ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the origins and development of the state and examines its nature and role in various types of societies in history including Oriental despotic, slaveowning, feudal, and capitalist societies. The transition from Oriental despotic state under the Asiatic mode of production to its varied forms under slavery and feudal landlordism was a slow process that took hundreds of years. The origins of classical European feudalism go back to the Germanic invasions of the Roman Empire and the fusion of the essentially household-based Germanic mode with Roman proto-feudalism, which occurred after the collapse of the slave system of ancient Rome. Historically, the feudal mode of production in Western Europe began to give way to mercantilism in the sixteenth century and later to capitalism in the eighteenth century. The reappearance of a strong central state coincided with the dissolution of the feudal mode of production and the rise to prominence of the commercial and industrial capitalist class.
