The state, as the fundamental form of political organization, has swept the world. Today virtually all of the land masses of the globe are territorial states. The state system, once European, now includes China and Japan, as well as the former colonies the modern empires. But the global spread of the state system does not convey the full extent of the state's victory over alternative forms of political organization. The state has conquered our imaginations as well. It is not just that we tend to dismiss anarchism. It is that we do not easily imagine many alternatives to states. We have trouble, for instance, understanding the status of various 'international bodies and and often instinctively categorize: institutional attempts regulate states as themselves proto-states, for instance, the United Nations was once thought of as a step towards "World Government' (more threatening and now European Union is feared as a potential federal state, a States of as well our understanding of the remnants of pre-statist European polities, such as (a grand duchy), Liechtenstein and Monaco (principalities), San Marino (a republic), or Andorra (under the joint suzerainty of the President e and the Bishop of Urgel, Spain). We commonly take these to be states. It is not thought an absurdity to consider the Vatican a state, though it has no citizenry (see Shaw,) it is as if our mind, as well as the categories of law, had room only for one sort of entity or unit.