Competition, what its cracked up to be?

national | eu | opinion/analysis Wednesday September 09, 2009 13:18 by Johnfitz - various

Competition is the source of all conflict and War

A little thought would enable most to see that ending competition (war or commercial warfare in which the strongest, wealthiest, most devious etc generally win) is the imperative if we want a just & peaceful world. Those of us who blame “the system"- capitalism, communism, socialism or religions of any persuasion have been misled. The system is what those in power make it regardless of what it's called. Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, or their ilk control, dominate, terrorise, kill,even their own as well as the enemy to achieve their ends. Gandhi, MLKing or Christ would never use such methods because they loved humanity even their "enemies"

Competition - source of all conflict and War August 09

A little thought would enable most to see that ending competition (war or commercial warfare in which the strongest, wealthiest, most devious etc generally win) is the imperative if we want a just & peaceful world. Those of us who blame “the system"- capitalism, communism, socialism or religions of any persuasion have been misled. The system is what those in power make it regardless of what it's called. Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, or their ilk control, dominate, terrorise, kill,even their own as well as the enemy to achieve their ends. Gandhi, MLKing or Christ would never use such methods because they loved humanity even their "enemies". If we all recognised that and behaved accordingly we'd have universal justice and peace based on that cooperation love. Then Democracy would arise. There's only 6 billion of us. All that's required is that each one of us decides that war, the ultimate competition, must end. Consequently, I must not engage in design, manufacture, investment in, sale or use of any weapon of war or any components for same. We're told that 40% of scientists are involved in the military industrial complex. Could any of them (or we who hire them) possibly be considered educated if "education is for life" not for death, the effect of war. A few interesting quotes-

"Since trade ignores national boundaries and the manufacturer insists on having the world as a market, the flag of his nation must follow him, and the doors of the nations which are closed against him must be battered down... Colonies must be obtained or planted, in order that no useful corner of the world may be overlooked or left unused." (President Woodrow Wilson, 1907)

"All people in all places want peace. Only their leaders want war" ..... "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." ..... "The military-industrial-complex [would] cause military spending to be driven not by national security needs but by a network of weapons makers, lobbyists and elected officials".

"In the counsels of Government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the Military Industrial Complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes."President Dwight Eisenhower, January 1961.

In these twenty post-war years, we have come to recognise in action, though not always in words, that the political boundaries of nation states are too narrow and constricted to define the scope and activities of modern business. George Ball, Former US Under-Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, Nixon Era, 1967

The piece below outlines the kernel of what is wrong with the current "system". The financial meltdown couldn't happen if governments were monitored by people-power unified by the view that all are brothers and sisters in the human family and, consequently, regulated society, markets, etc in the people's interest as they're supposed to in democratic theory.

See David Korten's, one of the world's most powerful voices against international capitalism, second annual Feasta lecture and the anti-economic growth economist, Professor Herman Daly's lecture at www.feasta.org.

Dr. Korten believes that global capitalism is an anti-democratic, anti-market cancer that feeds on our forgetfulness of our nature and place as living beings within the larger web of planetary life." He is not anti-market. Quite the contrary. In his book, The Post Corporate World, he draws a sharp distinction between the mindful market as described by Adam Smith more than 200 years ago people self-organising to create their own livelihoods and today's rapacious capitalist economy in which money and goods can be moved freely in search of maximum short-term profits without regard for the consequences for people, communities and nature.
But he is strongly against capitalism as we know it today. Capitalism is to the market what a cancer is to our bodies. We get cancer when a genetic defect causes a cell to forget that it is part of our body. The defective cell seeks its own unlimited growth, expropriating our bodies life energies, without regard for the consequences either for itself or for us

He goes on: The central problem of global capitalism may be described in terms of institutional relationships that concentrates the power of ownership in the hands of an economic aristocracy that is delinked from community interests and has no accountability. Globalisation has been a landmark triumph for corporate libertarianism and is a threat to democracy. (Has destroyed it, I'd say- see "Democracy is Dead" issue 373 The New Internationalist (www.newint.org ) Greg Pallast's book-“The Best Democracy Money can Buy “. Consider asking Libraries to subscribe to these! also John Bunzl- Simultaneous Policy & Destructive Competition http://www.schumacher.org.uk/lecture_archive.htm and EU Dismantling Democracy http://www.feasta.org/documents/democracy/storey.htm John Pilger video “The War on Democracy” UTV 20/8/07, John Fitz)

Global markets are now dominated by global mega-corporations -- among the most undemocratic and unaccountable of human institutions. By its nature the corporation creates a legal concentration of power while shielding those who wield that power from accountability for the consequences of its use. Many mega-corporations command more economic power than do the majority of states and dominate the political processes of nearly all states. Their growing unaccountable power poses a serious threat to the basic economic and political rights of people everywhere (the DVD "The Corporation” is an excellent expose this- www.thecorporation.com. (Consider asking Libraries to acquire! John Fitz)

"Political democracy vests rights in the living person, one person, one vote. By contrast, the market recognises only money, not people -- one dollar, one vote. It gives no voice to the penniless, and when not balanced by constraining political forces can become an instrument of oppression by which the wealthy monopolise society's resources, leaving the less fortunate without land, jobs, technology or other means of livelihood. Only when wealth is equally distributed can the market be considered democratic in any meaningful sense."

Korten's background is impeccable from a conservative point of view. He holds an MBA and a PhD from Stanford, taught at Harvard Business School, worked for the Ford Foundation and was Asia Regional Adviser to the US government's aid agency. He was radicalised when he realised that the benefits of 'development' were not being widely shared. This forced him to re-examine some of his most basic assumptions about the nature of democracy, human rights, and the institution of the corporation. "The survival of our political freedoms depends on recognising that economic rights are an essential foundation of political democracy" he says.
Agressive competition is now the prevailing philosophy throughout the world. It has led to a growing gap between rich and poor within countries and between the rich world and the poverty stricken. Decide to end it now in favour of cooperation the outcome of love and compassion.
The powerful, leaders, want competition (except for their jobs) they win. Their desire for power over people (rather than to serve them) allows them to use any necessary means lies, distortion of truth intimidation, manipulation etc to get and retain power. We have acquiesced in that like the rest of the world. So we have the chaos that is todays world.