Tilly 1985

Main Argument:

Charles Tilly contends that the coercive and self-serving behaviors inherent in war making and state making, coupled with their reliance on violence and exploitation, closely resemble the traits associated with organized crime. This perspective challenges the traditional perception of these activities as legitimate forms of governance, highlighting their parallels with illicit practices typically associated with criminal enterprises.

Protection as Business

• The pacification or elimination of rivals, especially rivals with significantly large populations or competitive resources, by the sovereign is portrayed as a strategic move to establish a monopoly on protection.
• Governments, similar to businesses, ironically provide protection services to their citizens regardless of individual preferences. This means that even if individuals may not actively seek or want this protection, governments impose it as part of their role in maintaining order and security within society.
  • As a result, it is quite difficult to analyze how necessarily 'good' is this layer of governmental protection, especially in large scale imperialist powers like the United States.

Frederic Lane's Theoretical Approach

• Monopoly profit signifies how governments wield control over violence, essentially monopolizing its production and regulation. This authority enables them to dictate terms of protection and leverage it for economic gains from their constituents. In essence, the state's monopoly on violence intertwines governance and economics, shaping the dynamics of power and authority within society.
  • eg. Lane's coinage of the word "tribute" as means of rationalizing the profound economic benefit a state-maker reaps after 'protecting' its subjected merchants.
• The concept of protection rent highlights the reciprocal relationship between the government and its constituents, where the government's provision of protection services leads to economic gains for those who benefit from enhanced security.
• Maximization of tribute and protection rent hails from citizen ownership, self-centered monarch, and managerial behaviors are simply expected from Lane's concept of protection-providing governments.
  • Very capitalistic especially in the form of economic growth in the face of power protection for national states