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Cooperation, Competition and Coercion
Let’s take a closer look at some of the major ideas regularly animating our public discourse today.
Cooperation vs. Competition
When we contemplate the society in which we live, we often tend to frame our disagreements in terms of cooperation vs. competition: Are we working together collaboratively with others, or are we competing with them?
Politically, those on the left tend to be associated with a spirit of egalitarian cooperation, while those on the right are often viewed as proponents of unrestrained competition within a free market economy.
From an economic perspective, these alternatives can be portrayed as a choice between centralized planning or laissez-faire capitalism.
The tension between these two alternatives can be somewhat resolved through reference to multi-level selection theory, pointing out that we can cooperate at some levels (say, within a company), and compete at others (between companies, for example).
In our current state of polarizing identity politics, those favoring cooperation can easily be portrayed as socialist defenders of society’s freeloaders, while those arguing for unrestrained competition can be painted as standard bearers for a true economic meritocracy.
