Apparently, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was so great that they could just build palaces without any particular purpose, and figure out what to do with them later.
https://jabberwocking.com/lunchtime-photo-741/
Case in point: a palace built in Vienna that sat unused for many years was turned into a museum. For a long time, it was expected that the rich would contribute to the general good of the public. Call it noblesse oblige, but they could also feel less guilty about having taken so much from the public by giving back a fraction in some grandiose way with their name on it. In America, Andrew Carnegie and a few of the other robber-barons were most famous for that.
Later, the rich decided they had done with that and were just going to keep all they took, and that they might even take more and pay less taxes.
None of this is news, but it's important to recollect the history to think of the trend and how it turned out for the Austro-Hungarian empire and Marie Antoinette and those great empires of Europe.
America is pretty high and mighty today, but you don't get to do that longer if you don't keep innovating and ridding the empire/nation of the worst elements: lack of competition in the markets and in the corporate world, corrupted government (with money or foreign influences or the church).
These lessons are a well-covered trail, and the memories of past failures and successes should be known, but it helps to study the history from time to time and to live the process of maintaining our greatness in the everyday.
