Rot.

Rot, rust, decay, decomposition, corruption. These words mean a lot, in a society where nothing works for the common man, but everything works for the men at the top. A society where the men who make the laws are the first to break them, a society where honesty is so scarce, men tend to rot in their core which in turn leads to the whole society and everything in it rotting, crumbling, decaying, withering, worsening, deteriorating, and descending back to their basic and cruel nature, survival of the fittest. The futile race to get to the top where things work would be so important that they would not mind who gets hurt in the process.