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Notes -
Yes, he rules because men obey him. But obviously only some men will obey him voluntarily. As long as he has enough of those, the rest don't matter. He can choose to enforce an order where thieves and violent people are kept down and the other people are left to go about their business in peace. Or he can choose to enforce an order where the thieves and violent people are given significant leeway and the others are left in fear of them on the one hand and the sovereign on the other. Either way works, as long as his cops and soldiers are willing to stick with him.
The second way, arguably, works even better -- unlike the thieves and violent people, the ordinary people will stay on the side of the sovereign even when the sovereign works against them, because they believe in such things as the sovereign's legitimacy. Tell a thug that he's forbidden from violently defending himself from threats because he might get it wrong and his attacker's life is worth at least as much as his, and he'll laugh and maybe stab you. Tell an ordinary citizen that and (we know, because it has already happened, and in fact the previous incarnation of this board schismed over exactly this) he'll consider it and quite likely accept it. Of course the cops, being cut from a similar sort of cloth (if a somewhat finer weave) as the thugs, won't accept it... but they get an exemption.
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