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I've been trying to bridge the gap between the ideas of minarchist libertarians with pure anarchists. I think both sides agree on the non-aggression principle and advocate for personal liberty in economics, social interactions, and so on. The argument that pure anarchists use against minarchists is that government is by definition, a monopoly of force. I'm wondering if government is still a monopoly of force if you have the option of opting out or seceding. Minarchists think that government has a legitimate role in protecting the liberties of individuals against theft and aggression. Anarchists believe that these protections should not come from a monopoly of force but from a free market. But what if people voluntarily form a collective band of defense with the option of opting out? Is that a monopoly of force then? We recognize that society should have a certain degree of common standards (like no muder, theft, fraud, etc.), and should not necessarily follow a standard profit business model (like charity, or the FDR donation model). So what about having a certain standard of protection in a given locality with a collectively financed model? You could have a voluntary society that includes a justice/despute-resolution system, a police system, and a geographical defense system, and those within that society will pay certain fees and elect certain leaders for living in that society. We can argue semantics, but to me that sounds like a government. The one caveat is that states, cities, or even individuals have the option of leaving that society without penalties if you so choose to. Now obviously, people recognize that 300,000,000 individual "states" would be impractical, so people would probably voluntarily choose to band into certain geographical systems. Again, if individuals have the option of opting out, is this really a monopoly of force? Of course, I do recognize that with the current mindset of the U.S. government, the country would never allow a group to secede, but my hypothetical situation is meant to apply to the minimal, constitutional system that many mainstream libertarians argue for. *Edit: I mean secession, not succession. My spelling is bad.*