Historically speaking, the corruption and degradation of the system build up until the empire collapses on itself or is defeated in a war and has a foreign powe

Historically speaking, the corruption and degradation of the system build up until the empire collapses on itself or is defeated in a war and has a foreign power rebuild their government. This has been written about a bunch, the earliest known piece I've read notes of was by Ibn Khaldun. Some of his work is outdated, being 800 years old, but there's some pretty incredibly insightful things in it. Worth a skim: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muqaddimah http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muqaddimah