That makes me think of some US-libertarian-adjacent thought, which goes something like "the government are just a big-enough gang", or conversely "organized-crime rings are just smaller competing governments."
While I admit there is some pattern-making appeal to that idea, I don't think it quite matches what we see in practice, where gangs often seem quite happy to abandon unprofitable responsibilities and choose profit over political independence.
If nothing else, it quietly conflates entirely different kinds of governments together: A small dictatorship is not just a shrunken version of large democracy.
Gangs are as often business-by-other-means. Not to say some aren’t government, either.
They often come to exist due to niches government can’t (officially) operate in, but when they grow enough, they’re susceptible to capture the same as any other entity.
The history of China is that the ones with the biggest guns (and fireworks) took over the whole state, the most peaceful factions were subjugated, and the hardest to integrate ex: the Uighurs, either reeducated or exterminated. Let’s say you’re right for the sake of supposing. What will do you do about it?
That makes me think of some US-libertarian-adjacent thought, which goes something like "the government are just a big-enough gang", or conversely "organized-crime rings are just smaller competing governments."
While I admit there is some pattern-making appeal to that idea, I don't think it quite matches what we see in practice, where gangs often seem quite happy to abandon unprofitable responsibilities and choose profit over political independence.
If nothing else, it quietly conflates entirely different kinds of governments together: A small dictatorship is not just a shrunken version of large democracy.