# Does the state have a monopoly on violence? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 21, 2025, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-state-have-a-monopoly-on-violence/1024175 "2025-10-21T21:11:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2025, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-state-have-a-monopoly-on-violence/1024175/1 "2025-10-21T21:11:23Z")
Continuing the discussion from [Red button or blue button dilemma](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-button-or-blue-button-dilemma/1024041/294): > [@Red button or blue button dilemma](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-button-or-blue-button-dilemma/1024041/294): > > > [@Red button or blue button dilemma](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-button-or-blue-button-dilemma/1024041/291): > > > > > [@Red button or blue button dilemma](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-button-or-blue-button-dilemma/1024041/283): > > > > > > And the only reason we have a functioning civilization is because there is indeed a state monopoly on violence… > > > > I do not understand this sentence. Unless I’m mis-understanding, it seems the opposite is true. > > Have you never heard the term “state [monopoly on violence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence)”? The [state](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_(polity)) (in the form of law enforcement officers) is the only entity permitted to employ violence to keep the peace. > > Indeed, per the Widpedia article, [Max Weber](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Weber) in his essay _[Politics as a Vocation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_as_a_Vocation)_ (1919) stated that the monopoly on violence is the defining conception of the state. > > If I have a dispute with my neighbor, I can’t legally use violence to resolve the dispute. That includes family feuds and duels. > > If you lose the state, you lose this check, and you lose civilization. That’s why after the Roman Empire collapsed, Western Europe devolved into a bunch of warring tribes. > [@Red button or blue button dilemma](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-button-or-blue-button-dilemma/1024041/299): > > > [@Red button or blue button dilemma](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-button-or-blue-button-dilemma/1024041/283): > > > > the only reason we have a functioning civilization is because there is indeed a state monopoly on violence. > > Isn’t that straight out of Thomas Hobbes’s _Leviathan_? That only the iron first of authoritarian government keeps the savages in check? And wasn’t the entire Enlightenment philosophy of the American Founders dedicated to refuting Hobbes, that liberty didn’t mean anarchy and savagery? In discussions in multiple gun control threads I have had occasion to remark that gun control advocates seem to be more afraid of their fellow man than they are of overweening potentially tyrannical government; this seems to exemplify that mindset. > > **ETA** : and no, the state does NOT have a monopoly on legitimate violence. People retain a right to lawful self-defense. The state does reflect the consensus of society on what violence is lawful, but not that its agents are an elite caste with the sole privilege of administering it. > [@Red button or blue button dilemma](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-button-or-blue-button-dilemma/1024041/300): > > > [@Red button or blue button dilemma](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-button-or-blue-button-dilemma/1024041/299): > > > > Isn’t that straight out of Thomas Hobbes’s _Leviathan_? > > According to the [Wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence) I linked to that nobody has apparently clicked on yet, yes, along with an earlier work by the “French jurist and political philosopher [Jean Bodin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Bodin)” in his 1576 work _[Les Six livres de la République](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Six_livres_de_la_R%C3%A9publique)_. Only the state can legally use “coercive means such as incarceration, expropriation,…and death threats to obtain the population’s compliance with its rule and thus maintain order. However, this monopoly is limited to a certain geographical area, and in fact this limitation to a particular area is one of the things that defines a state. In other words, Weber describes the state as any organization that succeeds in holding the exclusive right to use, threaten, or authorize physical force against residents of its territory.” Lawful self-defense is only permitted in any jurisdiction that I am aware of to the extent that it stops another person from unlawfully committing violence against oneself or others. People are not allowed to proactively commit violence or use it as a means to settle a dispute. And it seems indisputable that the state can legally employ violence and physical force against me, but I cannot do the same to others, much less agents of the state itself. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2025, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-state-have-a-monopoly-on-violence/1024175/2 "2025-10-21T21:41:22Z")
I agree (qualifiedly, as I am still thinking about it, but probably) with your closing paragraphs. And that is precisely the reason why, in a country that is devoted to the principles that this country was supposed to be founded on, there must be very strong checks on that power – rights of review, for example, where overuse of that power can be retroactively punished and corrected for the future. The ideal is that citizens do not need to be afraid of other citizens, as they are protected by these powers of the government, and that citizens do not need to be afraid of their government because of the effectiveness of those checks. As countries go, the US has proven rather more lacking in the strength of those checks than many of us had supposed. Many of them seem now to have rested on the strength of custom and habit, which in the event have not stood up entirely well to assaults that ignore custom and habit. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2025, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-state-have-a-monopoly-on-violence/1024175/3 "2025-10-21T21:46:17Z")
> [@Red button or blue button dilemma](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-button-or-blue-button-dilemma/1024041/299): > > , the state does NOT have a monopoly on legitimate violence. People retain a right to lawful self-defense Technically that’s an exception. But I would argue how strongly regulated and restricted the right to self defense is an indication of how jealously the state monopoly of violence is protected. You _only_ have the right to protect you and the people around you’s immediately personal safety. If you start using violence like an agent of the state, the state will shut that down sharpish ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2025, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-state-have-a-monopoly-on-violence/1024175/4 "2025-10-21T21:48:54Z")
> [@Red button or blue button dilemma](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-button-or-blue-button-dilemma/1024041/294): > > Have you never heard the term “state [monopoly on violence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence)”? The [state](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_(polity)) (in the form of law enforcement officers) is the only entity permitted to employ violence to keep the peace. I think that is using the term “violence” to strongly. The state keeps the peace through laws and courts and possibly the _threat_ of violence. When I think of Monopoly of Violence, I think of the Third Reich, Secret Police (The Gestapo), Nazis and Jackboots. American government is a bit more benign. And yes, I see the definition you’ve linked to but I still think it’s too strongly stated. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2025, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-state-have-a-monopoly-on-violence/1024175/5 "2025-10-21T22:03:08Z")
> [@Lucas\_Jackson](#): > > And yes, I see the definition you’ve linked to but I still think it’s too strongly stated. Granted, the article I linked to also describes the concept as the state’s “**monopoly on the legal use of [physical] force**”, and goes on to extend the concept to the threat of physical force and other means of coercion, such as incarceration. But whether we are talking about physical force, violence, the threat to commit violence, or incarceration, only the state can legally employ any of these. And yes, there are laws that will hopefully keep the state in check, but enforcement of those laws are up to the chief law enforcement officer of the state and the courts. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2025, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-state-have-a-monopoly-on-violence/1024175/6 "2025-10-21T22:07:29Z")
One point of view is that the state has a monopoly of force against its citizen, which calls to mind dystopian societies. But another point of view is l’Etat c’est nous. We, the individuals in the society, have made the state our sole instrument for using force. We prefer this to a system where anybody can feel they have the right to choose, as an individual, to use force. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2025, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-state-have-a-monopoly-on-violence/1024175/7 "2025-10-21T22:18:58Z")
By the way, somehow I lost all of the attribution tags for everyone (including myself) who was quoted in my first post when I linked from the other thread. This looks like a Discourse bug to me. At the least the avatars are all shown, and the links point to the correct posts in the other thread. But I apologize anyway to the quoted posters @Lucas_Jackson and @Lumpy for any possible confusion due to the lack of attribution. ---
**Author:** ![We\_re\_wolves\_not\_werewolves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@We\_re\_wolves\_not\_werewolves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/We_re_wolves_not_werewolves)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2025, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-state-have-a-monopoly-on-violence/1024175/8 "2025-10-21T22:24:11Z")
> [@robby](#): > > And it seems indisputable that the state can legally employ violence and physical force against me yes, but keep in mind that is not an unqualified right. It must be a legitimate use of force, not random government firing squads indiscriminately shooting at people in the neighborhood. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2025, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-state-have-a-monopoly-on-violence/1024175/9 "2025-10-21T22:33:24Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > One point of view is that the state has a monopoly of force against its citizen, which calls to mind dystopian societies. > > But another point of view is l’Etat c’est nous. We, the individuals in the society, have made the state our sole instrument for using force. We prefer this to a system where anybody can feel they have the right to choose, as an individual, to use force. Totally agree. Despite the rather disconcerting name, the so-called state monopoly on violence is actually a good thing, as it precludes violence by lawless non-state actors to enforce their will. > [@We\_re\_wolves\_not\_werewolves](#): > > yes, but keep in mind that is not an unqualified right. It must be a legitimate use of force, not random government firing squads indiscriminately shooting at people in the neighborhood. Indeed. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2025, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-state-have-a-monopoly-on-violence/1024175/10 "2025-10-21T22:44:02Z")
> [@Red button or blue button dilemma](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-button-or-blue-button-dilemma/1024041/299): > > …The state does reflect the consensus of society on what violence is lawful, but not that its agents are an elite caste with the sole privilege of administering it. This is pretty much indeed the case, though, which is why it is so important for there to be laws limiting how law enforcement officers can administer violence or the use of force. With that said, our federal courts have ruled that if a law enforcement officer is arresting me, I am powerless to defend myself or resist in any way. And if the officer feels that I am threatening him (or her) in any way, they can employ deadly force against me. I actually have a problem with much of this, because I think the pendulum has shifted much too far in the direction of law enforcement officers employing deadly force when it is not necessary or warranted. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2025, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-state-have-a-monopoly-on-violence/1024175/11 "2025-10-22T00:00:57Z")
What I’d say is that “state has a monopoly on violence” is an idiomatic buzz-phrase. As such, it was chosen because it trips off the tongue, but the books behind the idea contain chapter and verse about a lot of details that are unsaid in the magic phrase itself. Proceeding from general to specific. … IMO here’s what Hobbes & subsequent philosophers really meant. As they explained over several hundred pages of dense 1600-1900 era prose. 1. The state has a monopoly on violence employed for the public good. The general public has no right to violence contrary to that. 2. A narrow right to defense of self, others, and some property, as against your fellow citizens, is not a violation of Rule 1. If you need to exercise self-defense, somebody else is already violating Rule 1 towards you, invites the state to legitimately crush them, and meanwhile you’re allowed to respond in proportional kind until the state arrives to take control of _all_ the situational violence. 3. The definition of “public good” in Rule 1 varies between a (possibly benign) despotism, aggressive Fascism, and modern pluralistic democracy. To the degree the state fails to advance the public good, the citizenry retain the right of individual anti-state violence. But beware that that way lies anarchy, warlordism, disease, pestilence, and all the rest. Choose wisely. Anarchy and warlordism can be far harder to live under than are some forms of despotism (e.g. Somalia vs. Türkiye). Likewise harder to recover from. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2025, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-state-have-a-monopoly-on-violence/1024175/12 "2025-10-22T01:03:09Z")
Right. Self-defense is a sort of delegation of that monopoly. There are places in the world where the right to use violence in self-defense is very curtailed compared to most states, and that’s because the states and those other countries choose it to be so. The US is an outlier in that there’s a sort of explicit nod toward the People as the ultimate source of the US government’s legitimacy, in the Second Amendment’s recognition of the right to retain the tools for that violence. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2025, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-state-have-a-monopoly-on-violence/1024175/13 "2025-10-22T01:07:36Z")
> [@robby](#): > > With that said, our federal courts have ruled that if a law enforcement officer is arresting me, I am powerless to defend myself or resist in any way. And if the officer feels that I am threatening him (or her) in any way, they can employ deadly force against me. > > I actually have a problem with much of this, because I think the pendulum has shifted much too far in the direction of law enforcement officers employing deadly force when it is not necessary or warranted. > **[Qualified immunity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_immunity)** > > In the United States, qualified immunity is a legal principle of federal law that grants government officials performing discretionary (optional) functions immunity from lawsuits for damages unless the plaintiff shows that the official violated "clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known". It is comparable to sovereign immunity, though it protects government employees rather than the government itself. It is less strict than absolute i Th... Also, I think the Declaration of Independence says a few things pertinent to this debate: > We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. I believe that even Hobbes conceded that a government that would not or could not fulfill the overarching justification for its existence– protecting people from violent death– would have forfeited its legitimacy. ---
**Author:** ![UDS1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e47774/32.png) [@UDS1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS1)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2025, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-state-have-a-monopoly-on-violence/1024175/14 "2025-10-22T01:35:52Z")
> [@robby](#): > > I actually have a problem with much of this, because I think the pendulum has shifted much too far in the direction of law enforcement officers employing deadly force when it is not necessary or warranted. Sure. The principle that the state has a monopoly on violence does not come with any guarantee that the state will use its monopoly justly or wisely. Which is why it’s important to develop and mantain a strong legal and political culture of the rule of law and of respect for fundamental rights. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2025, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-state-have-a-monopoly-on-violence/1024175/15 "2025-10-22T01:53:46Z")
How exactly is that done if the state and its actors decide that they don’t want or need to respect the rule of law or fundamental rights? Or perhaps more pertinently, what if they take the attitude of “uphold government first, rights second”? Or flatly deny that abuses in fact constitute violations of the rule of law or rights? Governments are really big on in essence saying “Shut up and do what you’re told”. And backing that up with violence. ---
**Author:** ![UDS1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e47774/32.png) [@UDS1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS1)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2025, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-state-have-a-monopoly-on-violence/1024175/16 "2025-10-22T02:44:36Z")
Let me put it another way: the state has a monopoly on violence _whether or not it is a_ _liberal and democratic state_. And the fact that the state has a monopoly on violence is the most compelling reason why you should want it to be liberal and democratic. We don’t have a choice about whether the state has a monopoly on violence; that’s pretty much a defining characteristic of the state. A state that doesn’t have a monopoly on violence is, at best, what we nowadays call a failed state. If we have a functioning state at all, it’s going to have a monopoly of violence; the only thing we can hope to influence is whether it’s a liberal democracy. How exactly do we ensure that the state is liberal and democratic? It’s not easy, as evidenced by the fact that many societies have never developed a liberal, democratic state, and some societies which have liberal, democratic states lose them. On the encouraging side, the long term trend in the modern era has favoured liberal democracy. At the turn of the last century perhaps 10% of the world’s states could be described as liberal democracies; to day, it’s more like 45-50%. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2025, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-state-have-a-monopoly-on-violence/1024175/17 "2025-10-22T02:55:00Z")
> [@UDS1](#): > > We don’t have a choice about whether the state has a monopoly on violence; Don’t we? At least in legal theory as an ideal (practice of course was always more statist), the American Founders seemed to think differently. At least to the extent they claimed to take this whole armed populace thing seriously. Certainly they were NOT Hobbesians. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2025, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-state-have-a-monopoly-on-violence/1024175/18 "2025-10-22T03:30:05Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > > [@UDS1](#): > > > > We don’t have a choice about whether the state has a monopoly on violence; > > Don’t we? At least in legal theory as an ideal (practice of course was always more statist…) Indeed. Literally every time U.S. citizens have taken up arms against what they perceive to be the tyranny of the federal government—going back to the Whiskey Rebellion in the 1790s—it has been treated as an insurrection and put down by force by the government. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2025, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-state-have-a-monopoly-on-violence/1024175/19 "2025-10-22T03:54:59Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > How exactly is that done if the state and its actors decide that they don’t want or need to respect the rule of law or fundamental rights? Or perhaps more pertinently, what if they take the attitude of “uphold government first, rights second”? Or flatly deny that abuses in fact constitute violations of the rule of law or rights? Governments are really big on in essence saying “Shut up and do what you’re told”. And backing that up with violence. There is a solution to that problem but I hope we don’t reach that point. A government is only able to maintain its monopoly on violence to the extent that the people in that society are in general accord with the government. A government that is no longer seen as legitimate by its people will find that the people are willing to use violence against the government and its agents. ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2025, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-state-have-a-monopoly-on-violence/1024175/20 "2025-10-22T03:57:12Z")
I see the state monopoly on violence as something closer to a bug than a feature. Ideally, the state would do its utmost to avoid violence, and yet too often “the state has a monopoly on violence” gets touted as a justification of the states use of violence rather than an explanation of why the state’s violence is so often tolerated when maybe it shouldn’t be. It also gets used as a justification in the international context, for invasion and occupation of “states” (such as they may be)that are unable to maintain that monopoly. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-state-have-a-monopoly-on-violence/1024175.md?page=2)