Far from being an abstract category, it is a tool for peace and prosperity.

It does not follow, however, that political centralization—so prevalent today—is inherent to every form of governance. Political centralization is not new; the state, however, is.

The state as an institution does not represent a continuation of earlier forms of political organization, but a new historical form that emerged from a series of ideological transformations in Europe beginning in the sixteenth century.

Reflection on the state typically focuses on its capacity for coercion, but what is truly problematic—and what explains that capacity—is its institutional autonomy: the claim to constitute itself as the ultimate source of law without recognizing any authority superior to itself. This quality is not confined to the legal domain; through the production of law, it expands gradually into the rest of society, eroding every institution in its path—whether property, money, the family, the Church, or education.

The Supposed Continuity of the State

Before any consideration of the state, it is essential to distinguish two senses of the term. In its generic use, "state" designates any form of organized political community—in that sense one speaks of the Greek, Roman, or feudal state. In its specific use, it designates a particular historical form of political community with characteristics that make it irreducible to any earlier form.

The problem arises when the generic use slides into the specific and vice versa. In other words, the "state" is presented as a synonym for order and communal life—appropriating classical concepts such as polis or regnum—so that the "state" as a monopoly of law and order comes to be taken for granted.

To project retroactively onto earlier institutional realities the defining features of the state as an institution—features that constitute a difference not of degree but of kind—is an anachronism.

This distortion is not innocent; it serves a fundamental ideological purpose. It grants retroactive legitimacy—if the state has always existed, then questioning it becomes equivalent to questioning the social order itself. It also captures political language, projecting terms such as "politics," "government," "public," and "law" onto a statist framework taken for granted. In doing so, it establishes itself as the unquestionable horizon within which all governance must be conceived, rendering any non-state alternative directly unintelligible.

The state's existence and justification have ceased to be questioned at all—and that is precisely what makes it such a powerful ideological apparatus.