Red of tooth and claw

From Contexts of Optimal Growth in Childhood by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.

The process of societal regulation can only take spontaneously when there is an intact community responsible for its own self-preservation. When social structure is changing too rapidly, when there are no legitimate lines of authority, when norms fluctuate and have no hold on members' behavior, the safeguards against over-reproduction are undermined, and the conditions are set for a return to a state of nature "red of tooth and claw."