Tainter sees diminishing returns as the underlying reason for the collapse of all ancient civilizations.
mk: Do doubt the US won't last forever, but wouldn't this line of thinking hold true for previous points in its history? We do have a practice of replacing old institutions with new ones, although the process is usually very messy. I don't think that we have reached a point where we have become dangerously static.I also wonder what a collapse might be. What would it look like?