street and to employ them in more morally correct activity¹.

There are a lot of tangential "this might be possible" thoughts that arise from this perspective, including the possibility that a good work ethic as a moral is more of a muscle against the othering, ostracism and confinement inherent in the mechanics of society or civilization. To work means you belong.