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preciousootoday at 6:19 AM1 replyview on HN

It depends on if the people with weapons can find the people with food. With no rule of law, everything is on the table. Warlords still exist in many parts of the world today


Replies

dlcarriertoday at 6:45 AM

Modern warlords have large quantities of subjects from generations and generations of consolidation, which itself is a variation of joining instead of looting. Gaining subjects is extremely risky, when you don't already have an army.

Really, modern first-world countries are just the descendants of warlordships that ran out of kingdoms to consolidate with and instead switched to taxation, either relinquishing enough power to their citizens to maintain a stable but effectively symbolic monarchy or overtaxing then losing to a rebellion.