And yet people don't go around blowing up their competitors
I don't know -- do you think the rate of blowing up your competitors in, say, XIX century USA was much different from the rate of poisoning your enemies in e.g. XVII century Persia?
There's an incentive structure to deal with that, too, you see
Yep, and there were incentive structures to deal with that in the pre-capitalist societies as well. Polities where everyone is free to poison anyone don't last long...
I don't know -- do you think the rate of blowing up your competitors in, say, XIX century USA was much different from the rate of poisoning your enemies in e.g. XVII century Persia?
Without restricting the method of murder to poisoning, yes, quite significantly.
Yep, and there were incentive structures to deal with that in the pre-capitalist societies as well. Polities where everyone is free to poison anyone don't last long...
Polities where everyone is at least plotting to murder everyone else (in the aristocracy) were largely the norm throughout most of history.
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