The Decline of a State by Hilaire Belloc — Read

The decline of a State is not equivalent to a mortal sickness therein. States are organisms subject to diseases and to decay as are the organisms of men's bodies; but they are not subject to a rhythmic rise and fall as is the body of a man. A State in its decline is never a State doomed or a State dying. States perish slowly or by violence, but never without remedy and rarely without violence.

The decline of a State differs with the texture of it. A democratic State will decline from a lowering of its potential, that is of its ever-ready energy to act in a crisis, to correct and to control its servants in common times, to watch them narrowly and suspect them at all times. A despotic State will decline when the despot is not in point of fact the true depository of despotic power, but some other acting in his name, of whom the people know little and cannot judge; or when the despot, though fully in view and recognized, lacks will; or when (which is rare) he is so inhuman as to miss the general sense of his subjects. An oligarchic State, or aristocracy as it is called, will decline principally through two agencies which are, first, illusion, and secondly, lack of civic aptitude. For an oligarchic State tends very readily to illusion, being conducted by men who live at leisure, satisfy their passions, are immune from the laws, and prefer to shield themselves from reality. Their capacity or appetite for illusion will rapidly pervade those below them, for in an aristocracy the rulers are subjected to a sort of worship from the rest of the community, and thus it comes about that aristocracies in their decline accept fantastic histories of their own past, conceive victory possible without armies, wealth to be an indication of ability, and national security to be a natural gift rather than a product of the will. Such communities further fail from the lack of civic aptitude, as was said above, which means that they deliberately elect to leave the mass of citizens incompetent and irresponsible for generations, so that, when any more strain is upon them, they look at once for some men other than themselves to relieve them, and are incapable of corporate action upon their own account.