Competition and equality

[SchwarzenSchafe]

I'm trying to reconcile competition and equality with anarchism, especially with respect to economics.

Personally I don't think any society can function without competition, it's not just a basic human trait/need, it seems basic to all life and the basis for evolution - you just can't take it out of the equation altogether. Theres a basic need to win, be better than others, beat them, fight, it's human nature. Does anyone deny that, and think a society can function without competition?

The labor theory of value seems to preclude economic competition? Is there some distinction between economic competition and other forms that satisfy competitive urges?

[apathy maybe]

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[midnight marauder]

I can't really speak on the specifics of individualist anarchism or what not as well as apathy but I can speak on one quick observation I have to say on this topic.

Competition and anarchism aren't quite mutually exclusive. I suppose in the sense that you're thinking of, they are, but the biggest difference between capitalism and any type of anarchist or communist economic organisation is not that there isn't necessary competition, but that the incentives for competition are completely different.

On the one hand, companies and individuals compete for capital, at the expense of anything else.

On the other hand, collecctives and individuals compete to provide a high quality service or good, reach a larger number of people, increase such and such or fulfill this or that: basically, they compete for anything that isn't capital.

I persynally happen to view one as clearly superior to the other. But that's just me.

If you want a good example of this type of competition in action, take a few seconds and look up the open source movement. No profit motive there, yet terrific competition still happens, and it's certainly argueable that these communities have contributed much more towards technoligical progress than many other purely profit driven companies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source

[RebelDog]

I'm trying to reconcile competition and equality with anarchism, especially with respect to economics.

Economic competition and equality are implacable foes in my view. The process of competition is to outdo competitors and essentialy stop them existing as an entity. Also the goal is become richer than others and people can better compete by exploiting people more and that is no basis whatsoever for equality. We cannot have anarchism without equality and vice-versa.


Personally I don't think any society can function without competition, it's not just a basic human trait/need, it seems basic to all life and the basis for evolution - you just can't take it out of the equation altogether. Theres a basic need to win, be better than others, beat them, fight, it's human nature. Does anyone deny that, and think a society can function without competition?

Personally I don't think society can properly function with competition. A co-operative society is more productive, civilised, egalitarian and altruistic. Competition creates vast, needless waste by duplicating goods, importing/exporting the same goods and production is not planned so actual human need is ignored for what is profitable. Eliminate competition and we eliminate this huge waste and stupidity.

It seems to me that humans have the capacity for competition but it is not the basis for human evolution as you say. We live in societies with advanced culture and technology today exactly because humans have a crucial built in capacity for co-operation. Social animals always rely on co-operation between each other. You are interpreting the past present incorrectly. The basis for evolution is to adapt to best survive in your environment and humans do that best through co-operation, that is irrefutable to me.
I have no basic need to fight the great majority of people on this planet. In fact I hope to get together with them and in human solidarity and co-operation and defeat the forces that insist on human conflict for resources.

[SchwarzenSchafe]

Apathy: Thanks for the links. What's the CC?

JUICE: I've been interested in open source with regard to anarchism for a long time, I've always been surprised that not many people seem to make the connection there. It's a good point.

Dissenter: I'd agree that competition is bad in terms of waste and efficiency, but what's good for society isn't necessarily good for the individual. A lot of people would argue they'd be better off to beat you up and take all your money/food/whatever. In terms of evolution I see competition everywhere, animals compete for food, eat each other, compete for mates, plants compete for light. The weak die and the strong survive to keep their traits in the gene pool. The only time I see cooperation in nature is when it gives an advantage to survival, and it may be that it would give humans an advantage but I can't see this product of thousands of years of evolution (need for competition) just disappearing because people realize it doesn't benifit society. I see a lot of people that genuinely enjoy hurting and destroying things and other people, in fact I'd say that most people do on some level. People like boxing and MMA and competitive sport. Could be that society instills a lot of this, I think it must to some extent, but it's still innate. Maybe no one will be free without some more evolution, otherwise I see a fault in all this philosophizing that the need for competition isn't addressed/channeled into some productive or at least less destructive form, as it is in capitalism, where it's generally accepted that competition is good for the market.

[apathy maybe]

The CC is the Commie Club, an interesting method of attempting to have some amount of democratic control around this place. It is not perfect in any way, shape or mean. Thus why I have a line in my sig asking people to fight crap in the CC (or whatever it is called at the moment).

On software, I personally prefer the term Free Software, 'cause freedom is more important then whatever ideals are put forward by Open Source. And yes it is a good point, there we have competition (attempting to make the best product), without inequality (except natural ones in regards to intelligence and inequalities in regard to how much time people put into a piece of software).