I agree that morality can be rationalized, but the same can be said for free riding. You can arrive at the golden rule because you want to keep your record clean so no one will have an excuse to abuse your trust. Alternatively, you can reason that if most people are moral, you can exploit their trust by pretending to go along with the herd while secretly acting against their interests. The latter option isn’t wholly irrational because the probabilities are mixed. Will the unscrupulous plumber necessarily meet another free rider? Even if he does, maybe there’s honour among thieves.

Calling all of life a “game” stretches the metaphor to the point of being theological. That’s no longer a scientific theory—which is fine, but it doesn’t suit the orthodox economist’s scientific pretensions.

The question for me isn’t whether capitalism is being sustained, but whether it’s being sustained in the individualistic manner posited by orthodox economics. Clearly, democratic governments have helped course-correct capitalism. But it’s naïve to think democracies work according to individualistic calculations. Again, free riders take their toll, becoming demagogues who whip up the masses, forming factions that work like cults. (Just look at Trumpism.) Whether capitalism is properly regulated, then, depends on the outcome of the conflict between those factions. This wouldn’t be capitalism governing itself in a neoclassical manner since central authorities would be instrumental in their role as the demagogues that control the governmental (or corporate, monopolistic) factions.