Competition

Competition is usually made up of adversaries, people you seek to defeat. In some cases, people seek to win by crushing the opponent. Aggression is often an advantage. 

War also has adversaries, people you seek to defeat. In some cases, wars are fought with the goal of crushing the opponent. Aggression is often an advantage. It wouldn’t surprise me if countries that compete the hardest, are also countries most willing to go to war.

These competitive traits are carried into the business world, with people having to work together, and people pushing their abilities beyond that of others. Winning becomes the goal, and, in business, winners are the ones still in business, making lots of money. Certainly there are rules, but it is okay to bend the rules. In fact, if you can save a buck, it is called good business practice. Making money is the goal and the prize. Unfortunately, the more money at stake, the more businesses are willing to bend the rules. As in competitive sports, business people often get away with breaking the rules. In business, it is even easier because there are fewer referees or spectators to catch you. All you need is a good lawyer, if caught.

There is a belief that business competition produces a better product for less money. Although that is the model used in the U.S., I’m really not sure that competition is superior to cooperation. Japan’s technology model is to pool resources for research and development, then to allow many companies to use the new developments. In the electronics and auto industry, Japan’s model seems to produce better products for less money. 

There is a belief that competitive sports build character. Team sports require athletes to work together in order to win. Individual sports require athletes to push their bodies beyond what others are capable of. These are valuable benefits of competitive sports, but the main problem with most competitive sports is the dualistic quality. Rules are treated as what is right and wrong, there are winners and losers, and that the object is to be a winner. Winners are the stars, and losers are losers. 

Rules become the standard for making our decisions. In competition, it is okay to do anything that falls within the rules. Sometimes, you can get away with going just outside the rules. That’s called bending the rules. We can even break the rules, as long as we don’t get caught. Winning is the goal, after all. 

Certainly, in many cases, competition does produce spectacular results, as exemplified by the Olympics. In the past, business competition produced better cars and products for a lower cost, with jobs being created. Now, business competition is resulting in companies moving to low wage countries, producing a similar product for a lower cost, with jobs being lost.

There is a saying in sports, “It’s not really whether you win or lose, but how you play the game.” Although some people in sports would agree with that philosophy, few in the business world would go along with it. In sports, a team can loose, but in business, a company can go bankrupt. Since just about every business worries about the competition, companies are always looking at cutting costs (see Capitalism). But in a global economy, how can a U.S. laborer compete with a foreign laborer who is willing to work for 25 cents an hour? Clearly, if competition is the primary game plan, U.S. workers can either plan on working for less (the Neo-con plan), or maybe we need to look for another game plan. There are other countries that we can learn from, but we need to get rid of our misguided, greedy leaders first.