>Yes, but it isn't specialisation or more complex organisation that necessitates coercive social structures. At least not directly. What really leads to coercive social organisation are a combination of the fact that, unlike in a hunter gatherer society it is *possible* to coerce people economically and that it is also socially-useful to do so.
Umm you are conflating again <grin>. Hunter gatherers may be relatively free of hierarchal institutions. They were not at all free of coercive social organization. Hunter gatherers have very definite rules. (Hmm perhaps "rule" carries semantic content that really should not apply to hunter-gather society. Customs? Except that hunter-gather societies are not static -definitely capable of changing ideas of what is proper behavior. Very well. rules.) And there is very strong enforcement of these rules.
First not all Hunter-gatherers are non-violent. It is not unknow for Hunter-gatherers to beat the hell out of someone who violates the rules. It is not even unknown for Hunter-gathereres to keep women in suboridnate roles, and use gang-rape as a method of enforcement.
But many hunter gatherers are not violent. And even those who are don't use only violence as a means of enforcement. One widely practiced penalty is exile. If you can't get along with the community you can be kicked out. In some enviroments this essentially a death penalty, in others mere a reduction to a short and miserable life (short and miserable to living within an HG community.)
One form of coercion that is pretty universal among Hunter-gatherers is the use of teasing. This sounds pretty mild at first. Teasing? How benign and friendly. But I'm not talking merely friendly teassing. Think of the despised kid back in high school. Depending on your school he have faced no more actual violence, beatings and such, then most kids go through. But he was teased cosntantly - day after day, his ega left in tattered shreds. A great man kids who go through that level of teasing end up committing suicide. (Maybe this is only a U.S. phenomena. Maybe kids are as nasty to one another in Austrialia). And of course teaseing is a highly calibaritable method of social enforcement. It does not have to go on for a lifetime. Or it can be something like a hunter insists on eating the best cut of the animal he caught instead of sharing it, as is custom. So from then on he has to hear remarks about for years, or maybe the rest of his life - not constantly , but every once in while. At this level it may even be friendly, if he only did it once. But if that is on the list of stuff he is occasionally teased about, he will be damn careful not to do it again.
By the way, since we are talking about hunter-gatherers, I presume you know the very old joke about hunter-gatherer family structures. The typical hunter-gatherer family structure in the 21st century consists of a man, a woman, some kids, and an anthropologist.