Eric Weinstein has a theory that it's caused by the embedded growth obligations in our institutions.

I'm not sure it's the answer, but I think there is something seriously amiss with our institutions that causes them to all have a similar set of self silencing momentum. The amount of corruption that has been exposed in institutions over the last 20 years that has gone largely ignored in traditional media and inside this institutions themselves is staggering. Every time we hear institution X has a problem with Y, the story quietly disappears and there is no institutional change enacted.

https://bigthink.com/culture-religion/eric-weinstein-intelle...