Comment by TeMPOraL

> Laws legitimise and stabilise those in power. If enough people stop believing in the law, it really threatens those in power.

Not quite that simple.

If enough people stop believing in the law, the society breaks apart, and you have people shooting each other in the streets trying to loot supermarkets and extend their lives for a week or two, before inevitably dying of starvation.

This is serious stuff. Society and civilization are purely abstract, intersubjective constructs. They exist only as long as enough people believe in them -- but then, it's still not that simple. Actually, they exist if enough people believe that enough other people believe in them.

Money, laws, employment, contracts, corporations, even marriages - are mutually recursive beliefs achieving stability as independent abstractions. But they're not independent - they're vulnerable to breaking if large group of people suddenly start to doubt in them.