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...
What is your theory, if you are willing to share?
you might be onto something here.
some time ago i discovered Wardley maps [1] (about company's "landscape" and strategy there), and one thing that stick with me was this:
there are 4 levels/stages of development there - genesis, custom-built, product, commodity. With three transitions, made by different kind of people - Pioneers, Settlers, Town-planners. And the last one, mass-production, is about "ruthless removal of deviation".
i guess these "diminishing returns" in keeping long-time same-thing (democracy?) have something in common with the removal of deviations/variety..
[1] https://feststelltaste.github.io/wardley-maps-book/#_the_fir...