Last week I an interesting discussion on Facebook with a libertarian (at least I think he was libertarian. He decried Democracy as a mob rule and used Bitcoin as an avatar so he was somewhere on the libertarian spectrum. Perhaps he was more Rothbardian then anything else, but whatever.). He was a friend of of TES, so I didn't know him personally. I shocked him by saying that government is coercion and legal violence and that isn't a bad thing. The state uses violence against people who break laws, typically by imprisoning them, and the threat that violence is used to keep order. I claimed that "deterrence" is just a form of coercion. He responded that if this was true police would be coercing people at all times, which I said is true. People who want to engage in unlawful activities are less likely to do so when a cop is looking straight at that. Their actions are being altered by the implicit threats of violence thus is a form of coercion.
Now while I simplify a bit, and admit I'm not a legal scholar like Grumber, I wonder what the rest of you thought. Was I basically correct or dead wrong?
It is the government's job to maintain order (among other things) and violence or the threat of violence is one tool by which to maintain that order, yes.
I agree with the other dude that democracy is mob rule which is why I'm glad we don't live in a democracy. :sleep:
I think you are basically right and at the end of the day human civilization requires coercion and violence to some extent for it to exist. As somebody smart once said 'if all men were angels there would be no need for government'.
Quote from: Caliga on June 09, 2014, 06:32:29 PM
It is the government's job to maintain order (among other things) and violence or the threat of violence is one tool by which to maintain that order, yes.
I agree with the other dude that democracy is mob rule which is why I'm glad we don't live in a democracy. :sleep:
We live in a Democracy by the modern definition but not by the 18th century definition.
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.
Quote from: Ideologue on June 09, 2014, 07:17:29 PM
That said, democratic structures, welfare states, and other activities that legitimize the government on external moral grounds reduce the need for force.
:lol:
:unsure:
Free money legitimizes government? Really?
Quote from: Valmy on June 09, 2014, 07:05:39 PM
We live in a Democracy by the modern definition but not by the 18th century definition.
We live in a democracy by the 18th century definition, as well. Some 18th C philisophes distrusted democracy, but they would recognize all modern western states as democracies (rule by the people).
We just don't live, by and large, in direct democracies.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on June 09, 2014, 07:43:53 PM
Free money legitimizes government? Really?
Really? "Free money?" Who is arguing that "free money legitimizes government?"
Quote from: Admiral Yi on June 09, 2014, 07:43:53 PM
Free money legitimizes government? Really?
Programs which suggest the government doesn't want people to starve in the street legitimizes government, yes.
I only buy Dogecoins.
Quote from: Razgovory on June 09, 2014, 06:04:46 PM
Last week I an interesting discussion on Facebook with a libertarian (at least I think he was libertarian. He decried Democracy as a mob rule and used Bitcoin as an avatar so he was somewhere on the libertarian spectrum. Perhaps he was more Rothbardian then anything else, but whatever.). He was a friend of of TES, so I didn't know him personally. I shocked him by saying that government is coercion and legal violence and that isn't a bad thing. The state uses violence against people who break laws, typically by imprisoning them, and the threat that violence is used to keep order. I claimed that "deterrence" is just a form of coercion. He responded that if this was true police would be coercing people at all times, which I said is true. People who want to engage in unlawful activities are less likely to do so when a cop is looking straight at that. Their actions are being altered by the implicit threats of violence thus is a form of coercion.
Now while I simplify a bit, and admit I'm not a legal scholar like Grumber, I wonder what the rest of you thought. Was I basically correct or dead wrong?
You are basically correct.
The police coerces people all the time, just by being there. The mere fact that you and I, even though we are doing nothing wrong, have to stop if a policeman orders us to do so, is an expression of coercion: if we don't we'll have the law thrown down our ass. That said, we do have rights and policemen have limitations on that use of coercion. For instance, we can leave at any time, if we are stopped by the said policeman, as soon as he is forced to recognize one way or another that he has no grounds for detaining us.
At its core, the modern State is the expression of a monopoly on legitimate violence in a given society; in political science this is the minimalist definition of a 'modern State'. As it exists since the Early Modern Era, it deprives other factions, bodies, or people outside of its control of legally using violence or coercion against its fellow men without being accountable for it. If it hadn't to, society would return to a multipolar system of powers akind to the Middle-Ages, and presumably to a Hobbesian, 'man is a wolf for other men' world, a sort of thuggish turf war because legitimate violence would be spreaded among several parallel, independent, and presumably competitive actors that would use violence or the threat of for self-interested aims.
Quote from: Ideologue on June 09, 2014, 07:17:29 PM
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.
Otto von Bismarck, Adolf Hitler, and Hans Morgenthau would all agree with you. :hmm:
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.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_as_a_Vocation
See Monopoly on Violence. This is Weber.
Quote from: Ideologue on June 09, 2014, 10:02:13 PM
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.
Quote from: Ideologue on June 09, 2014, 07:17:29 PM
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.
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.
Quote"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."
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.
Quote from: frunk on June 10, 2014, 02:36:25 AM
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.
The state's job, above all, is to prevent other people with guns from setting themselves up as a state. ;)
Quote from: Malthus on June 10, 2014, 10:04:15 AM
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. :(
Quote from: Caliga on June 10, 2014, 10:09:59 AM
Quote from: Malthus on June 10, 2014, 10:04:15 AM
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. :)
Quote from: Malthus on June 10, 2014, 10:04:15 AM
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 :P
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.crusaderkings.com%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fimagecache%2Fnews_page440x210%2Fcrusaderkingsii_the_old_gods_image_4.png&hash=cd5acea81d14020370e84d6ceb54bdb962f38029)
'Hi there. Mind if we setup a new state?'
Quote from: Valmy on June 10, 2014, 10:15:59 AM
Quote from: Malthus on June 10, 2014, 10:04:15 AM
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 :P
'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.
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi13.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fa299%2FSlayhem%2F5f094f22.jpg&hash=8fecb7e56e82c921114b2d72441f7bfd9edcf53e)
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.
Quote from: Razgovory on June 10, 2014, 04:35:57 PM
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.
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.
Quote from: Razgovory on June 10, 2014, 04:44:25 PM
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.
When did the United States and Great Britain become comparable to Somalia? :huh:
Social breakdown and civil war is not the same as becoming a failed state. To become a failed state the state actors must be unable to maintain any semblance of social cohesion and control even inside its own rump territory on the long term. In other words, the state becomes a shadow state, an intra-territorial faction on the same level than those actors that had attacked its cohesion beforehand.
I'd say Civil War is a state failure. The only real requirement for a state to function is to control the territory it claims. Now governments can still operate, and the failure may very well be temporary, but it is still a state that is failing. This also applies when a country is invaded. For instance, France was failing between 1914 and 1918 as it could not exert it's authority over territory lost to the Germans. The one exception to this rule is when a state makes a de jure claim, but makes no real effort to enforce it. For instance Argentina claims the Falkland Islands and a chunk of Antarctica, but makes no real effort to control this territory. I wouldn't consider it failing at that time.
I think Russia 1917-1924ish could stand up to the definition--though even then it was so short-term it's hard to say it failed--but certainly not the U.S. or Great Britain. I assume you refer to the Civil War and the end of the British Empire.
Loss of some territory while the central government holds on to major core territories (not to be too Europa Universalis about it) cannot a failed state make, otherwise the term would be useless. If you want good examples of failed states that were or had pretensions to global power, there's the nice triple threat of the Western Roman Empire, Eastern Roman Empire, and Holy Roman Empire. Others would include the Mongol Khanate (fell apart into four de facto monarchies within decades of its founding, despite de iure continuing to exist for quite a while) and the Republic of China (so failed it was exiled to a non-core territory and had to radically reconstitute itself). We can also probably count Ming China, Poland and Germany as well (crushed and partitioned by external enemies).
Define "core territories" and exactly what percentage of them must be held for the state to be considered succeeding?
Quote from: Razgovory on June 10, 2014, 05:55:28 PM
I'd say Civil War is a state failure.
If it only lasts four years and the result is an even stronger central government? That doesn't seem overly broad?
The ACW is also a special case too because it was so geographically discrete, almost indistiguishable from a war between independent states. It doesn't compare to the Russian Civil War, Spanish Civil War, or French Revolution in terms of outright chaos. The devolution of authority to the state governments was extraordinarily orderly, considering. You didn't have blueshirts and greyshirts street fighting in Atlanta and claiming sectors of the city as liberated from U.S. or Georgian rule depending upon their political bent.
Quote from: Razgovory on June 10, 2014, 05:59:01 PM
Define "core territories" and exactly what percentage of them must be held for the state to be considered succeeding?
It would depend on each situation. It's not math.
In the case of the United Kingdom, the most obvious definition for "core territory" would be the home island of the English-speaking peoples, the English, Scots, and Welsh. If the UK manages to hold on to that core, Great Britain continues to exist in a completely recognizable form and cannot be considered failed.
If the Scots and Welsh left the union, you might have an argument that the UK itself is a failed state. The loss of the Empire didn't make Britain a failed state any more than the loss of the Philippines made the U.S. a failed state.
It is a broad use, but for good reason. A lot of people can't agree on what a state should be doing. One person may regard the state failing when their Social Security checks don't come on time while another person might believe that government has no business providing services like Police. My definition of state failure is where the state fails at it's most basic function: Maintaining its authority over its territory. I think everyone can agree that this is a function of a state.
Quote from: Ideologue on June 10, 2014, 06:05:50 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on June 10, 2014, 05:59:01 PM
Define "core territories" and exactly what percentage of them must be held for the state to be considered succeeding?
It would depend on each situation. It's not math.
In the case of the United Kingdom, the most obvious definition for "core territory" would be the home island of the English-speaking peoples, the English, Scots, and Welsh. If the UK manages to hold on to that core, Great Britain continues to exist in a completely recognizable form and cannot be considered failed.
If the Scots and Welsh left the union, you might have an argument that the UK itself is a failed state. The loss of the Empire didn't make Britain a failed state any more than the loss of the Philippines made the U.S. a failed state.
You forgot Ireland which was part of the UK by an Act of Union. Certainly this was a large "core territory" that the government in London failed to hold.
I deliberately excluded Ireland.
Quote from: Ideologue on June 10, 2014, 06:20:59 PM
I deliberately excluded Ireland.
Yeah, that kind of sinks your argument doesn't it?
Not really. The loss of a bunch of Catholics of another ethnic group on another island that were treated largely as British colonial subjects is no more impressive than France's loss of Algeria, and perhaps less. No one considers them failed states.
Quote from: Ideologue on June 10, 2014, 06:28:57 PM
Not really. The loss of a bunch of Catholics of another ethnic group on another island that were treated largely as British colonial subjects is no more impressive than France's loss of Algeria, and perhaps less. No one considers them failed states.
That's not a very good analogy. The loss of Algeria crisis did lead to the collapse of the Fourth Republic; it can certainly be argued that the Fourth Republic was a failed state. I wouldn't agree with that argument--the nation of France still continuted to exist, just with a different government (and not even a different form of government--it was still a republic)--but it's not entirely spurious.
Quote from: Ideologue on June 10, 2014, 06:28:57 PM
Not really. The loss of a bunch of Catholics of another ethnic group on another island that were treated largely as British colonial subjects is no more impressive than France's loss of Algeria, and perhaps less. No one considers them failed states.
Your definition is getting rubbery. Essentially any territory that breaks away from a state can be rationalized as not being important because if they were important, they wouldn't have broken away.
Quote from: dps on June 10, 2014, 06:42:19 PM
That's not a very good analogy. The loss of Algeria crisis did lead to the collapse of the Fourth Republic; it can certainly be argued that the Fourth Republic was a failed state. I wouldn't agree with that argument--the nation of France still continuted to exist, just with a different government (and not even a different form of government--it was still a republic)--but it's not entirely spurious.
A failed state is one that completely stops to have any functioning institution and military control over its whole national territory. Civil war against a government implies, by definition, that the government still holds control over a loyalist part of the territory.
The fourth Republic was simply a regime caught in perpetual deadlock of minority governments with a President who had no legimitacy whatsoever to intervene in politics.
Coups d'États were nothing new in French politics, not even in the 20th century. But nowhere did the French state lose any control over the monopoly of legitimate violence over the metropolitan soil even while the OAS was striking.
Even Russia between 1917-1924 wouldn't feel the definition of a failed state, as the Communist Party had function apparatuses of state: an army, a police force, Soviets for decision-making, bureaucrats, and some level of control over the territory it could hold. Plus the USSR claimed that it was still a continuation of Russia on the international stage, but this time under a new proletarian regime. Germany from Spring 1945 under the Flensburg government until 1949 would better fit the definition.
This would mean that Iraq is not a failed state and possible even Somalia is not a failed state since they still have some form of national government.
Quote from: Razgovory on June 10, 2014, 08:05:58 PM
This would mean that Iraq is not a failed state and possible even Somalia is not a failed state since they still have some form of national government.
Iraq is not a failed state, but it's currently on the verge of becoming a failing one when a 500,000-men army and the police of two of it's biggest city's are disappearing in front of a rabble of few thousands Jihadists.
Somalia does have a 'legal' government, yes, as a sovereign state, but it is so corrupt and inefficient, and its society and institutions are so irremediably broken, it is widely considered, year after year, the worst failed state in the world.
The key word for the definition of a failed state is 'irremediably'. It must be occuring in the long term with next to no meaningful solutions to solve the problem either from inside or outside.
Why must a failed state be "irremediably"? I see no reason for this description to be there. And how does one judge this? Corruption and inefficiency should not be a factor. That reflects a persona bias on what a state should be doing. Some people might want the state to be corrupt and inefficient. For instance a business owner may find it easier to operate if the government is corrupt. In essence he is better served by a corrupt state then he is by a incorruptible state or even a non-interventionist state.
Using your definition Somalia is not only the worst failed state but pretty much the only failed state. It would seem such a definition is so narrow as to be useless. It's also very squishy and nearly every case would be up for a debate.
Quote from: Malthus on June 10, 2014, 04:40:24 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on June 10, 2014, 04:35:57 PM
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.
The ISIS has set up a consumer protection agency in its Syrian holdings and Hezbollah is famed for its charitable works. :yes:
Quote from: Ideologue on June 10, 2014, 06:02:17 PM
The ACW is also a special case too because it was so geographically discrete, almost indistiguishable from a war between independent states. It doesn't compare to the Russian Civil War, Spanish Civil War, or French Revolution in terms of outright chaos. The devolution of authority to the state governments was extraordinarily orderly, considering. You didn't have blueshirts and greyshirts street fighting in Atlanta and claiming sectors of the city as liberated from U.S. or Georgian rule depending upon their political bent.
Indeed, one might even call it a war over state rights. :hmm:
I'm sorry but I just can't take the ACW seriously. "Manassas"? Really? lol
Quote from: jimmy olsen on June 14, 2014, 04:33:56 AM
Quote from: Ideologue on June 10, 2014, 06:02:17 PM
The ACW is also a special case too because it was so geographically discrete, almost indistiguishable from a war between independent states. It doesn't compare to the Russian Civil War, Spanish Civil War, or French Revolution in terms of outright chaos. The devolution of authority to the state governments was extraordinarily orderly, considering. You didn't have blueshirts and greyshirts street fighting in Atlanta and claiming sectors of the city as liberated from U.S. or Georgian rule depending upon their political bent.
Indeed, one might even call it a war over state rights. :hmm:
One might also call it a clear-cut case for a war of extermination.
Quote from: Ideologue on June 14, 2014, 05:11:46 AM
One might also call it a clear-cut case for a war of extermination.
Unfortunately, it fell short in that regard.