A failed state is one which fails to achieve a monopoly on violence in its territory—e.g., one in which militias and gangsters also have the capability to inflict violence upon the people. A successful state achieves a monopoly on violence in a given territory, and after that, we face questions about the extent to which it works in the best

States use the threat of violence in order to obtain obedience on taxation and behaviour. The state is not a parent, a philanthropist or a friend. The individual has a soul but the state is a soulless machine. The state can never be weaned away from violence to which it owes its existence. —Mahatma Gandhi

Addressing Market Failure Is the Legitimate Ground for Coercion The important thing for government is not to do things which individuals are doing already, and to do them a little better or a little worse; but to do those things which at present are not done at all. —John Maynard Keynes

At the Heart of the State Is Coercion A state is a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory. —Max Weber, The Vocation Lectures, 1919