I've always wondered about this in the context of dynamic equilibria; a system where nobody reigns over one another seems like it would be unstable. As soon as

I've always wondered about this in the context of dynamic equilibria; a system where nobody reigns over one another seems like it would be unstable. As soon as one person breaks the "truce" and does start to reign over somebody else, they then have a little more power and they might use that extra power to accumulate even more power. The usual answer seems to be that all the other people in society would somehow band together to oppose the initial perpetrator and then voluntarily split up their band/mob/militia again at the end, instead of keeping the power they formed by banding together. If one of the groups does not disband, you'd need an even greater group to forcedly disband the first and then an even greater group to disband the next and so on until you are right back where we are now: with nation sized groups in detente against each other. It seems the current situation naturally forms from a system where no one reigns over one another as a result of people having personal ambitions. I don't think ambition is something humanity has the means for to abolish, even if we wanted to (which is in itself an interesting debate).