Development of the State

71:0.1The state is a use­ful evo­lu­tion of civ­i­liza­tion; it rep­re­sents so­ci­ety’s net gain from the rav­ages and suf­fer­ings of war. Even state­craft is merely the ac­cu­mu­lated tech­nique for ad­just­ing the com­pet­i­tive con­test of force be­tween the strug­gling tribes and na­tions.

71:0.2The mod­ern state is the in­sti­tu­tion which sur­vived in the long strug­gle for group power. Su­pe­rior power even­tu­ally pre­vailed, and it pro­duced a crea­ture of fact—the state—to­gether with the moral myth of the ab­so­lute obli­ga­tion of the cit­i­zen to live and die for the state. But the state is not of di­vine gen­e­sis; it was not even pro­duced by vo­li­tion­ally in­tel­li­gent hu­man ac­tion; it is purely an evo­lu­tion­ary in­sti­tu­tion and was wholly au­to­matic in ori­gin.