The Boundary as a Watershed for Responsibilities

Abstract

Within a precisely delimited territory, the state not only has a monopoly in surplus collecting but also in the use of force. The corollary of the exclusive right to use force inside one’s own borders is recognition of an equal right on the part of kings in adjacent state-formations. In a monocentred political ideology the king of the world will punish rebellions and crimes whatever their character and wherever they take place, not least in the outer periphery, where they are such a marked feature of that chaotic zone. Apart from being harmful to humans, rebellions and crimes are a threat to and an offence against the cosmic order. As such, they require royal intervention wherever they occur.