How Not to Study the State

My most memorable high school experience occurred on the first day of my senior year. I was sitting in an Advanced Placement US Government class when the teacher posed a simple question to the students. It was a question intended to set the course in motion, and get us fledgling statecraft scholars thinking.
The question was, ‘what is government?’
My hand was in the air before he completed the sentence. (I had prepared an answer in anticipation of the course.) Holding on to my holster full of knowledge garnered from my proudly self-described ‘intellectually avant-garde’ internet musings, I said, ‘Governments (i.e., states in this case) are those organizations that have monopolized the use of force over any given geographical region.’
I then felt embarrassment as my passionate answer was struck down by laughter from the class. My teacher looked down at the floor, unsure how to respond. He had obviously never heard such an answer before, and recovered by reverting back to his conventional train of thought and answering the question as he had been conditioned to: ‘Governments’ he said, ‘are simply those institutions that make policy.’
I do not remember what he said next. Though I do remember what I was thinking, or rather, what I was feeling.
And I was feeling frustrated and unsatisfied.

This post was published at Ludwig von Mises Institute on May 27, 2017.