Eric Schliesser — A note on Weber's famous definition

The state is the form a human community that (successfully) lays claim to the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical violence within a given territory. --- Max Weber, "Politics as Vocation," (33), translated Rodney Livingstone.

In context, Weber claims that the monopoly is a consequence of a historical process in which intermediary powers and institutions lose their capability for independent use of physical violence. He leaves it a bit ambiguous if it is appropriate to call earlier 'states,' which lacked the monopoly, 'states' or if the use of 'state' has shifted (and that his definition is, thus, context specific). While the idea of a monopoly of physical violence arguably goes back to Bodin or Hobbes, I suspect Weber is the first to use the economic language; this is no coincidence. Throughout the famous lecture, Weber treats the corporation and the state as analogies (in the way that Hobbes uses the family as the relevant analogy for the state). Weber does not address the question why such a political monopoly is a good thing....

Digressions&Impressions
A note on Weber's famous definition
Eric Schliesser | Professor of Political Science, University of Amsterdam’s (UvA) Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences

See also

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1. Persian Empire
2. Roman Empire
3. Mongol Empire
4. Caliphate
5. British Empire

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The National Interest
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