Eric Danelaw It all begins with a militia. That is what separates the west from the rest. Without concentrated production capital (flood river valleys) that ‘industrialized’ production, it was not possible to concentrate sufficient wealth to form armies. Instead, the wealthy (nobility) supplied their own men, steeds, arms and armor, and the militia fought with them to hold their land, the property, their women, and the civilization from conquest. The byproduct of the order of the militia is a shareholder arrangement between peers – and the one law of reciprocity.
–Curt Doolittle