An attempt is made in this article to dissect the state of the South African state post-1994 as well as class dynamics that attach to the challenge of the liberation movement's ascendancy into formal organs of political power. In this regard, ideas presented in various fora are integrated. Few issues have been selected 21st to illustrate the strategic challenges that South Africa faces as it strives to build a state that can speed up social transformation. For purposes of this treatise, it is not necessary to trace the evolution of the state as such - the Athenian and Spartan versions, the pre-colonial manifestations of social organisation as in the Mapungubwe and other African civilisations and the mfecane wars of nation-formation, or the rise of the colonial state in the geography today called South Africa. Nor is an attempt made to interrogate the Weberian, micro-foundational and Marxist theories of the state a