If you are not an anarchist, your political views are probably about influencing what the government (sometimes called “the state”1) does. For example, if, in a political context, you extol the virtues of education, you are probably either advocating for more government schooling; or, if you believe that government does a poor job of it, less government schooling. Either way, politics is about what the government does.
If you are an anarchist your political views are about opposition to the government. Even for you, politics is about what the government does.
So, what is a government?
That might seem like a silly question to some. We intuitively know what the government is. It’s that organization with a president that bosses people around. However, there are many organizations with presidents that boss people around and they are not considered governments—companies, unions, clubs, etc. What is it that makes the government a government but those organizations not governments?
Possible Definition 1: A Lawmaker
Perhaps the U.S. government is a government and a random chess club is not because the government creates and enforces laws. That is, they write down things which people under their jurisdiction must do or must not do, and enact consequences against those who fail to comply.
However, a chess club does this too. It will require its members to follow the normal rules of chess, as well as certain house rules (touch-move, for example). If its members do not follow these rules, consequences will be levied. Is a chess club a government? Surely not.
So, what’s the difference? If the government is defined by its role as “lawmaker”, the difference must be that a chess club has “rules” not “laws”. But this just pushes the question back a step. What is the difference between a rule and a law?
Perhaps the difference is that a chess club’s rules apply only to those on the chess club’s premises, while the government’s laws apply to everyone in the entire country. However, we usually define the boundaries of countries based on the jurisdiction of their governments. It would be circular to say that an organization is a government because its rules apply to an entire country, and the jurisdiction in which an organization’s rules apply is a country because that organization is a government. It also can’t be simply the size of the jurisdiction—there are already very small countries, and their governments are still governments.
Perhaps instead, the difference between rules and laws is the type of consequences they carry. After all, the chess club will only suspend you from the chess club. The government will lock you in a cage. Being kicked out of a chess club does not violate your rights; being locked in a cage does. Perhaps a law is a rule for which you will be punished in a way which would normally be considered a rights violation.
I for one am happy with this definition of laws (as opposed to rules), but if we accept it, then laws can not be the defining feature of a government. Why? Because there are plenty of rules that were not created by the government, the consequences for which are rights violations. The mafia, for example, may require you to pay protection money, or prohibit you from selling drugs too close to where they are. If you violate these edicts the mafia may commit various rights violations against you. By the definition we’re considering here, these rules would be laws. Does this mean the mafia is a government?
Perhaps you would be willing to bite the bullet and say “yes, the mafia is a government” in order to protect the definition of government as the origin of laws.
Fair enough, I say, but what about a man simply protecting his own property outside the jurisdiction of any government? If you and I were stranded on a desert island and I caught a fish, I may protect that fish by telling you that if you eat my fish I will punch you in the face. You may make the same threat if you catch a fish. This constitutes a rule (don’t touch my fish) and the punishment for breaking it would normally be considered a rights violation (a punch in the face). Again, by our current definition, these are laws—and we are each creating and enforcing them. Are we then a government? Maybe two competing governments? Seems dubious.
Perhaps you have yet another idea about what distinguishes rules and laws which I haven’t addressed (I cannot possibly go through all possible answers). If so, try to think of a non-governmental organization (or individual) who creates rules to which your definition of “laws” applies. I suspect that you will be able to think of something.
It seems that lawmaking can not be the distinguishing feature of government. Either we define laws in such a way as to make that circular, or we define laws in such a way that the government is not the only source of them.
Possible Definition 2: A Monopoly On Violence
Probably the most popular definition of government is that it is “a monopoly on violence” (or some variation on this, which we will discuss next).
This definition has some initial plausibility. The government does commit a lot of violence. It commits mass murder (usually referred to as waging war), it kidnaps innocent people and puts them in cages (usually called arresting and jailing people for victimless crimes), many governments even execute their own citizens. The government is also funded almost entirely through violence. Every tax that the government levies is ultimately paid because the government has a well-known threat that it will send its goons to lock you up if you don’t pay—that’s pretty violent, I would say.
However, despite this initial plausibility, “monopoly on violence” is too extreme of a definition.
Having a monopoly on something means that you are the only one who can do it. By this definition there are no governments. No country has eschewed violent criminals from their society entirely. Violent criminals are not part of the government, and so their existence means that the so-called government does not have a monopoly on violence.
Possible Definition 3: An Attempted Monopoly On Violence
This issue is sometimes responded to by claiming that the government need only attempt to maintain a monopoly on violence in a society.
“Briefly, the State is that organization in society which attempts to maintain a monopoly of the use of force and violence in a given territorial area.”
-Murray N. Rothbard, Anatomy of the State
Unfortunately, this definition doesn’t help. Taken seriously, it would mean that the US government is not a government. The US government allows many acts of violence by non-government actors. Self-defense, for example. Therefore, it does not even attempt to maintain a monopoly on violence.2
If we attempt to salvage this by saying that because the government allows these acts of violence they are in some sense acts of the government, then we get the opposite problem—everything is a government. You are a government. You also attempt to stop everyone from committing violence except for the people who you allow to commit violence. It’s tautological.
Possible Definition 4: A Monopoly On Legitimized Violence
Another variation on this theme is that the government is not a monopoly on violence in general, but merely a monopoly on legitimized violence. Legitimized violence being violence that the society treats as acceptable.3
“the state is the form of human community that (successfully) lays claim to the monopoly of legitimate physical violence within a particular territory”
-Max Weber, Politics as a Vocation
Again, this has some initial plausibility. When the government forcibly takes people’s money, society says it’s just taxation—and it’s fine; when you do it, society says it’s robbery and you should be locked up. When the government locks a non-violent person in a cage, society says that’s just an arrest and a jail sentence—and it’s fine; when you do it, society says that’s assault and kidnapping, and you should be locked up for a very long time.
Again however, self defense is the pertinent counter-example. If you shoot an attacker in self-defense, this is definitely violent, but not only does the government consider it legitimate, society agrees and treats it as such. Self defense is, therefore, legitimized violence, and the government does not have a monopoly on it.
Possible Definition 5: A Monopoly On Legitimized Coercion
A subtler variation on this definition is that the government does not have a monopoly on legitimized violence, but does have a monopoly on legitimized coercion. By “coercion”, in this context, I mean “rights violation”. This is sometimes called “aggression” by NAP-loving libertarians, so if that’s you, feel free to do the word substitution in your head.
In our society we generally believe that you have a right to your property. If I steal or break your property, I have violated your rights. This also extends to your most vital property—your body. If I damage or abduct your body, I have very clearly violated your rights. However, we believe that you lose your right to your property if you use that property to violate the rights of another. Again, this applies to your body as well. That is why self-defense is not considered coercive, even though it is violent. Self-defense is violence against the body of someone who has forfeited his right to bodily integrity by violating the rights of another. Because your attacker has forfeited his right to bodily integrity, you are not violating any rights by harming him.
This is how a “monopoly on legitimized coercion” is different from a “monopoly on legitimized violence”. A monopoly on legitimized violence would be the only entity in society whose violence is ever treated as legitimate. This falls prey to the obvious self-defense, counter-example, as we discussed. A monopoly on legitimized coercion, however, needn’t be the only entity whose violence is legitimized, but merely the only entity whose coercive violence is legitimized. Self-defense is violent but it is not coercive. The fact that the government does not prevent non-government actors from engaging in self-defense does not mean that it does not have a monopoly on coercion.
One might argue that this definition is self-contradictory. The violation of rights is, by definition, not legitimate. If coercion can not be legitimate, then a monopoly on legitimized coercion is like a monopoly on three-sided squares. However, all that is needed to rescue this definition from such an attack are the words “would otherwise”. An agency has a monopoly on legitimized coercion if it performs acts which would otherwise be treated as rights violations are legitimized specifically because they were performed by that agency.
The remaining problem with this definition is that the government is not the only organization whose coercive violence is legitimized—it does not have a monopoly.
Most societies—perhaps all—have some forms of coercive violence which they treat as legitimate, even when not performed by the government. Some examples might include violence against a cheating spouse, violence against someone who used a highly taboo word, violence against someone in a lower social caste, violence against someone who supported the wrong sports team, violence against someone with an abnormal (but non-violent) sexual predilection, violence against someone who professes belief in the wrong ideology, violence in favor of the correct ideology, theft by someone seen as sufficiently desperate, theft against someone who is seen as sufficiently wealthy, and many other possibilities. These are all types of coercive violence that many societies (often including our own, with respect to some of those examples) will allow to happen without reprisal to the perpetrator. That is legitimized coercion: An action which would normally be seen as a violation of the rights of the victim, but because of some legitimizing factor, is treated as legitimate.
These non-governmental examples of legitimized coercion show that, like the previous proposed definitions, the definition of government as “monopoly of legitimized coercion” rules out the US government, and so it is probably not the definition we want to use.
My Favored Definition: An Agency Of Legitimized Coercion
Since the government doesn’t have a monopoly on legitimized coercion, but its coercion is certainly is treated as legitimate by society, the best definition of government really seems to be just “an agency of legitimized coercion.”
This is also the definition used by prolific libertarian thinker, David D. Friedman:
A government is an agency of legitimized coercion. I define 'coercion', for the purposes of this definition, as the violation of what people in a particular society believe to be the rights of individuals with respect to other individuals.
-David D. Friedman, The Machinery of Freedom
This is not to say I necessarily agree with Friedman on what exactly that means. Friedman’s elaboration on this definition may differ somewhat from mine (or not, depending on how you interpret him), but here is the way I would unpack my version:
An agency of legitimized coercion is different from a monopoly of legitimized coercion in that it does not require that the government be the only producer of legitimized coercion in society. What it requires, is merely that coercion be legitimized on the grounds that it comes from the government.
When an assault is committed, it may be justified by the attacker in a number of ways which the society will actually accept—“He’s in a lower social caste”, “he said the forbidden word”, “he’s a sodomite”, “I really needed that”, “he really didn’t need that”, etc.—but one possible justification is “attacking this man was the job assigned to me by the government.”
This is the peculiar characteristic that the government has. If you are seen to be acting in your capacity as an agent of “the government” then your coercive violence will be treated as more legitimate than it otherwise would have been.
That is what it means to be an agency of legitimized coercion. It means that your coercive actions are treated as legitimate specifically because they are seen as your actions.
A Complication
One complication is degree. Consider an organization, association with which can legitimize coercion in some special cases, but which is mostly organized around other, non-coercive things. Legitimized coercion is neither its primary function nor its primary source of funding. I do not consider that to be an “organization of legitimized coercion” any more than I consider a man who has smoked five cigarettes in his life to be a smoker.
By contrast, the organization we normally refer to as “the government” is almost entirely funded by acts of coercion (such as taxes) and puts that funding largely towards additional acts of coercion (such as waging war and jailing people for victimless crimes).
A Rebuttal
A rebuttal you might have is that this would classify as governments, some organizations which we don’t usually see as governments. Some mafias, for an obvious example. In this case I would bite that bullet. Some subcultures (and in rare cases in history, whole societies) do treat mafia coercion as legitimate. In those cases, the mafia really is a small government, by my definition.
However, in most societies, people do not treat mafia coercion the same way they treat government coercion. Resist mafia coercion and our society will usually support you. Resist government coercion and our society in general will not. They may even label you a tax evader, draft dodger, or something similar, and support your punishment.
In most societies, mafias are not governments.
Conclusion
In case you skipped to this section, I will give a tl;dr.
A government is an agency of legitimized coercion. That is, an organization whose primary function is to legitimize acts which would otherwise be seen as rights violations. There are other ways in which people can legitimize their coercive actions, but when they are routinely able to do so by getting society to see those actions as acts of a specific organization, you should consider that organization a government.
Some people distinguish between “the state” and “the government” in this kind of discussion, on the grounds that “government” may simply refer to any organization which governs anything in any way. However, in common parlance, people usually use the terms “the government” and “the state” interchangeably, so that is how I will be using them here
The fact that self defense is legal according to the governments laws is also a refutation of an equivalent purposed definition of government: “a monopoly on legalized violence.”
Weber, and many others, use the word “legitimate” rather than “legitimized” in this context. I feel that “legitimate” is misleading because it implies that any act of government is actually morally legitimate, rather than just treated as such. In the effort of differentiating acts which are actually legitimate and those which are merely treated as such, I use “legitimized” to refer to the latter category.
I think an ingredient, however small, you might be missing to complete your definition is the concept of "ritual" or "formality". It is, as far as I can see, the degree of ritualization of legitimized aggression that separates states from such proto-states as ISIS and (for example) the 2020 looters. This is a difference in degree rather than kind, yes, but I think it's the difference that counts. I think your article already implies as much, but I just wanted to explicate ritual as the highest form of legitimization.
More importantly, I think it is ritual that leads to people thinking of states as monopolies and thus speaking of "the" state or "the" government. Having genuinely competing "entities whose primary purpose/function is to provide ritualized aggression" (my definition of statehood, quite similar to yours) in a single area is not very stable in general (Hoppe makes the good argument of aggression tending towards centralization, especially with Europe over the past centuries) much less so when it comes to ritual. Even the mafia and yakuza know this, and recreate feudalism with their "families" and their subdivisions each monopolistically controlling an area of land, not to mention countless disputes over gang turf. As a "state" gets better at monopolizing its area, it can afford much more ritual; consider a mob boss who has a significant chance of being whacked over a deal gone bad versus the POTUS, who will very likely serve an exact four or eight years continuing in that office. Guess which one has more time and resources to devote towards armies, bureaucrats, and "Hail to the Chief"? This creates a positive feedback loop, with the rituals of, for example, civil service, census taking, and tax day creating a stable "deep state" structure that snuffs out any opposition much better than any hitman. A possibly immediate counterexample would be federal entities like the US, with federal, state, and local governments, but that in turn is quite like the quasi-feudal mafia family structure I mentioned above.
Great article, I just wanted to add my two cents. Hope I didn't ramble too much!