Not sure why the negative votes on this one, one of the only takes that doesn't make me feel insane so far. I'll reword my understanding of it.

Society requires effort and investment that doesn't produce immediate material benefits. Rationalizing everything down to profit and loss encourages people to see the collected effort as a tragedy of the commons. You need to actually want to be part of a society to start, then if enough people join you, you can actually build one!