Read the passage below and answer the question."As available resources increased, societies had to face, for the first time, the task of dealing with surpluses, whose control and distribution posed entirely novel problems. And, surprisingly quickly, their distribution became lopsided, so that gradients of power and wealth appeared. Surpluses began to sustain populations of privileged (and mainly male) specialists: artisans, traders, warriors, priests, scribes, and rulers.It is worth noting how paradoxical this steepening of hierarchies is. For the increases in productivity associated with the agrarian revolution might, in principle, have raised the average material living standards of all members of society. The reality was different. Unlike water, which prefers to lie flat as it accumulates, material wealth in complex societies likes to pile itself up into huge pyramids."From David Christian, Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History (2004).What does the author argue that resource surpluses caused?A. Resource surpluses caused different levels of social status to emergeB. Resource surpluses raised the standard of living of all citizens, but more for some groups than othersC. Resource surpluses resulted in the emergence of city states.D. Resource surpluses gave increased power and wealth to the laborers who grew the food.

The agricultural revolution or Neolithic revolution was the first radical transformation of the way of life of humanity, which goes from being nomadic to sedentary and having a collecting economy (hunting, fishing, and gathering) to producing (agriculture and livestock). The variations linked to the Neolithic Revolution mean a huge leap in the development of humanity, which began to grow faster as it began to harvest food that could be preserved for quite some time. The appearance of surpluses allowed the specialization and division of labor, the emergence of trade, the accentuation of social differences, hierarchy and social status linked to the estates. In the passage, the author mentions that, in principle, surpluses associated with this economic transformation could have improved the material living standards of all members of society, but it was not the case. Instead, he argues that wealth started to accumulate around small elites while the majority of the population continued to live in poverty.