It IS coercion. All government is coercion. But top down coercion is ONLY legitimate in service of creating/maintaining the conditions for bottom-up prosperity. Like a gardener pulling weeds. You can’t cause the vegetables to grow, only remove the impediments, give it good soil, water, sun, fresh air.
Discussion
So in order for me to have prosperity, a government has to steal from me?
No you *could* have prosperity without government coercion, but it’s possible on your road toward it, criminals might rob or murder you, or another country would invade and do the same. The only legitimate function of government is to create better conditions for you to thrive.
Does the existence of a government ensure that I will never be robbed or attacked by outsiders?
Nothing and no one can ensure anything, but it’s only *legitimate* purpose is to greatly reduce the likelihood of that happening. To the extent it’s failing to reduce that likelihood, it’s not legitimate.
So I have to be robbed and coerced by a government because you and others think it greatly reduces my risk of being attacked?
Even if I’m more than capable of arming myself or voluntarily paying for a protection service if the risk is large enough?
There’s no have to in what I’m saying. There’s only the fact that government exists, and it is acting legitimately if it’s securing the conditions for the prosperity of its citizens and nothing more. If it fails to do that or does something else, it’s not legitimate.
Do I personally believe the existence of police and government reduce your chances of getting robbed or murdered? Yes, I do. But who knows? Maybe the state of nature is more friendly than we’ve been led to believe!
Has any government in human history successfully secured the conditions of prosperity for all of its people? Is that even possible? Because my prosperity is directly violated every time I’m coerced to pay income tax, property tax, car registration, drivers license renewal, etc.
I'd say the founding principles of the US secured the conditions for a lot of people, with obvious injustices and exceptions. Property and income tax are scourges, way over the line of minimum necessary. You can quibble on whether requiring driver’s licenses supports or detracts from those conditions, but small potatoes compared to the main taxes.
But the principle IMO is important because government exists, and we should have a standard (even an aspirational one) to which to hold it.
Why not have the standard to not condone violence and theft? Why not aspire to the eradication of such things?
For me, it’s just a matter of where the violence and theft are coming from and how you are going to split the cost of preventing it. I don’t think we have a world without violence or a garden without weeds, insects, etc.
Of course not but why should we legitimize it and act like it’s a necessary evil? Why not strive to live in a world without weeds instead of pretending that we need a certain number of weeds for society to prosper?
There is no world without weeds. Basically there are no solutions, only tradeoffs.
