[kevin_b_er]

This is a sort of tenant of the modern state if you look at it a certain way. Ultimately the threat of violence is invested in the state to ensure the law is followed.

It is not a pitchfork and torch mob that should come after you should you appear to have committed a serious crime, but rather the government's police agencies that will come to arrest you, very physically if need be.

See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence

[smittywerben]

I see, monopoly on violence is a legitimate concept in the political/public sciences. I think "monopoly" has several definitions depending on the field.

Thanks for the clarification + source.

[pwaai]

It's a full spectrum of monopolies that collectively represent a colonial apparatus...I'm not talking naval and nuclear projection or occupying a foreign country...

Putin has clearly mastered a new type of war that specifically weakens America's monopoly on violence both domestically and internationally.

You can already see the symptoms of an institution slowly coming to gripes to a major espionage campaign that did not stop after the USSR fell but evolved into a criminal state, one that explicitly seeks to include criminal elements to distance the Kremlin.

Americans rely on a network of multi-national corporations to do their bidding, Russians rely on the mob.