That is literally the function of the state and it’s definitely not unique to capitalism or America. A state is a mechanism for controlling the application of violence, laws are threats of violence used to create a society. In an ideal government, the state would only wield violence to fairly help maintain the overall safety and justice of its constituents and would have mechanisms of control to make sure the minimum possible violence is used for the best and most just purposes. Violence outside of that would be potentially dangerous vigilantism. America IN ABSOLUTE THEORY is set up like that (or at least meant to appear like that), in practice it has always fallen varying degrees of extremely short of that, but it exists nonetheless to provide some attempt at control to completely unregulated might makes right use of violence.
In an ideal government, the state would only wield violence to fairly help maintain the overall safety and justice of its constituents and would have mechanisms of control to make sure the minimum possible violence is used for the best and most just purposes.
My favorite Karl Marx quote:
“freedom consists in converting the state from an organ superimposed upon society into one completely subordinate to it.”
A state that is completely subordinate to society would still have a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence, but society itself would decide how the state exercises that monopoly.
Violence outside of that would be potentially dangerous vigilantism.
Maybe the best description of US foreign policy I’ve ever seen.
That is literally the function of the state and it’s definitely not unique to capitalism or America. A state is a mechanism for controlling the application of violence, laws are threats of violence used to create a society. In an ideal government, the state would only wield violence to fairly help maintain the overall safety and justice of its constituents and would have mechanisms of control to make sure the minimum possible violence is used for the best and most just purposes. Violence outside of that would be potentially dangerous vigilantism. America IN ABSOLUTE THEORY is set up like that (or at least meant to appear like that), in practice it has always fallen varying degrees of extremely short of that, but it exists nonetheless to provide some attempt at control to completely unregulated might makes right use of violence.
My favorite Karl Marx quote:
“freedom consists in converting the state from an organ superimposed upon society into one completely subordinate to it.”
A state that is completely subordinate to society would still have a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence, but society itself would decide how the state exercises that monopoly.
Maybe the best description of US foreign policy I’ve ever seen.
Precisely yes