Among such things is the provision of a common defense, in short, war. War is a challenge to or from the value chain. Just as the discovery of steel heralded a new wave of conquests against those less developed, war is the competition of value chains. Whether fought with Toledo steel swords, or composite-armour tanks, conventional and unconventional warfare are about attacks on various stages of the material value chain, by methods best suited to the attack on each link. This approach loses sight of the fact that the material value chain is not the only value chain, and I would venture to say, not the most important one.
Value chains stretch back to the beginnings of civilization, by definition in fact.
Behaviour is purposeful, directed, and a driving force is needed, a motivation. Maslow worked out a hierarchy of needs that do much to explain the beginnings and evolution of political economies. Man's Agrarian phase of development, and that shadowy period before, were focused on an almost purely material value chain, because just staying alive, reproduction and metabolism, took all of an individual's time and energy. Even here, however, the roots of another value chain are visible, something I will refer to as the informational value chain, a misnomer as I will point out shortly, but a necessary one for convenience of expression and understanding. The process of survival was driving the beginnings of discovery, creating language so that such discoveries could be passed on, and education so that they could be made aggregate.