Absolutely, it's the same mechanic as natural selection in nature. The system creates selection pressures on society, and people act in a way that makes sense for them to act given those pressures. The system ends up selecting for particular behaviors that are successful within its constraints. A really great concrete example of this in action is what happened when USSR dissolved and the transition to capitalism happened. All of a sudden the same people who were acting as communists under the old system quickly saw the new opportunities presented to them and turned into oligarchs overnight.