The modern state thrives where there is a preponderance of resources that can also be concentrated. To manage the complexity of this growing mass, a bureaucracy emerges and grows to govern it, all of which produce a growing complexity of activity and resource that provides a camouflage for individual malfeasance, and so the rule of law is administered by complementary monitoring and enforcement institutions, all of which require resources. And accounting for and keeping track of all of this requires accounting systems: ethics and research, surveillance, record-keeping, public media organs and public engagement, and so on. The strength of this system must continually augment to keep up with itself, and this requires resources. And as the state weakens and shrinks back, accountability retreats to individual interrelations, as is found in the hinterlands, where individuals have to interface with each other to govern.
