People in this context appears to be plural, thus I don’t see how Montreal_Metro’s take is Great Man Theory.
The system sets the conditions of who is going to be empowered or rewarded for their actions and positions.
Ultimately, any system is operated by mere mortals who will arbitrarily reward and punish people based on their own bias, morals and desires. Systems only work so long as the people manning them follow the rules. Systems only last if the people running it punish rule breakers.
According to all of history, corruption, apathy, and pure human greed and ingenuity will gradually eat away any system, economic and political, until it collapses. Only for the failing system to be replaced by a “better” system, which begins the cycle again.
What came first? The chicken or the egg?
Did the system that created the conditions people find themselves in come first. Or did the people running the system create the conditions that they find themselves in?