> At what point did we lose our ability to enforce our own desires through violence?

You can even today join a gang or the mafia, you will find that this is still a very common use case.

If you do, you might also find out that it's not a lifestyle anyone wants, thus realizing why most of civilized society doesn't work that way.

In my experience, that's usually only because the people that inhabit the gang or the mafia are not themselves civilized.

Dueling, boxing, and so on used to be common among the upper crust. I still get into fights with some of my immigrant friends whenever we reach some total impasse on conflict. We're all civilized, educated, and generally good people. But violence always seems to be the quickest way towards a resolution to certain problems, where simple communication will not do.

In my military officer training, routine boxing/wrestling/fighting was included to give people a "taste of getting hit in the mouth". It was also super effective for solving disputes. I remember having some trivial issue with a roommate that eventually turned into wrestling. After it petered out I couldn't tell you what the problem even was. Sometimes wish a manner like this existed in my workplace settings. A guess the caveat is this doesn't work between large spreads of physical abilities (gender, age gaps etc.). Not complaining i cant fight old people but wish conflict resolution existed in such an immediate and effective manner.

> At what point did we lose our ability to enforce our own desires through violence?

Judging by reports of violent crime, it would be a stretch to say that the “right” to exercise violence when your individual will is otherwise thwarted is very much still possible. I mean if someone wants to gun down their Amazon HR person or manager, there is little to stop them. It won’t end well for anyone though.