Modern governments spend billions of dollars on external consultancies to design public services, manage logistics, and formulate policy. While this offers temporary access to private-sector skills, the long-term effect is the hollowing out of civil service expertise.
The Loss of State Capacity
When the state stops writing its own policies, it loses the capacity to understand them. The institutional memory is transferred to private firms, leaving departments unable to manage projects without consultant oversight. To restore state capacity, we must reinvest in our own civil service.
