Role of the stateWith the exception

Role of the state
With the exception of anarchists, all political thinkers have regarded the
state as, in some sense, a worthwhile or necessary association. Even
revolutionary socialists have accepted the need for a proletarian state to
preside over the transition from capitalism to communism, in the form of
the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’. Thinkers have, however, profoundly
disagreed about the exact role that the state should play in society. This
has often been portrayed as the balance between the state and civil society.
The state, as explained earlier, necessarily reflects sovereign, compulsory
and coercive authority. Civil society, on the other hand, embraces those
areas of life in which individuals are free to exercise choice and make their
own decisions; in other words, it is a realm of voluntary and autonomous
associations.