• Stovetop@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Isn’t the whole purpose of a state to have a monopoly on violence? Order is established when noncompliance results in pain, imprisonment, or death.

      • Stovetop@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Order in the sense of self-preservation (on the part of the state). The ideological state apparatus reproduces its power through institutions like schools and police, which enforce a degree of compliance in the population that prevents the state’s authority from being too severely circumvented.

        The consequences of noncompliance are varied and range from social status to economic pressure to life expectancy, but the highest degree of power that the state wields is the ability to punish or eliminate those determined to be a threat through a monopoly of violence.