Golden Liberty
In its extreme, the Golden Liberty has been criticized as being responsible for "civil wars and invasions, national weakness, irresolution, and poverty of spirit". Failing to evolve into the "modern" system of an absolutist and national monarchy, the Commonwealth suffered a gradual decline down to the brink of anarchy because of liberum veto and other abuses of the system. With the majority of the "szlachta" believing that they lived in the perfect state, too few questioned the Golden Liberty and the Sarmatism philosophy until it was too late. With the "szlachta" refusing to pay taxes for a larger and modern army and magnates bribed by foreign powers paralyzing the Commonwealth political system, the Commonwealth was unable to keep up with its increasingly militarized and efficient (through bureaucratization) neighbors, becoming a tempting target for foreign aggression. It was eventually partitioned and annexed by stronger absolutist neighboring countries in the late-18th-century partitions of Poland.