Force
Force is the use or threat of physical coercion to compel behavior; government uniquely claims legal authority to use it.
It is important for citizens to understand something fundamental about government: behind every enforceable law stands the threat of force. The word itself is revealing: enforceable.
Government can arrest, imprison, tax, seize property under lawful procedures, and in certain circumstances use deadly force. Private individuals and organizations generally possess no comparable authority simply to compel obedience to their commands.
A business, for example, can offer you a product or service. You may accept the offer, reject it, negotiate, or simply walk away. If you refuse to purchase something, the business cannot forcibly arrest or imprison you.
Government is different. If government lawfully imposes a tax, fine, court order, or criminal prohibition, compliance is not optional merely because a citizen disagrees. Continued refusal can eventually result in the forcible seizure of property, arrest, or imprisonment.
This is what distinguishes governmental power from most other forms of human cooperation.
Private individuals may sometimes use force lawfully—for example, in self-defense—but such uses occur within a legal order that defines when force is permissible. Government claims the ultimate legal authority to enforce that order.
Legal Force Is Still Force
The fact that government acts through law does not make its actions voluntary.
When a person is arrested, he is not merely being persuaded to accompany a police officer. When a person is imprisoned, he is physically prevented from leaving. When property is lawfully seized, the owner cannot simply refuse and keep it.
At the same time, government officials are themselves bound by law. The Constitution expressly prohibits government from depriving persons of “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,” and imposes other limits on governmental power.
Government may therefore lawfully employ forms of coercion and violence that private citizens ordinarily may not, but government force is not automatically lawful merely because government uses it.
Why Force Must Be Limited
Governmental force can protect rights.
Police may arrest a violent criminal. Courts may imprison someone convicted of violating another person’s rights. Government may use force to defend citizens against foreign attack or domestic violence.
But the same coercive power can also be used unjustly. In this respect, government is like fire: useful, necessary, and dangerous.
This is one reason constitutional limits matter. Because laws are ultimately enforceable through coercion, citizens should think seriously about which laws are necessary, what powers government requires to enforce them, and what limits should constrain those powers.
The point is not that every law results in violence. Most people obey most laws without anyone using physical force against them. The point is that an enforceable law ultimately carries the possibility of coercion when voluntary compliance ends.
The Extreme Danger: Democide
The most horrifying examples of government force occur when governments turn organized coercion against large numbers of their own people.
Political scientist R. J. Rummel used the term democide for intentional killing by governments, including genocide, political mass murder, and other forms of government killing.
Rummel eventually estimated approximately 262 million democide deaths during the twentieth century. That number was his estimate, not an uncontested scholarly consensus; researchers have criticized portions of his methodology and argued that some of his country-specific estimates were too high.
The precise total remains disputed. The larger historical fact does not: twentieth-century governments carried out mass killings on an enormous scale through executions, purges, concentration and labor camps, forced deportations, deliberately murderous policies, and other forms of organized state violence.
Democide represents the most extreme example of the danger inherent in concentrated political power: the institution entrusted with force for the protection of citizens can instead turn that force against them.
Why Force Matters
Civilized society requires government capable of enforcing legitimate laws. Laws that government has no ability to enforce are little more than requests.
But the same coercive power that allows government to protect rights also gives government an extraordinary capacity to violate them.
That is why the purposes, limits, and lawful exercise of government power matter so much.
