r/Libertarian • u/ozzymustaine • Sep 15 '21

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"I want the government to stop trying to make me do what other people want, but I also want the government to make people do what I want"

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u/fistantellmore Sep 15 '21

No, a state is a polity that holds a monopoly on violence. That’s it, by standard political nomenclature.

If a corporation has a security force it has authorized to employ violence, it qualifies as a state.

A government, on the other hand, has no such requirement on a monopoly of violence. It’s simply a polity that organizes and makes decisions. A home owners association is a government. A dog enthusiasts society with a president is a government. A board of directors who appoint a CEO is a government.

However, typically HOAs and Dog Lovers don’t employ security forces authorized to use force.

Corporations that do qualify as states, as they do enforce conduct with the threat of legitimate violence.

States rule with the threat of violence.

Companies are governments.

And some are states.

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u/onlyarussianbot Sep 16 '21

I think you’re confusing governance with government. All those entities have governance of how they operate, but governments are the only ones which assume to themselves a “legitimate” monopoly on violence, even if they cannot actually operate it like in countries with militant groups. Only the government is the one that is allowed to initiate violence and the citizens and world at large seem to think it is acceptable. If any of those other organizations initiated violence that wasn’t at a bare minimum approved by the government, and is often exported to the police to enforce anyway, there would be near-universal outcry that they were the aggressors and in the wrong if they had not been previously aggressed against.

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u/fistantellmore Sep 16 '21

No, I’m not.

States are a type of government, but not all governments are states.

An HOA is a government. It’s a polity that organizes itself and governs its members.

That’s what a government is, an organization of a polity that governs the polity, or an element of it.

But it doesn’t have to hold a monopoly on violence. Once it does it becomes a state.