From The Acid Diaries by Christopher Gray

For Toynbee's first point about the breakdown of civilizations was that it always takes place when the civilization is apparently at the height of its power. And it always takes the same form, the ruling elite's psychopathic need to control absolutely everything - on the level of everyday life, every pettifogging little detail; and, expressed on the level of economy and politics, the obssesive need to construct a "universal" or single world state. This, according to Toynbee, inevitably sets the scene for the doom of the dominant civilization.