The Role of State Today

Question

I have read From Bakunin to Lacan, and it says that:"To
put it crudely: for Marx the dominant class generally rules through the state;
whereas for Bakunin, the state generally rules through the dominant class."

While i think Bakunin is right for his time, i am confused for present. It seems to me that in Western liberal democracies state become just a tool of ruling class, nothing more. Is the tought of state still haunting us, or in other words is the state still sacred? Or is it evolved to the system that Kaczynski mentions? In his "System's Neatest Trick" essay Kaczynski says:
Let’s begin by making clear what the System is not. The System is not George W. Bush and his advisors and appointees, it is not the cops who maltreat protesters, it is not the CEOs of the multinational corporations, and it is not the Frankensteins in their laboratories who criminally tinker with the genes of living things. All of these people are servants of the System, but in themselves they do not constitute the System. In particular, the personal and individual values, attitudes, beliefs, and behavior of any of these people may be significantly in conflict with the needs of the System.

Comments

Meta:  i like this question, there are interesting  undertones here.

As for Kaczynski, i like some of his writings, but i think we should consign him to join the rest of the old-men-with-grey-beards; his thoughts are as much conditioned by his time as those of Bakunin and Proudhon.

If i recall correctly, in the beginning was the Church, the State, and the Capital.  In industrialized countries, the church has been downgraded, with Science covering the widening gaps between its butt-flaps, while Capital pretends to ascend to unquestioned piety.  But as ever, the State reserves its monopoly of violence; violence to guarantee the property of Capital, violence to guarantee the priveleges of the Churchs, violence within and without.
(In his 'System', Kacz. aggregates State, Capital, Science; whether he meant what we condemn as 'Civilization', or whether a specific fraction of it, is unclear to me.  I will say that i reject the idea of any person in a position of influence being in conflict with the 'system'; any person in a position of influence will either support the 'system', or they will be culled, cast out, excommunicated, etc..., they are all disposable.  )

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Maybe "System" is some kind of super-idealogy, which consist of minor idealogies, like state. I also like Deleuze and Guattari's definition of state:
"
Like the anarchists then, Deleuze and Guattari are inclined to make the state their target of critique, seeing it as an abstract form which gives rise to minor dominations, giving them meaning and form. The state provides “general models of realization” for the various dominations within society: “the apparatus of the State is a concrete assemblage which realizes the machine of overcoding of a society.” For Deleuze and Guattari, then, the state is an abstract form or model rather than a concrete institution, which essentially rules through more minute institutions and practices of domination. The state “overcodes” these dominations, stamping them with its imprint. Therefore, the state has no essence itself, but is rather an “assemblage,” or even a process of “capture.” From Bakunin to Lacan

Here, we should replace state with system i think.

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Shadows, cast by sock-puppets.

(sorry, but this shite starts to hurt my head after awhile.)
I wonder if some of the old writings weren't colored by the popularity of the Metaphysical around the turn of the (previous) century;  some of the rhetoric wouldn't be out of place in a steampunk novella.