Resilience and Selection
How the government can drive a modern selection system. A radical restructuring programme: protect the productive core, dismantle internal services, while preserving basic security.
By Jacobus van Merksteijn · 22 min read · 28 May 2026
The existential challenge: an inverted pyramid about to tip
The Netherlands faces a fundamental economic crisis. Our productive sector is being buried under the weight of an over-priced services and government economy. The figures are stark:
At the same time, vulnerability among citizens is rising: more mental health problems, less resilience, and increasing dropout from the labour market. This document outlines a radical restructuring programme that applies evolutionary principles to achieve 10% cost reduction per year in internal services, while sparing and strengthening the productive sector.
The goal: within 5 years, a competitive business environment for industry, with tax rates comparable to Malta and Abu Dhabi, financed by the structural dismantling of non-productive overhead.
Core principles: selection without sacrifices
Before we address the sectors: the single most essential point of this entire programme. Selection here means something specific — not what the term has historically been misunderstood to mean. Read this section carefully.
Historically, "survival of the fittest" as a social principle has led to eugenics, forced sterilisation, the justification of extreme inequality and racism. This is morally unacceptable and scientifically obsolete. Evolutionary biology itself demonstrates that cooperation and care for the vulnerable are evolved traits that make groups stronger — not weaker.
- Policy and systems: ineffective programmes are discontinued, effective ones are expanded
- Enterprises: market forces drive selection on quality and innovation
- Behaviour: incentives that reward resilience, work and responsibility
- Skills: selection in education based on aptitude and effort
- Sector priority: industry and exports take precedence over internal services
- Deliberately hardening child mortality or disease: that is eugenics, morally and historically unacceptable
- Leaving the "weak" to starve: basic security always remains in place
- Withholding medical care: access to healthcare is a fundamental right
- Selection on origin, race or innate characteristics: entirely out of scope
The balance: protecting where it matters, allowing growth where it can
The goal is a society that protects people against major, irreversible risks (permanent injury, death, deep poverty), while exposing them to small risks and consequences (mistakes, setbacks, failure) that teach and strengthen. Resilience and performance are rewarded; dependence is discouraged through systems that are simpler and more responsive — but nobody falls through the floor.
"This is not about 'survival of the fittest' in any social sense, but about economic necessity: select on behaviour, choices and systems, protect the productive core, dismantle internal services rigorously. With basic security preserved, but without illusions about the gravity of the situation."
Economic imperative: Every euro of regulatory burden or cost imposed on industry must be offset by at least one euro of reduction in internal services costs. This is not a political choice but economic survival — the Netherlands must within 5 years reach tax rates competitive with Malta (15–35%) and Abu Dhabi (0–9% corporate tax).
Upbringing: from overprotection to risk competence
Children are growing up in ever safer environments. Research shows this leads to less self-confidence, more anxiety in later life, and young people who cannot assess risks.
Make risky play mandatory in pedagogical policy: climbing, rough-and-tumble, outdoor play, using tools. Redefine GGD oversight from "as safe as possible" to "as safe as necessary".
Children who learn to deal with minor setbacks and failure are better prepared for real life — without exposure to life-threatening situations. Target: youth care intake −30% in 5 years.
Concrete measures
- Risky play anchored in pedagogical policy (childcare, primary education)
- Adapt liability law: protect pedagogically responsible risks against unreasonable claims
- GGD oversight: quality standard "as safe as necessary" made mandatory
- Campaigns on the importance of limits, tasks and risks in upbringing
- Guide professionals: shift from control to coaching
- Return youth care to genuine need — not for every parenting difficulty
Education: selection on level and effort
Everyone may start anywhere. Funding per diploma forces schools to pass everyone through. Too little appreciation for craftsmanship compared with academic education.
Clear admission and selection criteria, funding tied to skills and job prospects, revaluation of vocational and practical training, normalising failure through reorientation without endless extension.
Students find the right place, schools maintain quality. Selection on aptitude and effort, not on survival. First-year dropout: target <15% through better entry selection.
Indicators of success
| Indicator | Current situation | Target (5 years) |
|---|---|---|
| First-year dropout (higher education) | ~20–25% | <15% |
| Graduates employed within 6 months | Varies by field | Rising |
| Popularity of vocational level 3–4 | Declining | Rising |
| Average starting salary by education level | Stagnant | Rising via incentive linkage |
| Tiered student finance | Flat | Technical > Services > Public |
Labour market: industry first, services on a diet
Key figure: Dutch energy-intensive industry is under structural pressure from high costs, while government employment grew by 9,000 FTE in 2024. This is an inverted pyramid about to tip — 80% employment in services, a large share of which is non-tradeable.
Three priorities — radical sectoral rebalancing
- Exporting industry: chemicals, high-tech, manufacturing, maritime, agro-food
- Enabling sectors: energy, logistics, ICT infrastructure
- Financial services, IT services
- Business services that export
- Government, healthcare, education, municipal services, semi-public sector
Concrete labour market measures
- Working must always pay more than benefits (+30% net minimum)
- Zero regulatory growth for industry: every new rule requires scrapping two
- Failure-friendly system: debt settlement <3 months, restart within 6 months
- Targeted retraining: priority for transitions from public/services to technical/production
- Student finance and employment conditions tiered: technical > services > public
- Talent flow towards industry via economic incentives — no coercion
Quantitative target (5–7 years): Employment in industry + enabling sectors: +100,000 to +150,000 FTE. Employment in internal services: −150,000 to −200,000 FTE. Net: slightly negative (−50,000 FTE), but higher average productivity and export value per FTE.
Economic selection operates on companies and ideas, not on people. People receive multiple chances through retraining and transition to productive sectors.
Healthcare and benefits: a hard floor with a soft landing
Too many safety-net mechanisms without reciprocal obligation or prospect of exit. Too few incentives for self-reliance. Unclear role of market forces in youth care, the Social Support Act and reintegration.
Nobody falls through the floor (shelter, food, medical care). But with a reciprocal obligation, job-seeking requirement and participation. Youth care and the Social Support Act: only for genuine need. Co-payment from those who can afford it.
People who can work, do so. People who genuinely cannot are helped. Selection operates on behaviour and choices, not on survival. Healthcare costs: −20% through de-liberalisation of complex care.
Where market forces work vs. do not work in healthcare
- Standard reintegration pathways for the self-sufficient
- Light youth care and parenting support
- Standard Social Support Act provisions (aids, transport)
- Innovation and pilots where rapid selection is desirable
- Complex youth care, mild intellectual disability, severe psychiatry
- Heavy Social Support Act: dementia, intensive home care
- Debt counselling in cases of severe problems
- Reintegration with a long distance to the labour market
Public governance with fixed teams or long-term contracts is more effective in complex care — market models lead there to fragmentation and high transaction costs.
Policy evaluation: adaptive governance as an evolutionary system
Policy measures are often continued out of habit, without critical evaluation. Ineffective programmes persist because there is no sharp selection process. The government applies the evolutionary principle to policy itself:
Warning signals: when to adjust course?
- Increase in homelessness or hunger
- Rise in suicide rates or severe mental health problems
- Debt problems among working people growing
- Children at risk due to insufficient youth care
- Outflow to work stagnates despite incentives
- Diplomas lose value
- Increase in inequality between regions
- Public trust falls sharply
- Resilience and self-confidence rising
- More people finding suitable work
- Healthcare costs stabilising
- Innovation and entrepreneurship growing
Decentralised governance: evolution between municipalities
The Netherlands has a strong tendency towards central control: detailed regulation, ad-hoc interventions after incidents, municipalities as "execution counters" without their own accountability. This undermines learning and innovation — if every municipality must do the same thing, there is no variation, no selection, and therefore no evolution.
Clear objectives and a limited set of core indicators (labour participation, youth care intake, costs per capita). Minimal ground rules: citizens' rights, financial transparency, minimum quality threshold.
Municipalities choose for themselves how they organise access, debt counselling, reintegration and incentives. Annual public dashboard compares performance per municipality — normalised for population and context.
The VNG facilitates exchange. Weak performers receive a "learning and improvement obligation". Bonus (5–10% of budget) for municipalities that demonstrably meet targets. Successes spread like an evolutionary advantage.
Cost per performance evaluation: Instead of "how much do we spend", the central government steers on "what does it deliver per euro?" — cost per successful exit from social assistance, per completed youth care trajectory, per debt-free exit. This reduces overhead FTE in The Hague through results-based oversight rather than process control.
Government FTE: structural decline through simplification
How: simplification, not slash-and-burn
- Natural attrition (retirement, departure) not fully replaced
- Digitalisation of standard processes
- Scrapping ineffective programmes and duplications
- Integration of subsidy and project streams — fewer separate pots
- No forced redundancies in the first years — focus on natural attrition
- Retraining towards shortage areas: ICT, technology, healthcare teaching
- Regional mobility centres guide civil servants to the productive core
- FTE is shifted, not destroyed — higher social value
The hard rule: Every euro of burden on industry (energy, wages, regulatory pressure) is offset by at least one euro of reduction in the internal services sector. This is the central budgetary rule for all ministries.
Liberalisation and de-liberalisation: smart rebalancing
Rather than ideologically pursuing "more market" or "more government", this programme applies a functional criterion. Far-reaching market competition is logical when three questions are predominantly answered "yes":
Are there enough providers, is quality transparent, and can clients actually switch?
Does the overhead of tendering, oversight and contract management outweigh the benefits of competition?
Can the target group genuinely exercise freedom of choice — or does vulnerability require public governance?
Market forces have themselves created considerable overhead: many FTE for tendering, contract management and oversight. By de-liberalising complex care and standardising where the market remains, this overhead falls structurally — fewer tenders, simpler oversight, lower failure costs in supply chains. This contributes directly to the 10%-annual-cost-reduction norm.
Monitoring: 10 control mechanisms with a cost-reduction imperative
The government steers "Darwin-like" selection through these mechanisms — all aimed at 10% annual cost reduction in internal services and protection of the productive sector:
Central principle: Every measure is tested on its contribution to cost reduction and the strengthening of the productive sector. Sentimentality must not lead to economic self-destruction.
From here to there: the transition path 2026–2031
The programme follows a phased timeline. Three milestones, five years, concrete and measurable — with red alarm signals that always trigger immediate adjustment.
Year 1
Establish baseline per domain (labour participation, youth care intake, costs per capita, debt positions). Legislation for risky play in pedagogical policy. Launch pilots in decentralised governance in 5 municipalities. First step: 1 new rule = scrapping 2 for industry.
Year 2
First policy evaluation cycle — discontinue 10–20% of ineffective programmes. Adjust education selection criteria and fund on skills. Begin FTE reduction through natural attrition. Youth care: volumes −10% via stricter allocation. Mobility centres for civil servants operational.
Year 3
Roll out municipal best practices nationally. De-liberalisation of complex care completed — public governance for severe cases. Internal services cost reduction: 20% vs. 2026 baseline. Tax burden on industry noticeably reduced via the offset rule.
Years 4–5
Industrial employment visibly rising. Government rates moving towards Malta levels for exporting industry. Youth care costs stabilised. Youth resilience indicators improved. Diploma value measurably restored. Regional mobility centres: thousands of civil servants retrained for productive sectors.
Evaluation
External audit of all ten control mechanisms. Are tax rates competitive? Has the productive core grown? Has basic security been maintained? Based on the outcomes: continue, adjust or restructure fundamentally. The evolutionary principle applies to the system itself: what works scales — what does not work, stops.
Hard red limit throughout the entire transition path: The moment an increase in homelessness, suicide rates or children at risk due to insufficient youth care is measured — intervene and adjust immediately. Economic selection never supersedes the human floor.
Integrated governance logic: humane at the floor, hard on systems
This programme combines evolutionary principles into a coherent framework. Not a utopia, but a realistic course:
Nobody falls through the floor. Access to medical care, a roof over one's head, and a minimum guarantee of subsistence are fundamental rights — not variables in the system.
Programmes, institutions and organisations are continuously evaluated. What does not work stops. What works scales. The government applies the same selection principles it expects of the market.
Adaptive governance is not a one-time design but a permanent learning process. Generate variation, identify successes, disseminate knowledge, stop failures — this is the normal mode of operation, not the exception.
"This is not about 'survival of the fittest' in any social sense, but about economic necessity: select on behaviour, choices and systems, protect the productive core, dismantle internal services rigorously. With basic security preserved, but without illusions about the gravity of the situation."
The three pillars stated explicitly once more
- Behaviour, choices, effort and responsibility
- Policy, systems and institutions on effectiveness
- Sector priority: industry above internal services
- Municipal performance via comparable indicators
- Market forces where they work, public governance where needed
- Biological, innate or hereditary characteristics
- Survival: basic security is non-negotiable
- Origin, race, disability or illness
- Deliberately hardening child mortality or disease
- Withholding care from people who genuinely need it
Promoting resilience without hardening people, selecting what works without sacrificing individuals, and protecting the economic base that makes the welfare state possible — this is the course.