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Notes -
We have been declining in state power for decades.
We cannot bring crime rates down, and in fact, in major cities it’s entirely possible for gangs of criminals to show up to a store in broad daylight, carrying trash bags and loot the store. Large areas of major cities are no-go zones for law abiding citizens. In urban centers, the received wisdom is “don’t lock your car, because you are going to get your window smashed when the people come to steal out of your car.
Schools at least in America suck at education. Kids rarely graduate reading at grade level, and very seldom can high school graduates do math on grade level. This is one reason that so many jobs that “don’t require college “ require a degree — at least you still need to be literate and numerate to graduate college. The only things school even tries to do are push propaganda, act as state daycares, and as social activities for teens through sports and clubs.
As far as Covid goes, I mean convincing people to work from home in their PJs doesn’t particularly strike me as high state capacity. In fact, at least in the USA, it crumbled rather quickly once people decided to not comply and to protest.
Personally, I believe that the West is in serious decline and may well be headed towards a dark age. We are basically coasting off of the capacity built by our great grandparents and generations before them. We are uneducated, lazy, undisciplined, and are not investing in our own future. I keep looking at the candidates we have for president— Trump, Biden, Harris, and RFK, and I can’t convince myself they could manage a Taco Bell.
I was under the impression that that was by design.
There is no loss prevention in stores and no effective policing because it’s functionally illegal to do that, and there is no performance criteria in education because it’s a jobs program for adults (improving kids is a side-effect).
That doesn’t sound like a raw decline in state power; it instead sounds like a major increase in the people’s willingness to tolerate that. Which are not quite the same thing.
It means the state capacity has moved from attempting to solve problems to preventing them from being solved.
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