I think Sparta does have an important lesson to teach our society, summarized: "The wealthy, if left unchecked, will suck society dry even as it crumbles around

I think Sparta does have an important lesson to teach our society, summarized: "The wealthy, if left unchecked, will suck society dry even as it crumbles around them. Even if the evidence society is crumbling is plainly obvious to everyone, they'll just keep right on sucking until there's nothing left." Generation after generation the Spartiate class was shrinking, and the Spartan rulers did nothing to stop it. "Why?" is the question we should be asking, it's obvious that when you're part of an elite class dominating society, and the number of fighting age men your class can field is declining from thousands to hundreds, that that's going to be a problem some day... Yet they did nothing to stop it until the whole system crashed. That's the lesson we should be learning from Sparta.