I think the problem is at a much lower level... This is the nature of competition and evolution. It's the natural progression of a game called "maximize the resources" where there are no rules against exploitation.

Which is why I think we need more regulation in this particular area to clearly define the rules we want everyone to play by.

What do you mean by "maximise resources", currently Western Capitalism is working towards wasting resources and externalising costs, and marginalising resources, that's going to break with massive environmental and social consequences.

I mean on an individual basis.

And I'm skeptical about your assessment that this is merely a problem with "Western Capitalism". This is a problem of any system that doesn't have proper regulations to define the rules of the game in a fair way.

Who puts regulations in place about how many deer it is "fair" for a wolf to kill? And yet, the system has been running for longer than we are around to know about it. It is however when the humans tried to "regulate" the wolf population in Scotland, for example, that the forests were lost due to deer overpopulation. So I would argue that less regulations make the system regulate itself, which it does better than humans can do.

Nature doesn't care whether Scotland has forests or not. Natural events can have catastrophic consequences on the environment. Ice ages and meteor strikes are pretty darn catastrophic. Invasive species were wiping out other species before humans came along (at a much lower rate). Any balance you see in nature will only last until something big enough happens to change it.

Humans have preferences about the environment we live in. When there are things we like and want to preserve, it's up to us to do something about it.

Fair enough. But animals don't have to follow the set of ethics/morals that we seem to value as a species.

I'm not saying that this system wouldn't be more prolific or that regulations would somehow cause it to evolve quicker or something. I'm saying that if we want to to work in a way that we believe is ethical and just, then we need to regulate it otherwise it will carry on in a predatory way.

I'm not restricting the domain because i know it doesn't apply elsewhere, only because I'm not familiar with the nuances of other systems.