Audible Anarchism What Is the State Violence, Power & the System Explained (Part 12)
Mar 21, 2026
A brisk tour of how states claim legitimate violence and build bureaucratic reach. It connects state power with capital and ideology, tracing the shift from clan-based societies to centralized taxation and enclosures. The narrative highlights policing, prisons, armies and surveillance as intertwined tools of control. It also examines counterterror laws, the war economy and quiet coercions like raids and deportations.
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State As Persistent Monopoly Of Legitimate Violence
- The state is a persistent structure claiming monopoly on legitimate violence, not just whichever party governs.
- It enforces this through police, prisons, armies, borders, bureaucracy and ideology like nationalism and passports.
Agriculture Enabled Centralised Coercion
- Early states emerged with agriculture, storing surplus and enabling taxation and centralized coercion.
- Irrigation, grain storage and tribute turned chiefs into kings who built armies and extracted labour.
Norman Conquest And Enclosure Example
- The Norman Conquest centralized rule via land seizure and the Domesday Book to catalogue resources for tax and control.
- Enclosure later fenced commons into property enforced by law, dispossessing peasants.