Very thorough analysis! Perhaps this "moral analysis" could be undertaken by going back to the "birth" of economics? Socialism might be characteristic of tribes (sharing among members) and capitalism might be characteristic of trade between tribes.

The specific trades would be largely chance-driven (abundance of local resources, costs of transportation, etc). Maybe there would be an equilibrium between tribes -- each tribe giving away what it doesn't need for something it does need, such that all needs (and desires) are roughly met. Would "merit" be defined as discovering or achieving efficiencies?

From there, greed would drive some traders to game the system (creating artificial shortages, false claims about product performance, etc). Would "merit" be defined finding ways to cheat the customer?

Maybe our ambivalence about capitalism is efficiency has positive merit and cheating has negative merit. Given the complexity of modern economies, wealth can come from both efficiency and cheating, and distinguishing efficiency from cheating can be difficult -- a sheep vs a wolf in sheep's clothing.