“Every state is founded on force,” said Trotsky at Brest-Litovsk. That is indeed right. If no social institutions existed which knew the use of violence, then the concept of “state” would be eliminated, and a condition would emerge that could be designated as “anarchy,” in the specific sense of this word. Of course, force is certainly not the normal or the only means of the state but force is a means specific to the state. Today the relation between the state and violence is an especially intimate one. In the past, the most varied institutions have known the use of physical force as quite normal. Today, however, we have to say that a state is a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory. The right to use physical force is ascribed to other institutions or to individuals only to the extent to which the state permits it. The state is considered the sole source of the “right” to use force. Hence, “politics” for us means striving to share power or striving to influence the distribution of power, either among states or among groups within a state.


In principle, there are 3 inner justifications, hence basic legitimations of domination.

First, the authority of the “eternal yesterday,” i.e., of the mores sanctified through the unimaginably ancient recognition and habitual orientation to conform. This is “traditional” domination exercised by the patriarch and the patrimonial prince of yore.

There is the authority of the extraordinary and personal gift of grace (charisma), the absolutely personal devotion and personal confidence in revelation, heroism, or other qualities of individual leadership.

Finally, there is domination by virtue of “legality,” by virtue of the belief in the validity of legal statute and functional “competence” based on rationally created rules. In this case, obedience is expected in discharging statutory obligations.

It is understood that, in reality, obedience is determined by highly robust motives of fear and hope — fear of the vengeance of magical powers of the power-holder, hope for reward in this world or in the beyond — and besides all this, by interests of the most varied sort.


Here we are interested above all in the second of these types: domination by virtue of the devotion of those who obey the purely personal “charisma” of the leader. For this is the root of the idea of a calling in its highest expression.

Devotion to the charisma of the prophet, or the leader in war, means that the leader is personally recognized as the innerly “called” leader of men. Men do not obey him by virtue of tradition or stature, but because they believe in him.


Organized domination, which calls for continuous administration, requires that human conduct be conditioned to obedience towards those masters who claim to be the bearers of legitimate power. On the other hand, by virtue of this obedience, organized domination requires the control of those material goods which in a given case are necessary for the use of physical violence. Thus, organized domination requires control of the personal executive staff and the material implements of adminisitration.


There are two other means, both of which appeal to personal interests: material reward and social honor. The fiefs of vassals, the prebends of patrimonial officials, the salaries of modern civil servants, the honor of knights, the privileges of estates, and the honor of the civil servant comprise their respective wages. The fear of losing them is the final and decisive basis for solidarity between the executive staff and the power-holder. There is honor and booty for the followers in war; for the demagogue’s following, there are “spoils” — that is exploitation of the dominated through the monopolization of office — and there are politically determined profits and premium of vanity.