4 ms·

What's so vital about a state that people can't do on their own? What does a state magically accomplish that no one else can?

• dragonwriter 13y ago
  > What's so vital about a state that people can't do on their own? A state is just a name for people accomplishing certain things on their own; its not actually a real thing with independent existence.
• nostrademons 13y ago
  Freedom from having people try to kill you on a regular basis. Your argument is that it is unethical for someone to use force to compel someone to do something against there will, right? Well, that works great as long as everyone shares your ethical views. Unfortunately, not everyone does, and there are people in this world who would happily kill you and take all your property if they could. It doesn't even have to be all that many people - if just 0.1% of the population believes "might makes right" and you come in contact with >1000 people, you're probably dead. The reason we have the state is so that we can realize certain economies of scale in protection. We entrust a monopoly on the use of physical force to the state; in return (in lawful democratic regimes), it agrees to use that force only when just. That way we can trust that we can go about our business without being randomly killed by a dude on the street, because they know that they are in for a world of hurt if they kill someone. There have been times (eg. the Wild Wild West in America, or post-Gorbachev looting & unrest in the Soviet Union) where the state has not had that monopoly on force, and it usually ends up being very difficult to conduct business during those times.