The state is a temporary structure, not the end of history.

Political struggles repeatedly stumble over the same confusion: mistaking a necessary instrument for a historical destination. The modern state—capable of lawmaking, taxation, coercion, and coordination—has often been treated as the ultimate prize of emancipation. To seize it is imagined as victory; to hold it, as success.

This essay argues the opposite. The state is a bastion, sometimes indispensable, often dangerous, and never sacred. It is a shelter built to protect basic dignity when social coordination remains fragile—not a monument to be worshipped, nor a horizon to be eternally defended.

Any mature emancipatory politics must state three things without ambiguity:

1. The state is usable. It can provide legal protection, redistribute resources, enforce rights, and coordinate large-scale public goods.

2. The state is seizable. Power vacuums will be filled; refusing the state entirely only guarantees its capture by hostile forces.

3. The state is not sacred. No institution that relies on coercion may claim moral infallibility or historical permanence.

When the state is sacralised—whether in the name of revolution, nation, or stability—it ceases to be a tool and becomes an idol. Idols demand loyalty, suppress critique, and justify sacrifice. Emancipation ends the moment the instrument demands worship.

Revolutionary stage theories traditionally define success by a single event: the capture of state power. Everything before is preparation; everything after is consolidation.

This metric is fatally flawed.

State power can be seized quickly, but democratic capacity cannot be manufactured on command. When movements equate victory with control of the state, they inherit three immediate problems:

• Administrative substitution: institutions replace social self-governance.

• Security inflation: emergency logics justify permanent concentration of authority.

• Dependency reproduction: society remains reliant on coercive coordination.

The result is a familiar paradox: the revolution “succeeds” politically while failing socially.

If power is not the measure, what is?

A revolution can be said to achieve stage-based success not when it controls the state, but when the state becomes progressively unnecessary for the protection of basic dignity.

The question is not:

• Who governs?

But:

• How much coercion is still required to guarantee survival, safety, and participation?

Where food, shelter, healthcare, education, and collective decision-making can be organised without constant threat or force, the state’s role diminishes. Where these goods depend entirely on enforcement, emancipation remains incomplete.

The state exists because large-scale cooperation remains unstable under conditions of inequality, scarcity, and mistrust. It compensates for failures of coordination through law and force.

Seen this way, the state is a temporary bastion—a fortified structure erected because society has not yet developed sufficient internal capacity to govern itself peacefully and equitably.

Bastions are useful. They are not destinations.

Treating the bastion as permanent guarantees stagnation; abandoning it prematurely invites collapse. The task is not to destroy the state, but to outgrow it.

The path beyond state dependence is neither insurrectionary fantasy nor technocratic management. It is cumulative construction:

• Economic democracy that reduces dependence on coercive redistribution

• Recursive democratic organisation that internalises accountability

• International labour standards that stabilise dignity beyond borders

• Cooperative production that embeds decision-making in daily life

Each layer reduces the amount of force required to keep society functional. Each success renders the state slightly less central, slightly less necessary.

This is not anti-state dogma. It is state relativisation.

At the planetary scale, coordination problems exceed any single state’s capacity. Climate, supply chains, migration, and information flows already disregard borders.

A post-national horizon is therefore not utopian, but structural.

Yet even planetary coordination should not be romanticised as an endpoint. Unification is not salvation; it is merely the opening of a new chapter of governance challenges. The universe is vast. New scales will emerge. New bastions may be required.

History does not end. It changes its scaffolding.

The state is neither enemy nor saviour. It is a means under constraint.

A revolution is not complete when a new flag is raised over a ministry, nor when constitutions are rewritten. It advances when coercion recedes, when dignity no longer depends on enforcement, and when people can coordinate their lives without being compelled.

True revolutionary success occurs when the state gradually becomes redundant.

Planetary unification is neither romanticism nor science fiction; it may simply mark the beginning of another chapter. The universe is large. Emancipation, if it is real, will have to remain adaptive.

The goal is not to abolish tools prematurely, but to ensure that no tool is ever mistaken for the purpose.

The state is a temporary structure, not the end of history.

Political struggles repeatedly stumble over the same confusion: mistaking a necessary instrument for a historical destination. The modern state—capable of lawmaking, taxation, coercion, and coordination—has often been treated as the ultimate prize of emancipation. To seize it is imagined as victory; to hold it, as success.

This essay argues the opposite. The state is a bastion, sometimes indispensable, often dangerous, and never sacred. It is a shelter built to protect basic dignity when social coordination remains fragile—not a monument to be worshipped, nor a horizon to be eternally defended.

Any mature emancipatory politics must state three things without ambiguity:

1. The state is usable. It can provide legal protection, redistribute resources, enforce rights, and coordinate large-scale public goods.

2. The state is seizable. Power vacuums will be filled; refusing the state entirely only guarantees its capture by hostile forces.

3. The state is not sacred. No institution that relies on coercion may claim moral infallibility or historical permanence.

When the state is sacralised—whether in the name of revolution, nation, or stability—it ceases to be a tool and becomes an idol. Idols demand loyalty, suppress critique, and justify sacrifice. Emancipation ends the moment the instrument demands worship.

Revolutionary stage theories traditionally define success by a single event: the capture of state power. Everything before is preparation; everything after is consolidation.

This metric is fatally flawed.

State power can be seized quickly, but democratic capacity cannot be manufactured on command. When movements equate victory with control of the state, they inherit three immediate problems:

• Administrative substitution: institutions replace social self-governance.

• Security inflation: emergency logics justify permanent concentration of authority.

• Dependency reproduction: society remains reliant on coercive coordination.

The result is a familiar paradox: the revolution “succeeds” politically while failing socially.

If power is not the measure, what is?

A revolution can be said to achieve stage-based success not when it controls the state, but when the state becomes progressively unnecessary for the protection of basic dignity.

The question is not:

• Who governs?

But:

• How much coercion is still required to guarantee survival, safety, and participation?

Where food, shelter, healthcare, education, and collective decision-making can be organised without constant threat or force, the state’s role diminishes. Where these goods depend entirely on enforcement, emancipation remains incomplete.

The state exists because large-scale cooperation remains unstable under conditions of inequality, scarcity, and mistrust. It compensates for failures of coordination through law and force.

Seen this way, the state is a temporary bastion—a fortified structure erected because society has not yet developed sufficient internal capacity to govern itself peacefully and equitably.

Bastions are useful. They are not destinations.

Treating the bastion as permanent guarantees stagnation; abandoning it prematurely invites collapse. The task is not to destroy the state, but to outgrow it.

The path beyond state dependence is neither insurrectionary fantasy nor technocratic management. It is cumulative construction:

• Economic democracy that reduces dependence on coercive redistribution

• Recursive democratic organisation that internalises accountability

• International labour standards that stabilise dignity beyond borders

• Cooperative production that embeds decision-making in daily life

Each layer reduces the amount of force required to keep society functional. Each success renders the state slightly less central, slightly less necessary.

This is not anti-state dogma. It is state relativisation.

At the planetary scale, coordination problems exceed any single state’s capacity. Climate, supply chains, migration, and information flows already disregard borders.

A post-national horizon is therefore not utopian, but structural.

Yet even planetary coordination should not be romanticised as an endpoint. Unification is not salvation; it is merely the opening of a new chapter of governance challenges. The universe is vast. New scales will emerge. New bastions may be required.

History does not end. It changes its scaffolding.

The state is neither enemy nor saviour. It is a means under constraint.

A revolution is not complete when a new flag is raised over a ministry, nor when constitutions are rewritten. It advances when coercion recedes, when dignity no longer depends on enforcement, and when people can coordinate their lives without being compelled.

True revolutionary success occurs when the state gradually becomes redundant.

Planetary unification is neither romanticism nor science fiction; it may simply mark the beginning of another chapter. The universe is large. Emancipation, if it is real, will have to remain adaptive.

The goal is not to abolish tools prematurely, but to ensure that no tool is ever mistaken for the purpose.