I came across the Weberian definition of "government" several years ago. I'm pretty sure Barack Obama also invoked at some point during his presidency. As a pacifist, I naturally find this model of government disturbing.
There have been many thoughtful responses and criticism to Weber's outlok, from thinkers far greater than I. I wish to add my own small voice to that conversation.
Well, we're even then. There have been many thoughtful defenses of Weber's outlook from thinkers far greater than I; I too, wish to add my small voice to the conversation.
First, a minor point of clarification: I understand Weber's monopoly of violence to refer externally as well as internally. i.e., only the government has the authority to declare war, or a police action, or whatever other Orwellian euphemisms they're using these days, against another country or people. Unless I am a high-ranking government official, I am not empowered to send the army to war with Belgium, no matter how much they deserve it.
As to the main point, Harnuth has already provided a reasonable response, related to the above point about external violence.
Furthermore, as I understand the Weberian model, the government's ability to guarantee these useful and necessary services you cite, rests ultimately on its monopoly of violence.
How does the government ensure that we pay our taxes to fund hospitals? It tells us that if we don't, it will put us in jail. If a hospital doesn't operate to code, the government forces it to change its performance, or shuts it down. And if either we or the people in charge of the hospital resist the government, it sends in people with uniforms and weapons to subdue us by force - lethal force, if we're sufficiently belligerent in our resistance. So in that sense, it can be said that a government is ultimately "the entity which has a monopoly on violence."
We can take the Weberian argument further. You've cited a couple of practical, useful services the government provides which no one in their right mind could object to. But, we may ask, is an entity with a monopoly on violence the
only way to guarantee those services? Difficult to say for certain, but I suspect not.
To bring us back to the discussion of the Shire, we know they have a postal service, and to pick up on another of your examples, I think it's reasonable to suppose they have a fire brigade. This one's a stretch, but we could even speculate that under Pippin and Merry's influence, they might even open up their own Houses of Healing some day.
The Shire hobbits have no need of an entity with the monopoly of violence to force them to support such institutions, and I don't think that's pure fantasy on Tolkien's part. There are other motivations we can easily point to, such as intelligent self interest, social bonds, and even altruism: people, whether human or hobbit, like to help make sure that others are doing well, so long as they don't feel said wellbeing comes at their own expense. In our highly atomized society, this probably wouldn't go over well, but in a more communal society such as the Shire's, I could see it working.
Now, if you had an entity which guarantees all the services governments provide, but didn't have a monopoly on violence, could we call that entity a government? Honestly, I'm not sure; it's an interesting notion.
I'm not 100% sure of any of this, but I'm reasonably convinced not only that Weber is correct in saying government is an entity with a monopoly on violence; but that this is the sole defining feature of government. In other words, all other functions which we attribute to government could, in some times and places under some circumstances, be provided by other means.
In short: I am in complete agreement with you that we are all responsible for each other, as well as ourselves. In our current society, many (though not all) of the ways we meet our responsibilities to each other is through institutions which rest ultimately on a monopoly of violence. This is not inevitable, it just happens to be how our society functions.
Any government that does not want to descend into a Hobbesian anarchy, in which the lives of its citizens are "nasty, brutish, and short", would do well to educate those citizens on their responsibilities and connection to other people, and to teach them how to critically evaluate the choices before them.
Can I get a citation for that? I mean, we're certainly told often enough that people are naturally Hobbesian and have to have values of responsibility and connection to other people inculcated into us by some sort of higher authority. In my observations and my research into the subject, people are actually more naturally inclined to responsibility and connection with others, and it's the Hobbesian values of nastiness and "look out for number one at the expense of everyone else" which have to be inculcated into us. (It's more complicated than that, as both tendencies and many more exist within all humans, but there seems to be a strong intrinsic tug toward the former values as opposed to the latter in most instances).
If the current state of US politics is an example of anything, it's an example of what happens when families neglect their responsibilities and trust too much in the government to solve all their problems for them.
Definitely have to agree to disagree here. What we see in the current state of US policies is a systemic failure to provide for the needs of a significant portion of the country's residents (this has always been the case to an extent, but even more so in recent years/decades). Faced with that kind of breakdown, it's hideously unreasonable for individual families with very limited resources to pick up all the slack.
There's a lot of truth to the old cliché maxim that it takes a village to raise a child, and it also takes a village to educate one. It takes a village to do most things, actually. And when the village breaks down due to incompetent management by the leadership, it's ridiculous to blame families for being unable to do the entire village's work themselves.