...You may know that your society is doomed.

"Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society's virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion--when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors--when you see that men get richer by graft and pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you--when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming self-sacrifice--you may know that your society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that it does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot."

-Ayn Rand (via Francisco D'Anconia)
In Atlas Shrugged