@ChrisMayLA6 @econads Add to that the extreme difficulty in performing good experiment when your subject of study is society. It is close to impossibl to create to equal societies and compare one under socialist rule and one under libertarian rule.

That is why I think the best we can do are those type of histo-empirical studies, and then it can be argued, naturally, that past performance is not a guarantee of future performance, that you are comparing apples to oranges, that science and technology today makes X possible, while it was not possible 200 years ago, etc. etc.

To me, this is both the charm and utter frustration with the social sciences.