> sin of trying to derive all human behavior from economics/psychology

To remedy to that, I highly recommend Joseph Henrich's "The Secret of Our Success". What we call "human behaviour" in such discussions is often culturally learned (or at least shaped).

His point: our psychology is "programmable", and prestige plays a key role in that programming. Western culture (market norms, trust towards strangers, monogamy as the norm, etc.) is forming our psychology in a way that is very far from (historically) typical humans.

(That said, I'm no expert in this area and cannot put Henrich's work into context.)