The Hollowed Out State
Recent events confirm that the state is less and less capable of delivering what we need - and ever more concerned with controlling us. We'll be debating what this all means at The Academy 2026.
Ahead of Ideas Matter’s annual residential weekend – The Academy 2026: Hollow Leviathan: the state against the demos - on 22 & 23 August at Wyboston Lakes (full details below), Jacob Reynolds reflects on recent events and how they illustrate the themes of the conference.
It is increasingly hard to shake the feeling that the contemporary state – every aspect of government, every major institution, every aspect of the functioning of public authority – is becoming more like a stage set. While the reach of government into every aspect of our lives is mighty, the state is at the same time somehow hollow, empty, unable to really offer any solutions to the problems of our time. We have instead a series of hollowed-out institutions that have retained their titles and their budgets while losing any claim to authority and any ability to deliver the goods.
This is not merely a matter of ‘government incompetence’, a phrase far too mild for the current moment. It is the emergence of a state that has fundamentally broken its contract with the demos, moving from a protector of the people to a manager of their decline.
The Anarchy of the Soft State
Look at the streets of Clapham this week, with teenagers running amok and stealing from shops. Amid a rather tame (by historical standards) mob of looting and disorder, the police seem totally paralysed. The same police that waste no effort in knocking on doors for wrongthink appear powerless to deal with genuine public disorder. Of course, the lawlessness implicates a wider culture as well - a depressing ‘hood aesthetic’, which seems to thrive in our social collapse and the absence of broader public solidarity.
The seemingly light-touch approach to policing the street appears to be a systematic strategy by the public authorities, who implicitly understand that they are not capable of enforcing order. The decline of what is always derisively called ‘old fashioned’ (read: visible) policing, the growth of administration and virtual speech-crime enforcement, and the broader breakdown of authority that all adult figures including the police face – the police respond to all this with a retroactive approach of promising to check the CCTV a few days later. In other words, when the state loses its moral authority and its physical confidence, the vacuum is filled by the most chaotic elements of the street.
This breakdown of order is not an isolated riot; it is a systemic rot. We see its most tragic manifestation in the failures surrounding Valdo Calocane and the Nottingham killings in March 2023. Here, the machinery of the state - the NHS, the mental-health services, the police oversight - all clicked through their bureaucratic gears, yet produced nothing but a lethal vacuum. The ‘systemic failures’ reported were not a lack of rules, but a surplus of them that served only to obscure responsibility. The state knew Calocane was a danger; but it seemed capable of inventing any myriad number of reasons why nothing should be done. This is more than just the outrageous fact that ‘health officials declined to section him because of the “over-representation of young black men in prison”’.
The most telling part of the whole scandal is that the default response of public authorities was not just evasiveness about their own failing, but a seemingly deliberate strategy to treat the victims and their families as the real problem. The authorities seem to view each tragedy as just another public-relations disaster that requires the careful choreography of state power to avoid turning into a scandal.
This is the ‘Anarchy’ in Anarcho-Tyranny: a state that cannot or will not perform the most basic, Hobbesian duty of keeping its citizens safe from violent lunatics and street mobs.
The Tyranny of the Rationed State
But as the state retreats from its public duties, it becomes increasingly brazen in its hostility toward the individual. Consider the latest news from the NHS: a plan to ‘ration’ referrals, effectively telling people who need specialist care to, quite literally, f-off.
We are told we must ‘protect the NHS’, yet the NHS now views the sick as a ‘demand’ to be managed out of existence. It is a staggering inversion. We pay record-high taxes into a system that then treats our request for medical care as an inconvenience. The state is no longer a tool used by the public to achieve common ends; it is a self-serving entity that views the public as a ‘risk factor’. Whether it is rationing your healthcare or ‘nudging’ your behaviour through ULEZ cameras and speech codes, the message is clear: you are the problem.
The Hostile State
Why can the state police your tweets, but not your streets? Why can it tell you which doctor you can’t see, but not how it lost track of a triple-killer?
The answer lies in the nature of the contemporary ruling class. They have retreated into the ‘soft tasks’ - the policing of language, the management of ‘misinformation’, the ritualistic enforcement of petty regulations - because the ‘hard tasks’ are beyond them. But more than that, there is a palpable sense of malice. The state has become ‘hostile’. It treats the aspirations of ordinary people - for safety, for healthcare, for a say in their own lives - with a mixture of disbelief and disgust. The demos is seen as a volatile mass that must be restrained, taxed and lectured, while the state itself undergoes a process of internal collapse.
THE ACADEMY 2026
HOLLOW LEVIATHAN:
THE STATE AGAINST THE DEMOS
Saturday 22 & Sunday 23 August
Wyboston Lakes, Bedfordshire, MK44 3AL
This inversion of the social contract cannot be sustained. A state that breaks its promise to protect and serve, while simultaneously demanding total control over our private lives and public thoughts, is a state in crisis. It is a Leviathan that has lost its legitimacy.
The upcoming Academy 2026 – the annual residential weekend organised by Ideas Matter – is dedicated to unpicking this paradox. We will ask the uncomfortable questions: Why has the state become so incapable of delivering the basics? Why is it increasingly set against the very people it claims to represent? And how do we reclaim a sense of agency in an era of ‘hollowed out’ institutions?
About the event
Today’s state is a sprawling leviathan. It reaches into our lives to an historically unprecedented degree. Yet it is, at the same time, fragmenting, incompetent and unable to maintain control of safety and security, internally or externally.
Beyond this, something is missing: any sense of legitimacy. Political legitimacy in the modern era is conferred by the people – the demos – yet the contemporary state often appears to be set explicitly against them. Ordinary people are seen as a problem to be managed, a source of danger, as something for the state to be protected from.
The Academy 2026 will explore the origins and development of the contemporary state. Why is the state, which seems to be growing inexorably, apparently incapable of delivering? Is it increasingly set against the people – and if so, why?
Lectures include
What is the National Interest?
Professor Frank Furedi
executive director, MCC Brussels
Islamo-Leftism and the roots of contemporary Third-Worldism
Dr Tim Black
books and essays editor, spiked
Coming apart: authoritarian strategies for a fractured society
Chris Bayliss
contributing editor, The Critic
What remains? Art and memory in the Post-Cultural State
Lola Salem
Marshal Research Fellow and music lecturer, Oriel College, Oxford; author, Artless (Polity, forthcoming); contributor, The Critic, Engelsberg Ideas, Telegraph
Recommended reading
Thomas Hobbes – Leviathan (1651)
Alexis de Tocqueville – Democracy in America (1835-1840)
James Burnham – The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom (1943)
Peter Turchin – End Times: Elites, Counter-Elites and the Path of Political Disintegration (2023)
Tickets
You can choose to buy day tickets without accommodation, or tickets that include accommodation at Wyboston Lakes Resort. Day tickets only include lunch
Tickets with accommodation include:
• Brilliant food: a quality breakfast (including continental and cooked options), an extensive lunch, and a three-course dinner
• Excellent facilities: access to the Wyboston Lakes gym, swimming pool and other amenities during your stay
• Social opportunities: staying the night means you’ll experience the full, collegiate atmosphere of the event and get the chance to carry on discussions over dinner and in the bar.
Have a friend who is also interested? You can save up to £65 each by doubling up with a friend. Select ‘double occupancy’ and let us know you’d like a twin room.
Click on the links below to purchase:
If you have your own accommodation and would just like to join us for the conference sessions, use the links below:
If you would like to pay a concession rate (for full time students, senior citizens and unwaged), or pay in instalments, please email geoff@ideasmatter.org.uk for further details.
Thanks, Jacob, great piece.
Have cross posted
https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/breakfast-at-tiffanys
Dusty
Bram Kanstein analysed 35+ governmental reports of different sections of government in the Netherlands using AI to determine the state of the country:
https://x.com/bramk/status/2038981214724317417?s=20
Translated by ChatGPT he says:
“I analyzed 35+ government reports using AI. What came out about the Netherlands is something no one wants to hear.
The Netherlands is on course for a systemic crisis—and the math doesn’t lie.
I’m not an economist and I’m not a politician. I’m an entrepreneur, a father, and I live in this country. And because I have children, I force myself to look beyond next week. To think about what kind of country this will be in ten years, and in twenty years.
What I’ve done over the past few days is something anyone can do—but apparently no one does. At least not those in charge. I used AI to combine 30+ reports from serious, established institutions into one coherent picture. Reports from the Central Planning Bureau, Statistics Netherlands, De Nederlandsche Bank, the Employee Insurance Agency, the National Institute for Public Health, Rijkswaterstaat, the Social and Cultural Planning Office, the Court of Audit, McKinsey, the OECD, PwC, the Advisory Council on Migration, and researchers from Leiden University. Not opinions or Twitter threads, but official reports from the institutions that monitor our country.
The picture that emerges is shocking. Not because the individual figures are new, but because no one puts them together. And when you do, it becomes impossible to deny that we are on a path that is mathematically unsustainable.
This piece is not a political argument. It is an attempt to honestly describe what is happening, supported by sources, and to ask the question we should all be discussing: what do we do about this?
Where we are now
Five million Dutch people currently receive some form of benefit—unemployment, disability, social assistance, or state pension. That is 30% of everyone over the age of 15. Nearly one in three.
The number of people on social assistance has been rising for ten consecutive quarters, because structurally more people are entering than leaving. Among young people under 27, the number increased by 6.2% in one year.
Disability figures are even more alarming. In 2024, 93,000 WIA applications were submitted—the highest ever. Inflow has risen by 60% in six years. There are now more than 450,000 disability benefit recipients, and by 2027 around 100,000 people are expected to be waiting for assessment. Most concerning: 70% of this increase was not anticipated by the agency itself. The Court of Audit now calls the system “unworkable” and partly “unlawful.”
Meanwhile, burnout complaints among 25–35-year-olds have risen from 13% in 2015 to 20% in 2024. A quarter of the youngest working generation reports issues. Disability inflow among under-35s is rising fastest of all age groups. Total sickness absence costs amount to €28.5 billion per year.
The collective tax burden stands at 38.5% of GDP, projected to rise to around 43% by 2060. With unchanged policy, government debt is projected to reach 126% of GDP. In 93% of scenarios, debt exceeds the European 60% norm. The chance things fix themselves is less than 7%.
Then there’s the demographic factor accelerating everything. Currently, there are about 33 retirees per 100 workers. By 2040, that will be 50. The population over 75 will grow to 2.6 million. Soon, every two workers will support nearly one retiree. And that’s just demographics—the productive base is also shrinking internally.
How it keeps getting worse
What makes these figures so troubling is not their individual size, but the mechanism behind them: a self-reinforcing spiral.
Government grows due to rising healthcare costs, pensions, defense spending, and bureaucracy. To pay for this, taxes increase. Higher taxes reduce incentives to work and invest, leading to more burnout, more dropouts, and lower growth. Lower growth means less tax revenue, increasing dependency on benefits. So the government must spend even more.
Back to square one—but each cycle is more expensive than the last.
Even the government states: additional policy is needed to prevent long-term expansion and higher taxes. But such policy doesn’t come, because every cut affects voters.
Meanwhile, new accelerators appear. Post-war infrastructure is reaching the end of its lifespan, with a €35 billion funding gap by 2030.
AI could automate up to 30% of current work hours in Europe. Goldman Sachs estimates 300 million jobs globally affected. Not factory workers, but white-collar middle-class jobs—the very group supporting the tax system. Yet fewer than 15% of at-risk workers have access to retraining.
On February 12, 2026, parliament approved a tax on unrealized capital gains—36% on paper profits. No other country does this. If your portfolio doubles and then crashes back, you still owe tax on gains you never actually kept.
Meanwhile, in extreme cases, workers already pay up to 92 cents in tax per extra euro earned. For many, earning more can literally result in less disposable income.
The system penalizes working harder—and we wonder why burnout is rising.
When it tips over
Combining physical, fiscal, and demographic data reveals a timeline:
2026–2030: Physical crisis—aging infrastructure fails
2028–2032: Fiscal crisis—tax system complexity collapses under its own weight
2030–2035: Bureaucratic crisis—overhead consumes public budgets
2035–2040: Social implosion—healthcare overload and labor shortages
Around 2040: System maintenance costs exceed total revenue capacity
We are currently in what could be called “managed decline.” Everything still appears functional, but the foundations are weakening.
Why nothing changes
Why doesn’t politics acknowledge this? Partly due to “path dependency”: once a system is set, reversing it becomes politically and administratively too costly.
But it’s not just the system. The information has long been available. Institutions warned. Reports were published. Yet leaders consistently chose short-term solutions over long-term action.
Temporary fixes are politically safe. Real reform creates immediate losers. In a fragmented political system, that’s nearly impossible.
On top of that, European regulations limit policy options in areas like migration, taxation, and labor reform.
Meanwhile, citizens raising concerns are dismissed as unrealistic or populist. Official narratives focus on modest growth figures, while everyday reality worsens.
The choice we avoid
There are two paths:
Continue patching a fundamentally broken system—comfortable short term, disastrous long term
Radical simplification—fewer taxes, fewer subsidies, less bureaucracy
Countries like Estonia, Switzerland, and Denmark show alternatives are possible—but they require accepting short-term pain.
What AI reveals about us
Everything in this piece comes from publicly available reports. No secrets. Just AI tools and willingness to connect the dots.
In days, you can construct a clear picture: demographic pressure, rising benefits, fiscal spirals, infrastructure decay, AI disruption, and policy constraints.
So the uncomfortable question is: if one person can figure this out in days, why haven’t leaders acted?
The honest answer: they already knew.
The issue isn’t lack of knowledge—it’s that acknowledging this reality means admitting the system cannot be fixed with incremental changes. And that’s not how you win elections.
But ignoring it doesn’t change the outcome. The math remains the same.
The choice is not left vs right. It is whether to accept pain now through reform—or face far greater pain later when the system breaks.
Every year we wait, the cost increases.
I don’t want to be a doomer—but this is basic math.
What about you? Do you recognize this picture? Or do you see it differently? I’d like to hear your thoughts. This is meant as the start of a conversation, not the conclusion.”
I thought it made for interesting reading and there are quite a few parallels between NL and the U.K.
Maybe something to share with our MPs?