Tangentially related, read the books by the winners of most recent Nobel Prize in Economics, The Narrow Corridor and Why Nations Fail, and both filled to brim with essentially anecdotal examples with post hoc theories to argue with pop economics/historians like Germs Gun Steel author and others convincingly but essentially no actionable items to suggest changes for better outcomes except generalities. Piketty's Capital Ideology is similar in content but in conclusion he makes note of changes that would improve things, very hard changes to make but notes these systemic changes are needed to fix things with a democracy.