Asimov's Foundation Series, Modern Relevance?

I've been reading Isaac Asimov's Foundation series. One paragraph from
the Psychohistorians makes me feel a thread in the ether just out of
my grasp, but I'm reaching:

"The fall of Trantor," said Seldon, "cannot be stopped by any conceivable effort. It can be hastened easily, however. The tale of my interrupted trial will spread through the Galaxy. Frustration of my plans to lighten the disaster will convince people that the future holds no promise to them. Already they recall the lives of their grandfathers with envy. They will see that political revolutions and trade stagnations will increase. The feeling will pervade the Galaxy that only what a man can grasp for himself at that moment will be of any account. Ambitious men will not wait and unscrupulous men will not hang back. By their every action they will hasten the decay of the worlds. Have me killed and Trantor will not fall within five centuries but within fifty years and you, yourself, within a single year."

There is something there, I feel it. Good science fiction always seems
to have a libertarian core of optimism to it.