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There are two principles utilized to derive from human beings the effort that animates social phenomena. One is cooperation and the other is competition. These two principles are mutually exclusive and any social activity that cannot be described by these two terms can only be understood as anarchy. If society is the hardware of civilization then these two principles act as the software, the language of constructive engagement between individuals and populations. Disorganized humanity is vulnerable to the processes of nature. Therefore civilization uses competition and cooperation to organize humanity into unified effort toward growth. Since the success of that organization is measured by distance from nature’s tendency toward decay it is prudent to investigate the efficiency of these two principles of engagement if we believe we are in need of higher levels of performance. This investigation will yield, if it is successful in isolating a faulty mechanism, a poignant structural expression of demand. Such expressions, because they answer the “What shall we do?” question, are great encouragements for hope and lend to a belief in the possibility of progress.
I have already discussed, in various ways, some social consequences of competitive behavior and how such tension is used to reap potential energy from individuals. Brutality and a shared history of warfare buttress the competitive engagement with life whereby one sees the only recourse for the attainment of resources in running faster than one’s neighbor. The destructive and regressive tendency of this principle has been addressed. However, I will draw it out a little further, dissecting the elements, before introducing the comparative concept of cooperation. Only in this way can we give our full confidence to the superior principle.
Society has needs because the individuals that comprise it have needs and the ways in which a society meets these needs define a civilization. Society utilizes effort in the form of labor to meet primary nutritional and security requirements. Secondarily society is tasked with meeting the needs of the soul, in order to furnish the necessary inspiration for the communal effort that makes all of the above possible. To transform the potential energy of a population into the kinetic energy of a people the individuals must be motivated. Here, as motivators of effort, these principles find their great divergence of form. Competition has as its primary motivating principle the threat of loss. That loss can be primary, in the form of nutrition and security, or secondary (symbolic), by the loss of social esteem or investment potential. It is a fact that under such a threat a human being will, under most circumstances, increase his/her level of performance. However, in order to attain a legitimate increase of effort the threat of loss must be real, it must be enforced. In other words, in a contest the losers must lose something in order for all participants to be brought to higher levels of performance. The withdrawal of resources is necessary to competitive systems. When a loser loses access to the primary or secondary rewards that increase his/her chances to improve performance levels that individual loses the promise that society grants its members, the release from the threat of natural selection. A loser in a competitive society is seen as a high-risk investment and therefore experiences a withdrawal of resources and thus performs on lower and lower levels. The winners of these contests, whether they win in the arena of sports, the arts, farming, business, healthcare or education receive the blessings of better opportunities and thus leave their competitors quickly behind; those same competitors that, theoretically, were supposed to drive them to higher levels of performance. What is obvious upon even the most topical reflection of competitive engagement is that we have superficially measured innate inequalities and simply given the highest rewards to those already blessed with great potential. Using competition merely reinforces the natural inequality that any given population exhibits. In fact, it magnifies it because there are always more losers than winners and the majority becomes weakened by competition; their defects are augmented by the distance created between them and the growth opportunity. As we analyze the efficiency of these principles we must ask ourselves if reinforcing innate imbalances of power will lend to higher levels of motivation. I think you will find that the most ardent believers in competitive engagement are those already in the lead. Everyone knows that the player at the poker table with the most chips is most likely to win as he/she has the least amount of risk, the least to lose, since those chips (money) represent his/her distance from nature. So competition is merely a means by which the slim majority, finding themselves the accidental recipients of society’s imbalance, cultivate their strength and distance themselves from social responsibility. Their performance has a completely different structural relationship to risk than those struggling to survive. Because of the polarizing affect of this principle even those at the top lose their motivation to excel, as the threat is eventually obsolete. And those that rest far below, repetitively punished, by the withdrawal of resources, for their attempts to engage in the contests of society, rely upon the graces of those that manage the contest. It is inevitable in a society convinced of the value of competition, simultaneous with a belief in the infinite capacity of man, that the threat required to motivate human effort be brought to greater and greater extremes. Eventually survival itself becomes the motivation of the majority in service to the minority. If we look at this cycle through The Finite Capacity Theory we can see that each symbolic loss is detrimental to the actual potential energy that the use of motivational principles relies upon for the animation of society. If we look at our society through this lens competition is not merely inefficient; it is self-destructive. The majority of competitors experience more loss than victory. Conversely, those engaged in cooperation know no loss and see their efforts as sacrificial investment in the health of the whole. The stark difference between these two symbolic rewards for social engagement is indicative of the character of each principle.
If we turn our attention now to the contrasting principle of cooperation we see that there is also a duality of effort and consequence but there are unique differences in how these efforts and consequences are related to society, how they are integrated into the manifestation of civilized life. For instance, in a truly cooperative venture, there are rewards for effort but those rewards are distributed as equally as possible to all participants. There is no withholding of resources whatsoever. It is essential to the cooperative principle that the rewards for effort not be reflective of any individual weaknesses. This defines cooperation. If we are competing within hierarchical reward structures the weaknesses of our rivals become targets for exploitation. In other words, we work to magnify our competitor’s weakness, if we can, in order to create distance and imbalance. In this way there is community loss. In cooperative effort, where the rewards are equalized, it benefits each participant to accommodate or make up for the weaknesses or deficits of his/her neighbor or coworker. That is the major distinction between cooperation and competition. As cooperation is more closely tied to resources and human need it is imbued with a political flavor quite the opposite of the competitive insistence upon performance.
A great example of the cooperative paradigm in its relationship to resources is found in the family construction of a house. Each member having different capabilities or potential energy expresses a different level of effort or kinetic energy in the construction of their house but at the end of the communal endeavor each member enjoys the rewards equally. The family moves into the house upon completion, the speed of that completion being dependent upon the cooperative enthusiasm or the goals of the group. They all benefit equally from any increase in performance. The children might pick up trash and carry buckets of paint, etc., while the women may cut and measure wood, maybe the men work together to do the heavy lifting, perhaps the grandparents are frail and can only assist with mathematics, budgeting or babysitting. Either way each participant has an investment in working around their weaknesses and finding access to their highest potential in order to receive the reward of shelter. In fact, a full disclosure of every member’s weaknesses actually benefits the community understanding of their potential. Conversely, in a competitive environment weaknesses are hidden and often unknown; this leads to obvious dangers. In cooperation we find a great increase in the level of efficient use of human potential energy. In an effort such as this there are no losers and, most importantly, no looming threat of loss. Each participant is brought to higher levels of performance via his/her desire to reap greater rewards or his/her generosity of spirit; both of which become simultaneous drives in a cooperative environment. For instance, if one of the family members has a great knowledge of carpentry and another does not it would benefit the one to share this knowledge with the other thus doubling the group capacity. In other words, weaknesses are not only accommodated, some are eliminated in the process of cooperation. Deep capacities are discovered in cooperative engagement. I argued that capacities were limited but I do believe they are often undiscovered in this life due to the fear of exploitation that is nurtured in a competitive environment. Cooperation allows us to simultaneously discover our abilities in a safe environment and experience the joy of self-discovery. Most companies, knowing sub/consciously the superior power of cooperation, utilize internal cooperation in their competitive engagement with the market believing that this perversion is a form of balance. The problem is that competition is insidious because it feeds on fears of loss. Since companies are competing for the same resources and are detached from the primary rewards each member of a company feels the threat of a mistaken commitment to the company’s efforts. This fear leads to mistrust and inner-conflict. The use of cooperation in the marketplace is simply a way of manipulating the threat of loss over large numbers of people. It does not represent true cooperation since it is so far removed from the equal reward structure.
One principle seeks to protect the weaknesses of the self while the other seeks to protect the weaknesses of the other. One is fabricated out of fear while the other is built upon trust and faith. Cooperation is an optimistic approach to the human spirit while competition is deeply pessimistic about the human heart. Cooperation says that work is its own reward while competition says we must be trained to love labor because of our innate laziness and tendency toward regression. One is clearly directed at meeting the needs of humanity while the other is ambiguous about these needs and more explicitly directed at satisfying animal desires. One is progressive while the other is regressive. One is good, the other evil.
When I ask myself whether or not my hypothesis is naïve or simplistic I look at this dichotomy of social engagement and how my society chooses to balance its utilization of these principles. I see that there is a grave imbalance in favor of competition everywhere, in schools, in work and in play. Competition has become so much a habit that it is now a leisure time activity. We are rarely at rest and most of the members of society live in fear that their weaknesses will be exploited in the contest for resources. Children begin their competitive lives usually at the age of five, if not sooner, and the result of that first experience of social engagement is likely to be reinforced millions of times before adulthood. I see here a great pendulum of social motivation that can certainly swing in the opposite direction. This is a wide-open area of experimentation with obvious benefits. My belief in the superiority of cooperation, supported by this analysis, is what I present as the legitimization of my hypothesis. Given two mechanisms for social engagement with the least efficient one being overvalued by society the possibility of progress is small intuitive leap.
In what direction is this competition driven? Who is it that controls the rewards of this engagement? We have no time, under constant threat, to address such questions. We are reluctant to engage in creative social change because we are uncertain about our resources and simultaneously aware of the brutal capacity of our caretakers. The direct relationship between cooperation and resources is staggeringly simple; effort is expressed to meet the survival and spiritual needs of the group. It is this simplicity that I addressed earlier and the consequences of this analysis are what the Experimentation Section is constructed to support. To achieve such a radical social shift in priority individuals must pass through a brief but terrifying moment of internal anarchy, suspending all the software that drives one’s competitive social engagement. Such a personal shift in paradigm is a great leap but given our ever-decreasing guarantee of resources soon there will be nothing left to lose. The great danger in this shift is that one can get lost in the nothingness; stuck in the terror of personal anarchy. So meditating on the object guides us through that darkness into the light of cooperative spirit. Of course, there is the greater danger; that after experiencing the world’s virulent resistance to cooperation and equality one might leap back into competition with their fellows doing so with greater viciousness and brutality regretting time lost in the race. With every principle that is discussed there is the hope that an answer exists and the reality of sacrifice and faith.
One last thing concerning cooperation; the benefits to personal relationships within a cooperative community is without comparison. True community is exclusively the result of cooperation. Community, the united purpose of a population, is about the best thing we can hope for as social creatures.
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