the.com/state power
the only violence with a permit, and everyone agreed to pretend that's fine.
means the legitimate authority a government holds to make laws, tax, police, and use force within its territory.
from weber's 1919 lecture politics as a vocation defined the state as the entity claiming a monopoly on legitimate violence within a territory, a line that still anchors political theory a century later.
weber's definitionlegitimacy, not force alone, defines it
social contractcitizens trade some freedom for order
soft versionnudges, not just handcuffs, count too
contested edgesmilitias and cartels blur the monopoly
for instance
china's social credit — state ranks citizen behavior, restricts travel since 2014 pilots
internal revenue service — can garnish wages and seize assets without a jury trial