To be clear, though, there's no evolutionary function that optimizes for the overall benefit of unrelated individuals. So-called group selection has never been shown to exist in nature.
Cheating is moderated by the success rate of cheaters and non-cheaters individually. If cheating strategies come easy but counter-cheating strategies difficult, then the species success in the larger ecosystem will indeed be limited in as much as organized, goal-oriented behavior is beneficial. There's no group-wide selective pressure to favor the non-cheaters over cheaters as there's no group-wide inheritance mechanism that can accomplish that.
It's why schools of fish aren't as efficient as one might naively think they could be at evading, e.g., a giant whale. The cheaters can and do drag down the whole group because the equilibrium rate of cheaters in the school isn't responsive to the success rate of schools as a whole.
Cheating is moderated by the success rate of cheaters and non-cheaters individually. If cheating strategies come easy but counter-cheating strategies difficult, then the species success in the larger ecosystem will indeed be limited in as much as organized, goal-oriented behavior is beneficial. There's no group-wide selective pressure to favor the non-cheaters over cheaters as there's no group-wide inheritance mechanism that can accomplish that.
It's why schools of fish aren't as efficient as one might naively think they could be at evading, e.g., a giant whale. The cheaters can and do drag down the whole group because the equilibrium rate of cheaters in the school isn't responsive to the success rate of schools as a whole.