Societal Entropy.

[thomasblair]

There's no stopping people from getting the idea that the incredible wealth around them is available without production, or that "production ultimately has been solved" and society is merely a question of distribution. These periodic madnesses can be attributed to a sociological phenomenon analogous to entropy in the physical world. You cannot stop it until the poisoned civilization collapses upon the heads of the debauched and the innocent any more than you can violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Nothing can save The People from themselves. The disease will run its course and then civilization will recover.

- via montecristo