When your orbiting the sun, in a glorified rotating soup can (battle start galactica for a fictional point of reference) there is NO resources or capacities available to allow dissatisfied factions to "leave" or "settle new places". At that point your living in a fixed existence. The mere presence of angst and discontent creates elevated heart rates and blood pressures that consume more resources than the tincan can produce. The rational conclusion to this would be individual groups or pods of individuals would remain contained so that if they "went kooky" they could be isolated, and sedated, or worst case scenario jettisoned, to preserve the remainder.
I agree that to an extent in our current climate not getting along spawns growth and innovation. We still have room to spread out. When we are all orbiting the sun in tin can's things would be far different. Given the scope of how big these cans were you could see a tribunal very quickly deciding if you were an asset or liability to "the can" and if liability was the result, being jettisoned may be expeditious.