The state has a monopoly on coercion.
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April 7th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
How dare the state use coersion to keep older men from marrying 13 year old girls.
April 7th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
Don’t bother me the state gets involved. Just point it out because many of my readers have much more naive innocuous view of the state. They always seem see the government as their friend. The goverment is one friend only so long as they agree with the government. Once their is a disagreement the state gets out there guns and there is no longer a disagreement.
April 7th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
And I’m sure these readers are completely outraged that the government has decided to take action against adults marrying children. This came from out of nowhere!!
April 7th, 2008 at 11:25 pm
I hope not.
April 11th, 2008 at 7:08 am
The thing is, I’m not sure why you keep pointing out that the government has a monopoly on coercion, when you’ve explicitly stated that you would consider any group or individual who obtained any kind of coercive power to be a government. You’re basically just repeating a definitional trueism over and over; not sure why you bother linking to stories, it’s a definitional trueism with or without evidence.
BTW, the government is supposed to have a monopoly on coercion- if they didn’t, it would just mean that other people ALSO have coercive power over me, which… doesn’t sound like an improvement? The atual discussion should be over how much coercive power the government should have- we definitely shouldn’t be giving any to anyone else, so the whole ‘monopoly’ thing seems like a non-issue.
April 11th, 2008 at 10:32 am
It just seems that some people have a very naive attitude about the state. They view the state as a positive force that can do good. I like to remind those readers that using the state to ‘do good’ always requires forcing people to do things they do not want to do. Those that have a positive view of the state seem to forget this. This leads to an attitude of seeing expanding state power as relatively innocuous. An attitude that I see as very problematic.
For example, a friend of mine has had the state forcibly take $30,000 dollars from what they earned last fiscal year. Those that view the state in positive fashion never use rhetoric like this: ‘yes i think the state should force your friend to give up $30,000′. Rather they dress it up in noble intentions: ‘I think the state should provide more resources to the poor by taking a little from those that have extra.’ Implicit in that nicer rhetorical rendition is implicit approval that the state should use it’s monopoly on coercion to force wealthier people to give up their money. However by using a different kind of rhetoric the can avoid the ugliness of using such blatant force to get what they want.
Another example is gun control. You backed down from your pro gun control stance when I forced the argument into being about putting average citizens in jail for wanting to use a gun for self protection. In other words your support from gun control diminished when you realized that to implement such policy would require using the state’s monopoly on coercion to force people to do what you want.
Those with trust towards the state don’t realize the power it yields. One must always keep a skeptical eye on the state because at the end of the day, their is no recourse against the state when it disagrees with what you believe. It will force you to do what it says. Thats what it means to have a monopoly on coercion. You have the power to force people to do things they don’t want to do.
These posts seek to remind people that the state can force people to do things they don’t want to do. The state can’t be trusted.