Category: Politics, Power, and Governance

(FB 1549394084 Timestamp) —“Hello Curt, I have a question: Do you agree with this definition of ‘government’ : “An entity that has a monopoly over legitimate use of violence.” ? If not, then how do you define a government, and how EXACTLY do you think law should be enforced?”— Ayham Nedal You asked me this before, or someone else did, and I was sick so I forgot to answer it…. I have to answer it in two parts?: Part 1: Government A government consist of a body of administrators under protection of an army, wherein the army prohibits other armies and other administrators from imposing different means and rules of administration in exchange for funding the military. This definition exposes the underlying deception of the definition of the government as a monopoly on violence. Governments almost alway struggle to produce sufficient prohibition on violence such that they obtain the highest returns and lowest costs from the most market activity. Prior to the treaty of westphalia government did NOT have a monopoly on violence, and that a government has a monopoly on violence is a european invention. That governments can fund greater more organized violence because they have the most income is common, but during most of history, all sorts of organizations engaged in warfare. The government applies violence in order to extract income for itself and the army. Governance is the most profitable industry other than successful military conquest. Rule of law and markets are simply the lowest cost highest return means of supplying administration and army with the resources to maintain their income stream internally and externally. Armies(warriors) and their Governments(financiers) are just a business like any other with intern processes and procedures those that are necessary for organization and profiting from production in competition with contending businesses (states). The liberator of men was gunpowder, which equalized the killing capacity of professional warriors, footsoldiers, and the ordinary citizenry. hence why states want to disarm you. Part II: Law A government almost always has an internal monopoly on the resolution of disputes and this monopoly evolved because of the human tendency – particularly among brothers in families – to engage in retaliation cycles (feuds) that didn’t end, and that produced externalities that destroyed ‘the king’s peace’ meaning, ’caused uprisings, costs of suppressing them, and interference in the production of taxation (income). So, while governments may seek to create a monopoly on the use of violence both internally and externally they are only marginally as successful as they are in developing markets that provide sufficient opportunity to absorb the population, and sufficient insulation from outside violence ,and sufficient resources to oppress internal and external violence, theft, immigration, and conversion. Monopoly: the reason for a monopoly is simply the undecidability of competing laws. The jews for example kept their laws in the ghettos but had to obey the kings law outside. However they engaged in lending into hazard, slavery and other unacceptable businesses, and were almost always kicked out (or worse) for it, just like the gypsies.