The original employer-employee relationship was between farmers and strongman warlords. If the strongmen didn't protect the farmers then they didn't get fed and if the farmers didn't produce as much as they could then they ran the risk of getting overrun by guys they didn't have an existing working relationship with.

So yeah, I think that was an inherently civil relationship. Agrarian empires were the original forms of civilization. Just because there's a hierarchy doesn't make it not civilized. Hierarchy is instead what makes it civilized. Hierarchy means that everyone can relax and focus on what's in their wheelhouse.