Having violent islanders with a violent elite aka terf-island be the first to harness modern military power of cannon boats etc. has something to do with it :ukkk:

Though we also have good news, people can achieve cooperation over centuries as exemplified here: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpos.2022.805047/full

The Foundation of Monte Albán, Intensification, and Growth: Coactive Processes and Joint Production

One perspective, reliant on uniform models of premodern states as despotic, viewed the process from a basically top-down lens; leaders coerced subalterns to move near the capital to provide sustenance for the new center. Yet more recent research has found that governance at Monte Albán was generally more collective than autocratic, and productive activities were centered in domestic units and not managed from above.

Based on these new empirical foundations, we reassess earlier settlement and land use studies for the Valley of Oaxaca and view this critical transition as initiated through coactive processes in which new institutions were formed and new relations forged. Shifts in defense, ritual, domestic organization, craft production, and exchange all coincided with this episode of growth fostered by joint production, which intensified agrarian yields through increased domestic labor investments.