Government as coercision and violence.

[Queequeg]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_as_a_Vocation

See Monopoly on Violence.  This is Weber. 

[dps]

So would John Marshall, Andrew Jackson and all those poor fuckers the latter sent to Oklahoma.

Edit: I think I misremembered or never learned something in the first place.

Well, Jackson at least would have agreed.  And so would have the writers of the Constitution--the reason that they wanted to replace the Article of Confederation was that the Articles created such a weak central government that it couldn't even enforce the laws that it had the legal authority to make, because it was dependent on the states to provide the funding to enforce those laws.

[Razgovory]

I think you're right.  Force is the fundamental basis of all jurisprudence.  The best-reasoned laws and judicial decisions are nothing but words without the will and power to make them reality.

That said, democratic structures, welfare states, and other activities that legitimize the government on external moral grounds reduce the need for force.

If your pseudo-friend believes this isn't the case, he isn't a libertarian--even they believe in compulsion to a certain extent, namely to enforce contracts and to prevent theft--he's an anarchist.

I think there is dash of anarchist in there.  Like I said, Rothbardian.  I'm not sure if he was naive, or shocked that a statist like me would be so direct about how laws and goverment functions.  Like I said, I didn't see coercion and violence as a negative thing.  If someone steals my car, I want to the police to go and get it back and a judge to inflict punishment on the criminal.

[jimmy olsen]

I'm surprised he didn't have a similar view if he was a libertarian.


Here's a good quote to that affect, often attributed to Washington, but of unknown origin.

"Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action."

[frunk]

I think of coercion and violence as tools given to the state to stop it from being in other people's hands.  The state is most effective when it isn't necessary for it to use those tools, when it is recognized as being the only one with the ability to exercise that power and it uses that power sparingly for situations that require it.

[Valmy]

I think of coercion and violence as tools given to the state to stop it from being in other people's hands.  The state is most effective when it isn't necessary for it to use those tools, when it is recognized as being the only one with the ability to exercise that power and it uses that power sparingly for situations that require it.

Well right a state works most effectively when it has legitimacy for all sorts of reasons.  If it only relies on coercion and violence it will not last long.  But coercion and violence is always an element, just because some people need that to be socialized.

[Malthus]

The state's job, above all, is to prevent other people with guns from setting themselves up as a state. 

[Caliga]

The state's job, above all, is to prevent other people with guns from setting themselves up as a state. 

I guess the British Empire failed at its job in the late 18th century.

[Malthus]

The state's job, above all, is to prevent other people with guns from setting themselves up as a state. 

I guess the British Empire failed at its job in the late 18th century.

Yup. They should have crushed the traitors. 

[Valmy]

The state's job, above all, is to prevent other people with guns from setting themselves up as a state. 

The state's job is to allow society to function.  Since this propagates the state is has a vested interest in this as well.  That other part only becomes its primary job when the other people with guns show up



'Hi there.  Mind if we setup a new state?'

[Malthus]

The state's job, above all, is to prevent other people with guns from setting themselves up as a state. 

The state's job is to allow society to function.  Since this propagates the state is has a vested interest in this as well.  That other part only becomes its primary job when the other people with guns show up


'Hi there.  Mind if we setup a new state?'

Historically, though, the job of keeping out others took precedence over performing any sort of services for society.

In fact, this issue came up recently. I was reading a history of Cambodia, and the author of that work made the point that, for hundreds of years at least, the Cambodian government was almost totally predatory on Cambodian society - that Cambodian society was based on a collection of rice-growing villages (where the primary social mechanism was the family) who rarely saw any evidence of a central government, except when the agents of that government arrived to collect taxes and recruit people for forced labour or military service; that the only "service" the central government really offered was driving off invaders and bandits - i.e., other people wanting to steal their rice and/or enslave them.

The Cambodian central government allocated all sorts of adminisrative titles to members of the nobility, but none were based on merit - nobles bought titles which in turn enabled them to tax-farm. Nor did the nobles feel any obligations towards the villagers they "farmed", other than to ensure their monoploly on such "farming".

Allegedly, such habits of government have proven very difficult to break - the recent frustrations of the UN agencies dealing with Cambodian officials (only interested in bribes, not interested in actually doing anything) are almost identical, word for word, to the similar frustrations experienced by Vietnamese colonialists in the late 18th early 19th centuries.

This is of course a disfunctional form of "government" by modern standards, but I suspect that it is also a very ancient and basic form: government as protection racket.

[The Brain]

[Razgovory]

I suspect you are right Malthus, however, a protection racket is not to be despised in age of constant banditry and invading peoples.  Most people would jump at the chance of exchanging labor or good for the privilege of not having their home burned down by vikings.  The few that aren't are either intending to do some raiding themselves or are simply idiots.

[Malthus]

I suspect you are right Malthus, however, a protection racket is not to be despised in age of constant banditry and invading peoples.  Most people would jump at the chance of exchanging labor or good for the privilege of not having their home burned down by vikings.  The few that aren't are either intending to do some raiding themselves or are simply idiots.

True; I'm merely pointing out that the notion that the government exists to serve society, rather than the other way around, is not the "default" setting for governments. Certainly, it is a much more successful position, and societies that embrace some version of it are typically more potent than those that don't.

[Razgovory]

I agree.  The primary purpose of a government is a to perpetuate itself.  A state only really fails when it can no longer exert control over the territory it claims.  The United States, Great Britain, Russia and nearly every other country in history has been a failed state at some point.