I'm a fan of Joseph Tainter's analysis around organization of societies and issues around collapse being related to diminishing marginal returns. I think there's a lot to that position when you look at the general political party agendas. Technocratic solutions trying to squeeze more blood from the stone while providing less and less to participants (I have less of a theory on effectiveness for any given action, this is more of an observation).

https://risk.princeton.edu/img/Historical_Collapse_Resources...