This can be easily demonstrated by first considering society at large, which is us, and then consider the state. For society at large to stop existing, we would have to remove all people who are willing to cooperate in their daily lives. However, for the state to stop existing, we only need to remove the state apparatus, commonly referred to as the bureaucracy.
If the bureaucracy of the stat was removed from society, society as such would continue to exist. The only difference would be that tax-funded services would have to be paid directly. Public schools would go private. The same would happen to state run hospitals and homes for the elderly. The police and the army would have to find private sponsors. Law enforcement would have to be done privately, and tax collectors would have to find other things to do.
Conversely, we can see that the state will continue to exist as long as its bureaucracy exists. The state can divest everything but its bureaucracy and still exist. However, the moment the bureaucracy is terminated, the state disappears with it.
This means that the state and its bureaucracy are in fact one and the same. Whatever the state has usurped beyond its bureaucracy is merely captive elements of the state. Public schools and hospitals are not the state, nor is any other service provided by the state. Anything that can be done privately is not the state itself, but extensions that can be removed without the state being terminated.
Furthermore, the state is not owned by us. Very few of us have any real control of the state. The fact that we are allowed to vote does not alter this. The most obvious reason being that we never have the option to terminate the state. True ownership would imply an option to terminate it, but this option is never given. Hence, we are not the owners of the state. Rather, the state is owned by a group of private individuals in cooperation with a few elected officials.
The state is not us. It is a bureaucracy, owned by a small political elite.
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