Everyone is a cog in the dang machine. That’s why people criticize capitalism as a system so much

And it’s going to be our downfall

But a society that does just resource extraction won’t outperform a society that does research and engineering. It all kinda plays into everything else

Also, I’d argue, because reality isn’t a zero-sum game. We simply earn more by working together and helping each other, and so more altruistic societies are more resilient. Over time this might average out into morally better societies winning out more than they lose out

That doesn’t mean they can’t lose out, though