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In this week’s episode, and I discuss one of the fundamental dichotomies of human behaviour: cooperation versus competition. Are human beings inherently competitive, or are we more socially oriented and naturally cooperative? The question is important because the workplace seems primarily oriented towards competition. We compete for a limited number of clients and projects, departments within the same organisation may be adversaries, and workers are encouraged to compete for recognition, bonuses and promotions. In parallel, we also find workers in these same situations cooperate, albeit reluctantly at times, to achieve goals and get things done.

Ultimately, however, jobs require people to be agents of the profit-seeking organisation within a system of apparently limited resources. Making a profit is necessary, but the competition for it never stops, and it’s rarely shared equally among those who generate it (although that’s a topic for another day). Businesses, especially larger corporate ones, are never satisfied, and they demand that you and I, in our jobs, keep pushing for more. They squeeze as much as they can out of every human being, often until we are dry, broken husks of people. In this sense, we work in the metaphorical vice of competition for what are perceived as limited resources (again, a topic for another day).

The Capitalists argue that competition is good for society; it has given us all the technology, goods and services we take for granted. It has improved living conditions and made life better for all, or so the argument goes. Socialists offer a counterargument - competition has destroyed the fabric of life, raped and pillaged the planet, treated human beings and the natural world as objective means to material ends, and will kill us all. Cooperation and mutual aid, they say, are the keys to our survival. Read more

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