Certain forms of violence are often legitimized as a tool necessary for maintaining public order. This is especially true regarding the pursuit of people who have previously committed acts of violence or have simply violated certain agreements through non-violent means, and the forced application of power measures for restitution and punishment. In the first article of this cycle, we already examined how the issue of restitution and the punishment of criminals can be resolved without resorting to force. However, some people, including supporters of a free stateless society, may still consider violence to be a necessary or, at least, permissible tool in certain situations. One of the arguments that can be countered with is that the use of power measures leads to the rebirth of a violent hierarchy of dominance in the form of a state with uncontested and monopolistic power. This is another negative externality of violence.
To implement power measures against people, there must exist bodies or entities that have the ability to apply violence to them without hindrance (or with minimal obstacles). In effect, someone must have the right and the ability to violate the Balance of Violence Potential (BVP) — an important component of a free society, without which its stable and long-term existence is fundamentally impossible.
Insufficient equalization of the BVP in a free society may be caused by the fact that the majority of society’s members do not wish to defend themselves against acts of violence; that is, they are fundamentally unconcerned with the issue of security, are willing to tolerate aggressors, and voluntarily submit to them. In such a case, there is little to be done other than distributing means of self-defense and popularizing the idea of the need to protect oneself. However, if a free society is achieved based on the current state of affairs, such a scenario is unlikely, as equalizing the BVP by these methods is one of the key components of this process. And by achieving a free society through the equalization of the BVP, we will create conditions under which the existence of bodies with the right to the unhindered use of force should not be possible in principle.
However, it is possible to assume that a state of insufficient BVP equalization has nonetheless occurred. For example, we have eliminated violent monopolistic power, but decided not to get rid of the use of power measures, but instead to transfer this function to various independent agents, providing them with certain advantages over everyone else, which would allow them to engage in such activities without hindrance. In this case, I have only one question: what would stop such agents from one moment deciding to stop fulfilling their obligations under agreements and begin applying violence to pursue their own goals, including the establishment of their own coercive and monopolistic power over people and entities who lack the ability to defend themselves?
Obviously, nothing would stop them. Thus, violent and monopolistic political power will be created anew. This is precisely why supporters of a free society cannot be consistent in their views if they adhere to the legitimization and permissibility of certain forms of violence for various purposes, including the pursuit of forceful punishment and the extraction of compensation, since this, again, would require the existence of bodies or entities with a greater potential for violence than everyone else, and thus capable of establishing their own power at any moment.
