Some of the mistakes made by ruling elites in recent history:

• US Neocons selling their mythology for political capital - because after a while you get people who earnestly believe that shit somehow winding up in relatively powerful positions
• Resisting and quashing most death taxation - because most people handed a bunch of capital without even the veneer of having worked for it will make incredibly bad decisions

Essentially having people in power who've internalized the untruths about reality that were peddled or exploited for gain as being real. It's the most likely way that the whole system gets driven to crisis after crisis.