Arrange the steps of Pierson’s argument about why retrenchment is politically difficult.

1. A welfare programme is established and begins paying benefits
2. Recipients organise around it and come to expect its continuation
3. Cutting the programme concentrates losses on an attentive group
4. Governments avoid visible cuts and use indirect or delayed instruments
5. Aggregate expenditure moves far less than the political rhetoric suggests

The asymmetry is the whole argument: those who lose from a cut know exactly what they lose, while those who gain from lower taxes gain a little each and rarely notice. That is why retrenchment proceeds by indexation changes, eligibility tightening and waiting lists rather than by abolition, and why the aggregate spending series looks so unlike the political debate.