Capitalism's official position on alien life is "The Dark Forest". Just ignore the fact that people keep choosing "Cooperate" in the prisoner's dilemma no matter how much game theorists mald about it being illogical.
I've never understood people who think of civilized aliens as any different from humans as far as ethical question go. Just a fundamentally different way of viewing the universe I guess. Every ethical question regarding aliens could be solved by answering the same question regarding humans from an undiscovered landmass. Should we exploit them? No. Should we conquer them? No.