Romamerica

The five marks of the Roman decaying culture according to Edward Gibbon:

-Concern with displaying affluence instead of building wealth;
-Obsession with sex and perversions of sex;
-Art becomes freakish and sensationalistic instead of creative and original;
-Widening disparity between very rich and very poor;
-Increased demand to live off the state.

I would add to 'concern with displaying affluence' this: Obsession over another person's affluence and calls for soaking their wealth. This inevitably leads to laws and rules of taxation that hurt or prevent people from achieving wealth. Think capital gains and dividend taxes.

The second and third is pretty self-explanatory. Plenty of crap passes off as art now.

The fourth should be handled with care and caution. This is just a guess on my part but in Gibbons time the poor didn't have all the opportunities and protections they have today. What we define as poor today is probably not the same as back in his day. That there's a gap today doesn't mean, moreover, people aren't succeeding. By all accounts, we've never been healthier and wealthier in North America or in this case, the USA. We tend to view things from a pie chart set in cement rather than realize the pie chart isn't part of a zero-sum game but an ever-expanding pie to which a cut is available to people.

I don't think a case can be made against the fifth part. Just observe and that much becomes painfully evident.