I'll do you one better, it's always been a bureaucracy, but even moreso following the end of the 1960s, after the beginning of the "meritocracy" myth within academia. In reality, the incoming well educated migrants (usually European) in the mid 1950s were extremely nepotistic to their own groups, such as the Irish entering Wall street, and hiring only other Irish stockbrokers, or Italian small business owners in New York. They essentially replaced or married the old money and became a noveau riche that's still in the American status quo to this day. There is a new clique of sorts acting as a nepotistic noveau riche, mostly stemming from South or East Asia. Nepotism affects everyone and everywhere, but it's especially prevalent in the United States.

Also the great entertainment has been declining in quality, and it was always funded directly by the U.S. Government and Military to support their ideologies and agendas abroad. The Koreans are recently doing this to great success, and possibly China as well.