Society divides not only over ideas, but over which forms of violence should be permitted.  Most people never question this premise.  They simply debate whether violence should be used for their chosen causes or directed at their preferred enemies.  Economists, professors, and politicians alike endorse it—disguised under terms such as “redistribution,” “justice,” or “security.” The act of violence becomes respectable once it’s done through institutions.  The individual who would never strike his neighbor suddenly cheers when the state does it on his behalf.

Violence endures because people accept it.  A thief with a badge is no less a thief, but the victims are persuaded that the theft is lawful, necessary, even beneficial.  The entire system depends not on open force, but on belief.  People believe the extortions are accidents or mistakes, not design.  They believe “abuses” can be corrected if only better managers are elected.  This is the fundamental illusion.  The machine was built to exploit.  Once this truth is seen, the spell begins to break.

The state never acts alone.  Its grip extends through partners and proxies.  Your wages are seized before they reach you, deducted through banks that serve as the state’s collectors, employers slice your wage before it reaches your hand, platforms silence dissenting voices in the name of “safety.” Each plays the role of enforcer, often under the cloak of private action.  Yet their cooperation reveals their true function: extensions of state power.  When speech is deleted at the behest of officials, when transactions are tracked and restricted, freedom is not defended—it is rationed.

Modern tyranny doesn’t look like the black-and-white images of barbed wire or labor camps.  Those were the crude instruments of a past age.  Today’s despot smiles in public and governs in whispers.  The punishments are hidden, the controls dispersed.  A person may not even realize he has been punished, only that his opportunity vanished, his account was restricted, his job lost.  This is the art of invisible coercion—force without the obvious fist.

Every pretense of benevolence masks aggression.  The state calls its schemes humanitarian: saving the planet, protecting communities, ensuring equality.  Yet “green” mandates often poison environments, and subsidies leave their supposed beneficiaries poorer.  Promises of protection produce dependency, promises of help tighten chains.  The consistent rule is inversion: what is declared as freedom conceals control, what is paraded as compassion conceals exploitation.  Violence succeeds not because it is irresistible, but because its victims learn to excuse, rationalize, and even defend it.

Reference

Charles Tilly; The Politics of Collective Violence