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For many people, this is the quintessential example of anarchy as chaos.

To understand why this is wrong, let’s turn to German sociologist Max Weber’s classic definition of the state, this one from his work “Economy and Society”:

“A compulsory political organization with continuous operations will be called a 'state' insofar as its administrative staff successfully upholds a claim to the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force in the enforcement of its order.”

This is an idealized definition, and no state ever truly monopolizes violence in a given territory, so we might call some institutions more “state-like” than others on a spectrum. But the general idea is sound:

- The state is an institution. It’s an organization of people.

- The state is compulsory. If you’re in a territory controlled by a state, the state doesn’t give you a choice to opt out of its rule.

- The state enforces an order. It makes rules and expects you to follow those rules.

- The state uses violence to enforce those rules. The state doesn’t like anyone else in its territory using violence to enforce a different set of rules.

- That violence is *legitimate.*

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