40 Years of Downsizing Democracy will lead to collapse? Historically - seems so.

http://www.alternet.org/economy/downsize-democracy-40-years-heres-what-you-get?akid=12721.294211.PPb-25&rd=1&src=newsletter1030924&t=25
http://www.alternet.org/economy/downsize-democracy-40-years-heres-what-you-get?akid=12721.294211.PPb-25&rd=1&src=newsletter1030924&t=25

The wealthy are in the take it all mode and anyone else be damned.

Elites won't save us
Theoretically, of course, neoliberalism says the state should not intervene in the efficient functioning of the market -- resulting in prosperity for everyone. But the theory, according to neoliberalism authority David Harvey, was simply hijacked by the elites to fleece the system -- bailing out the financial sector with trillions of taxpayers' dollars and failing to re-regulate, while gutting labour and environmental regulation. Government actions reveal neoliberalism as "more of a practical attempt to restore elite class power than as a theoretical project driven by the works of [Friedrich von] Hayek or Friedman."
The NASA study is not optimistic about our chances of avoiding eventual collapse given the failure of other civilizations, saying "collapse is difficult to avoid.... Elites grow and consume too much, resulting in a famine among Commoners that eventually causes the collapse of society."
Warnings go unheeded. The NASA reports says "historical collapses were allowed to occur by elites who appear to be oblivious to the catastrophic trajectory (most clearly apparent in the Roman and Mayan cases)."