If we are to
struggle against the attempts of states to define us, we must be
deliberate and explicit in our definition of the state.
Weber's
Definition of the State
In his 1919 essay
“Politics as a Vocation”, sociologist Max Weber writes that “a
state is a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly
[emphasis
Weber's] of the legitimate use of physical force within a given
territory.”
Explaining his
definition, Weber calls the state “a compulsory association which
organizes domination [and] has been successful in seeking to
monopolize the legitimate use of physical force as a means of
domination within a territory.”
Weber's definition
of “state” is perhaps the most frequently cited definition
thereof in sociology and political theory.
In
2008 – shortly before becoming president of the United States –
Barack Obama alluded to Weber's definition in an interview with
Military
Times
magazine. The interview was regarding the U.S. military's use of
private security contracting firms – employees of which are
derisively referred to as “mercenaries” by critics of the
practice – in the Iraqi theater of America's ongoing War on Terror.
Obama used a
simplified description of what something must possess in order to be
considered a “state”; the term “monopoly on violence”.
Although this description may be memorable – and therefore
convenient – it would be terribly inconvenient to risk not being
explicit enough.
The “monopoly on
violence” description is lacking because – as Weber wrote –
“territory is one of the characteristics of the state”. That is,
the “monopoly on violence” is specific to one locality or
territory; the state wields a monopoly on violence within some given
set of delineated geographic and/or spatial boundaries.
Moreover,
that which the state possesses is a “local monopoly on legitimate
violence”;
the means of physical force which it employs in order to enforce its
rule are not perceived as acts of violent criminal aggression by
those to whom the state has legitimized itself and its actions.
For
the purposes of this essay, “local monopoly on legitimate violence”
will suffice as that which a state must possess (or, at least, appear
to possess) in order to be described as such [i.e., as a state]. Additional clarification of what each of these terms means – in
light of the remainder of the definition of the state – will be
provided throughout.
For much of the
remainder of “Politics as a Vocation”, Weber discusses
“professional politicians”; and focuses on the “legitimacy”
aspect of the state's “legitimate violence”. In his “tripartite
classification of authority”, Weber differentiates three types of
justifications and legitimations of domination: traditional,
charismatic, and legal authority.
However, Max
Weber's “tripartite classification of authority” is of no import
to this essay. Unfortunately for the students of sociology and
political theory from 1919 to the present, Weber did not develop the
components of his definition of the state into any sort of explicit
“tripartite classification of characteristics of the state”. That
is what this essay is about.
The Components of
the State
I contend that the
“local monopoly on legitimate violence” is best broken-down into
three components: 1) monopoly, 2) legitimacy of force, and 3)
territory. More explicitly; 1) monopoly, as well as oligopoly which
is sanctioned, established, protected, enabled, and / or legitimized
by monopoly, 2) apparent and perceived success of legitimation of
domination, and 3) territorial integrity.
The reader may
notice that the word “violence” did not find its way into this
set of components. Here, the word “violence” has been replaced by
“force”, the term Weber used alongside “domination” and
“dominion” to describe organized violence committed by the state
in the enforcement of its rule.
Had Weber mentioned
“aggression” or “coercion” – or had he addressed the
difference between initiatory versus retaliatory use of
physical force – anywhere in “Politics as a Vocation”, then
these concepts would have made it into the set of components. But
rest assured that these concepts shall not remain unaddressed by the
end of this essay.
In terms of
legitimacy – and for the purposes of making clear various
definitions – the differences between force used by the state and
force used by other agencies will gradually become clearer throughout
the essay. For now it shall suffice to know that Weber wrote that
“force is certainly not the normal or the only means of the
state... but force is a means specific to the state”, and also that
“[s]ociologically, the state cannot be defined in terms of its
ends... only in terms of the specific means peculiar to it, as to
every political association[;] namely, the use of physical force”.
Being
that the aforementioned components of the States are just that (i.e.,
components) – rather than types
of States, or types of authority, or anything else – each component
can only be explained in relation to the other two.
That is to say that
we shall next explore: 1) monopoly in regards to the legitimate force
within a given territory, 2) apparent success of legitimation of
force in regards to the local monopoly, and 3) territorial integrity
in regards to the monopoly on legitimate force.
Monopoly and
Enterprise
First,
monopoly in regards to the legitimate force within a given territory.
As stated above,
Barack Obama alluded to Max Weber's definition of the State in an
interview. Said Obama, “I am troubled by the use of private
contractors when it comes to potential armed engagement. ...it
creates some difficult morale issues when... private contractors...
are getting paid ten times what an army private's getting paid for
work that... carries similar risk.. You can't blame [members of our
best-trained special forces] if they can make much more if they're
working for Blackwater than they can working as a master sergeant.
...that I think is a problem.”
He continued, “I
am not arguing that there are never going to be uses for private
contractors in some circumstances. What I am saying is, if you start
building... a military premised on the use of private contractors...
[or] making decisions about armed engagement based on the
availability of private contractors to fill holes in gaps... you are
eroding the core of our military's relationship to the nation and how
accountability is structured; you are privatizing something that is
what essentially sets a nation-State apart, which is a monopoly on
violence...”.
Points
aside about which candidate or political party is right about the
budgetary and military-tactical pros and cons of private versus
public military personnel in regards to military infrastructure and
armed engagement, and about the ramifications of pertinent policy on
the economic well-being of military and private-contractor families;
there is an unexposed underlying assumption in Obama's rhetoric; an
assumption about the relationship between the public and private
sectors.
First off, to
summarize Obama's argument, to privatize the jobs of those whose job
descriptions put them at risk of armed conflict risks dismantling the
structure of accountability in the American military, and undermines
the American nation-state's “(local) monopoly on (legitimate)
violence”.
To confront this
idea head-on, we must resolve to put aside two last things; 1)
whether President Obama believes that only armed physical conflict
(and not practices such as military recruitment of non-combatant
employees from a “reserve army of labor” artificially created
through a series of undue state interventions in the economy, and
implied threats of coercion by armed police officers and bureaucrats
in order to exact taxes and enforce the law) constitutes “violent”
coercion, and 2) by what stretch of the imagination the land of the
nation of Iraq qualifies as “local” in regards to the sphere of
exclusive control of the United States of America.
Getting
back to the issue at hand, the unaddressed underlying assumption in
Obama's rhetoric is that privatization results in decreased
accountability. This is an assumption that describes the dichotomy of
the “unaccountable private tyranny” versus
the accountable, transparent, responsible and responsive public
agency; the republic
(literally,
“thing of the public”).
What Obama and the
consumers of the aforementioned assumption routinely fail to address
is to what degree governments – with the systems of property rights
and the sets of property rights laws that come along with them –
are responsible for establishing, sanctioning, legitimizing,
enabling, and protecting the property rights and other legal rights
of private enterprise (in this example, contractors providing
security privately).
Customers of the
above-explained dichotomy routinely fail to consider that the
individual property owner who is ambitious of becoming an
entrepreneur, is not always an ardent defender and supporter of the
state when it comes to which of them [i.e., the state or the
individual] knows how to best protect and defend the property rights
and other legal rights – and how to best make planning decisions
about the firm – of the ambitious entrepreneurialist.
Those who permit
others to sell them this dichotomy routinely fail to consider the
weight and magnitude of the various burdens and barriers which the
state places on and in front of those seeking to establish a business
and to engage in trade and commerce, in exchange for the “right”
(read: “privilege”) to do so “as they please”.
These burdens and
barriers include, but are not limited to: licensure requirements;
permit requirements; approval processes; quality standards;
examination requirements; unionization requirements; commercial
barriers; bonding regulations; charter agreements; zoning laws; legal
strings attached to inconspicuous subsidization; tariffs; and
statutes, guidelines, and precedents regarding physical and
intellectual private property rights.
All of this is not
to mention extrajudicial personal threats by “rogue” officials
demanding patronage and favors in exchange for “protection” (this
term is typically employed as a euphemism for “not wrecking-up and
pillaging the place too often, and maybe providing a little actual
protection every now and then”).
When such
“protection” is not provided by “rogue” agents and
agencies, and instead through apparently legitimate, judicial avenues
– that is, when the state's organized violence is not so
apparently “disorganized” that it can only be logically referred
to as “organized crime” – the (intended) effect of the
various burdens and barriers involved in starting a legitimate
business and engaging in trade, is to provide actual protections
for all parties involved in the legitimation of the business.
That is, the effect
is to systematically uphold the property rights of the business
owner, in exchange for his fulfillment of various responsibilities to
the consumer, the community, and the state. Hence, this collaboration
between state and business is intended to be a two-way street, with
each serving to keep the other honest, for the benefit of the
remainder of society.
The privileges to
continue to own (or rent) commercial property and to run one's
business in the manner in which one sees fit (within a reasonable
limit) are the “incentives” which the state offers the business
owner in exchange for “co-operating” with the state. However, the
language of “co-operation” is not only used by agents of the
state, but also by the aforementioned “rogue” officials, who use
the term as a euphemism for “capitulation”. The only “incentive”
which the business owner has to uphold his end of the bargain is to
avoid broken bones.
It is extremely
frustrating to keen critics of the state-corporate complex that –
when confronted about offenses perpetrated by ostensibly rogue
officials operating under extrajudicial protection by government
agencies, or by ostensibly unaccountable private tyrannies which have
gone through rigorous government licensing and approval processes –
defenders of the state often dismiss the notion that the state is the
primary cause of such offenses.
However, it must be
made clear that even when the state does not actively cause
such offenses, because the state and its officials openly admit the
desire to seek to monopolize the legitimate use of force in the
administration of the state's rule (going so far as to routinely put
on flagrant displays of force and threats thereof in order to drive
home that it intends to act upon this stated desire), the
state is still responsible for being passive when such
offenses occur.
As Lysander Spooner
put it, “[the Constitution] has either authorized such a government
as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case,
it is unfit to exist.” As I have put it, “privileges are
no less unearned because they are bestowed than because they are
unchecked.”
To put it another
way, the state has the same amount of responsibility to ensure that
police officers and private security contractors follow the various
rules and regulations required of their positions and professions, as
it does to refrain from intervening in the market for security in the
first place.
That is, the state
has zero responsibility to do either, because – as
the state's claim of legitimacy largely rests on its reputation for,
and history of, successfully exerting exclusive sovereign power,
which can be appealed to no one except its own high court –
the state can be neither expected nor trusted to be responsive (i.e.,
responsible) to no one and no thing, save for the contrived
internal logic which it uses to complement its physically-expressed
claims of legitimacy.
In other words,
there is nothing for the state – in its sovereignty and supremacy –
to be responsive and responsible to (save for, ideally and
hypothetically, “the people” over which it wields and exercises
that sovereignty and supremacy).
Returning
to the earlier point about privilege conferred by the state actively
versus
passively,
the consumers and purveyors of the “unaccountable private tyranny
versus
accountable thing of the public” dichotomy fail to address to what
degree the socioeconomic problems of our civil society – e.g.,
unemployment, poverty – are structural.
This
is to say that when these problems are not caused through obviously
active undue regulatory intervention by civic institutions (with
respected and established power to employ and threaten the use of
legitimate physical conflict in the enforcement of their rule), they
are caused through resolution by the state to selectively
“regulate” (which today unfortunately means “enact legislation
regarding”, rather than “keep regular”) certain industries and
areas of public policy.
That
is, the state deliberately
over-regulates in some areas, and deliberately
under-regulates
in others, in order to increase the power and promote the economic
interests of politicians and agencies representing organized capital
and labor. Much to the chagrin of proponents of limited government,
the state is usually able to disguise this broad yet selective
interference as on-the-whole “de-regulation”.
Those who use –
and are themselves used by – the aforementioned dichotomy,
fail to address the impact of the considerable degrees of government
influence over the socioeconomic environments in which private
persons and businesses conduct trade; the distortive impact on the
calculation of prices and costs, supply and demand, the feasibility
of competition, and other factors which would otherwise be determined
through catallaxy (or “market forces”; that is, the emergent
order resulting from the mutual adjustment of many individual
household economies to one-another).
Such distortion is
virtually assured when government has the power to set prices,
and / or to compel persons to purchase some specific good or service,
or type thereof (the individual health insurance purchase mandate of
the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2009 serves as an
obvious and frightening example). The only exception is when
government pricing boards are funded through means other than
coercion, can operate cheaply and without unjustifiable bureaucratic
overhead and costs of transaction, and set prices equal to marginal
costs so as to promote Pareto efficiency, as in forms of Market
Socialism.
All the
requirements and regulations incumbent upon those seeking to engage
in commerce in exchange for permission to “compete” on the “open”
marketplace do not render those who engage in legitimate trade
complicit in empowering an “unaccountable private tyranny”; on
the contrary, they are participants in a partnership between the
public and private interests, both of which are empowered to some
extent and in some manner.
A public-private
partnership (or PPP, or P3) is a collaboration between governmental
agencies which provide public services and one or more private
business ventures. The idea is that, with public permission and
approval, government invests public taxpayer money in such “private”
business ventures, and protects those public funds against risk –
and keeps the companies accountable – by arranging to have the
companies take on the risks of venture themselves.
Of course, our
maturing understanding of crony capitalism as “privatizing the
gains and socializing the losses” would lead us to conclude that
joint ventures between government and private enterprise have not
thus far resulted in a reputation of public-private partnerships as
protecting the public from the ostensibly unpredictable ebb-and-flow
of the financial tides which cause economic insecurity, but rather in
a reputation of exposing taxpayers to needless economic risk, which
is deliberately contrived so as to increase the gains of the
venture capitalists (with further subsidization and bail-outs as
back-ups), as well as of the politicians, political consultants, and
political action committees responsible for drafting the legislation
that leads to the creation of such partnerships. Sadly, there is
little about collusion between government and business which is more
predictable than this.
So whom is at fault
here? Is public government corrupting private enterprise, or is
private enterprise corrupting public government? Whose presence
renders the other unaccountable? Might it be that government and
business are more accountable the more separate they are?
Furthermore, who could have foreseen that government would have so
much influence over commerce (provision of security included)?
In
“Politics as a Vocation”, Max Weber wrote that under the control
of the state, “the right to use physical force is ascribed to other
institutions or to individuals only to the extent to which the state
permits it”. It is in this manner that an established monopoly
(control or ownership by one) enables and legitimizes an oligopoly
(control by the few).
The benefits of
establishing a business which is deemed legitimate in the eyes of the
state notwithstanding, considering the litany of obstacles which must
be overcome in order to establish a legitimate business – and the
fact that private employers and owners of private establishments are
increasingly being held responsible by government to help root out
illegal immigrants [as in private participation in the “E-Verify”
program] and patrons in possession of drugs [as in the “rave”
component of the Amber / R.A.V.E. Act] (that is, to do government's
policing work for it) – there appears to be little reason why
private businesses should not be placed in the set of “other
institutions” which Weber says the State may permit to use physical
force.
This is to say that
under the control of the state, businesses, their employees, and
independent individual actors unaffiliated with any established
businesses, are not to be understood as having a right to use
physical violence unless they have permission from the established
local sovereign to do so. As explained above, where they do not have
explicit permission which is given actively, they have tacit
understanding that government will provide them protection while
pretending to “look the other way”.
The implication of
this is that any firm engaging in trade in a manner which is checked
and legitimized by government in any set of the many manners
enumerated above – that is, any such firm which provides services
involving the use of physical force in the provision of security or
justice – is acting as an agent of the state. As such, such a firm
is (at least potentially, to the degree to which the government is
caring and beneficent) accountable to the public, rather than an
“unaccountable, tyrannical” private organization.
This category –
government-legitimized firms using permitted force to provide
security or justice – potentially encompasses a wide range of
agencies; from the military, police, and bureaucratic agencies of
governments (national and local alike) to private security
contractors such as Blackwater (as well as less “scary” security
businesses, like those which employ security guards at malls and on
the properties of other enterprises). And wider still, as explained
above, when we consider that private business owners are increasingly
doing work normally ascribed to police.
Weber's observation
about the legitimation of force through permission reveals the
potential of conflict between the state and the independent
individual actor seeking to become a private provider of security
(more generally, of any good or service). This conflict is, of
course, intensified when the state and the individual have differing
viewpoints about how to best protect the persons in and property of
the firm, how to make planning decisions for the firm, and whether
all the regulations and requirements of establishing the firm are
necessary and appropriate.
Barriers to trade
and the risk of planning and organizational conflict may even drive
potential entrepreneurs to decide to engage in trade without first
earning a business license and taking the other ostensibly necessary
and appropriate steps. In such a case, the entrepreneur perceives
that the potential economic and/or reputational benefits of operating
without a license outweigh the risks thereof.
Most troublingly to
an agency whose mission statement explicitly includes the
monopolization of the legitimate use of force [i.e., the state], when
the individual deems it necessary to protect himself – and/or deems
it in his economic and/or reputational interest to provide security
to others in exchange for a fee – he will employ physical force in
order to do so, without consulting the state for permission. This
renders his self-defense and his defense of others illegitimate and
unduly exercised in the eyes of the state.
When the individual
or business owner does not obey the state, the disagreement plays out
as conflict, although not always (at least not immediately) through
physical violence; credible threats of violence typically proceed the
use of violence itself. These threats can be as obvious as an officer
saying “don't move or I'll shoot”, as subtle as an officer simply
standing and acting calmly with the intent to use physical force if
it comes to seem necessary and appropriate, or as innocuous as a
president reciting his oath of office to “preserve, protect, and
defend the Constitution...”.
Earlier in this
essay, I resolved not to ask whether Barack Obama believes that only
armed physical conflict should be considered the kind of
state-permitted “violence” alluded to in his gross
oversimplification of Weber's description of what something must
wield in order to be considered a state.
To summarize: as I
have made clear, not only does state-permitted violence include
military combat; but also legislation, adjudication, and
administration of the law; “private” business owners assisting in
police work; and general assent to participate in a controlled system
of trade and property privileges, regardless of whether a business
provides actual physical security or some other good or service
instead.
Above, I have used
the term “firm” to denote agencies engaging in trade; in this
usage, “firm” is not intended to mean solely “businesses” in
the manner in which we perceive them today, but also “governments”,
which engage in trade by providing goods and services to their
citizens in exchange for fees paid through taxes, extracted through
coercive and compulsory methods (as mentioned at the beginning of
this essay, Weber described the state as “a compulsory
association”).
I contend that
governmental firms which garner funding through coercive means are no
less involved in trade and commerce – and, therefore, are
nonetheless “businesses” – than are “private” enterprises
(although this is only true provided that one assigns any “values”,
even symbolic, to freedom and liberty).
The purpose of
describing governments and businesses alike as “firms” qualifying
as among the “other institutions” to which Weber says states
ascribe the legitimate use use physical force, is to introduce a form
of transmission of permission to use legitimate force which is
distinct from that which goes from governments to enterprises;
namely, that which goes from governments to smaller governments.
Monopoly and
Government
In
federalist governments, political power is shared between the
national government and more local governments considered to be at
subnational levels. In the United States, for example, the United
States federal Government in Washington, D.C. Is the central,
national government, and the states are what are called “first-level
(or first-order) administrative divisions (or subdivisions)”.
Federalist
systems which balance the powers of the federal government with the
governments of first-level administrative divisions are “dual
federalist” systems. Federalist systems which balance the powers of
the federal government with the governments of first and
second-level
administrative divisions (in the U.S., county or municipal
governments) are “triple federalist” systems.
In dual and triple
federalism, the power-sharing which is practiced is intended to
afford each participating government a “parallel sovereignty”, or
“co-equal sovereignty”, meaning that power is shared on the
principle that each government is to be sovereign and supreme in only
those spheres of territory and policy matter in which they are
expressly delegated authority to enforce order.
The
Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States reads, “The
powers not delegated to the United States [i.e., the federal
government], nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the
States respectively, or to the people”. The Tenth Amendment is an
expression of dual federalism, and of the need for balance between
the central versus
the more local governments.
But
the Tenth Amendment is not the only part of the U.S. Constitution
which was designed to balance central and local political power;
until the 17th
Amendment was ratified, United States senators were elected by the
legislatures of the states which they represent, rather than directly
through popular elections.
Although
the influence of the state governments on representation in the
federal government has been eroded by the 17th
Amendment, the body of the Senate remains, as does the arrangement of
the electoral college, which is based on the two-body U.S. Congress.
Aside from
balancing power, the intent of the Tenth Amendment is to ensure that
the states are in a position to permit or deny explicit authority and
power to the federal government. Considering that “powers... are
reserved... to the States... or to the people”, it may not be a
stretch to suggest that the Tenth Amendment implies that “the
[American] people” constitute third-level administrative
jurisdictions.
If Weber's theory
that “the right to use physical force is ascribed to other
institutions or to individuals only to the extent to which the state
permits it” holds true, then as long as states grant sufficient
privileges to the people (most importantly, the privilege to use
physical force with legitimate authority), the people truly do
constitute a third level of government, and every man's home is his
castle.
As long as states
grant enough privileges of parenting and of management of the home to
the homeowner, privileges of management of the business to the
entrepreneur, privilege to assist government to arrest immigrants who
work for legitimate businesses and people in possession of drugs who
come onto the private property of businesses serving the public,
privilege to treat any person who comes onto their property as an
intruder without fear of having to pay criminal or civil restitution,
and privilege to conduct citizens' arrests, then everything is in its
proper place.
That is, the
federal and state governments share power, and check one-another's
power, the people govern the states as they are governed by them, all
the people and governments have judged not lest they have consigned
to be judged themselves, human beings and government agencies are on
equal footing in terms of political influence, and all is right and
just about the structures of the federal governments of the world.
However, this is
not the case, at least not in the United States. This is because, for
the most part, individuals are now dominated by local governments,
local governments are dominated by state governments, and state
governments are dominated by national governments.
Additionally, the
notion that the authorization and consent of the individual is
necessary to justify the delegation of legitimate use of physical
force by the collective – and especially the notion that that idea
should be construed to mean that legitimized collective force
“trumps” or “outweighs” the individual right to self-defense
– has been assailed and dismissed.
The remainder of
this essay will appear on this page at a later date.
Originally Written in July 2013
Originally Published on July 20th, 2013
Edited on April 17th, 2019
