Doc Edward Morbius ⭕<p><strong>CWs and Weber's Monopoly on Legitimacy</strong></p><p>Max Weber defined government, in a much misinterpreted phrase, as "the only human community which lays claim to the monopoly on the legitimated use of physical force". <strong>ALL TERMS ARE SIGNIFICANT.</strong> Far too many readers focus on "use of physical force", but any playground bully, mean drunk, or capricious idiot can use violence. Government requires <em>legitimacy</em>, typically only bequeathed by the governed, and a monopoly on that legitimacy, meaning no other agent can make a countering claim within a given region.</p><p>The definition is reflexive and tautological:</p><ul><li>An entity with a monopoly on the legitimate use of force is a government or state, regardless of what it calls itself.</li><li>A region with no monopoly on legitimacy is ungoverned.</li><li>An entity lacking legitimacy, regardless of what it calls itself, is not a government.</li></ul><p>Rather than casting this as a monopoly on <em>force</em>, it's far more useful to consider this a monopoly on <em>legitimacy</em>.</p><p>The model is, as all models are, wrong. But it is, as some models are, also <em>useful</em>, in two principle ways.</p><p>One is that it provides a useful lens through which to consider government, governance, and polity, stripped of most ideological or structural biases. We can ask how, or whether, a democracy, personality cult, autonomous collective, theocracy, dictatorship, representational republic, monarchy, company town, oligarchy, or other forms have legitimacy and/or monopoly over use of force.</p><p>The other is that in being so widely misquoted, misinterpreted, and misrepresented, it is a highly useful bullshit filter for identifying those who are either ignorant of what they speak, or are intentionally attempting to mislead, in discussions of governance. </p><p>This includes virtually all Rothbardian/Randian/Misian Libertarians and their "nonaggression principle", notably Charles Koch and Penn Gilette, both of whom explicitly cite this as the foundation of their belief. <strong>From a false premise all that follows is false.</strong> </p><p><a href="https://toot.cat/tags/MaxWeber" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>MaxWeber</span></a> <a href="https://toot.cat/tags/government" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>government</span></a> <a href="https://toot.cat/tags/MonopolyOnViolence" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>MonopolyOnViolence</span></a> <a href="https://toot.cat/tags/MonopolyOnLegitimacy" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>MonopolyOnLegitimacy</span></a> <a href="https://toot.cat/tags/libertarianism" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>libertarianism</span></a> <a href="https://toot.cat/tags/nap" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>nap</span></a></p>