As we have seen with the explosion of prisons in the latter half of the twentieth century (which occurred alongside market liberalization), the supposed scaling back of government does not necessarily lead to the shrinking of police, prisons, and military spending. Prisons and law enforcement may actually grow when the ideology of small government is hegemonic because the maintenance of law and order is considered the proper (morally authorized) domain of government. For Bernard E. Harcourt, neoliberal penality is rooted in "the assumption of government legitimacy and competence in the penal arena and, on the other hand, the presumption that the government should not play a role elsewhere." However, the collapse of the tax state owing to neoliberalization has created a situation where the livelihoods of local government bodies are increasingly tied to predatory fiscal structures that foster looting.