Conclusion

Abstract

The state is not just the product of the attempts of kings and queens to conquer and pillage each other’s dominions. It is far more than the historical residue left by the many centuries of war. The welfare state is the bright side of the state, for it seeks to raise up the common men and women instead of push them down. More precisely, it provides the agencies of collective action through which common men and women push themselves up. The welfare state is creative, productive, participatory, and integrative. The warfare state conducts two kinds of wars, often simultaneously, as one reinforces the other—class war and national war. Class war is waged by the warfare state to enable the dominant economic class to exploit the underlying population, while national war is waged to dominate other nations. National war reinforces the warfare state’s ability to conduct class war, unless national wars are lost.