[bisonbison]

This is where I would link the sticky.

Tendency of man is to use force (initially bought on a market before the leader establishes a state) in order to make gains.

AC land cannot exist without the protection of a true state, because economies of scale dictate that any band willing to arm itself and treat extortion as a professional business is able to outcompete Bob in the fight for the money in Bob's wallet.

A tank is a great weapon. Fantastic weapon. Few individuals can own a tank, and since financial acuity is distributed independent of compassion or empathy, you can expect a few of those people to want to extort. The more people they recruit, the more power they can exert, because eventually, their violence is only ever sporadically applied.

And people will be recruited because, on some level, they think it's worth the money. They don't care enough about the people they hurt to quit.

The only way to avoid the imposition of such a ruler is to form a counter-coalition that must fight a sizeable free rider problem (you have to defend your neighbor because if you don't, it makes an attack on you too expensive to defend against.).

By the way, physically violent people outcompete non-physically violent people in the force market because they don't have to outsource.