Not the commenter, but I came across this term in the book <i>Fields of Blood</i> by Karen Armstrong. Essentially society requires violence to function. In the beginning, someone had to coerce farmers to produce a surplus, with this surplus the first states and militaries were built. As societies evolved, the violence became less overt and more implied, embedded within the structures of the state. At some point, in order to have a society and not anarchy, you have to have people telling other people what to do, and these people can&#x27;t take no for an answer. All you can do is reshuffle it so it&#x27;s less and less onerous over time.<p>It&#x27;s a thread that runs throughout the book, in order to explain religion and nationalism and war were deeply entwined all throughout recorded history and well into prehistory for as long as we&#x27;ve had the mental capacity to think about matters larger than we are.