Government is Incomplete Conquest

... obedience is obligatory, that disobedience is blasphemy. Even a ruler who seeks to secure compliance by holding guns at the heads of all subjects needs the cooperation of at least those holding the guns and those managing the gun-holders. Foundations of legitimacy have varied greatly across the many kinds of regimes that have existed throughout history. Foundations of legitimacy change, sometimes slowly and imperceptibly. It is instructive that the monarchs who established modern centralized states in ...