Exactly. Government is not limited to some tightly-controlled definition conveniently suited to your anti-government rhetoric. It includes almost all means of organizing society. The only social structure that doesn't function as government is unenforced anarchism, which doesn't allow for market freedom because the powerful simply take from the weak.
I gave it a shot in this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7437083. I think this description fits pretty well with most people's idea of what is and isn't a "government," although most people probably have never tried to explain their own internal definition.
> My definition of government is not merely a set of functions performed, but rather the way they are performed, funded, chosen, etc.
Given that that's not anything remotely like the common use of the term (which is about functions), maybe you should use a more appropriate term to avoid confusion.
> Given that that's not anything remotely like the common use of the term (which is about functions), maybe you should use a more appropriate term to avoid confusion.
On the contrary. I think my definition describes what most people think of as a government. If I show up at your door with 5 tough guys, explain to you that your neighborhood has voted to instigate a 25% income tax in order to maintain the roads of the neighborhood, would you consider me to be government? Would you comply? According to what you just claimed, since I would be performing a function generally associated with government, acquiring funds the same way as government, and using a similar justification (the vote) as government, it sounds like you would consider me to be government. And yet, I do not think most people would agree.
