Statism uses two innovations to rise above the war of all against all, institutions and ownership. What is left to do?
Consider when you have two friends in a conflict. You do not simply side with the defender. You hear both sides to the conflict, you apply your thinking and you pick a side. You have some standard to picking a side that is unrelated to a contest-to-submission. You hold a symbolic contest. You pledge some portion of your influence to the winner of the symbolic contest. This is the folk model of conflict resolution.
Generally, a resource conflict exists. You gather information. You apply your standard. You back a winner. Perhaps the loser to your symbolic contest has more fighting ability and still takes possession of the resource. You direct what influence you have for this cause in the direction of getting the resource in the control of the winner.
Under the folk model violence may be used (at most) to gain possession after ownership has been established by other means. Under statism ownership is established by violence.
The way to elevate ourselves above statism is to develop methods of resolving resource conflicts and to build the institutions to apply these methods.
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