Why should we care about competition?

Abstract

Most people believe that competitive institutions are morally acceptable, but that there are limits: a friendly competition is one thing; a life or death struggle is another. How should we think about the moral limits on competition? I argue that the limits stem from the value of human sociability, and in particular from the noninstrumental value of a form of social connectedness that I call ‘mutual affirmation.’ I contrast this idea with Rawls’s account of social union and stability. Finally, I show how these ideas provide the basis for a powerful argument in favour of social provisions for public goods: for example, a strong public health care system moderates the stakes in labour market competition, preventing the competition from descending into a life or death struggle.

Keywords:

• Competition
• sociability
• public goods
• associative obligations

Notes

1. A ‘stands with’ B when A is oriented to form certain attitudes towards the possibility of B’s succeeding or failing. This means that A will form the relevant attitudes when the relevant facts come to A’s attention. In most cases, people in a relationship are not constantly in each other’s presence, so what the relationship requires is an orientation to form certain attitudes. The relationship may also require people to gather certain forms of information and monitor others’ progress, and it may require them to give each other space.

2. There are, of course, limits. If you are a paedophile, for example, then I have no reason to share in your happiness about your success in this project.

3. Even Rousseau (1960, pp. 126, 127, 1979, p. 352, 1997b, p. 191) gives games and competitions a place in the ideal republic.

4. There are important questions to consider here about when exactly the stakes in a competitive institution become excessive. But for my purposes in this paper, I will set these questions aside and use the case of a labour market with life and death consequences as a relatively clear example of an arrangement that crosses the line.