Hive account@modprobe, wow, excellent post. Your response is very well written and I think you hit the nail on the head about Binswanger's separation of force from economic activity.

What exactly do you mean by "ex nihilo" in your definition of government? Binswanger may think that the rights of the government come from an agreement of some kind of majority of people with each other, not out of nothing. You may largely be disagreeing on words and definitions, as you suggest is possible.

Also, would he agree that he is making

the assertion that any human organization can exist as an objective, philosophically consistent entity?

I do think this assumption often lurks in the background of statists' minds, but it's more complicated than that! He mentions the "genius of the American system" - checks and balances, so does he think it's possible to create a system that is forever correcting itself so that corruption never subsumes honest governing?

For me the word "value" is crucial. It encompasses outcomes and situations that people find desirable, and security is one very common (nearly universal) value that individuals hold. Anarcho-capitalism is an attempt to allow value to flow freely. If the organizations that spring up are really incentivized to preserve security, then the competition for less violence that you mentioned ensues. Regular government sets up a conceptual system of fixed values that (however many) people hold, hopefully at least puts in place a mechanism for change and growth of the value system, and tasks some people with enforcing it.

Thanks for making me think about politics today!