I agree with the dictionary definition: "the political direction and control exercised over the actions of the members, citizens, or inhabitants of communities, societies, and states; direction of the affairs of a state, community, etc.; political administration: Government is necessary to the existence of civilized society".
Weak. So's oxygen necessary to the existence of a civilized society. Furthermore, cities are not a necessary part of the definition; nomadic societies can also have governments. Here's Wikipedia on Max Weber: "In another major work, Politics as a Vocation, Weber defined the state as an entity which successfully claims a 'monopoly on the legitimate use of violence'."
The above definition applies both to iran and north korea and to sweden and switzerland, and adds a hell of alot more detail than "the biggest dealer in interpersonal violence". What you gave was a description of one aspect of government, while leaving out the vital functions they perform..
Or don't. They'd still be governments if they did not.
...and I don't think i'm stretching very far to say that you did so in order to spin government as purely an instrument of violence because doing so advances your political agenda.
Yes. Thinking clearly advances my agenda.
After the fall of the Soviet State the British poet and historian of that State wrote that the West has incompletely learned two important lessons: the limits to the amount of good which organized violence (the State) can accomplish and the stultifying effects of bureaucracy, public or private.
So if we stretch "corporation" to cover everything, governments are legally corporations. I imagine we can find a definition that says turtles are legally corporations, but that doesn't make them the same thing.
Doubt that you could find any accepted dictionary that defined turtles as corporations. As I said, the legal advisor to the City and County of Honolulu is called the "Corporation Counsel". Here's Merriam Webster Online on "corporation":
Definition of CORPORATION
1a : a group of merchants or traders united in a trade guild b : the municipal authorities of a town or city
2: a body formed and authorized by law to act as a single person although constituted by one or more persons and legally endowed with various rights and duties including the capacity of succession
3: an association of employers and employees in a basic industry or of members of a profession organized as an organ of political representation in a corporative state.
Here's Wikipedia on "incorporated town":
An incorporated town in the United States is an incorporated municipality, that is, one with a charter received from the state, similar to a city. An incorporated town will have elected officials, as differentiated from an unincorporated community, which exists only by tradition and does not have elected officials at the town level. In some states, especially in midwestern and western states, civil townships may sometimes be called towns, but are generally not incorporated municipalities, but are administrative subdivisions and derive their authority from statute rather than from a charter. In New York and Wisconsin, the term "town" refers to municipalities more similar to townships in other states than to incorporated towns in most states (see Administrative divisions of New York, Political subdivisions of Wisconsin). In some other states, the term "town" is not used for municipalities.
Governments are corporations.
No, you don't need to "illuminate every baby step in this argument". You just need to start explaining what your actual point is, rather than stringing together a bunch of words and expecting other people to untangle the mess you've typed up to try to garner some meaning from it.
1. The "economies of scale" argument does not justify a role for government in the medical care industry, the education industry, the pension industry, or the charity industry generally, beyond the role that governments play in the home appliance industry or the clothing industry.
2. Governments attention does not solve free rider problems, it only changes their form.
Eduardo Zambrano
Formal Models of Authority: Introduction and Political Economy Applications
Rationality and Society, May 1999; 11: 115 - 138.
Aside from the important issue of how it is that a ruler may economize on communication, contracting and coercion costs, this leads to an interpretation of the state that cannot be contractarian in nature: citizens would not empower a ruler to solve collective action problems in any of the models discussed, for the ruler would always be redundant and costly. The results support a view of the state that is eminently predatory, (the ? MK.) case in which whether the collective actions problems are solved by the state or not depends on upon whether this is consistent with the objectives and opportunities of those with the (natural) monopoly of violence in society. This conclusion is also reached in a model of a predatory state by Moselle and Polak (1997).
