A Monopoly on Violence

Why do we have a state?

Ask this of any relatively normal person and they’ll respond like a fish being asked why it needs water.

When I had hair that hid ideas stupider than your average Greens voter, I got my first taste of libertarianism. It happened when the only based political science tutor at my uni began the class by asking: “why do we pay for roads?”

Well, you just have to. Like, they’re roads. You can’t like, not pay for them. The crème de la crème of my generation’s intellectual cohort, right there.

Though some of those in attendance went on to become professional activists and/or inner-city baristas (perhaps both), I genuinely thought: why do we as the state pay for anything?

American political scientist and economist Mancur Olson explained in his paper Dictatorship, Democracy, and Development “Government for groups larger than tribes normally arises, not because of social contracts or voluntary transactions of any kind, but rather because of rational self-interest among those who can organise the greatest capacity for violence.” (italics mine.)

If you can organise the greatest capacity – or better yet, a monopoly – on violence, you can enforce laws. If one breaks those laws, the state can use the violence to prevent further harm to others. It can also levy the violence on its populace to pay for roads and stuff, and to enforce contracts.

This all seems axiomatic: use the state’s monopoly on violence to affect the conditions for the population to prosper. It’s a fundamental principle that any freedom-abiding person can agree on. But what happens when it is taught that it’s not only just, but fair, to use the state’s monopoly on violence to steal from its populace?

Unacknowledged British political economist and part-time singer Dave Gahan takes Olson’s theory further: “the grabbing hands, grab all they can, all for themselves, after all… it’s a competitive world.”

For most of us, we hope to pursue happiness, personal prosperity and security while the state protects our property and contracts. It’s a barebones safety net for taking risks and innovating. For the modern Left, the state is the conduit through which wealth is accumulated, by expropriating capital created in a marketplace and funnelling it back towards itself. In the Left’s view, violence to enact such policies is not only just, but fair. The justification is that it’s correcting historical injustices, imbalances in living conditions, wealth inequalities, etc, etc.

However, it’s plain to see that the CEO of the government department combatting homelessness is living much better than the people they’re supposedly “helping.” Everyone wants to get ahead, and the Left do it through politicking. Leaders such as Anthony Albanese and Dan Andrews have done well for themselves as mere “public servants”, as beneficiaries and arbiters of the state’s monopoly on violence. It’s enriching oneself through state-sanctioned stealing instead of providing something of value in a marketplace.

The Left’s political obsession with envying those who have provided value to a lot of people is embedded in their “philosophy.” The Left is consumed by hatred of success in a free market, hatred of the “oppressor” class, hatred of traditional institutions that safeguard our liberties and society.

The movement is perpetuated solely to guarantee the enrichment of a small privileged ruling class. Always was, always will be.

To achieve such ends, it’s spurred on by anger – stoking fear, producing anxiety (e.g. climate change), fomenting hate, spreading (economic) misery, and showing remorse for not going far enough. Their program targets the lizard brain, hooks into emotion and latches on for dear life.

It’s this monopoly on hate and envy that fuelled the Labor party’s incredible steamrolling of the Liberals. Free stuff? Sure, as long as it’s taken from greedy plutocrats. In exchange for my personal liberty? If I get Netflix and Uber Eats, I swear I won’t complain too loudly. The risk of doing nothing is far lower than the risk of doing something productive.

At a fundamental level, nothing good can come of such a negative society. A government using its monopoly on violence to prevent further violence, keep out the bandits, and inspire an optimism for the future is the one that should win the day.

Otherwise, history may well rhyme as masses cry out for a tyrant to “set things to rights”, home grown in a toxic soil fed on violence, envy, and hate.