History can be instructive. In the final century of the Roman Empire, rulers held on by selling their country’s assets - land, cities, farmland, slaves ... liquidating what had been built up for hundreds of years for the simple purpose of enabling the last rulers to hold on to as much power and privilege as they could, for as long as they could, in their shrinking empire’s last years.
Not a pretty picture to contemplate. Outside of the ruling elite, life became hell for the people living in the former Roman empire.
Yes, and one of Rome’s biggest mistakes was not integrating people into their society. They did at first and then they became arrogant and kept different countries citizens from becoming citizens of Rome. They expanded to far and had a “multicultural” society. This eventually did them in.