Richard Barnet was covering topics such as government monopolies on violence and technocracy decades before those terms would ever come into the forefront of today’s discourse. In his book, Roots of War, he wastes no time diving straight into the state’s monopoly on crime. While parsing through it, I had to keep reminding myself that the piece was originally published in 1972! Individuals get medals, promotions, and honors by committing the same acts for the state for which they would be ...
