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From: mwm@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: CONSISTENCY?  Still waiting...
Message-ID: <633@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA>
Date: Fri, 11-Jan-85 13:35:11 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbtopaz.633
Posted: Fri Jan 11 13:35:11 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 13-Jan-85 07:47:53 EST
References: <2167@umcp-cs.UUCP> <621@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA>, <2373@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Organization: Univ. of Calif., Berkeley CA USA
Lines: 34
Keywords: government,libertarianism,monopoly

From flink@umcp-cs.UUCP (Paul Torek) Wed Dec 31 16:00:00 1969
>>There is a problem, though: no government can have a monopoly on force,
>>unless it has total and complete control over all activities of it's citizens.
>>The best it can claim is an overwhelming superiority of force. But that's
>>all it really needs.
>
>Sorry, you're wrong.  Governments don't exactly need a monopoly on force, 
>they need a monopoly on the *right* to decide when it may be used.  A 
>superiority of force is not enough; there are situations where a group has 
>that yet we would be reluctant to call it a government.  Besides, due to 
>competition, no group that abides by libertarian principles could guarantee
>(or even expect) to have an overwhelming superiority of force.

Fair enough - governments get to decide when force may be used. Of course,
if the *don't* have a majority of the available force, they may find
themselves displaced. Likewise, if you have an overwhelming superiority of
force, you can be the government any time you decide you want to be.

>Fancy magic you have there, too bad it doesn't work.  Using force only in
>response to force is not enough to maintain the monopoly character that
>makes a government a government, as opposed to being just one protection
>agency among many.  So 1 does contadict 2.  QED.

Hold on, now you are contradicting yourself. First, you say that a
government only needs the right to decide when force may be used. Now you
claim that they also have to use force other than that needed to enforce
that right. Would you kindly point out what others uses a government must
make of force to be a government?

BTW, a government is a protection racket (you have the right to not employ
an agency, hence the term racket). It just happens to be the strongest one
in it's area.