This argument is contingent on things actually getting worse, whereas most social indicators like crime rates or life expectancy seem to indicate that things have improved over the last half century. I would not want to go back to the society of the 1980s, for example, because I'd be more likely to be robbed.

Also, what about the role that greed has played in the latest drug epidemic? The Sacklers were not driven by degeneracy but by the lust for money.