The "competition=well-being" argument

[革命者]

I think one of the most important questions touching on philosophy for us is, and has been for some time, the pro-capitalist and anti-communist argument that competition (through inequality) increases the well-being.

Why do we think that is false; what is well-being?


Scotty

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Why is this a philosophical question? Surely, it's medical.

[革命者]

Why is this a philosophical question? Surely, it's medical.I think it is an argument we often don't have a very good response to. And yes, you could say it medical. I just don't think so. That would end up in a futile human nature debate, I am afraid. Is there no rationale possible for well-being?

Is it true that nobody would work because working obviously is a threat to your well-being?

[gorillafuck]

What's the argument?:confused:

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

AE:


Is there no rationale possible for well-being?

Well, we need to know what you mean by "well-being".

[革命者]

AE:



Well, we need to know what you mean by "well-being".Ok, good point.:) I'll try to clarify next year (I live +1 GMT). Happy New Year!

Best wishes for 2010!

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

What do you mean by "best wishes"...?:)

[ZeroNowhere]

Probably something like 'Wish you all the best'.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

^^^You seem not to have spotted the joke.

[Dean]

Moved to theory.

[Comrade Anarchist]

Man stopped being nomad when it started grouping into communities. That looks like mutual aid not competition, so if one of the biggest and last advances in humanity as a whole happened thousands of years ago then something happened in those thousands of years that continually holds us back. Competition whether in the form of the state or the capitalist does not advance us or our well being.

[革命者]

Man stopped being nomad when it started grouping into communities. That looks like mutual aid not competition, so if one of the biggest and last advances in humanity as a whole happened thousands of years ago then something happened in those thousands of years that continually holds us back. Competition whether in the form of the state or the capitalist does not advance us or our well being.Don't you believe in a hedonic treadmill (I don't think this theory in science is used to support the pro-competion argument, but some competion proponents seem to use it), where the treadmill should be kept in motion because happiness is inheritently temporary. The hedonic treadmill theory claims that, because you get used to a position of relative happiness (or something like that; I am playing devil's advocate here as well as I can), you have to keep te mill in motion; competing with others.

Some years ago I remember someone on OI making such an argument.

Why is it that we still compete of it doesn't satisfy our primary need; more happiness; an increase of our well-being? Maybe we created communities just for the sake of competing (CC likes to be a case in point, lately).

[ckaihatsu]

Competition whether in the form of the state or the capitalist does not advance us or our well being.


Competition is a kind of *proto*-cooperation -- it's a collective agreement on a certain set of rules, but then, within those parameters, it's a free-for-all, with an ever-present risk of that chaos spilling out beyond the agreed-upon boundaries.

Competition makes for *terrific* fiction and drama (including sports) because of this controlled-chaos composition, but for all of the logistics of life that matter it feels like a profound insult to our better knowledge and capabilities.





Don't you believe in a hedonic treadmill (I don't think this theory in science is used to support the pro-competion argument, but some competion proponents seem to use it), where the treadmill should be kept in motion because happiness is inheritently temporary.


From the pleasure, or consumer, side of things we could say that the importance of novelty should not be taken too lightly. Without an undeveloped, uninhabited natural world to explore our sophisticated faculties seem to starve in the absence of ever-novel cultural (artificial) stimuli with which to engage ourselves.





Habituation is the psychological process in humans and animals in which there is a decrease in psychological response and behavioral response to a stimulus after repeated exposure to that stimulus over a duration of time.




Habituation need not be conscious - for example, a short time after a human dresses in clothing, the stimulus clothing creates disappears from our nervous systems and we become unaware of it. In this way, habituation is used to ignore any continual stimulus, presumably because changes in stimulus level are normally far more important than absolute levels of stimulation. This sort of habituation can occur through neural adaptation in sensory nerves themselves and through negative feedback from the brain to peripheral sensory organs.

Habituation is frequently used in testing psychological phenomena. Both adults and infants gaze lesser at a particular visual stimulus the longer it is presented.





The hedonic treadmill theory claims that, because you get used to a position of relative happiness (or something like that; I am playing devil's advocate here as well as I can), you have to keep te mill in motion; competing with others.


The crux here is the *happiness* (subjective well-being), *not* the *competition*.

Could we have the means for happiness without a reliance on the social method of competition? Absolutely. So it doesn't follow that *competition* is the only avenue to ensuring novelty (new forms) and potential happiness.





Some years ago I remember someone on OI making such an argument.

Why is it that we still compete of it doesn't satisfy our primary need; more happiness; an increase of our well-being? Maybe we created communities just for the sake of competing (CC likes to be a case in point, lately).


We compete *only* in imitation of the default state of operation for the higher reaches (inter-imperialist warfare) -- the "bleeding edge" -- of the capitalist-imperialist mode of production.

There may very well be just-as-effective ways of achieving the same results with a more-*cooperative* method, and even much of capitalism itself is a kind of limited-collectivization configuration.

Competition itself has been made into an *institutionalized fetish* by the dominant culture -- everyday types of accepted competition serve as *propaganda* that justifies existing, profoundly unbalanced repressive conditions. The status quo relations of power perpetuate themselves in part because of this propaganda that maintains that harsher living conditions *are inevitable* due to the outcomes of competition in a highly meritocratic, highly competitive society.