The thing that distinguishes government from other terms such as organization, business, church, or community, is that it claims the right to use violent force to IMPOSE its will. Without that power, it is not government.
This paragraph interests me. Until the last few centuries or so, the majority of conflicts were a bi-product of religion/church. It has only been in the last 100-200 years that the prime reason for conflict were a combination of church and business. ...
that's because for so long the church was the government
That was the conclusion I kept coming back to as well.
But even in the Roman period there were many conflicts without church. Without government (state monopoly on the use of force) what evil could church do?