hm so its hard to imagine what a government might use its monopoly on violence for other than taxation but it is possible.

so like imagine you had a sadistic ruler who just liked to kidnap people for fun, but he never took any of the property of the people he kidnapped and never forced them to work for his benefit. his kidnapping adventures were funded voluntarily by the community and people generally accepted his kidnapping because they thought it was necessary.

would he still be a government? yea i suppose he would.