I don't personally even like camping, so you don't have to convince me that the noble savage myth is a bunch-o-bullshit. Hell, even my cats chose the warmest, softest parts of the house to lounge in. The interesting part to me is the invention of systematized taxation, which was a huge innovation in the history of mankind. Obviously, without taxes, there's no such thing as the state, since it needs finds to be self-sustaining. The only other way to get them is to steal them from the vanquished, but even that requires startup capital. That fact base is totally independent of whether you think it's a good idea or not, and since this guy is famous from writing about how central planning is literally the devil, I suppose he has an ax to grind.
Graeber, whose axe lives in the same toolshed, would point out that "taxation" was collective within the gift economy and certainly wouldn't have been limited to agriculture. The preponderance of slaves in Sumerian illustrations would suggest that the ingroup, which knew agriculture, expressed their cultural domination through assimilation on their terms. No tax necessary. If your father's father was friends with my father's father I know you're good for the two cows you owe me and if not we've got a mechanism. If you're that tribe we just crushed on the other side of the river you'll be digging furrows for your porridge.