@abolisyonista it's in this response of his

https://www.cato-unbound.org/2010/09/27/james-c-scott/some-replies-markets-languages-law/

quoting: I begin in an odd location: banditry and coercion — the plunderers Brad DeLong refers to. I am more familiar with water-borne banditry, that is, with the early Malay States which were essentially piratical enterprises. As I see it, they began vying with other small bands of pirates to make themselves master of a choke point on a navigable river or strait in order to control the trade. Once one band had established its supremacy (ignoring the internal politics within the band) it would plunder the trade. The leaders understood, or soon came to understand, that if they did not limit their plunder they risked seeing the trade circumvent them by taking another route or, if there was none, drying up altogether.