That depends on how you define "people". In much of mediaeval Europe, for example, it was the heavily armed aristocracy who were left alone "so they could pursue their well-being": the lightly armed or unarmed peasantry that they ruled over, not so much. (And when the latter did attempt to pursue it in an unapproved manner, they were put down with violence: see Wat Tyler's Revolt, for example.)
> 9/ Nation-state was inevitable because humans reasoned they could efficiently defend against enemies if they pooled their resources. Notice what got lost in this optimization of defense: the complex, local web of interactions that everybody was a part of, and yet nobody understood.
That suggests that a nation-state was a collaborative exercise of its people as a whole, rather than the result of the consolidation of power by its monarchs over time. That sounds more like a "Just So" story than history.