This Is How Empires Collapse (April 23, 2014)
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:

1. Each institution within the system loses sight of its original purpose of serving the populace and becomes self-serving. ................................................................

2. The corrupt Status Quo corrupts every individual who works within the system. ...............................................................

3. Self-serving institutions select sociopathic leaders whose skills are not competency or leadership but conning others into believing the institution is functioning optimally when in reality it is faltering/failing................................................................

4. The institutional memory rewards conserving the existing Status Quo and punishes innovation. ...............................................................

5. As the sunk costs of the subsystems increase, the institutional resistance to new technologies and processes increases accordingly. ...............................................................

6. Institutional memory and knowledge support "doing more of what worked in the past" even when it is clearly failing. ...............................................................

7. These dynamics of eroding accountability, effectiveness and purpose lead to systemic diminishing returns. ...............................................................

8. Incompetence is rewarded and competence punished. ...............................................................

10. Economies of scale no longer generate returns. ...............................................................

11. Redundancy is sacrificed to preserve a corrupt and failing core. ...............................................................

12. The feedback from those tasked with doing the real work of the Empire is ignored as Elites and vested interests dominate decision-making................................................................

This lack of feedback from the bottom 95% is captured by the expression "Let them eat cake." ...............................................................

The point is that decisions made with no feedback from the real-world of the bottom 95%, that is, decisions made solely in response to the demands of cronies, vested interests and various elites, are intrinsically unsound and doomed to fail catastrophically.

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

http://www.oftwominds.com/blogapr14/empi...llapse4-14.html