One point though is that if you follow the economic system that produces the greatest technological progress, then at least you get to keep those advances forever, whereas if you count on something that's suppossed to keep the economy steady and fair to all, and then that doesn't work out, what are you left with?

Anyway I agree, 'does it scale' is a totally valid point and I often think it myself when people give life lessons on Hacker News. Social scalability I call it. But like I said, the ins and outs of how to apply the principle to the argument at hand are just too long to get into here.