To the unstable nature of social life in relation to the physical world we have to add, as a further source of insecurity, the prevalence of human violence. The major contrasts to be drawn here are between the larger pre-modern social orders and the modern social universe. The level of violence within and between hunting and gathering cultures appears generally to have been quite low, and there were no specialised warriors. With the appearance of armed soldiery, the situation is quite different. Most agrarian states were based in a very direct way upon military power. Yet, as was mentioned earlier, in such states the monopoly of control of the means of violence on the part of the ruling authorities was always far from complete. Such states were never internally pacified by the standards of modern nation-states.

Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Moderni…, loc. 256