[zozbot234]

> a lot of national policy debates are around how that wealth is distributed rather than about [creating] significant new wealth

This is a marker of a failed country - one where the collective political discourse is no longer geared towards actual social benefit but has been taken over by competing votebanks of entitled moochers, led by their uber-mooching enablers in the policy-making "elite". Acemoglu's How Nations Fail is a clear and comprehensive discussion of these dynamics.