Violent aggression per se (carrying around a big club and using it to bonk anyone who put up resistance) hasn’t worked in quite a while. These days it’s more about propaganda.
Also that monopoly has been somewhat eliminated with the increasing development of technology that allows for killing without consequences. Drones, rigged explosives, remote detonation, incendiary devices, autonomous firearms, so on. (Developments of improvised firearms, explosives, and incendiary devices with common materials has also contributed to this, along with DIY drone construction).
At this point the correcting factor is if a state is able to control the collective perception or will of a population to a point where pacification is possible (China or UK’s surveillance states, for instance). But that is not a viable long term solution due to it simply bottling the frustrations of the populace rather than extinguishing them.
After all, in JFK’s famous words, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable”. With ideas able to be spread anywhere, no ideal can be stamped out for good, on any segment of the ideological spectrum.
Sucks for those who wish for a cooperative world, I suppose.
Based on your first couple of sentences, I feel like you don’t understand what the concept of the government possessing the monopoly on violence means… Like, in terms of that role socially (as in, for society) itself, or in practical terms. I’m particularly confused by you seeming to assert that technological advancement somehow had altered/was altering this… Governments have used - and I’m sure will continue to use - all of the things you mentioned and a great many more to maintain their monopoly of violence. It isn’t an actual office somewhere or anything technology can necessarily supplant, it’s more of a social construct/contract
Violent aggression per se (carrying around a big club and using it to bonk anyone who put up resistance) hasn’t worked in quite a while. These days it’s more about propaganda.
Isn’t that arguably only because modern governments maintain a “monopoly on violence,” essentially?
Also that monopoly has been somewhat eliminated with the increasing development of technology that allows for killing without consequences. Drones, rigged explosives, remote detonation, incendiary devices, autonomous firearms, so on. (Developments of improvised firearms, explosives, and incendiary devices with common materials has also contributed to this, along with DIY drone construction).
At this point the correcting factor is if a state is able to control the collective perception or will of a population to a point where pacification is possible (China or UK’s surveillance states, for instance). But that is not a viable long term solution due to it simply bottling the frustrations of the populace rather than extinguishing them.
After all, in JFK’s famous words, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable”. With ideas able to be spread anywhere, no ideal can be stamped out for good, on any segment of the ideological spectrum.
Sucks for those who wish for a cooperative world, I suppose.
Based on your first couple of sentences, I feel like you don’t understand what the concept of the government possessing the monopoly on violence means… Like, in terms of that role socially (as in, for society) itself, or in practical terms. I’m particularly confused by you seeming to assert that technological advancement somehow had altered/was altering this… Governments have used - and I’m sure will continue to use - all of the things you mentioned and a great many more to maintain their monopoly of violence. It isn’t an actual office somewhere or anything technology can necessarily supplant, it’s more of a social construct/contract
It still works quite well, but it has been complemented by economic violence
It still works fine if you have a big enough cult behind you.