@mik: Great post. I think there is a danger inherent in fundamentalist views on the use of force and the legitimacy of retaliation. Specifically, it is my view that law emerges from the verbal resolution of what would otherwise have been violent disputes. If the initiation of force and retaliation are never legitimate then law would be paralyzed since either party could always say to the other, “Or else what? If I don’t agree to such-and-such resolution of this dispute, what are you going to do to me? Initiate violence? Retaliate against me?” to which I think the correct answer is “Yes!” If you don’t participate in verbal dispute-resolution, the failure mode may be physical violence. That’s the whole reason to participate in law in the first place.
So, the problem with the State goes even deeper than merely that it uses the threat of (the initiation of) violence or retaliation to get its way. A participant in a (valid) legal dispute is also implicitly relying on the very same threat: participate in verbal dispute resolution or things will be resolved through more direct means. The thief cannot thumb his nose at the shopkeeper whose merchandise he swiped precisely because the shopkeeper might hire someone to (lawfully) beat the thief or simply forcibly recover property from the thief in the amount he would have been awarded had the case been handled in court. Such actions would certainly not qualify as “self-defense” in any intelligible definition of the term.
As far as the tacit consent of the majority to rule (even by a despot), I think this is still an unanswered question. Here’s some interesting attempts at answers (YMMV):
http://incompressible.blogspot.com/2010/07/why-does-government-exist.html
Clayton -