“Little Brother is watching you,” said no novel or movie ever. Almost every fictional dystopia — 1984, The Handmaid’s Tale, Michel Houellebecq’s Submission — involves a vast and oppressive state, not a failed or ineffectual one. Because the most recent threats to civilisation were Hitler and Stalin, we expect the next one to take the same dictatorial form.
We shouldn’t. The story of our species is mostly the story of disorder, not too much order; of anarchy rather than tyranny. Even now, the state, a recent invention, is patchy and provisional in much of the world.
Western liberals should adjust their nightmares accordingly. Worrying about strongmen will continue to make sense as long as Donald Trump ponders a comeback. But the larger trend of events is towards fragmentation and chaos.