>Go try to wrestle a caveman for his fur pelt and see if he considers it to be a protected object.
But if I show up with a better club then all his stuff is now mine. A third party enforcing certain resource allocations with overwhelming force is different to everyone defending their own stuff.
Government is the difference between property rights and might-makes-right.
In theory yes, if you have an impartial third-party monopoly, but in practice it's still might-makes-right, where might = money, lawyers, political connections, ethnicity, etc. It's probably still better, but it's less transparently obvious what's going than with my club vs. yours.
But if I show up with a better club then all his stuff is now mine.
Bingo. Ownership exists without government - ownership exists to the extent others respect the claim.
Government is the difference between property rights and might-makes-right.
Governments are legitimate because of their might. Why do you think the basic social contract between authorities and the governed is "obedience for protection"?
Eh, I don't disagree, I was just trying to distinguish between property existing and objects existing. But maybe force defines existence all the way down.
Force protects the object, sometimes the government exerts the force sometimes not.