/lit/ - Literature

>>23453357
Violence is the root of all authority, all laws, all rules, etc. Violence is, in fact, the root of all existence. How could you even exist without gnashing plants and animals between your teeth and dissolving them in stomach acid so you can take their nutrients? How do herbivores exist without ripping plants out of the soil? How do plants exist without ripping nutrients out of the soil? The Sun is the ultimate fuel source for life on Earth and it's 99% of the solar system's mass, but it's also a giant ball of plasma that would destroy any planet that came near it.

But all of this comes at a cost. Every action has a reaction. You burn energy to consume energy. You feel recoil when you fire a gun. You may break your hand when throwing a knockout punch.

One of the most important uses of violence, then, is to minimize your future need to employ violence. That's the legal system. It's those with power using their power to create a system where they don't have to constantly fend off attackers.

Adam Smith speculated that it used to be impossible to hoard wealth because your neighbors would eventually get so mad at the inequality that they'd raid you and redistribute some or all of it themselves. He goes on to guess that the first police were likely the strongest men from poorer clans being bribed by the rich to protect them.

By using some of their wealth to recruit the strongest men from other clans, they deprived their competition of their strongest men and bought protection for the rest of their hoard.

It's not hard to imagine this snowballing into the systems we've seen since then, in which the rich use their snowballing wealth to undermine all competition and oppress the working class.

In all eras, it's in the rich's best interest to minimize violence, though. Lest their personal police turn on them, get worn down, or get overwhelmed.