[Thuggery]

> I doubt that’s the problem.

I don't know, it seems like it's a weird argument but it's definitely a thought I've had too. When I was eyeballing the Egyptian dynasties I was bit shocked to notice how short lived they all are, compared to what I expected. The majority struggle to get to 150 years, no one gets past 300. In fact old man America will soon be an older polity than all of them except the much maligned Ptolemies (275 years). Same deal for the (well documented) Chinese dynasties. People think kingdoms and states are long enduring, measured in multiple centuries, but they're actually pretty unstable.

It seems like a weird unexamined law of the universe. Dynasties/polities struggle to make it past 300~ without some major interruption or something going wrong, if they haven't imploded earlier. There are exceptions. The Korean Joseon managed an eye watering 500+ years. And the Catholic Papacy has been going on continuously for closer to 2 millenia. But still, 249 years is pretty long in the tooth.

[prewett]

For that matter, look at Europe. France has gone through 5 republics and an empire since 1789 and they got a new constitution around 1958. (West) Germany has had three governments in the past 120 years, most recently in 1945. Spain has only been democratic since 1975. All of Eastern Europe has an entirely new state since 1989. Most of the smaller western countries got conquered by Germany in WWII. Even the UK in its current state is only since 1922, although that's a little unfair since I believe that was evolutionary; the last discontinuity was in 1660 if my history is correct.

Which surprises me; the US is doing really well.

[hermitcrab]

I am guessing that the problem is worse where power is inherited. Just because the first guy in the dynasty was capable enough to make himself king and stay in power, doesn't mean his successors are.

[smsm42]

Roman empire had ~500 year run on the western part, and 1500 years on the eastern. That's after another 500 republican years. Not too shabby.

[hermitcrab]

And you can argue that it is still going. It just morphed into the Roman Catholic church.