Legitimate authority is right fused with force, making coercion redeemable rather than eliminable.

Evidence

The state is necessarily an instrument of coercion. It exists to protect us, vigilantly, forcibly. The state is the collectivized embodiment of every individual’s fund of physical force. Enforcement is the corollary of law, and the rule of law is empty without penalties. Indeed, for Locke, the majesty of the state is encapsulated in its right to take our life, whether in capital punishment, or in sending us to die in war. Locke’s conception of justice is punitive. Those who exercise just power have the right to visit retribution on the unjust, on violators. Authority is right armed with power—or power infused with right. The philosophy of right, therefore, has the task of redeeming coercion. — , Second Treatise of Government and A…, 19

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that the state’s majesty lives in its right to kill cuts against both libertarian and pacifist readings of liberal theory.
• SHARE: Perfect for the friend who reads liberalism as anti-state — Locke says the state is the collectivized embodiment of everyone’s force.
• XREF: connects to: Genuine authority and freedom are mutually dependent, not opposed — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 572; Legal validity derives from normative authority, not from physical power alone. — Ronald M. Dworkin, The Model of Rules, 48; Authority presupposes freedom in those subjected to it — Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simmel, 4948 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Hegemony works by winning consent backed by coercion, not by force alone. #corroborates (1.00) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 905
• Realist power theory usually justifies coercion by its practical services. #corroborates (1.00) — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 1130
• Authority presupposes freedom in those subjected to it #expands (0.95) — Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simmel, 4948
• Gaining freedom paradoxically requires relinquishing some autonomy to rules. #expands (0.95)
• Power creates freedom, not the other way around. #complicates (0.95) — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 273
• Genuine authority and freedom are mutually dependent, not opposed #qualifies (0.90) — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 572
• Coercion must increasingly disguise itself as improvement to sustain power #complicates (0.90)
• Severing law from embodied moral tradition makes state force its sole authority #expands (0.85) — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 1155
• Enjoining good legitimates force more readily than da’wa does. #qualifies (0.85)
• Legal validity derives from normative authority, not from physical power alone. #complicates (0.80) — Ronald M. Dworkin, The Model of Rules, 48