Maybe, but plenty of intelligent specialists have thought otherwise. * It was a common idea about the Roman empire. Gibbon found it plausible though he invoked

Maybe, but plenty of intelligent specialists have thought otherwise. * It was a common idea about the Roman empire. Gibbon found it plausible though he invoked other mechanisms. * John Stuart Mill, who was hardly a pompous conservative: https://sententiaeantiquae.com/2018/12/11/luxury-and-societal-decadence/ https://sententiaeantiquae.com/2018/12/11/luxury-and-societa... * Toynbee too. * More recently Francis Fukuyama wrote Political Order and Political Decay.