Requirements of Competition

Founding Texts and Arguments: Requirements of Competition

January 28, 2009

The formation of a civil and peaceful society is dependent upon a stable legal order that is established through legal and political institutions, ensuring the protection of individuals in society from fraudulence and other harm that could threaten the peaceful society and man.  Competition, among individuals within civil society, requires a stable legal order and a larger ethical whole that is centered on the State in order to result productively, beneficially, and for the greater good of civil society. Without such facets as legal order and an ethical whole, competition can threaten the protection of man and man’s rights, ineffective outcomes, and the interference of society.

Along with the establishment of a stable legal order, competition can be encouraged on the basis that legal order is in place to protect and preserve the sanctity of the State and of individuals within civil society. Legal order helps to minimize the threat that competition can pose on civil society, having the authority of legal and political institutions, within civil society, remain in control and rational, keeping with good intentions.

It can be argued that through the establishment of a stable legal order and a greater ethical whole, competition would cease to exist on the basis that all individuals within society would be pleased with the composure of the State. Thus, individuals within civil society would be satisfied with the civil society in which they reside and they would not feel the need for competition. However, antagonism, a mode to challenge elements of and within civil society, can be assumed through rationality. Man’s rationality encourages the competition of elements of and within civil society; so long as man is rational, competition is inevitable.

The weakness in this argument can be found in the question of rationality and the extent to which man possesses rationality. Is rationality an element possessed by all men? If one is a rational being can he or she also be irrational? What is rationality derived from? Each individual’s rationality is influenced by his or her values, beliefs, and experiences, but is rationality a priori?Theorists, such as Kant, believe that people come to possess reason; it is not inherent in human nature, but it is learned through experience; it is a posteriori. Man can learn to be rational through the utilization of institutions within civil society.

As well, perhaps rationality is not the only defying cause of antagonisms within society. One could argue that all men are emotional beings and thus antagonisms can be assumed through emotion. Man’s emotion encourages him to challenge those elements of or within society, and man may believe this to be rational on the basis of his emotions.