Thoughts on Competition v. Cooperation

For several months now, the creator of Arthur, King of Time and Space has had his strip on a sort of working sabbatical- that is, the main strip is on pause for a year or two, but he's producing daily sketches and gags in his triangle-caricature style in the meantime, mostly based on an earlier King Arthur-in-Star-Trek-crossed-with-Doctor-Who comic concept.

To be perfectly honest, I'm not nearly as fond of the sabbatical comics as I was of the regular series. Often new or rarely seen characters are hard to recognize as triangles, for one thing. Some gags fall flat- and there are many days when there's no gag at all, just a triangle sketch pic. Most of all, though, I miss the sense of an ongoing storyline, which was in my opinion AKOTAS's main selling point: the real-time retelling of the Arthurian mythos in multiple parallel timelines.

But that's not what I'm on about today. Instead, I'm thinking about today's one-panel cartoon:

http://www.arthurkingoftimeandspace.com/1939.htm

Not having any notion of the actual identities of either figure here, I'm going to call these two Mr. Enlightenment and Mr. Classical, after the philosophical periods they represent.

They're both wrong.

Mr. Enlightenment is quite obviously wrong, of course- which is the point of the cartoon. He's confused competition with choice. Competition benefits society when it presents a broad range of alternatives to choose from and spurs innovation. However, competition is not always constructive. Competition also leads to waste of labor and resources and redundant effort, even in the most benevolent system. Also, competition does not default to its own steady-state; the goal of each competitor is to eliminate all other competitors, form a monopoly or cartel, and take sole control of the market (and possibly other things).

And this only refers to competition as a market force. Competition between nations, between races, between religions, etc. has frequently taken the form of violence and oppression. Unchecked competition destroys more than it creates. Competition needs curbs to benefit society; certainly it is not the best way to benefit society, in and of itself.

But Mr. Classical is also wrong. In his example he uses cooperation as his counterpoint- albeit in a passive-aggressive sense. Yet he, too, has missed the point. By countering competition with cooperation, Mr. Classical goes too far in the opposite direction. Cooperation is a powerful thing... but it's not always benevolent, as the survivors of Mao's Great Leap Forward or the Soviet Five Year Plans could tell you.

No, the best way to benefit society is neither competition nor cooperation; it is choice. Leave ordinary people free to choose to compete or cooperate, to choose one competitor over another, to support or oppose a cooperative goal. Then make sure there are sufficient choices available to the people that their choices have meaning.

Competition without choice brings only destruction and waste.

Cooperation without choice brings tyranny and injustice.

It is the ability to choose- to have a voice in the system- which harnesses both competition and cooperation and makes them useful.

To benefit society most, give the members of that society the power of individual choice whenever possible, limit those times when cooperation is mandatory to the minimum feasible, and control competition to prevent monopoly. The choices made won't be perfect, but they will produce happier societies than any alternative.

Thoughts on Competition v. Cooperation

For several months now, the creator of Arthur, King of Time and Space has had his strip on a sort of working sabbatical- that is, the main strip is on pause for a year or two, but he's producing daily sketches and gags in his triangle-caricature style in the meantime, mostly based on an earlier King Arthur-in-Star-Trek-crossed-with-Doctor-Who comic concept.

To be perfectly honest, I'm not nearly as fond of the sabbatical comics as I was of the regular series. Often new or rarely seen characters are hard to recognize as triangles, for one thing. Some gags fall flat- and there are many days when there's no gag at all, just a triangle sketch pic. Most of all, though, I miss the sense of an ongoing storyline, which was in my opinion AKOTAS's main selling point: the real-time retelling of the Arthurian mythos in multiple parallel timelines.

But that's not what I'm on about today. Instead, I'm thinking about today's one-panel cartoon:

http://www.arthurkingoftimeandspace.com/1939.htm

Not having any notion of the actual identities of either figure here, I'm going to call these two Mr. Enlightenment and Mr. Classical, after the philosophical periods they represent.

They're both wrong.

Mr. Enlightenment is quite obviously wrong, of course- which is the point of the cartoon. He's confused competition with choice. Competition benefits society when it presents a broad range of alternatives to choose from and spurs innovation. However, competition is not always constructive. Competition also leads to waste of labor and resources and redundant effort, even in the most benevolent system. Also, competition does not default to its own steady-state; the goal of each competitor is to eliminate all other competitors, form a monopoly or cartel, and take sole control of the market (and possibly other things).

And this only refers to competition as a market force. Competition between nations, between races, between religions, etc. has frequently taken the form of violence and oppression. Unchecked competition destroys more than it creates. Competition needs curbs to benefit society; certainly it is not the best way to benefit society, in and of itself.

But Mr. Classical is also wrong. In his example he uses cooperation as his counterpoint- albeit in a passive-aggressive sense. Yet he, too, has missed the point. By countering competition with cooperation, Mr. Classical goes too far in the opposite direction. Cooperation is a powerful thing... but it's not always benevolent, as the survivors of Mao's Great Leap Forward or the Soviet Five Year Plans could tell you.

No, the best way to benefit society is neither competition nor cooperation; it is choice. Leave ordinary people free to choose to compete or cooperate, to choose one competitor over another, to support or oppose a cooperative goal. Then make sure there are sufficient choices available to the people that their choices have meaning.

Competition without choice brings only destruction and waste.

Cooperation without choice brings tyranny and injustice.

It is the ability to choose- to have a voice in the system- which harnesses both competition and cooperation and makes them useful.

To benefit society most, give the members of that society the power of individual choice whenever possible, limit those times when cooperation is mandatory to the minimum feasible, and control competition to prevent monopoly. The choices made won't be perfect, but they will produce happier societies than any alternative.