> no human organisation can scale beyond a certain (quite early) point without becoming an immoral profit machine

I think a more general point is that when human organisations scale beyond a certain size, the organisations often become more focussed on self-sustainment (and preservation) than the original function they provided. Sometimes known as the iron law of bureaucracy, in commercial situations. For nation states, this entails preservation of the ruling classes, be they ostensibly profit focussed or not.