According to Hugh Nibley, civilization always dies at the top. You can't say it dies at the bottom. You can't say the great unwashed, the rabble, are responsible for the overthrowing of anything. They are always there. The Lord said, the poor you have always with you. If you want to practice your charity, you are free to do it, as he said to Judas. But if there is failing at the top then a civilization will decline. The bottom is dead level. You don't have to worry about them; they are always there. You always have the riff-raff, inner cities, and things like that. But when the people at the top lose their integrity [there's trouble]--"the wickedness which first commenced at our head" (Alma 60:15). That's where it begins. [Hugh W. Nibley, Teachings of the Book of Mormon, Semester 3, p. 183]