Is a competitive environment good or bad?
Is a competitive environment good or bad?
Good
Side Score: 7
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Bad
Side Score: 5
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Without the existence of competition there is no reason to improve your own performance. If you've a guaranteed monopoly on, say, lawn care in your town - wherein anybody who dares to mow or fertilize or care for lawns in any way without your seal of approval is struck down (ie. corporatism) - you don't have to provide a good service. Similar is the situation now with the police. They don't have to have a high rate of success; they can kill and get away with it; they can do just about whatever they want. But, because they and they alone are allowed to provide policing services, there is nothing that we can do about it. This is why privatization is important. With a purely capitalistic society wherein there is neither a governmental monopoly on anything nor corporatism, restricting the ability of competitors to arise, the best will prevail. Side: Good
Although I am all for capitalism, I dont think that "the best" always "prevails" in a capitalist environment insofar as what is "best" tends to be based on the ability to make money - a reductive notion. Also, in capitalist environments companies that are in competition with one another can often work together in a fully saturated market to keep things as they are, and in so doing become a kind of monopoly, a monopoly based on mutual cooperation. If one falls the other becomes a pure monopoly and thus in either scenario the need to be the best insofar as merit is concerned is no longer required because they are the only viable provider of the demanded product or service. Thus you need to have something more than a purely capitalistic system to prevent monopolies on multiple levels, without the regulative system that exists outside the capitalist system you get a similar outcome to the communistic model - perhaps not to the same degree as with communism but you get what my point is - the need to be the best is ultimately reduced. I consider myself a capitalist and advocate this economic system, however, I also recognize the need for and benefit of socialistic elements within the system. Our military is essentially a socialistic service, all of the government agencies and schools and highways etc are socialistic and are all fundamental to a functioning society because they subsidize and allow for capitalist activities to flourish. Many people bring up the Laissez faire as the fundamental principle of free markets, however, most people who advocate this principle dont realize that it was all based on governmentally subsidized support for free markets. Even the origin of the term and principle are not valid - the truth is that both systems need one another to survive. You brought up police as a monopoly and that there is no push for a high rate of success. However if you were to place police forces in competition they might succeed too much, i.e. punish too much for minor infractions and thus they could be opressive, enforcing laws that are out-dated or planting evidence to get a higher conviction rate. Or, like has been the case in Japan, the police will not seek out a murderer unless they are pretty sure they can convict to have a high conviction rate via not pursuing difficult cases. I think the current system works pretty well given the alternatives. I view the current system an amalgam of socialist and capitalist ideologies and I think that this is a greater approximation of the ideal than either system can be as pure systems. Most of the world, including the US are mixed systems and for good reasons, some of which i illustrated. Side: Bad
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If there is not any competition in the world,people would just laze around and stay in their current status and not strive for anything more challenging or more difficult, if there is competition among people, more hardworking people would emerge and society would have more useful people Side: Good
A competitive environment has both cons and pros but the pros definitely outweigh the cons. A competitive environment causes a majority of people to work harder and try their best at whateer it is. It leads to glory and self confidence and also teaches you how to cope with losing and how you can better yourself from that. In most aspects, a competitive environment is quite good. Side: Good
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I suppose it depends on what you mean by competative environment. A few years ago I heard an interesting anthropological and evolutionary theory: In northern africa ~2.5 million years ago a climate change event caused the deserts in northern africa to expand causing the forests to receed. This caused a distinct change between two chimp populations In the north where there was insufficient food for gorillas, the chimps realized a greater abundance of food and ultimately evolved to become what is known today as the Bonobo a peaceful sex-based matriarchal society where sharing is common and the only agression is of a sexual nature. In the south the chimp and the gorilla existed in competition for food. The gorilla consumed much of the available foods and thus the chimp was subjected to greater scarcity - in time they evolved to be the modern chimp a more violent patriarchal species that frequently rapes the smaller females, murders others of their tribe, form war parties and hunting parties, and practice infantacide. These two groups suggest that when competition is too great because of scarcity, that violence and aggression dominate. Insofar as humanity is concerned, I have often wondered if the contemporary wars, which have often been considered wars of scarcity are fought because of a similar kind of competition. I also wonder if, since capitalism creates scarcity via a stratification model and maximizing the utilization of any given resource for the sake of profit that scarcity and competition in our world is artificially increased either by artificially creating competition. However, I also see the possibility that capitialism, although not an inevitable economic system, is a probable system given the nature of biological dynamics and that as our population grew as a species that competition became greater and greater causing the scarcity we face today. No matter how one views it, we do live in an age of greater and greater scarcity since population is growing and resources are finite. I wonder what the future has in store for us, if we might become more like the patriarchal and violent chimp or if we might realize the path we are headed down is dangerous and adjust the way we live and how we operate our world. I think capitalism is a good thing but that we need to control ourselves a little more when it comes to certain things like population. Side: Bad
A competitive environment could also be bad as through competition,the weaker people would feel more demoralized as they lose out to the stronger people and the stronger people would grow to be more cocky and arrogant as they triumph over the weaker people, this can also be a demoralizing blow to society Side: Bad
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