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I've actually thought about this type of thing quite a lot, and I've come to the conclusion that you'd have to go back to the first Sumerian cities, and convince all the regular peaceful cooperative people to kick out anyone who says anything along the lines of "do what I say or I'll kill you".
It wasn't even "do what I say or I'll kill you". It was "this land is mine" - the establishment of private property. The lords never needed to explicitly make a death threat themselves when nature could make the death threat for them, and the victim is deprived of access to vital resources.
But being territorial with violence as enforcement goes back fast beyond that. Look at large cats or various primates. Yes the latter have enclaves but they are enclaves and tend to have a bruiser at the top
That's probably why the peaceful cooperative non violent types tolerated the sociopaths in the first place... Need that bruiser to protect you from the neighboring city's bruiser