I read through your post and I do agree with the gest of it. Now ask yourself, what caused the degradation?
In general if I would compare to the Roman Empire, it troubles were -as I mentioned previously- time. Because people who have money and do not want to do the same as the government tend to avoid the taxes or bribe politicians to do things that do not benefit the people;
I could go on for some time but it’s a whole other discussion, unless you are trying to make some anology to CCP’s governance “shareholders/investors” / “CEO” / “Staff”/“Player concerns”.