The article presents Durkheim’s theory of the state, which focuses on how the state has a moral task in emancipating the individual from society’s despotic grip. In stressing how the state is the historical guarantor of the free individual’s emergence, Durkheim positioned himself directly against classical liberal thinking, which ascribed this function to civil society. The article also gives a short précis of how Durkheim’s theory stands in relation to other well-known theories of the state.