My working model seems likely to produce the same results while requiring fewer assumptions about the existence of groups and agendas behind the scene.
The model has the same point of departure, that no group is in control. But the model goes further, in that there is no control at all. The ones who are trying to run it are a collection of mid-wit clowns who, mostly having learned only the “liberal arts”, are not equipped to imagine the consequences of their actions beyond the immediate future, if that far. They are like monkeys in the control room of a great vessel, screeching at one another and wildly manipulating wheels, levers, and knobs, none of which are connected to anything, while watching dials and gauges, none of which indicate reality (even if they were able to interpret it from accurate indicators) while they watch the calamity unfold outside the spittle-flecked windows of their command post.
They lack the attention span to observe the consequences of their actions and adjust them accordingly, and hear only the accolades of the trained seals in the mass media upon whom they shower largess plundered from the few remaining productive people they have not yet looted to oblivion.
Why hasn’t the whole thing collapsed? Compared to where it was at any time in the past, and using almost any indicator you wish, it has. It’s just that it started from a high altitude and hasn’t yet hit the terrain. But that’s where it’s going.
There’s no need to invoke conspiracies or hidden agendas when the room full of monkeys model explains the observable outcomes just as well, and is completely consistent with how what is going on appears to a rational, disinterested observer.