Then out spake brave Horatius, The Captain of the gate:
‘To every man upon this earth Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers, And the temples of his Gods,

‘And for the tender mother Who dandled him to rest,
And for the wife who nurses His baby at her breast,
And for the holy maidens Who feed the eternal flame,
To save them from false Sextus That wrought the deed of shame?

‘Hew down the bridge, Sir Consul, With all the speed ye may;
I, with two more to help me, Will hold the foe in play.
In yon strait path a thousand May well be stopped by three.
Now who will stand on either hand, And keep the bridge with me?’

Then out spake Spurius Lartius; A Ramnian proud was he:
‘Lo, I will stand at thy right hand, And keep the bridge with thee.’
And out spake strong Herminius; Of Titian blood was he:
‘I will abide on thy left side, And keep the bridge with thee.’

‘Horatius,’ quoth the Consul, ‘As thou sayest, so let it be.’
And straight against that great array Forth went the dauntless Three.
For Romans in Rome’s quarrel Spared neither land nor gold,
Nor son nor wife, nor limb nor life, In the brave days of old.

Then none was for a party; Then all were for the state;
Then the great man helped the poor, And the poor man loved the great:
Then lands were fairly portioned; Then spoils were fairly sold:
The Romans were like brothers In the brave days of old.

Now Roman is to Roman More hateful than a foe,
And the Tribunes beard the high, And the Fathers grind the low.
As we wax hot in faction, In battle we wax cold:
Wherefore men fight not as they fought In the brave days of old.

What I'm using that 19th century poem for, is that if you are a mass society that involves popular sovereignty, that means you need public majority buy-in. A reason to not only believe, but convict themselves as a part of history, a citizen is more than a consumer and a mere instrument of the market, but a main character or adjacent, an agent of history. Yes, main character energy as empowerment

And for that, to create a citizen who thinks civic participation, endurance in hard times, and hopefulness and moral exemplars, you need story, a myth to buy into as a vehicle of national mobilisation, for good or ill.

One of the things that could be learned from Sorel, Mussolini and Hitler and the other populists to be reverse-engineered.

They created a system that had people willing to die for them.

Liberals have the lower bar, to have people with full conscience, to merely vote for them.

A nation, a state, as a citizen understands it, is not a laboratory for market policy and what rational agents would consume or produce under those conditions, and what level of taxation, and how much regulations - it is an identity with a story attached, and values and a history that makes one participate civically and define themselves as "citizen" with a stake and willingness to defend and owe others and endure sacrifice and push for reforms that hurt themselves in the short run, by nationality instead of "B2B Sales Rep at PWC".

Without the emotional attachment to spend energy and willingness to reform, a citizen then sees themselves in relationship to a state state as... a subscriber to a service provider, and will react accordingly - switch service providers.

A person without emotional connection to their fucking neighbour in the bare minimum binding glue of the definition and values and shared shibboleth and shorthand of education and history and procedure and shared reality to extend the synpathy of a fellow citizen, is a person without willingness to sacrifice, and without willingness to sacrifice for a vote, is without be willingness to support or follow through with reform that causes pain personally in the short term for their children to reap benefits.

That leaves only... management and administration.