At some point, they begin to trade off against one another. A free state can't easily hold as an empire, because the people have to be coerced into putting the

At some point, they begin to trade off against one another. A free state can't easily hold as an empire, because the people have to be coerced into putting the empire's interests above their own. We're able to be an empire while remaining nominally democratic because corporations-- authoritarian economic institutions-- hold most of the actual power... and it's the corporations that do the dirtiest of the dirty work, not the government.