“This is the end.” For people of my generation, these words inevitably evoke the voice of Jim Morrison, singer of The Doors, although he died when I was still a small child. “The end of our elaborate plans. The end of everything that stands.” The song’s 1967 release was in tune with a zeitgeist that was very different from today’s.

The common thread, however, is the sense of an epochal break, a turning point in time. 1968, that iconic year, symbolised a fresh beginning, the escalation of protests against the old and demands for something new. 2025 is reminiscent of a right-wing 1968, albeit with a very different style and objectives. But it’s not conservative in any sense of the word.

It’s not limited to politics, culture or society. It’s also about technology, the economy, infrastructure, the climate and even truth: the list goes on. In some respects, 2025 is the end of illusions. A book of the same name by sociologist Andreas Reckwitz was published in 2019. It is no coincidence that the introduction begins with the year 2016, when Donald Trump was elected president of the USA and the British voted to leave the EU.

Our illusions have been crumbling for at least a decade. We clung to them until it was no longer possible; some people are still trying. But it’s time to face a new reality and act accordingly. This new reality isn’t pretty, but it’s not the end of the world either. It is probably the end of a post-war world order that has been stable, with some modifications, for eight decades. But it’s not a return to the first half of the 20th century.

The state, its enemies and its believers

The geopolitical reality, complexity, and interconnectedness of our global societies and economies are very different from those of the past. The terms of the past don’t work well either. To describe the emerging techno-authoritarian regime as fascist obscures more than it explains. Nor is it the end of history, as Francis Fukuyama diagnosed after the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989.

Instead, Western liberalism, which Fukuyama had declared the winner of history, is coming under pressure from two sides. Right-wing authoritarian populists want to destroy what they call the “deep state” – a crippling, overstepping bureaucracy. The left, on the other hand, continues to believe deeply in the state and its omnipotence, which comes at the expense of the freedoms of citizens and the economy.

Is this the end of democracy? We can only be sure of that with the benefit of hindsight. Democracy, as famously defined by Karl Popper, is the ability to change government without bloodshed. Can the US get rid of the Big Tech oligarchy and its Trump-Musk government? That remains to be seen. Taking democracy for granted turned out to be an illusion that needed to end.

However, there are underlying reasons for the rise of populists and authoritarians. In the digital sphere, we are witnessing the end of objective truth and the spread of disinformation and misinformation. In the physical sphere, a massive housing crisis, expensive energy, and a deficiency of transport infrastructure all contribute to the anger of the working class. Here’s a report from the UK on these issues, but the same goes for Germany, and many other countries.

The end of artificial scarcity

Failed policies, bureaucracy, and the resulting lack of innovation cause these shortages. The good news is that we can change all this. This is the point of Abundance, a new book by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson. The authors propose nothing less than the end of artificial scarcity. Housing, their primary example, is strangled by regulation and bureaucracy: zoning rules in the US, shortage of building land and expensive building regulations in Germany.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Even in densely populated Germany, land is still available for houses to be built on. We can lower standards to reduce building costs and cut red tape to speed up the process. However, despite population growth and housing undersupply in urban areas, there has been less construction in Germany in the last decade than there was in the first decade of the 21st century.

Researchers attribute the growing support for right-wing populists to the housing crisis, particularly the rental market risk:

It is the radical right – and not the mainstream left – that attracts voters who face increasing economic risks in the housing market.

The end of another illusion. Neglecting the basics, such as housing, infrastructure, or energy needs, jeopardises the legitimacy of liberal democracy. The same applies to security, both domestic and foreign. Seen in this light, the recent trillion-euro financial package for defence and infrastructure in Germany makes a great deal of sense.

The end of the state illusion

However, money can only take you so far. It is a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition. There is also a need for structural reforms. A recent report, Initiative for a State Capable of Acting, sets out a number of recommendations. Among them: the state must digitise much faster as a prerequisite for everything – proximity to citizens, reduction of bureaucracy, future viability, and economic dynamism.

It would be a further illusion to simply take the new billions in debt and leave everything else as it was. Which brings us back to the proper role of the state. The mistrust of the deep state has a true core, even if the term itself has been discredited as a right-wing battle cry. Ironically, however, it is now the digital oligopolies that want to seize power and replace liberal democracy with an authoritarian technocracy.

In this way, faith in the state is being replaced by faith in technology. But technology is not a good in and of itself. It needs an intelligent framework to flourish and be a force for good. As we keep saying, we need a real digital revolution.

The role of the state is to defend the freedom and security of its citizens against internal and external threats. This includes a rule of law and a regulatory framework that provides fair rules for the market and defends it against monopolies and oligopolies. Added to this is the welfare state, which covers existential risks such as illness and poverty.

The land of confusion

When it comes to infrastructure, the picture is more nuanced. There is public infrastructure, such as roads, railways and large parts of the education system. There are natural monopolies, notably utilities, but most of these are organised in the private sector, under state supervision. Investing in infrastructure is not something the government can do on its own.

This is one more illusion that must end. There is also a need for private capital, as well as the capacity to build. When things go badly, the money seeps away through inflation and (semi-)government mismanagement. When things go well, the gigantic stimulus then goes on to create second-round effects as the investment spreads through the economy, generating more prosperity.

Andreas Reckwitz, the sociologist mentioned above, describes the crisis of liberalism as follows: The welfare state that emerged in response to the social question created a culture of dependency, while neoliberal market radicalism (in response to excessive state regulation) increased social inequality and weakened the public infrastructure. This is the Gordian knot of illusion and confusion that we have to cut.

Let’s end with another song reference. This time, it’s from the 1980s, written by Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford, and Phil Collins.

There’s too many men, too many people
Making too many problems
And not much love to go round
Can’t you see this is a land of confusion?

This is the world we live in
And these are the hands we’re given
Use them and let’s start trying
To make it a place worth living in