Currently, the world is undergoing change. The factors underlying it are material as well as non-material, personal as well as impersonal. The outcome of this change is uncertain, because the future is not predetermined. There may be linear developmental of evolutionary patterns in history, yet, there are cyclical patterns of varied duration too. In modern societies, one cyclical pattern concerns the role the state in the economy and society or the scope of political power or government. Although these days totalist authoritarianism is discredited, liberal democracy has triumphed neither in theory nor in practise. Actually, since the early 1990s support for limited government has been falling and that for big government rising. Modern societies cannot dispense with the state, because only the state is able to provide the so-called pure public goods. Disagreements then arise especially over public provision of goods and services which are not pure public goods..