Mandel Ernest. Origin and Development of the State in the History of Societies

International Viewpoint, 2003. — 6 p.The state did not always exist.
Certain sociologists and other representatives of academic political science are in error when they speak of the state in primitive societies. What they are really doing is identifying the state with the community. In so doing, they strip the state of its special characteristic, i.e., the exercise of certain functions is removed from the community as a whole to become the exclusive prerogative of a tiny fraction of the members of this community.
In other words, the emergence of the state is a product of the social division of labour.