janis on Nostr: The thing is, I happen to have lived at a place and time when the state in question ...

The thing is, I happen to have lived at a place and time when the state in question lost its monopoly on violence for some years.

Want to know what happens? The mob takes over. It’s relatively fine if you’re poor. You just need to be able and willing to defend yourself against relatively petty criminals. If you have something of value though, or have a business. Well, then you need “protection”. And it’s not like you can hire normal security companies for this. They don’t really exist, all of it is the mob in one form or another. You can’t go without protection either. The “protection” will find you and make you their “client” at an exorbitant cost. Kind of like the government, just with a significantly higher “tax” rate.

Your only way out is pretty much becoming the mob yourself, with everything that entails. Including constant fear because you’re mostly at war with someone. I still see people living in literal fortresses for fear of what they did during those years catching up to them now.

It’s not pretty. Nobody should want this. The idealistic picture of what would happen that often gets painted is off by a mile or ten of what actually happens.