Competition,
we are told, is the lifeblood of capitalism. Firms compete with each
other, thus leading to lower prices and technical innovation. In a
monopoly situation, without competition, there would only be one
seller, so there would be no motivation to cut prices or introduce
new products. But, so the theory says, competition keeps companies on
their toes and guards against complacency and inefficiency. Firms
that cannot compete go to the wall, but that does not matter, as
these will necessarily be offering the wrong products or charging
too-high prices. Equally, competition for workers means that wages
will increase, as firms will need to offer higher wages to keep their
existing staff and hire new employees.
The
idea of competition is drummed into us at school. From sports days to
quizzes to exams, it’s a matter of competing against others. Not
just a question of doing your best but of doing better than other
pupils do. It’s all good for us, we’re told, it gives us an
incentive to improve and it fits us for the wider world of work.
So
supporters of capitalism claim that competition is good for us as
individuals and for society as a whole, but the question is — is
this an accurate picture? does competitive capitalism really deliver
the goods?
We
can note firstly that even under capitalism competition is limited to
fairly small areas of life. Most of the time we don’t compete with
other people; instead, we co-operate with them, working together to
achieve our aims. So people may take it in turns to drive on a long
car journey, may combine their efforts to tidy up a garden, may share
out various household chores. Paid employment too would be impossible
without co-operating with our fellow-workers. Whether in factory,
office, shop or call-centre, most work nowadays is divided up so that
any one worker only performs a small part of the whole productive
process. This means that working with — not against — others is
an essential aspect of work. If you’re snowed under with work, you
may well ask another employee to help you out. Outside employment,
many people spend time working in trade unions, tenants’
associations, choirs, sports clubs, and a myriad other organisations
that work on the basis of voluntary co-operation. In a mining
disaster, do rescuers compete to see who can save the most of those
trapped? No — they all work together with a single aim, that of
saving as many people as possible.
Of
course there is such a thing as piece work, and salespeople who
compete to earn the biggest commission. But these still involve
co-operation with others, and moreover they are often high-pressure
jobs, where the worker is constantly urged to work harder and harder.
In short, they’re not much fun, and realising this is a key to
realising what’s wrong with competition.
Now,
even supporters of the current system would probably accept that most
of the time people work together in producing things. They might even
say that this is part of the essence of capitalism: people
voluntarily co-operating or entering into contracts with others (such
as contracts to buy their goods or labour power). Yet competition,
they would repeat, is necessary too, to boost performance and
efficiency and to keep prices down.
Look,
though, at the bad sides of competition. For one thing, it involves
workers competing with each other, trying to get a job and therefore
deny the same job to someone else, or offering to do the job at a
lower wage. And competition must involve winners and losers: many
workers will lose out in the job market, having no job at all or one
that in no way matches their abilities or aspirations.
Competition
in production, too, involves not looking at producing the best or
safest widget. Instead, it requires producing what can be sold at a
profit, probably tailored to the wallets of the prospective buyers.
It also involves looking over one’s shoulder at one’s
competitors, to see what they are doing and try to put one over on
them. Inevitably much research into improved products is duplicated
by national or international rivals. Someone involved in competition
can never stay still, never rest on their laurels; they must always
be striving to stay in the race, at least keep up with the others.
And
why should anyone have to compete with other people in order to live
a decent life? Socialism implies a world
based on co-operation, on
people all pulling in the same direction. Nobody will be forced to be
competitive, rather everyone will produce for human need without fear
of being out-competed. Likewise the establishment of Socialism
requires co-operation, requires the world’s working class to
combine in a movement aimed at getting rid of the dog-eat-dog world
of capitalism.
Paul
Bennett
|
|