If a society is to be free,
its government has to be controlled.
The difference between political power and any other kind of social “power,”
between a government and any private organization, is the fact that
a government holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force.
This distinction is so important and so seldom recognized today
that I must urge you to keep it in mind. Let me repeat it:
a government holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force.
No individual or private group or private organization has the legal power to initiate the use of physical force against other individuals or groups and to compel them to act against their own voluntary choice.
Only a government holds that power.
The nature of governmental action is:
coercive action.
The nature of political power is:
the power to force obedience under threat of physical injury
the threat of property expropriation, imprisonment, or death.
The fundamental difference between private action and governmental action
a difference thoroughly ignored and evaded today
lies in the fact that a government holds a monopoly on the legal use of physical force.
It has to hold such a monopoly,
since it is the agent of restraining and combating the use of force;
and for that very same reason,
its actions have to be rigidly defined, delimited and circumscribed;
no touch of whim or caprice should be permitted in its performance;
it should be an impersonal robot, with the laws as its only motive power.
If a society is to be free, its government has to be controlled.
Under a proper social system,
a private individual is legally free to take any action he pleases
so long as he does not violate the rights of others,
while a government official is bound by law in his every official act.
A private individual may do anything except that which is legally forbidden;
a government official may do nothing except that which is legally permitted.
This is the means of subordinating “might” to “right.”
This is the concept of “a government of laws and not of men.”
Ayn Rand - The Nature of Government - The Virtue of Selfishness
