Yes, cautionary tales of ignoring the obvious. Another thing politics is good at...
On a fundamental level, politics is about determining the distribution of scare resources. Mind, that distribution need not be particularly "fit", for a given definition of "fitness" and "organism". (Evolutionarily speaking, villages of
up to ~150 individuals would be the superorganism whose fitness matters. Presumably, that explains the ~1% rate of sociopathic/NPD or related traits in the population; their natural interest in leadership makes their survival contingent on survival of the group, but they needn't be particularly concerned with the survival of any given individual within that group.)
Applied today however, there are several segments with little or no scarcity. There is more than enough food to feed everyone, if we wanted to. Or spare budget to cover it, if we wish to preserve the market based economy that drives it today. But politics always finds a way. If scarcity doesn't exist, it will be invented, and so we have food waste simultaneous with starving poor. Or for another example, all the marketing tactics employed to justify the pricing of video games, which are distributed digitally nearly for free. Anywhere there is a buck to be made, it (apparently) must be, and anywhere there's a lot of bucks to be made, economics gives way to politics, and everyone involved (and everyone wants to get involved) wants their kickback. Big-economy projects are a notorious case; the history (or more accurately, lack thereof) of high-speed rail in the US is a prime example.
Tim