Innovation and Restriction
A hallmark of Western post-war society is an ongoing cycle of innovation and restriction. This refers to both technological innovation and social innovation.
What this means is as innovation increases, so do the laws and red tape around said innovation. This is not an absolute rule, but rather a prevailing trend. A couple recent technological examples of these things are cryptocurrency and 3D printing. The former is becoming increasingly heavily regulated, while as of recently being relatively unknown, or was something that only appealed to the most fringe technology hobbyists. Now, it is increasingly another lucrative source of income for various governments; not everywhere, but soon many will catch on. Pariah states like North Korea have already taken advantage1 of this reality2. 3D printing has enabled the creation of many things that were formerly prohibitively expensive or inaccessible, but restrictions will inevitably catch up to them soon.
Using the United States of America as a case study, the largest increase in members of the federal bureaucracy occurred from 1933 to 19453. While I stated earlier that this is a feature of post-war society, this has laid the grounds for what has come since. It is not only an increase in the number of employees that matters, but their influence as well. It also is apparent that several layers of government and their demands upon the citizenry compound on each other for all but the smallest countries. Additionally, transmitting information of how these governments deal with certain things globally will influence others to adopt certain policies, while historically, these tended to be much more regional or varied. There is still some degree of this in regions that have high autonomy, such as with Swiss cantons. However, there is also a strong degree of regional identity enabling this, so they are a modern exception to the trend, and even they are not exempt from these changes.
An important thing to note is that as a bureaucracy grows, its employees are less likely to support programs that would remove them from their position, particularly if it is a comfortable one. To a lesser degree, there is also an ideological filter imposed on employees. This can include things like “equitable hiring practices” – but also things like multilingual language requires, such as English/French bilingualism to be part of the House or Senate in the federal government in Canada, as well as more recently, vaccine mandates worldwide.
That is not to say that everyone who has gotten a COVID vaccine is a stooge for his or her own government. However, since there is a statistically stark ideological divide between those who are willing to get it and those who are not, in practice, you will end up more people in government who support this, or at the very least will submit to getting it.
Bureaucrats and politicians tend to appreciate red tape, as that means they have to do less, and they can either eschew or place their work upon others, or outright reject certain applications or requests if the requirements are not met in the first place. It rarely is their ultimate motivation, but banning things and punishing others who try to tear down restrictions is seen as a suitable solution to many problems.
With the explosion of innovation, bureaucrats or politicians cannot possibly keep pace with and regulate everything and the detrimental (and sometimes beneficial) outcomes, sometimes even less so the average person depending on their socioeconomic status. There is also the question of competency and how much of an authority they are on the things they are dealing with, especially when there are standards that are more “inclusive”, allowing for a degree of poorer quality work. It can even enable actively malicious work that undermines a nation.
Scientific research may also attempt to keep up with innovation, but it feasibly cannot study everything, nor can it (or should it) act as a moral compass. Changes in human diet have created alarming conditions both socially and biologically. The internet has generated an incredible amount of filth, some of which goes unpunished or is even promoted, while righteous beliefs are treated as the epitome evil. These are a couple of more transparent examples. But there is also a polarity of either constant backtracking – like using nuclear power or not - or full-throated acceptance of things that are obviously bad.
Although there is a certainly a high level of coordination to actively dismantle what once caused a high level of cohesion – but not necessarily political stability - the fact is, Western/white civilization has driven off a cliff having hardly realized it, while passengers hit the driver. Now, the trends are reversed: there is a high level of political stability, but decreasing social cohesion in western countries. Whether this happened because of said passengers hitting the driver, or the driver being reckless is debatable. Many gripe about “white supremacy”, but in practice, the whole world turns to the West as a model in some form or another, even communist third-worldism.
What used to happen when technological (and social) innovation was at a much slower pace, was an upholding of a status quo for much longer. Post-war was the lowering the floodgates. First, it started to trickle in, but even now, many changes have warped the landscape completely compared to 10-20 years ago. The event horizon has been crossed, the only question remains, what has crossed over, and what can still be pulled back?
https://www.reuters.com/technology/crypto-crash-threatens-north-koreas-stolen-funds-it-ramps-up-weapons-tests-2022-06-28/
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-01/north-koreans-suspected-of-using-fake-resumes-to-steal-crypto
https://www.ushistory.org/gov/8a.asp