Why does enforcing property rights through violence tend to take more resources than the total value of the good being fought over?Individuals usually look at only the physical resources used to protect property. Once we account for the psychic cost of violence, the total physical and psychic cost of protecting property is higher than the property’s value.Soldiers cost a lot of money to feed and lodgeBecause each side is willing to spend as much resources as the value of the property, the total resources spent can be twice as high as the property’s valueViolence erodes the country’s social capital such that the short-term gain of protecting the property is dwarfed by the long-term loss of trust

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