How the state kindly takes away our freedom

by Mathias Müller, Switzerland

(16 May 2025) Politicians present themselves to citizens as a friend and helper. But this is often a perfidious deception, as the new coalition agreement in Germany shows.

I took the trouble to read the new coalition agreement in Germany – a document produced by the CDU/CSU and SPD that at first glance appears technocratic, friendly and reasonable. But behind it lies more than just a new social policy. What is emerging here is a quiet but deliberate attack on personal responsibility, private life and the idea of the self-determined citizen.

One section is particularly revealing. It states that the government will examine “an annual family budget for everyday helpers for families with small children and/or relatives in need of care with low and middle incomes, which we will make digitally accessible”.

What sounds harmless – like a modern update of neighbourhood support – turns out to be a building block of a thoroughly organised everyday world with the state as the central player. These “helpers” are not grandmothers, friends or neighbours. They are paid service providers, organised via platforms, state-controlled and tax-funded. There are even plans for an annual family budget that can be accessed online – digitally, of course.

What is emerging here is not a relief service, but a system change. A creeping replacement of established, voluntary solidarity with a cold service logic. Help becomes a transaction. Relationships become bookings. Community becomes organisation.

Officially, the aim is to combat undeclared work. But this term is a political smokescreen. Because what is being criminalised is not exploitation, but self-determined help. Anyone who provides private support in future without using a state-approved portal will come under suspicion. What used to be taken for granted – the neighbour who steps in, the grandfather who looks after the children – is now being declared a grey area. This is no accident. It is strategy.

Convenience instead of bans

The state is not only replacing family structures – it is gradually depriving people of their ability to organise themselves. Not with bans, but with convenience. Not with violence, but with services. Those who no longer trust themselves to live their own lives become customers of the state. Those who no longer think for themselves are guided. What is sold as “relief” is the erosion of responsibility.

This logic is not new. Antonio Gramsci, a Marxist thinker of the 1930s, already recognised that power arises not only through politics, but also through cultural hegemony. Those who change their thinking change their behaviour. Family, religion, school – he saw all of these as bourgeois bastions that needed to be replaced. Not through open confrontation, but by undermining structures, introducing new concepts and new rituals. And that is exactly what we are seeing today.

The traditional family is being marginalised, personal responsibility is being dismissed as too demanding, and care is being delegated to the service sector. Lively interaction’ is turning into cold administration. People are becoming units in a care system – provided for, managed and controlled.

This is not only true in Germany, but also in Switzerland. “Everyday helpers” are not a marginal issue. They are the prototype of a state that no longer asks questions but simply acts. And which increasingly defines the private sphere as public.

We must be vigilant – not only when it comes to bans, but also when it comes to terminology. Concepts such as “relief”, “care” or “support”. Not all state welfare is a blessing. Those who want to retain their freedom must be prepared to take responsibility – for themselves, for others, for their own lives.

Because those who leave the organisation of their daily lives to the state will ultimately also surrender their language, their values and their conscience – with a smile. And a state-paid helper at the door.

* Mathias Müller is a career officer in the Swiss Army, author and podcaster.

Source: https://schweizermonat.ch/wie-der-staat-uns-freundlich-entmuendigt/, 30 April 2025

(Translation “Swiss-Standpoint”)