I’ve actually thought about this type of thing quite a lot, and I’ve come to the conclusion that you’d have to go back to the first Sumerian cities, and convince all the regular peaceful cooperative people to kick out anyone who says anything along the lines of “do what I say or I’ll kill you”.
It wasn’t even “do what I say or I’ll kill you”. It was “this land is mine” - the establishment of private property. The lords never needed to explicitly make a death threat themselves when nature could make the death threat for them, and the victim is deprived of access to vital resources.
I’ve actually thought about this type of thing quite a lot, and I’ve come to the conclusion that you’d have to go back to the first Sumerian cities, and convince all the regular peaceful cooperative people to kick out anyone who says anything along the lines of “do what I say or I’ll kill you”.
It wasn’t even “do what I say or I’ll kill you”. It was “this land is mine” - the establishment of private property. The lords never needed to explicitly make a death threat themselves when nature could make the death threat for them, and the victim is deprived of access to vital resources.