Institutional decline

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Institutional decline is the argument, made by the Logos movement, that centralised institutions are failing for structural reasons and that neither reform nor protest can repair them. It opens the Logos activist course Building a Parallel Society and is the case Logos makes for building a parallel society. The Logos website states: "Our institutions are failing." It adds: "Reform from within cannot reverse this."

The basics

Centralisation since 1648

The course starts in 1648, when the Peace of Westphalia ended the Thirty Years' War. The historian Peter H. Wilson puts the war's dead at around 1.8 million soldiers and at least 3.2 million civilians. He says this cut the population of the Holy Roman Empire by at least a fifth. The course says the treaties came to stand for one principle: one sovereign, one territory.

Logos argues that power has moved towards the centre ever since. The course lists small states absorbed into larger ones, international bodies stacked on top of them, and money pulled into central banks. It marks 1971 as the year money lost its tie to gold. On 15 August 1971 President Nixon ordered "the gold window to be closed", according to the Federal Reserve's history of the event.

The course also points to the growth of the state. Economists Vito Tanzi and Ludger Schuknecht found that public spending in industrial countries averaged 8.3 percent of GDP in 1870 and 47.2 percent in 1994. Our World in Data gives a similar picture for Europe: around 10 percent at the end of the 19th century and close to 50 percent in many countries today.

Logos argues that each step made the system more fragile and easier to corrupt. The course says a single point that controls the money, the rules and the records is valuable enough to be captured, and that in time it is.

How failure shows up

The course lists patterns it says recur across countries. They include wages that buy less, corruption treated as normal, rising coercion, public services that answer to the centre, a population that no longer handles things together, and permits needed for simple acts. It also cites distrust of government. The OECD's 2024 trust survey found that 44 percent of respondents had low or no trust in their national government. 39 percent had high or moderately high trust.

The course adds that public debt is climbing towards levels last seen after the Second World War. The IMF's October 2025 Fiscal Monitor projects global public debt to pass 100 percent of GDP by 2029, which it says would be the highest level since 1948.

Tightening and occupation

Logos argues that a failing system degrades in two directions at once. It tightens its hold through surveillance, censorship and the power to freeze assets. It is also occupied, as other actors take over the functions it gives up. The course names cartels in Mexico, armed groups in the Sahel and corporations in Nigeria. InSight Crime reports that in Michoacán "the quotas demanded from the avocado producers were fixed for everyone in the production chain."

The course uses Freedom House scores to argue that the West is not exempt. Freedom House reports that global freedom "declined for the 20th consecutive year in 2025." The United States fell 3 points to 81, its lowest score since the 0 to 100 scale began in 2002. Freedom House says this added to a 12-point erosion over two decades. Of the 88 countries rated Free, only Bulgaria matched the American drop.

Why reform and protest fall short

The course argues that reform from inside fails because the system selects for people who keep it as it is. It gives two figures. A 2019 Public Citizen study of the 115th Congress found that 26 of 44 former members working outside politics, or 59 percent, worked for lobbying firms, consulting firms, trade groups or business groups. A 1993 report by the US Merit Systems Protection Board covered its 1992 survey of federal employees. Of those who had reported illegal or wasteful activity, 37 percent said they had faced reprisal or the threat of it. The figure in its 1983 survey was 24 percent. The Whistleblower Protection Act was passed in 1989, between the two surveys.

The course argues that protest also falls short. It draws on the political scientist Erica Chenoweth. She found that success rates for nonviolent revolutionary campaigns stayed above 40 percent from the 1960s until about 2010 and reached 65 percent in the 1990s. Since 2010, less than 34 percent have succeeded. She also found that the 2010s saw the most nonviolent resistance recorded since 1900.

How it applies to Logos

The course concludes that one option remains. In its view, people can build replacement institutions alongside the failing ones, so they can rely on them when needed. Logos calls this a parallel society. Its website offers a choice: "Remain in the decline. Or exit and build the alternative." See also Exit.

The Circles handbook makes the same case in its chapter Why we need Logos Circles. It opens: "We are living through a period of structural decline." It names three crises. The first is institutional collapse and a crisis of trust. The second is authoritarianism and networked suppression. The third is a crisis of meaning and the collapse of community. The chapter repeats the OECD finding that "Only 4 in 10 people globally trust their national government." It also notes that the UK and Japan have appointed ministers for loneliness.

The handbook's roadmap for Circles sets the aim to "Establish Circles as trusted local institutions with real influence." Another aim is to "Position Logos as a parallel governance system outperforming failing states." A 2026 Logos article on a Circle clean-up near Liberland says that, rather than trying to reform "broken or rigged institutions", Circles "focus on building practical alternatives".

In Circle reports

Circle reports and handbook pages describe local problems that echo the course's argument. These are the Circles' own accounts.

  • Public services that do not answer. The Ilorin Circle reported that during a test of its Wahala emergency platform, Nigeria's toll-free emergency line, 112, did not respond. A pop-up Circle near Liberland cleared a road and riverbank in Apatin, Serbia, that the municipal rubbish collection did not serve. In Lisbon, residents of a social housing neighbourhood said they had been promised a community space for over a year. On the day of a booked meeting, the parish council office was closed. The Ruse Circle's civic reporting project starts from the view that residents' reports to the city are "often filtered, delayed, or communicated in one-way channels".
  • Permits for simple acts. The Ibadan Circle planned its first clean-up in a park. It sent a formal letter, but "the request was subsequently declined and approval was not granted", so it cleaned a street in Bodija instead. The Abuja Circle paused a school pilot "due to delayed approval". The Kano Circle wrote that "School approvals and preparation take longer than expected." The Liberland group wrote: "We didn’t wait for permission".
  • Distrust of those in charge. The Kampala Circle's research on savings cooperatives found "Trust gaps between SACCO members and leadership", along with paper records and little visibility into how member funds were used.
  • Few routes into paid work. The Awka Circle found that local tech talent had few clear routes into paid work, so "talent in Anambra goes unused, or leaves for opportunities elsewhere".
  • Fear of reprisal. The Los Angeles Circle is designing a private app for whistleblowers. It argues that existing whistleblowing tools "rely on centralised hosts that can be subpoenaed or de-platformed".

Examples

  • Iraq, 2003. On 15 February 2003 people in about 600 cities protested against the coming war. The BBC estimated that between six and ten million people took part that weekend. Guinness World Records lists the Rome rally, at about 3 million, as the largest anti-war rally. Wikipedia notes that this was the organisers' estimate. Police estimated 650,000 at the final rally, which most marchers did not reach. United States and allied forces attacked Iraq on 20 March 2003. The course gives a figure of 15 million marchers. The BBC's estimate for that weekend was lower.
  • Egypt, 2011. Protests began on 25 January 2011. Hosni Mubarak resigned on 11 February and handed power to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, a movement founded in 1928, won the presidency in 2012. The military removed him on 3 July 2013. The course uses this sequence to argue that whoever is already organised fills the space a protest opens.

See also

Takes on this idea

None yet. See Takes.

Sources

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