Murray Rothbard’s definition of government is informative: “Briefly, the State is that organization in society which attempts to maintain a monopoly of the use of force and violence in a given territorial area…” I’d put it this way: “The State is an organization, claiming to be legal, that maintains a monopoly of the use of force and violence in a given territorial area.” Under both definitions, the State and its government are valuable because the State’s powers are worth a great deal of money. The power to collect revenue forcibly and claim this to be legal is valuable. The power to make laws is valuable. For this reason, there is constant competition to possess and use these powers. Who shall rule and dominate? Who shall submit? The question is who possesses these powers? Who benefits from them? Who loses from their use? Government power is indistinguishable from theft except that it claims to be legal, which raises the question: Under what conditions is the State legal? Are there such conditions? The term “legitimate” is typically used rather than the term “legal”. The question is the same: When, if ever, is a State legitimate? John Locke’s answer is when there is consent of the governed. But when is there such consent? It is when the State is operating recognizably for the “common good” according to John Milton. To Locke it means when the State is protecting each and every man’s person and property. The question then becomes: How do we recognize when these conditions are being violated? If government were by voluntary subscription, those who subscribed would be consenting and those who did not would not be. The matter would be simple, but the expression of consent by subscription is nowhere available in any State. How then can citizens exercise their right to withdraw from a State’s exercises of power over them? The non-availability of such subscription should ring a huge warning bell that the theory of legitimacy by consent that is commonly used to justify the State does not comport with the reality of what a State actually is and does. The fact that secessions are disallowed and that people try revolutions to change their States are huge signs that the consent theory is very problematic. These deviations from the theory tell us that a State is not an organization that springs from the consent of people. What then is it except an organization that maintains its rule by other means? (See here.) What then is it but an organization whose claim to legality must be rejected as inconsistent with the reality of the matter?

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