ABSTRACT
The state has always been involved in acts of creation, maintenance, continuity and change. The state has evolved as a multi-faceted political organism, capable of deploying different parts of its composition at different times as the occasion demands. Marxist theorists sought for generations to discover the purpose of the state. The most common post-Marxist reading of the state is to work with an alignment of four major variables: class, race, gender, ethnicity. For states have always been in the business of domination–they must dominate enemies, whether they be foreign aggressors or criminal. The modem state must always retain the core function of the state, which is the defence of its civil society. The state must also pay attention to the defence of its core culture within the civil society and maintain state policies within the parameters it dictates. States invariably plead the justice of their actions, even when their actions are barbaric.
