This Is How Empires Collapse

[Lucille]

If this list is any guide, the American Empire is well on its way. It has achieved all twelve!

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-0...pires-collapse

This is how empires collapse: one complicit participant at a time.

Before an empire collapses, it first erodes from within. The collapse may appear sudden, but the processes of internal rot hollowed out the resilience, resolve, purpose and vitality of the empire long before its final implosion.

What are these processes of internal rot? Here are a few of the most pervasive and destructive forces of internal corrosion:
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That's how empires collapse: one corrupted, self-serving individual at a time, gaming one corrupted, self-serving institution or another; it no longer matters which one because they're all equally compromised. It's not just the border legions that are phantom; the entire stability and strength of the empire is phantom. The uncorruptible and competent are banished or punished, and the corrupt, self-serving and inept are lavished with treasure.

This is how empires collapse: one complicit participant at a time.

[ProIndividual]

Any added complexity in a closed system (chaos theory) eventually causes entropy (covered in #5 briefly). Population is one aspect, and an even more complexity-increasing thing is technology. That's why empires, and lesser states, always crackdown on technology. For example, China gave up their population controls with birthrate limits (mostly), because they saw there are other ways to stifle complexity via central banking (which really only had an effect as they moved more toward market economics) and internet controls, and North Korea bans all kinds of technology and constantly works a certain percentage of their population to death in work-prison camps. In the USA we have closed border fetishists trying to limit population to fight the labor market (mostly for non-economic reasons or misunderstandings about economics), and state funding of abortions and contraceptives to limit population growth. In fact, if not for immigration, we'd have a dropping population, because our native birthrate isn't even keeping up with death rate.

I'd also mention tax vs borrowing vs inflating. All of these fund government. If one can't tax enough, they borrow and inflate the difference, or if they can't borrow enough to fund it they can tax more and inflate more, and so on. It does continue to grow until it collapses...that is shown by history and anthropology. But the entropy is due to increased complexity in a closed system, and the inability for the malignant tumor of state to stop growing. That's where the OP gets it right...

That's how empires collapse: one corrupted, self-serving individual at a time, gaming one corrupted, self-serving institution or another; it no longer matters which one because they're all equally compromised.

Those who refuse to take part in the cronyism can't compete with those who do, and so the system is a house of cards from the very start.

3. Self-serving institutions select sociopathic leaders whose skills are not competency or leadership but conning others...

Actually all hierarchy attracts sociopaths. Their top ten favorite careers are all in hierarchies, like corporations (CEOs), the state (high ranking military, police, judges, lawyers, etc.), hospitals (surgeons), etc. The more compulsory the hierarchy, the less accountability, and higher concentration of sociopaths...so the state always attracts the $#@! out of them and so does the legal profession indirectly (like defense lawyers, trial lawyers who file frivolous class actions all the time, etc.). But even voluntary hierarchies, which are inevitable, will attract them. The big difference is that sociopathic surgeons tend to save lives while being narcissistic and playing lovers against each other....so they hurt people in their personal lives but rarely harm patients or others. They serve a good market function in most voluntary hierarchies. In corporations, which are state inventions but not totally compulsory (a kind of hybrid situation), they do more harm than in hospitals, but less than in the state directly.