The State that Sustains Itself: Paradox, Persistence, and Possibilities for Change
“The State is the coldest of all cold monsters. Coldly it lies; and this lie creeps from its mouth: ‘I, the State, am the people.’”
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Introduction
The modern state persists by simultaneously protecting and threatening its people. It is indispensable, corrupt, reformable, oppressive, and necessary—all at once. Across centuries, critics have condemned its colonial, hierarchical nature; yet attempts to dissolve or replace it have often led to fresh tyranny, chaos, or warlordism. This paradox echoes through political philosophy, history, and social theory: the state both creates and contains the crises it claims to resolve.
This paper explores why the state seems unchangeable, what historically has been proposed or attempted to replace it, and why gradual reforms, despite appearances, usually maintain the deeper structure of state power. Drawing from thinkers including Antonio Gramsci, Michel Foucault, Elinor Ostrom, Emma Goldman, and modern decentralist theorists, the paper also considers practical pathways: decentralization, parallel institutions, networked resilience, and cultural change.
I. The state as protector, creator, and threat
As Thomas Hobbes argued in Leviathan, people cede power to a sovereign to escape the “war of all against all.” The state emerges as a protector. Yet, as Michel Foucault noted in Society Must Be Defended, the state must also produce “enemies” to justify its power: internal threats (the “dangerous classes”) and external threats (foreign rivals). The state becomes both shield and spear.
Historically, the European welfare state balanced coercion and care: it taxed citizens, enforced laws, and limited freedoms, but funded public goods like healthcare, education, and roads. In return, citizens accepted the legitimacy of the system. Yet, as James C. Scott observed in Seeing Like a State, this same system requires simplification: classifying people, measuring, taxing, and governing them, thereby imposing a kind of colonial order.
The result: the state protects society from chaos but threatens freedom; sustains order but resists deep change; reforms itself but keeps its core intact.
II. Why does it endure?
Antonio Gramsci explained this endurance with the concept of hegemony: the state and ruling class maintain power not only through coercion but by shaping cultural norms, beliefs, and values so that their rule appears natural. This produces what Gramsci called “passive revolution”: small reforms from above to neutralize revolutionary pressure from below, ensuring “everything changes, but everything stays the same.”
Michel Foucault’s work on governmentality shows how modern power is diffuse: it operates through institutions, expertise, and bureaucratic systems that make certain forms of life possible and others impossible. Even democratic reforms often reinforce the legitimacy of the state, rather than dismantling it.
Historian Eric Hobsbawm observed that modern nation-states emerged alongside industrialization, centralizing identity and administration to create “imagined communities” (Benedict Anderson). Once built, these systems proved remarkably adaptable.
III. Historical alternatives: Revolution, replacement, dissolution
Revolutionary replacement aims to overthrow the old system and build a better one. The French Revolution replaced monarchy with republicanism but soon gave way to the Terror and Napoleon’s empire. The Russian Revolution replaced tsarism with Bolshevik centralization, trading aristocratic oppression for party-state authoritarianism.
Dissolution without replacement often brings chaos. The collapse of Yugoslavia or Libya illustrates how power vacuums are filled by militias, strongmen, or foreign intervention.
Coexistence of alternatives—as in medieval free cities or dual power situations like early Soviet Russia (before Bolshevik consolidation)—typically becomes unstable. Competing authorities either merge, split territorially, or fight.
Historically, the state proves most vulnerable not from direct assault, but when legitimacy erodes and alternative institutions already exist and gain popular trust.
IV. Practical strategies for change
Modern theorists and historical movements propose non-total alternatives:
1. Decentralization and subsidiarity
Push decision-making to the lowest effective level, as Elinor Ostrom suggested in Governing the Commons. Rather than a single sovereign, create nested, polycentric governance structures.
2. Parallel institutions and prefigurative politics
As advocated by anarchists like Gustav Landauer and Emma Goldman: build cooperatives, mutual aid societies, local currencies, and restorative justice systems within the existing society. When crises arise, these can expand, as happened with worker co-ops in Argentina after the 2001 economic collapse.
3. Transparency and accountability
Implement systemic constraints: term limits, citizen juries, participatory budgeting, open data. While not revolutionary, these reduce corruption and make the state less monolithic.
4. Cultural and narrative change
People tolerate oppression partly because they believe it is natural or inevitable. As Gramsci argued, building “counter-hegemony”—new cultural narratives—precedes material change.
5. Networked resilience
Instead of one big system, build networks of small, self-governing communities linked by federations. Inspired by Murray Bookchin’s libertarian municipalism and contemporary digital federations.
V. Accepting the paradox
Complete abolition of the state may recreate the very power struggles it sought to prevent; total preservation ossifies injustice. The path forward, as Proudhon wrote (“anarchy is order”), lies in embracing the tension: build structures capable of adapting without becoming absolute; balance autonomy with coordination.
Change, if it comes, will likely be slow, partial, and uneven. Yet, history shows that what seems eternal can erode when people imagine, build, and live something different.
Conclusion
The modern state, for all its dangers and contradictions, has endured by adapting, by defining itself as protector against real and invented threats, and by shaping the cultural narrative that its existence is inevitable. Alternatives have historically failed when they relied on sudden replacement or dissolution without a living, trusted infrastructure ready to take over.
Yet change remains possible—not by waiting for collapse or conquest, but by building alternative institutions, decentralizing power, and reshaping what people believe is possible. It is slow, often invisible work—but so was the state itself, once.
Annotated Index of Sources
Antonio Gramsci – Prison Notebooks
Introduces “hegemony” and “passive revolution.” Explains why reform often protects rather than threatens the core power structure.
Michel Foucault – Society Must Be Defended and Security, Territory, Population
Analyzes how states produce threats to justify themselves; introduces “governmentality.”
Elinor Ostrom – Governing the Commons
Empirical study of decentralized, community-based governance as real alternatives to centralized authority.
James C. Scott – Seeing Like a State
Explores how modern states impose order through measurement, classification, and simplification, often undermining local knowledge.
Benedict Anderson – Imagined Communities
Explains how modern states are built through cultural and narrative construction, creating national identities.
Eric Hobsbawm – Nations and Nationalism since 1780
Historical study of how nation-states formed and adapted.
Emma Goldman – Anarchism and Other Essays
Argues for prefigurative politics: building free institutions within the shell of the old.
Gustav Landauer – Revolution and Other Writings
Suggests revolution is not the destruction of the state by force, but people ceasing to participate in it.
Murray Bookchin – The Next Revolution
Advocates libertarian municipalism: federations of self-governing cities.
Thomas Hobbes – Leviathan
Classic justification of the state as protection from chaos.
Friedrich Nietzsche – Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Critique of the state as an impersonal, cold monster claiming to be the people.
See also: Zoo Planet (index)
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