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Comment by analog31 | Hacker News Reader

I long suspected that "monopoly on violence" is a dog whistle. So I looked it up, and actually it's quite straightforward. If you think about the number of entities in a society that can legitimately control violence, the answer is either zero, one, or many. Zero is a pipe dream. Many is civil war. The only answer that makes sense is one. Thus "monopoly on violence" is just a scary sounding way of saying that a society has a government.

In my view, society is propped up by future expectations. This includes the value of government money.

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Monopoly on violence is the defining property of the state according to Max Weber, one of the most famous sociologists. In what way is it a dog whistle?

Because it's only used by people in a tiny little political segment today - far-right-wing libertarians.

No one else denies this or doesn't believe it's true, I hasten to add. For most of us, we think that this is a good thing, but also such an obvious thing that it doesn't need to be mentioned.

The people who keep mentioning it are people who think it's a bad, bad thing. They want everyone to have access to violence at all times.

The sane majority does not.

In the “jungle” you only own what you can protect. Even your life. Violence is natural. Non-violence, property rights and free trade is extremely unnatural, and requires a strong central authority to write the rules and impose them.

Do you think it’s bad to put a teenager in jail for an abortion they did after they had been raped? Or is it also a good (well, it is certainly lawful) use of state monopoly on violence?

if the teenager is woke, its good. and a non woke person would never be prosecuted by any sane government, so your logic game is flawed

> far-right-wing libertarians

No. If your going to targrt political stratas, don't be narrow sighted.

The BLM and Antifa riots of "Defund the police" is exactly about the same concern, and supporters caused widespread violence to prove that point. There's a different reason, but many prominent Democrats urged those protests on, making it more broad than just some leftists commies.

The major difference is that BLM/antifa targeted local police with a national organization and got their way in many places, whereas conservatives are weary of the federal government are just some disorganized people that become easily targeted by the feds.

There is a saying, an armed society is a polite society.

I have no idea where you came up with "Many is civil war". Quite the opposite. Civil war erupts when one entity has a monopoly on violence and enough people decide that they've had quite enough of that, thank you very much.

> There is a saying, an armed society is a polite society.

There are all sorts of sayings. Is this one true?

The United States is the most heavily armed country of any size in the world. It is also more heavily armed than any time in its past.

And yet politeness appears to be at an all-time low. Certainly, a lot of political figures say things that are just astonishingly rude and horrible and false, things that would have destroyed their careers even twenty years ago but seem to make them very popular today.

It seems that saying is wildly false.

> I have no idea where you came up with "Many is civil war".

Probably they are knowledgeable about history, as their statement is simply true.

> Civil war erupts when one entity has a monopoly on violence and enough people decide that they've had quite enough of that, thank you very much.

I'm baffled as to how this makes sense to you.

How exactly do these people "decide they have had enough of that" without abrogating the states monopoly on violence? Surely by the time you get to civil war, there are _two sides fighting_??

It's like you just cut and paste a lot of slogans and stop thinking critically there.

I really suggesting reading some history.

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