I think it comes down to the reality that a good portion of humans trust authority. A few do not. Those who trust authority, who need authority, who crave authority to make them feel safe and secure, will create authority where none exists. They will imagine gods. They will imagine fate. They will imagine that god ordained certain men to rule. And, devoid of these fantasies, they will create a large bureaucratic structure, a large entity that essentially practices alchemy, in that through the machinations of this large bureaucratic entity the wisdom of men becomes magnified and surpasses the actual wisdom of men -- or at least, that's what they tell themselves.

And if you attack this political machine, they will round on you with the fury of true believers facing apostate heretics. Not because they see their belief in this entity as the equivalent of a religion, but because the urge to believe in this greater entity comes from the same place of inadequacy and fear that the creation of religion comes from. The fury you face when you try to demonstrate to them that their god is not holy or worthy of worship comes from their fear of losing the thing that makes them feel safe.

Only when humankind has enough space for the fearless to move and leave behind the fearful do the fearless come into their own. In this situation they thrive and prosper. But once humanity is bottled up and constrained, the fearful will always outnumber the fearless, and so society will take on the appearance of hierarchy that the fearful crave.