Does this attitude almost guarantee we don't reach a global optimum? I mean I get the rationale to protect your own citizens or your own tribe of any sort like

Does this attitude almost guarantee we don't reach a global optimum? I mean I get the rationale to protect your own citizens or your own tribe of any sort like family. But in the degenerate case when no one cooperates on anything seems like you have a strong likelihood of everyone losing. If you don't help me then I won't help you, and neither of us gets what we need.