Competition in Society
We live in a society that bears the imprint of competition. We use this word frequently, and in many different contexts—but what does it really mean? One provisional definition might be the following: Competition involves a societal process that is related to individual persons, groups, or institutions that share in the same event and are confronted with the same challenges. The achievements reached in this process are measured and ranked in relation to each other, and this ranking leads to an award for the best.
Most people get involved in processes of this kind, either in competitions where they themselves are participants or through the tension that competition between others creates in their minds as they sit in front of the television. Competition belongs both to work and to play. It plays a prominent role in the private and the public spheres. It is linked to individuals as such, but also to the roles that individuals can play based on a status that is attributed to them, or of a status that they themselves have achieved. Competition in which we are participants takes innumerable forms. For some, it is fought out on the sports field; for many more, it can be observed in the fight to get admission to attractive branches of study at colleges and universities, the struggle to be the best (or one of the best) in the class at school, or in one’s year at university, to top the list of examination candidates, to get the best jobs, the best theater tickets, the highest salaries, the best houses, the most successful children … or to put it briefly, to be the winner in a competition with others. This is true in many contexts and in different societies. Some hold that American society ranks highest on this scale. Competition is “an American cultural addiction,” and “Resistance to competition is viewed as suspiciously un-American” (Kohn 1992, p. 3). The dictionary synonyms for “competitive society ” are “career society” and “rat race.” In such a society, the idea of competition is integrated at a structural societal level.1
However, competition can be seen in close personal relationships too. A marriage can become a competitive arena between husband and wife. A competition can develop among siblings or groups of friends to see who can achieve the most. Some people do not need others as competitors: they are content to compete with themselves, improving their own achievements, whether jogging or at work. Radio stations and television channels compete intensively. In the political field, there is a continuous competition between nations and countries. The nuclear arms race in the 1950s and 1960s was a supreme form of competition, a competition for political hegemony in the world; the same was true of the race to put a man on the Moon. The global situation, with an unequal distribution of resources and goods between the North and the South, is another competitive situation, although this is more on paper than in reality . People struggle and compete to get hold of goods but also to obtain the right to control the resources that are often found in poor countries. In this competition, the poor nations in the South play in a completely different league than the rich countries. It is impossible for them to fight on equal terms for resources and goods, and they are heavily dependent on the generosity and kindness of the winners.
Most people associate “competition” with human beings : individuals and groups of persons compete with one another. However, this phenomenon is not limited to the human sphere. It also takes place between institutions and firms, between human beings and animals (as in the competition between bulls and men in the Pamplona festival), and between human beings and inanimate natural elements (as in whitewater canoeing and mountaineering).2
The first thing many people associate with competition is sport, which plays a significant role in very many societies. The media are very interested in this form of competition and give it extensive coverage, both in print and television. However, this interest is concentrated almost exclusively on top-level sport. One important precondition for much top-level sport today concerns financial interests. On this level, sport is professionalized; some people pay to be entertained, while others pay to be identified with persons who are presented as positive and healthy winners. For others, competition is associated primarily with education and with the workplace. People compete for the best jobs and for admission to the best courses of study. For some, it is a question of what is challenging and rewarding; for others, competition is about money and salaries. This direct and indirect link between competition and the economy is characteristic. The idea of competition is undoubtedly one core aspect of the form of economic activity that plays a central role today in the global context.3
The principal task of the economy is to help cover the material needs of human beings. The idea of competition is vital in the economic system that was characteristic of Western societies in the past and that has now spread almost throughout the whole world. Men such as Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill laid the foundations of this thinking in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century England; it went through subsequent developments, and lives on today among us in one variant of the neoclassical tradition of economic theory. Understood in this way, economic activity means that several actors compete. The best actors earn money and the winner earns most. This applies just as much to the supermarkets on each side of the street as to the firms that produce identical goods, whether in Norway, the United States, or other places. In order to earn as much as possible one must be competitive. One must have goods to sell and an image that is better than one’s competitors, because this increases sales. To outshine other actors, wholly or partly, with regard to price or quality, is important in an economic context. In some instances, it is a question of earning more money than one’s competitor; in others, the firm must acquire the financial resources that will allow it to survive. Some industries are particularly exposed, economically speaking, because they are influenced by a great number of factors outside their control. In an international perspective, we speak of sectors exposed to competition. Since the prices of wares are fixed on foreign markets, earnings are also dependent on the international economic climate and international conditions. To take one example, the international prices of raw materials make the smelting industry in Norway and Canada strongly exposed to competition. The sale of fresh salmon to Japan and China and to the European continent is another example.
The economy, with its mechanisms and instruments, cannot be isolated today to one delimited area of society ; and the same is true of economic competition. Indeed, some hold that it is precisely economic competition that is “the prototype of competition from which other varieties derive” (Kohn 1992, p. 70). The economy has grown in importance in the structure of society, where it now enjoys dominance.4 One aspect of this is the budgets that are adopted by politicians on the national, regional, and local levels. These establish guidelines that determine the priorities and choices in every area of society, including areas that are not traditionally associated with the economy. The link between sport and the economy is only one of several examples of the essential role played by the economy in the cultural field too; another example is sponsoring, which is a reality in most cultural areas today. The possibility of getting this kind of support for one’s causes or projects leads to competition for the limited resources that are available. And this in turn means that it is economic presuppositions that to some extent determine what wins through and is successful in the cultural sphere, although of course quality and other non-economic factors also play a role. But economic considerations also make their appearance in emotionally sensitive areas. Ought a damaged fetus to be allowed to live, if it is much cheaper for society to abort it than to let it grow up? This example shows how societal life is determined by the competition for resources. Should resources go to assist a sick child or should they be used for other goals that might benefit a greater number of persons? In exposed and very important areas of society, it was thought in the past that the state and local authority must have a special holistic responsibility: under all circumstances, a satisfactory offer of services must be ensured. The exposure of public transport and of hospital management to competition exemplifies areas where a change has taken place in recent years.
This reflects the fact that competition is given weight in more and more spheres of politics and becomes an autonomous goal on the same level as other societal goals.5 In this way, competition in the context of society becomes an end in itself—it is no longer merely a means of creating effectivity and quality, and of preventing the formation of detrimental monopolies. Nor is it enough for competition to have a function in services with a general economic significance (public consultancy, development projects, the management of buildings, and so on); competition is also to function in public services that involve a special obligation, namely, health and social services, education, culture, the environment, public transport, the fire services, the judiciary, and the police. It is difficult for those who live in a modern society to choose not to use these services. They are necessary, and this is why they are sometimes called natural monopolies.6 Monopolies of this kind are useful to everyone. The costs involved in setting them up are often so huge that it is more sensible for one operator to have a monopoly on providing the service than to have several operators competing to do so. One other possible consequence of competition in these fields is a diminution in quality, because the desire to win the competition demands that the operator save money.
The idea of competition can be legitimated in various ways. First, it is meant to motivate, and thus to increase achievements. Second, especially in an economic context, it is meant to help obtain and distribute resources and goods in a more effective manner. The legitimation will come about only if this is done more effectively in an economic competition than via state regulation or market monopolies.
This result-oriented understanding of competition does not completely correspond to the basic meaning of this word, which is neutral with regard to the question of who reaches the goal first. A direct translation of concurrere, the Latin verb that underlies konkurranse, the Norwegian noun for competition, is “to run together with.” The English noun has a similar sense, if it is understood against its Latin background. Competere means “to fight together” or “to ask together” (Hyland 1995, p. 178). In our context, however, this basic meaning has not become established as the content of the noun. For us, as for human beings who have competed ...