My point isn't that class isn't a major force, but that it's just one of them. And that within equivalent or similar class characters there is wildly different ways in which state power is used, and that the ways it intrudes upon lives and the severity of its punishments for many are among the most important issues.

States absolutely arbitrarily enact violence. Sure they tend to have some argument as to why they do it, often religion or ideology, but sometimes the king is just mad.

Denmark is an imperial state, absolutely, but compare them to other imperial states in how they treat their population. Compare them to Georgist England where they would hang people for petty crimes and had a philosophy of no mercy. Both countries are imperialist, Christian, constitutional monarchies with a capitalist economic system. Hell, a lot of European "enlightenment" beliefs on rights and such were ideas they were given by the Iriqouian peoples.

Compare the interregium puritan rule of the UK and later putitan governments in the Americas to the monarchical rule following it. Circumstances decide who can come to power and what they can do while being tolerated, circumstances which includes the population's philosophy on what rulers can and should do and tolerate, as well as rulers' ability to use propaganda and violence to stop revolts from succeeding. Castro all but says this when talking about how machismo led to state repression of homosexuality.

It's difficult for an impoverished nation that's subject to colonial powers to have a libertine approach to civil liberty and a penal system focused on rehabilitation. Noble when attempted, but outside forces love to step in and stop that shit. But, they can always go above and beyond on it, form alliances with religious regressives (who may or may not constitute a clerical class), etc. Or they can do only what they're pressured to do. Those in open resistance have choices too. Chiapas or ISIS, both resisted US global capitalist hegemony. There's no reason beyond ideology why Iran can't embrace feminist equality like Cuba did. And within the imperial cores the population and leadership alone have these conversations.

Philosophy of governance amongst the population and government have very real impact. Because sometimes the working class demands you deal with the witch problem and stop people from sinning and other times they demand you stop capital punishment and minimize state interference in the private lives of citizens.