ABSTRACT
The natural-rights tradition offers little guidance on precisely what one's procedural rights are in a state of nature, on how principles specifying how one is to act have knowledge built into their various clauses, and so on. The concentration of all physical force in the hands of the central authority is the primary function of the state and is its decisive characteristic. The officers of the state have powers to take life, inflict corporal punishment, seize property as fine or by expropriation, and affect the standing and reputation of a member of the society. The state has means for the suppression of what the society considers to be wrongs or crimes: police, courts of law, and prisons, institutions which explicitly and specifically function in this area of activity. Moreover, these institutions are stable within the frame of reference of the society, and permanent.
