Oh, HARDLY! This is certainly part of the human dilemma.
Absolutely; these tendencies have always been in man and in government.
However, I think that as you look at history, you see a cycle.
Thus, we are reaching that part of the cycle where the above issues come up again.
And I think that where you see that part of the cycle, you see that the next part of the cycle involves a measure of disentegration and decay... perhaps even collapse.
Then, as Cute Wolf said, the cycle begins again with a new beginning.
Personally, I think that in each revolution of the cycle, it becomes worse. However, there are a lot of ways to look at it and a lot of historical examples of each.
I guess I would say that it's a two steps forward (getting worse), one step back (getting better). That is partly because of my religious beliefs though.
In summary, I would cite a quote:
"History is simply man committing the same sins in new and different ways."
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