A Conservative Welfare State for a People with a Long Memory

In my previous article, I described the two forms of nationalism with which Europe is currently confronted in addressing the question of remigration and I proposed a third way: an ethnocultural nationalism based on Herodotus’ definition of what an ethnos, a people, consists of. 

Yet a further question immediately arises. Europe cannot rely, as the United States at least still partially can, on immigration to increase or even maintain its population. The natural alternative is therefore for Europeans themselves to have children and to transmit those things that make them a people in Herodotus’ sense. This, in turn, would require rethinking some of Europe’s first principles, which have been in place since the post-1945 order. It would require rethinking what the state is for, and how it can best serve the transmission of a people through institutional form. Among the institutions that most urgently require such rethinking is one rarely discussed in civilisational terms at all: the welfare state.

The French historian Dominique Venner wrote that Europe is “not a project but a destiny across time.” (He makes this argument in Samurai of the West and History and Traditions of the Europeans: 30,000 Years of Identity.) That is the mindset required for any attempt to design a conservative welfare system. Its purpose is to sustain an ethnos as a people in Herodotus’ sense, and to encourage the transmission of culture and values from one generation to the next through responsibility rather than mere entitlement. 

Thus, any conservative system of welfare should focus on continuity and cultural transmission, and be conceived primarily as a reward for responsibility. The state itself should be understood as an institutional framework enabling that continuity over time. In this perspective, responsibility means having children, caring for parents, educating the young, and transmitting and preserving culture, craft, skills, and language, through a series of distinct institutional pillars.

The first pillar of a conservative welfare state must be the family and demographic continuity. As the British conservative Edmund Burke observed, families are the “little platoons” that sustain society. A couple that decides to form a family and have children should receive a collective tax advantage shared by both parents, rising with each additional child, and with the durability of the union. This tax advantage could, however, be converted into a direct welfare payment for the mother in cases of domestic abuse, allowing her to separate while retaining a minimum of economic security for herself and the children. By rewarding durable unions rather than individual incomes alone, such a system would strengthen the material incentives to endure through difficulty and to preserve family stability over time. The state could also assist by subsidising childcare and domestic support for young couples and for mothers who combine paid work with early motherhood. 

The same policy could be extended to couples unable to have children, and who wish to adopt, thereby reducing the long-term psychological costs borne by children raised without stable families. The conservative ideal of a mother and a father as the normative family form should remain intact. 

A conservative welfare system, by contrast, must recognise children not just as individuals deserving of support, when necessary, but also as valuable future contributors in a demographic and civilisational sense. Even in strictly economic terms, a stable birth rate enlarges the population and sustains the labor force over time. From a cultural perspective, children are the primary transmitters and future creators of their community’s language, customs, and inherited ways of life. Finally, in political terms, they will one day bear the responsibility of defending their political community in an increasingly unstable international order.

The second pillar of a conservative welfare state concerns the encouragement of families to assume responsibility for their elderly parents rather than placing them in impersonal state institutions. By caring for their parents, families perform an act that is morally irreplaceable. From the government’s perspective, it is also economically invaluable, since it reduces the long-term financial burden placed upon institutional care. Institutional care inevitably treats the elderly as cases rather than as persons, whereas care within the family preserves dignity and well-being through the presence of those to whom they are bound by affection and memory.

This would encourage intergenerational responsibility and continuity, tying to the permanence argument in one of my previous articles, while allowing the elderly to share their wisdom with younger members of the family. One of the additional crises Europe now faces is the growing absence of elderly guidance in the formation of the young. From Carl Jung’s perspective, this absence corresponds to the erosion of the archetype of the “old wise man”—the figure who transmits orientation to those in need of guidance. Modern societies produce ever-more technical skill, yet increasingly lack a sense of purpose and direction. Knowledge circulates through peers, ideologies, and even algorithms, but rarely through lived authority. Paid mentors and professional counsellors cannot replace the authority and intimacy of an elderly parent in their final years of life. Having gone through an entire life, the elderly can embody self-mastery, patience, and long memory, reminding the young of what endures, what fails, and what is worthy of lasting commitment.

When a society lacks the figure of the old wise man, it becomes increasingly governed by nihilism, fashion, and the pursuit of transient trends. It is then led by technocrats: men and women of technical knowledge, but without deep wisdom or moral orientation. In place of wisdom, it elevates the fake guru, or what the ancient Greeks would have called the sophist. In ancient Greece, the philosopher was one who formed a coherent way of life oriented toward human flourishing, sustained in part by the authority of age and experience. The sophist, by contrast, possessed only surface knowledge and traded in the appearance of wisdom rather than its substance. Europe has largely abandoned this figure, and a society that abandons its elders risks remaining trapped in a condition of permanent adolescence, a society of orphans without memory or direction. By restoring elderly care within the home, a conservative welfare system would, over time, also help restore the social authority of age and experience.

The third pillar of a conservative welfare system concerns the transmission of education, skill, and culture across generations. Families should have the option for home instruction, including the transmission of practical competences rarely taught in schools: cooking, household management, financial literacy, and the elementary responsibilities of adult life. They could also serve to transmit rare living languages, regional traditions, and unique intergenerational crafts still preserved within certain families and communities. A parent who is a programmer, for example, might introduce the child to programming, preparing the ground for a future vocation within the same profession. When parents assume direct responsibility—partial or complete—for the transmission of knowledge and skill, this should be recognised as a form of public service and supported through targeted tax incentives or welfare credits.

Moreover, this principle could be extended beyond the family to the transmission of skills to other members of the local community. Such community teaching could be rewarded through a temporary and clearly defined tax credit. 

The fourth pillar of a conservative welfare system concerns rural settlement and the revival of depopulated communities in a careful manner to be able to be combined with the child care subsidies, ensuring there is child care available around those rural regions as well. Within this pillar, the state could provide targeted tax relief or low-interest loans to families willing to purchase homes in depopulated rural regions, with the explicit aim of restoring their demographic vitality over time. Such a policy would be viable primarily for families whose professional activity allows for remote or hybrid forms of work. Digital infrastructure could be secured through services such as Starlink, combined with hybrid working arrangements. Rural settlement would thus not only revive depopulated regions, but also restore a durable connection between families and the historical landscapes from which their communities emerged.

A conservative welfare state should not be seen just as a different form of social assistance, but as a redefinition of what social assistance is for at its root. It must be rethought as an institution that encourages transmission, memory, duty, and the long-term survival of the people who depend upon it.