The more general phenomenon of what the parent is describing is rent-seeking becoming an outsized portion of society. When the rent-seeking class becomes too po

The more general phenomenon of what the parent is describing is rent-seeking becoming an outsized portion of society. When the rent-seeking class becomes too powerful they drain an unsustainable amount of productivity from the rest of society that eventually causes it to become weak/unstable and fall to internal or external forces. The Ottoman Empire is a good example of this.