ABSTRACT
Modern states are territorially defined on the map by clear borders and preferably without enclaves and exclaves. Modern states are, moreover, characterized by the will to create national uniformity, the existence of a system of law that applies equally to all, and direct rule. This chapter considers police work was previously performed by military forces, all sorts of semi-private organizations or families and lineages that were supposed to exert mutual control. As the sovereign state sought to monopolize public rule and legitimate violence and was expected to provide public goods, it strove to eliminate the collecting of revenue by landlords, religious institutions and the like. On the left of the political spectrum the chapter explores very differing ideas about the role of the state, ranging from its total abolition, as advocated by anarchists, to all sorts of state-socialism or communism, in which the state should collectivize the entire economy and indeed the entire society.
