There's much else, of couse, to consider, and this includes pointing out omissions and issues with the definition.

Legitimacy in general cannot be merely asserted but is conferred, though not always willingly or consciously. Warlords and tyrants are conferred power through threats of or actual violence. Democracies and republics through will of the people expressed through votes. Theocracies based on the interplay of beliefs, rituals, and often, coercion, convincing, voting, or affirmation. Family and tribal units through birth or marriage into, tradition, and often simple acceptance. Sortition systems are based on chance, practice, and assent to both.

There's also the questions of what governments do, to what ends, by what means, how consistently or coherently, and with what effect, which go beyond Weber's definition. But he does establish the basis on which this occurs.

And of course, the mechanisms and consequences of loss or transfer of legitimacy, monopoly, or capacity to impose will.

#MonopolyOnLegitimacy #government #MaxWeber

Max Weber defined government, in a much misinterpreted prase, as "the only human community which lays claim to the monopoly on the legitimated use of physical force". ALL TERMMS ARE SIGNIFICANT. Far too many readers focus on "use of physical force", but any playground bully, mean drunk, or capricious idiot can use violence. Government requires legitimacy, typically only bequeathed by the governed, and a monopoly on that legitimacy, meaning no other agent can make a countering claim within a given region.

The definition is reflexive and tautological:

• An entity with a monopoly on the legitimate use of force is a government or state, regardless of what it calls itself.
• A region with no monopoly on legitimacy is ungoverned.
• An entity lacking legitimacy, regardless of what it calls itself, is not a government.

Rather than casting this as a monopoly on force, it's far more useful to consider this a monopoly on legitimacy.

The model is, as all models are, wrong. But it is, as some models are, also useful, in two principle ways.

One is that it provides a useful lens through which to consider govenment, governance, and polity, stripped of most ideological or structural biases. We can ask how, or whether, a democracy, personality cult, autonomous collective, theocracy, dictatorship, representational republic, monarchy, company town, oligarchy, or other forms have legitimacy and/or monopoly over use of force.

The other is that in being so widely misquoted, misinterpreted, and misrepresented, it is a highly useful bullshit filter for identifying those who are either ignorant of what they speak, or are intentionally attempting to mislead, in discussions of governance.

This includes virtually all Rothbardian/Randian/Misian Libertarians and their "nonaggression principle", notably Charles Koch and Penn Gilette, both of whom explicitly cite this as the foundation of their belief. From a false premise all that follows is false.

#MaxWeber #government #MonopolyOnViolence #MonopolyOnLegitimacy #libertarianism #nap