On defining the state

Devin has a good, long post up doing the necessary work of carefully defining some words, while carefully picking apart some other definitions. I am concerned though, that the defining is doing a great deal of legitimizing, rather than defining, and re-ordering some concepts. Here's Devin:

A state is the alloidial property owner of a territory. It is an organization that charges rent/taxes and exercises police power over a territory. There is no higher organization that charges taxes or exercises police power over it. It is the final word within a territory.

Almost excellent. Unfortunately "owner" both implies legal system, and implies legitimacy, which I suspect is why the definition is phrased as it is. I think the definition needs to be focused better? A state is about force. The use of superior firepower to force people to do as they are told. Any definition that does not hold the exertion of force as the primary feature of a state is misguided, and attempting to legitimize. How about:

A state is a violence-using organization that has suppressed other potentially competing violent organizations sufficiently well as to have no local competitors for supreme local bully. After said suppression, the state uses force of arms to require subjects to live according to the state's preferences, most notably requiring tribute, usually called taxes.

I think the definitions are bijective (all known elements that fit A also fit B, and vice versa), but Devin's definition cloaks the fundamentally violent nature of states in ex-post facto legal fictions.

Another post will address Devin's confusion about anarcho-capitalist systems.