The state’s raison d’être is security against the natural equality of potential murderers

Evidence

There is a fourth institutional dimension to be distinguished: control of the means of violence. Military power was always a central feature of pre-modern civilisations. Yet in those civilisations the political centre was never able for long to secure stable military support and typically fell short of securing a monopoly control of the means of violence within its territories. The military strength of the ruling authorities depended upon alliances with local princes or warlords, who were always liable either to break away from or directly to challenge the ruling groups. The successful monopoly of the means of violence within territorially precise borders is distinctive to the modern state. So also is the existence of specific links to industrialism, permeating both the organisation of the military and the weaponry at their disposal. The “industrialisation of war” radically changes the character of warfare, ushering in an era of “total war” and later the nuclear age. — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 155 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Monopoly of violence within precise borders is distinctive to the modern state — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 155

Related

• Monopoly of violence within precise borders is distinctive to the modern state (similarity 0.83)
• A modern state is an institutionalized division of political labor (similarity 0.81)
• Equality as potential murderers underwrites the need for the state (similarity 0.80)
• State-led reform and national wars dominate the formation of modern states (similarity 0.80)
• Agrarian states never achieved the internal pacification of modern states (similarity 0.79)
• Modern civilization centralizes rather than abolishes violence (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Monopoly of violence within precise borders is distinctive to the modern state #expands (0.80) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 155