ABSTRACT
State thinking penetrates the minutest aspects of people's everyday lives from filling in a bureaucratic form, carrying an identity card, signing a birth certificate, to shaping our everyday thinking and thought: it is the public at the heart of what we consider eminently private. It is undeniable that the state influences many different aspects of people's lives through what Michael Mann identifies as infrastructural power, or the ability of the state to penetrate civil society. The state has a monopoly on the use of legitimate force within its borders. This does not mean that the state must use force. State domination is evidenced by the ability to have commands followed without the need to resort to coercion. In the past, professional soldiers and tax collectors held the right to use violence on behalf of kings. Kings eventually recognized the threat posed by private armies and roving bands of decommissioned soldiers and acted to consolidate power by disarming private armies.
