Editing State (polity) (section)

===Anarchist perspective===
{{Main|Anarchism}}
[[File:Anti-capitalism color— Restored.png|thumb|[[Industrial Workers of the World|IWW]] poster "[[Pyramid of Capitalist System]]" ({{circa|1911}}), depicting an [[Criticism of capitalism|anti-capitalist]] perspective on statist/capitalist social structures]]
[[Anarchism]] as a [[political philosophy]] regards the state and hierarchies as unnecessary and harmful, and instead promotes a [[stateless society]], or [[anarchy]], a self-managed, self-governed society based on voluntary, cooperative institutions.

Anarchists believe that the state is inherently an instrument of domination and repression, no matter who is in control of it. Anarchists note that the state possesses the [[monopoly on violence|monopoly on the legal use of violence]]. Unlike Marxists, anarchists believe that revolutionary seizure of state power should not be a political goal. They believe instead that the state apparatus should be completely dismantled, and an alternative set of social relations created, which are not based on state power at all.<ref>{{cite book | author=Newman, Saul | title=The Politics of Postanarchism | publisher=Edinburgh University Press | year=2010 | isbn=978-0-7486-3495-8 | page=109 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SiqBiViUsOkC&pg=PA109 |url-status=live | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160729012355/https://books.google.com/books?id=SiqBiViUsOkC&pg=PA109 | archive-date=29 July 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite book | author=Roussopoulos, Dimitrios I. | title=The political economy of the state: Québec, Canada, U.S.A. | publisher=Black Rose Books | year=1973 | isbn=978-0-919618-01-5 | page=8 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jzX7mCJLl9AC&pg=PA8| url-status=live | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160513043033/https://books.google.com/books?id=jzX7mCJLl9AC&pg=PA8 |archive-date=13 May 2016}}</ref>

Various [[Christian anarchists]], such as [[Jacques Ellul]], have identified the state and [[political power]] as the [[The Beast (Revelation)|Beast]] in the Book of Revelation.<ref>{{cite book |title=Christian Anarchism: A Political Commentary on the Gospel |last=Christoyannopoulos |first=Alexandre |author-link=Alexandre Christoyannopoulos |year=2010 |publisher=Imprint Academic |location=Exeter |pages=123–126 |quote=Revelation}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Anarchy and Christianity |last=Ellul |first=Jacques |author-link=Jacques Ellul |year=1988 |publisher=Wm. B. Eerdmans |location=Michigan |isbn=9780802804952 |pages=71–74 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=55_Oa12YTt0C&pg=PA72 |quote=The first beast comes up from the sea...It is given 'all authority and power over every tribe, every people, every tongue, and every nation' (13:7). All who dwell on earth worship it. Political power could hardly, I think, be more expressly described, for it is this power which has authority, which controls military force, and which compels adoration (i.e., absolute obedience). |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151102122037/https://books.google.com/books?id=55_Oa12YTt0C&pg=PA72&dq= |archive-date=2 November 2015}}</ref>