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Robert Heinlein said:
"Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty. This is known as 'bad luck.' " 
 
This bad luck problem is pretty much complete in what used to be Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe; fully complete in Cuba and so on.  Are we in for a spell of bad luck? Currently, half the US population does not pay income taxes.  So they really don't care about raising taxes, they just want more free stuff.  Soon we are back to Aesop's fable of the Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs, or killing off (literally or figuratively) those who create wealth.  Progressives and Populists want "things" given to them (food, shelter, clothing, medical care etc) as a "right."  Rights, like freedom of speech, religion and assembly are not things but but abstract freedoms, and have been intentionally confused with wants.  We are all for universal equal rights, but when "rights" are wants or things, this suddenly takes a Marxist twist, in that it's not fair for you to have more "rights," now meaning things, and someone else has less.  Having confused rights with wants, we are about to kill the Goose in the name of fairness.  Predictably, bad luck will ensue.
 
The difference between typical European growth of <2% and US growth of >4%, say a 2.5%, means a 5x difference in national wealth at the end of a century.  A country 5X richer can much more readily care for those in need, do research, education, exploration and defend itself against natural and man-made disaster, than a poorer nation.  We are killing US growth, and will shortly look, at best, European (which is to say, impoverished, if less scenic).  Such a state of affairs is an explicit goal.  Europeanization is not a worst case scenario.  Our family left Germany and my wife's Cuba; Germany was the flower of European culture and science, Cuba the third wealthiest Latin American economy (now trailing Haiti).  Both, in a very real sense, went abruptly to Hell.  One pretty much remains there.  Bad Luck. 
 
Continuous improvement in civilizations is not foreordained or some historical imperative.  We can't see catastrophe any more that river boaters can see a waterfall ahead.  By the time they see what's happening, they are past the point of no return.  Prolonged smooth sailing makes one incautious.  Incautious boaters die.  So do civilizations; history is littered with them and we are not unique or somehow specially protected.  After a long spell of smooth sailing, we have lost our caution.  If we return to a Hobbesian state, survivors will have an intimate sense of rights vs. wants, having much of neither.