Any group that is willing and able to kill people indiscriminately is a State. States are usually monopolistic and territorial. They collect Rent from people living within its territory.

So when there are two States in a region and it collects rent, either the States fight or they merge into one. Often they do a bit of both.

There are many ways to collect rent. If people see you as legitimate, they will pay rent out of a combination of fear and respect (this is why income tax requires you to declare your income, it is proof of fear and respect). Some times you have to sell an ideology (e.g. equality) to collect the rent.

However if you are a second State in a region, often you will have to sell your services. Often this involves doing things the first State doesn’t allow e.g. selling drugs, prostitution, extra-judicial punishments.

Tobacco and government started regulating each other because of this. Tobacco sales was a type of rent. People needed it periodically. So now we have Tobacco-government mergers in which the corporation that sells Tobacco is so heavily regulated it might as well be considered a unit within the government. I can easily imagine a tobacco company in the past (e.g. East India Company) which had its own military which killed people indiscriminately.

Pharmaceuticals and government are similarly attempting mergers around the world. The governments would rather have people pay a regular rent for medicines they (think they) cannot live without. I wouldn’t be surprised if we they sell regular Medication we don’t even need but we buy anyway because of fear.

It is easy to turn your customers into soldiers who will kill on your behalf anyone you call your enemy. Imagine if your customers need a medicine (or heroin) they (think they) need or they will die. They will fight against any group you tell them will take away that right.

e.g. Look at Lgbtqqiap Groups who need special medication (e.g. hormones). Imagine you tell them Nazis will take away such medication or make it expensive. These LGBTQQIAP groups will fight to kill if necessary to remove the group that may take away their access to medication. Often you don’t even have to bring up the medication threat. You just need to convince the LGBTQQIAP groups that the Nazis are anti-LGBTQQIAP. See Martin Shkreli.

Mergers between State and Religion used to be common in the past and may be are making a comeback. But in the modern world mergers between State and ideology is more common. People can be possessed by an ideology (e.g. democracy/human-rights) enough to create a State-subject relationship described above.