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In the societies we have, there is also rent-seeking, as discussed in Mancur Olson's The Logic of Collective Action: compact groups of people who stand to make large gains from a change in the law, or from the favor of the government, are more effective political actors than diffuse groups of people who suffer small losses from the same causes, with the result that such changes will take place even when the total of the diffuse harm is far greater than the total of the compact good. Though it's not clear that Vinge's envisioned advanced societies suffer from this process; they may have a way around it, and fall because of other causes.