An inherently competitive society
Watching the Trackmania Redbull tournament today, it occurred to me that our society is structured in a competitive form.
Obviously, to be in the top 8 of a worldwide tournament, you need to compete and be one of the best at the game.
But this tournament is built on an economic system that rewards those who out-compete. The top players get cash prizes. Redbull sponsors the tournament to compete against other drink companies, to get money.
What if we lived in a more cooperative economic system? What if the worst Trackmania player got the same amount of resources as the best Trackmania player? What if the top-dogs at Redbull didn't get more money than the factory workers or the grocery clerks selling the drinks?
Every day, two to three-thousand players compete in Cup of the Day, a tournament that is fun but provides no economic rewards. Community members make maps and hope theirs will be picked for CotD. Mappers don't get paid either. Yet the cup is competitive, and so is the map review process.
I don't think of families as competitive systems, though I'm sure some are. Classrooms can be competitive (they were for me as a kid. I wanted to be the smartest). Most games, I think, are competitive to some extent.
But I wonder. Are we, humans, inherently competitive? Are we inherently cooperative? Is capitalism a reflection of this innate human competitiveness, or do the systems at-play (capitalism, video game leader boards, etc) cause us to be more competitive?
I don't know. I'm sure we have some inherent competitiveness and some inherent cooperativeness. Most of us, anyway.
It would be interesting to live in a more economically cooperative world (where resources are distributed somewhat evenly regardless of merit) and to see how that affects people's behavior.
But it also presents a problem - some people want to out-compete others to live more lavish lifestyles, and others are content with more modest lifestyles. Should we take away the ability to compete for riches?
I think some ability to work for reward is a good thing, but there should be limits on how high you can go and how poor you can be. We have some safeguards on poverty thanks to the welfare state and charity organizations. But we don't seem to have an upper-bound on wealth.
Idunner.
P.S. Let us also remember to be grateful for the vast resources and ease in our modern world. To get water, you turn on a faucet. To cook your food, you click a few buttons. You don't have to collect sticks and start a fire, yaknow.