[potamic]

For sure, but there different degrees of behaviour. Individuals everywhere are ultimately driven by a survival-of-the-fittest instinct, but some cultures do a better job of creating a negative pressure in the interest of collective benefit. The clearest way this manifests is in the queue system, where some places are better able to queue up when a need arises and some places absolutely cannot.

[stuckinhell]

Is that really true ? Queuing systems seem like a gross simplification of the instinct.

It seems more like the "survival of the fittest" instinct in American/Western societies has evolved from overt competition to more sophisticated and hidden forms within financial and economic systems (blackmail too recently).

I guess the masses don't engage in it because the elites exert extraordinary amounts of power/culture. See Elon Musk, See the House of lords, etc. The negative pressure they create is to simply keep their power.