Competition: Bane or Blessing?

Ruth Dazey, one of the founders of the Freedom School in Colorado, is former editor of the Ram­part Journal and LeFevre’s Journal.

A recent showing of a World War II movie dramatized an episode in which Admiral Bull Halsey (James Cagney) said that there were three things he felt sure about: it’s better to tell the truth than to lie; it’s better to know than to be ignor­ant; and it’s better to be free than to be enslaved.

Today, it’s common knowledge that tall tales are told by men in high office. The rest of us are begin­ning to suspect that although we may have been ignorant, we’re not stupid. Every person will agree that freedom for him is better than slav­ery, yet every-day freedom for every man escapes us as nearly every segment of leadership in the country continues to genuflect and practice rites of sacrifice at the altar of the state. Many seek solace and en­lightenment in traditional or exotic religious pursuits, but the means by which the “kingdom of God” shall manifest on earth are still obscured in the mists of economic ignorance. Perhaps it is axiomatic that a free society can never flourish, let alone exist, so long as some men, however well-intentioned, impose their idea of the good upon others.

 

What are the prospects for change? Dr. Robert P. Merkle, executive director of Christian Counseling Service, tells us, “We alter our lives by discovering the principles underlying our experi­ences. Through such understanding, we are free to change how we look at things and how we act.” “The man who knows what freedom means will find a way to be free,” assures Robert LeFevre.

 

Freedom-oriented discoveries in both praxeology and psychology ap­pear to move in undeviating paral­lel lines, with little cross-com­munication despite similar phe­nomena which can be correlated. One ground in common is a basic respect for the human attribute of choice and the resulting preference for non-interference in the individual’s exercise of his choices. What, then, seems to prevent an increase in mutual awareness and communi­cation?

 

One instance in which most psychology appears sharply at odds with the developing freedom philos­ophy is the issue of competition in a free society.

A Fact of Nature

Is competition a natural phe­nomenon observable in the conduct of choice-making individuals re­sponding to their own value judg­ments, or is it artificially induced from a mistaken view of the nature of man? In his seminars on the phi­losophy of freedom, Robert LeFevre says he’s been told that we’ve all got to work together, to strive for the brotherhood of man. His reply: “Brotherhood? You may be for it or against it, but whether you like it or not, on planet earth it’s fact of life!” Is competition a matter of fact that awaits intelligent recognition, or is it a way of behaving that should be encouraged or abandoned? Thomas Hora, M.D., director of the New York Institute of Meta-psychiatry, in his book, In Quest of Wholeness, says, “In a society where competitiveness is over-emphasized… the mental climate tends to become cruel and nihilating. In such a culture, interhuman communion is made difficult and love impossi­ble. Jealousies, power struggles, greed and mutual competitive nega­tions alienate people from each other and lead to progressive disin­tegration of social life and corres­ponding increases in mental ill­ness.”

The comment in itself does not in­validate competition, for Dr. Hora uses the term over-emphasized. However, in today’s climate of opin­ion, it is likely that in this state­ment readers will find confirma­tion of the view that competition per se is “bad” and should be eliminated.

What Is Competition?

Let’s examine the meaning of the phenomenon of competition, its fruits, and the presently known al­ternatives. If we are able to discern a useful function for competition in a wholesome climate, then we can differentiate between its reality and the distortions clouding it by virtu­ous men who do not as yet understand it and by business leaders who are vying for preferential treatment from government.

What is competition? Competition appears to be a means whereby men strive to satisfy human wants. Pro­ponents believe it has the effect of satisfying men’s wants efficiently, with a maximum opportunity for choice. Opponents view it as detri­mental to harmonious life, respect­ing both the competitor and the so­cial climate in which it appears.

 

One dictionary defines the concept: Compete: to contend emulously; to con­tend in rivalry, as for a prize or in business.

 

Emulous: ambitious to equal another; also characterized by, or due to, emula­tion. Obsol., jealously rivaling.

Emulation: ambition or endeavor to equal or excel; rivalry.

Emulate: to strive to equal or excel; to rival.

Competition: (1) act of competing; emul­ous contest; rivalry. (2) Contest between rivals; a match. (3) The effect of two or more parties, acting independently, to secure the custom of a third party by offering most favorable terms.

Another dictionary: Compete: to strive or contend with another or others, as for a profit or a prize; vie.

Emulate: conscious imitation of excel­lence.

Rival: attempt to reach the same level of proficiency or recognition as another; to equal or surpass.

 

Competition: (1) a striving or vying with another or others for profit, prize, posi­tion, or the necessities of life; rivalry. (2) A contest, match, or other trial of skill or ability. (3) The rivalry between two or more. businesses striving for the same customer or market.

The Drive to Excel

How does competition operate in the life of an individual? In existen­tial psychology it is claimed that the person who evaluates himself on the basis of how his personality, perfor­mance, or possessions measure up to what others appear to be, do, or have, is functioning with an unsta­ble, stress-producing outlook. Con­stant comparing, measuring, cate­gorizing: opinions as to good/bad, better/worse, richer/poorer, can pro­duce malfunction. Yet, is a discon­tent with what is, always dysfunc­tional? Is there a place for emula­tion, for a more beautiful expres­sion?

A violinist keeps practicing. If he has not heard a Heifetz, possibly he will not seek to emulate (equal or surpass). Perhaps there are different elements linked together in the word emulate: (1) to confirm one’s self-worth, to prove one’s value as “superior to” or “inferior to” another, and (2) to excel, to express greater virtuosity, to let one’s light shine more brightly. In metaphysi­cal terms, is not the conscious imita­tion of excellence a way of practicing the presence, of leading us from the unreal to the real?

So it would seem that there is a beneficial factor to the concept emu­late. What about to contend emu­lously?

For those who seek a non-dualistic perspective, it is laughable to con­sider any requirement for, or reality to, a state of contention of one per­son with another. Two rivers flow into the Atlantic. Is the ocean con­cerned with the names, width, rates of flow, of the two channels from which water merges with it? And it may be just as incomprehensible, from such a perspective, that a per­son would want to contend—or could benefit by contending—with himself to better past performance.

 

Yet it is observable in the lives of men of some accomplishment that a quality of well-being suffuses the consciousness of the individual who “betters his own score.” Possibly he is functioning at a level where what he does looms high on his scale of values, but it is also observable that there are fruits in the course of his life which have markedly benefited the outlook and life experiences of others.

 

Perhaps a key here might be the quality of consciousness existing during each task fulfillment. If joy is experienced within the process and culmination, the experience can be considered wholesome; if self-criticism, anxiety, and despair, or pride in lording it over another, mark the process and the “final judgment,” these reactions speak for themselves.

 

Is this to say, then, that discon­tent with one’s own performance is a healthy phenomenon? Once again, it would seem to depend on the outlook of the performer. To be satisfied in the smug sense, to be confirmed as to one’s worth, may be comfortable but it isn’t necessarily wholesome. To be free to survey one’s handiwork and find pleasure in it and yet to be aware of the boundless possibilities ever available although not always achievable, could perhaps be de­scribed as a “divine” discontent, as evidence of a healthy perspective.

The Blessings of Trade

How does competition operate in human exchanges? Let’s look at the areas of “power struggles, greed, and mutual competitive negations” mentioned by Dr. Hora as they “lead to progressive disintegration of so­cial life….”

 

All men seek those goods which serve to satisfy human desires. Human desires range from items necessary for survival (food, cloth­ing, shelter) to items which satisfy esthetic values (musical instru­ments, cameras, flowers, theater tickets, sunbathing, companionship, privacy, and the like). No two human beings can value anything exactly alike; an individual’s value system is as uniquely his as his ability to swallow, digest, or breathe.

 

There are three known ways a man can satisfy these desires: (1) he can produce and consume the goods sought by applying his own human energy to natural resources; (2) he can steal the goods which others own or have produced; (3) he can trade—giving something for some­thing.

 

The impracticality and immoral­ity of existing by means of stealth and theft are taken for granted by “civilized men,” but it is interesting to note that only a few have thus far discovered the phenomenology of stealing so prevalent yet so effec­tively camouflaged in our culture. (It was a nineteenth-century French­man, Frederic Bastiat, who appro­priately labeled taxation as “legal plunder.”)

 

The first way also has readily dis­cernible drawbacks. No man, as we know him today, is totally self-sufficient; just his own production is insufficient for long-term survival. Also, it is observable that men pro­duce surpluses. Even though a man does not have everything he needs for survival, acting independently of all other men he may catch more fish than he knows what to do with while at the same time he is freezing to death because of lack of clothing or shelter. He can give away his surplus production, but how does he determine to whom and how much? How will he and the recipients fare at the hands of the have-nots? He does have recourse to the third al­ternative; he can use the surplus as a means of acquiring things he is not able to produce, and every other man has this same option and thus most will respect his participation in the third alternative inasmuch as they also want the same benefits for themselves.

 

For any trade to occur, not only are objects exchanged but there is an accompanying process. The sub­jective view of each participant de­termines whether the exchange will occur, and on what basis. If he wants to keep what he has (what he has produced, or acquired), then no trade occurs. If he wants what another has produced, or acquired, then he must be willing to offer some of what he has. How will he know how much to offer?

The market is the means by which men satisfy varying values which are dependent upon some associa­tion or contact with others. The market is any place at any point in time where one or more producers and seekers get together. Where there are no scarcities, no market exists. Men value items which are in scarce supply. Five minutes after a full meal, a man will smilingly re­fuse to buy a $5.00 dinner even if offered at a bargain price of $1.50. A wealthy man marooned on an island might be eager to pay $1,000 for a hamburger.

Trying to Serve Best

Competition is a means whereby producers vie to satisfy the wants of customers. Whatever their motiva­tion, to be successful they must satisfy the wants of their customers or the latter will not buy. “Assum­ing a free market in which custom­ers can express their preferences, the businessman can hope for suc­cess only by superior performance which pleases customers. If he fails to please them, they will patronize his competitor. Hence, he must al­ways be engaged in seeking to im­prove his product and to lower its price at the same time he makes his service better. Only by doing these things can he win customers, who are always free to forsake him.” (Robert LeFevre, This Bread Is Mine, pp. 270-271.)

The customer may use poor judg­ment, his values may need re­examination, but in a free market he is free to decide.

The competitive process also ap­pears to be beneficial because the presentation of bids for items in scarce supply (goods valued by some or many men) enables bidders and suppliers to find out what useful price can be determined upon, a dis­covery that facilitates the harmoni­ous exchange of desired items.

If we do not appreciate (under­stand) this process, if we focus our attention solely on the manifest gain of the big producer (ignoring what is on the plate of the satisfied buyer), then we suppose erroneously that the man who makes a lot of dollars from production is profiting “unfairly.” But in any uncoerced trade, both parties to the exchange benefit. By benefit is meant the satisfying of values of both buyer and seller at the particular moment of sale. No third party can correctly evaluate the terms of the sale; the mutually agreed upon price is evi­dence that the subjective values of both buyer and seller have been satisfied. Thus, a fair price is what­ever satisfies buyer and seller at the moment the sale is consummated by the exchange of something for some­thing, if no force is interjected. The amount of “something” is not the consideration; a seller may consider a smile to be sufficient payment.

The Market Price

In a wholesome community, would the seller offer his goods for as little as possible, so as to benefit the buyer? Would this be the “Christian thing to do”?… the doing unto others…? Might it indicate doubt as to the buyer’s ability to attract generous prices for his output? Does the seller also have other values he seeks to satisfy? Does he wish to give his children music lessons; would he like to have additional children and make it possible for them to have some of the goods and experiences that will enrich life for them? Is it not natural for him to want as much as he can get, pro­vided he does not use force?

Is not payment for goods or ser­vices a natural avenue for the “greater abundance” that a man may anticipate coming into his life as a result of paying attention to the highest values he knows? Will he not be able to accumulate funds—to save and invest? By investment—in his own enterprise, or by savings which in the economic mainstream are made available to others—will not these capital accumulations provide jobs and a more plentiful supply of goods desired by others? So, what is the criterion for a whole­some man setting the price of his goods? Competition serves the pur­pose of revealing what price he can honestly get for his production, re­gardless of production costs.

It is at this point that opponents of competition say, “It’s all very well to talk about competition as being a beneficial process, but you know perfectly well that the big operators will conspire to set prices and will drive the little fellow out of busi­ness.” But in this they are confusing attempts to contaminate competi­tion with competition itself.

Studies indicate that despite pre­valent illusions, harmful competi­tion occurs only in those instances where force (legal or illegal) is in­troduced to weight the scale on one or the other side of the agreement to buy and to sell. Presumed to be men’s defense against “unfair com­petition,” in reality government is the club wielded to protect indus­trial giants from the beneficial interplay of competition.

News media report from time to time that one or another major cor­poration is under fire from the gov­ernment; but a look behind the scenes reveals that whereas one of the favorites may be out of favor, political patronage and special privilege still flow to the corporate and union dynasties which pay homage to the particular party or politician in power. Laws, actively promoted and supported, continue to provide immunity from the natural give and take of a freedom-oriented market place, so that an economic way of life nominally “free enter­prise” is but a hollow mockery of laissez-faire, where “the buyer is king.”

In a free market, even though greed may cause men to seek “out­rageously high” prices, the function of competition offsets the greed, for the “too greedy” man will eventu­ally price himself out of the market.

If the big producers join forces to undercut the little producer and he fails, and then they jack up the price, new competition is ready to enter the market place—not only direct competition for the product, but indirect competition for the buyer’s available dollars. Any evi­dence in the free market that some men are making rich profits always draws attention to the possibility of goods being supplied more cheaply yet profitably. Thus, new producers emerge and attract buyers from the giant operators.

Again, the problem occurs when greedy men, not content with the functioning of natural competition—the vying of sellers to attract buyers to their products—seek to secure spe­cial privilege for themselves by turn­ing to the monopoly of force in the community (government) and get­ting special contracts, tariffs, trade restrictions, or other impingements on the natural functions of men as they bargain freely to exchange, to their mutual satisfaction, their ener­gy, goods, or capital accumulations.

… what is the criterion for a wholesome man set­ting the price of his goods? Competition serves the purpose of revealing what price he can honestly get for his production, regard­less of production costs.

The Use of Force

But we have not yet accustomed ourselves to see and understand the features of all political decisions: uses of force, sanctified by custom and ignorance, ends justifying the means. (For those who of their own volition support a particular politi­cal program, their wills are not vio­lated; but freedom means more than being out from under the control of another; it also means refusing to coerce others, regardless of the worth we attach to the effect sought.) Being fearful of the greed in others, we support a process whereby the greed for dollars or for power is enshrined, immune from the disciplines inherent when choices are unimpaired.

It is evident that today men are fearful of freedom; we fear what we do not understand. Perhaps it is time to rediscover what earlier economists observed in studying the effects of laissez-faire. “Is it, then, surprising that the early economists, all religious men, marveled at their epochal discovery of the harmony pervading the free market and tend­ed to ascribe this beneficence to a `hidden hand’ or divine harmony? It is easier for us to scoff at their enthusiasm than to realize that it does not detract from the validity of their analysis. Conventional writers charge, for example, that the French ‘optimistic’ school of the nineteenth century were engaging in a naive harmonielehre—a mysti­cal idea of a divinely ordained har­mony. But this charge ignores the fact that the French optimists were building on the very sound ‘wel­fare-economic’ insight that volun­tary exchanges on the free market conduce harmoniously to the benefit of all.” (Murray N. Rothbard, Man, Economy, and State, pp. 922-3.)

Supporting the beneficial aspect of a competitive free market are these comments of twentieth-century economist W. A. Paton: “The view that the free market is a chaotic and noncooperative activity may also be mentioned. Actually, the truly free and keenly competi­tive market is a model of sensitive adaptation, automatically, to the ebb and flow of the attitudes, needs, and varying circumstances of the participants. It is anything but cha­otic. And its intricate maze of rela­tionships between producers and customers presents the most re­markable example of cooperation, without coercive direction or con­trol, to be found in human affairs.” (The Freeman, June, 1973.)

Since it appears that competition is a natural phenomenon observable in the actions of choice-making in­dividuals, what mistaken concepts have impeded more widespread dis­covery of this fact of life?

A Static World?

One false view might be that the resources upon which men draw for their sustenance are limited; that there is a fixed amount of wealth in the world and that men who have an abundance of good things must, therefore, own them at the expense or loss of others.

An accompanying false view is that participants in human ex­change processes are either exploit­ers or the exploited; that since com­petition is baneful, those who participate “successfully” either as owners or as employees in the economic mainstream are engaged in un­worthy procedures. Thus self-loathing develops and finds con­tinual confirmation from pulpit, media, the business community, schools, and the family circle. If a man is made to believe that if he breathes deeply he is taking air away from others, every time he moves swiftly and thus respondingly breathes in more air, he will experi­ence self-contempt and frustration. As he responds creatively to life, he will be judged, by self and others, as crass, materialistic, ignoble.

What viable alternative to compe­tition is there as a means of en­abling buyers and sellers to ex­change values freely on terms mu­tually agreeable at the moment of sale?

An Absurdity

If all men’s values were exactly alike, and could be predicted as to time and amount, then it is conceiv­able that what is needed is an “equitable division” of all the exist­ing worldly goods from moment to moment. But the absurdity of such a proposal is readily apparent. To “share and share alike” would re­quire the designation of certain men as having the rightful power to de­termine what other men shall do or have, or shall be prevented from doing or having: a commitment to the pathological view that only cer­tain men are wise enough to plan and to direct the activities of all. By letting each man be free to develop his talents and to exchange the products of his labor, we commit ourselves to a climate of loving con­cern that never seeks to coerce and that recognizes the right of each man to be responsible for his own choices and actions; to be individ­ually responsable to life.