The image is absurd, almost comic: a dentist’s office in Berlin is required to designate a “ladder officer,” a staff member officially responsible for ensuring that the practice ladder meets regulatory standards. The detail is so trivial that it would be funny if it weren’t symptomatic of something larger: a bureaucracy that has turned into a self-sustaining machine, piling regulation upon regulation until the work itself is buried under paperwork.
What the dentist in Berlin experiences is not unique. It is part of a wider pattern: those who try to live a normal, lawful life find themselves trapped in an ever-tightening net of control. Citizens are checked, monitored, documented. Speed cameras flash, parking inspectors patrol, forms multiply, boxes must be ticked. Every possible error in ordinary life has been foreseen and legislated, and the state watches for infractions with unblinking eyes.
And yet, the same system that is ruthless with the compliant often seems strangely powerless when faced with those who live outside its rules. People who entered the country illegally, those who cheat welfare or social insurance without consequences, or criminals caught on clear charges are often treated with striking leniency. Technicalities delay trials, violent offenders are released after brief questioning, and the revolving door of justice spins. The result is a grotesque imbalance: the stricter you live, the more the system binds you; the more you disregard, the looser it becomes.
This creates a double injustice. First, those who try to live responsibly are punished with paperwork, controls, and penalties. Second, those who disregard the rules find themselves beyond reach, and in practice freer than the law-abiding. The social contract begins to fray when obedience feels like a trap and disobedience feels like liberation.
At its core, this is not just about dentistry or traffic tickets. It is about the erosion of trust. A state that micromanages its citizens while tolerating flagrant breaches of its own laws ceases to appear legitimate. It becomes less a guardian of justice than a bureaucratic predator, feeding on those who still try to play by the rules.
When the ladder in a dentist’s office requires an officer, and the streets fill more and more with people to whom no rule applies, you know the balance has collapsed.
Once the lesson sinks in, that the obedient are trapped while the lawless roam free... the citizen quietly withdraws his loyalty. He may still fill out the forms, still pay the fees, but in his heart he has left. And when enough people leave in this way, the state is left governing only paper, not people.
That is how societies decay: not with riots at first, but with millions of small acts of silent defection.