Competition
Chapter Sixty
Syllabus topic 3.1, "Social Processes- Competition"
Pages 270 to 272 of 451
In one line
Competition is the impersonal struggle of people for something scarce, in which each is trying to get the thing rather than to defeat anybody.
In the wording a student can write in an exam: competition is the dissociative social process in which two or more persons or groups strive for the same scarce object, reward or position, according to accepted rules, and in which attention is directed at the object rather than at the rival. Park and Burgess described it as the most elementary and universal form of social interaction, and as interaction without social contact, meaning that competitors need not be aware of one another at all.
Its characteristics
- It arises from scarcity. Where there is enough for everyone there is no competition. This is the single most important point, because it means competition is a consequence of the supply, not of human nature.
- It is impersonal. The competitor's object is the prize, not the injury of the rival. Two candidates for one post compete without hostility; the moment it becomes personal it is conflict.
- It is unconscious in many cases. Competitors frequently do not know who else is competing, which is why Park called it interaction without social contact.
- It is continuous, not episodic. Conflict ends; competition runs on.
- It is governed by rules, formal or customary. Competition that abandons the rules becomes conflict.
- It is universal, found in every society.
- It is a cause of social change, because it forces adaptation.
Its types
By the object competed for.
- Economic: for jobs, custom, markets, land, wages. The commonest and the most studied.
- Cultural: between cultures, languages, religions and ways of life for adherents and for prestige.
- Social: for status, prestige and recognition.
- Political: for office and power.
- Racial or ethnic: between groups so defined for resources and standing.
By its manner.
- Personal competition, where the competitors know one another and the rivalry is direct, which lies at the border with conflict.
- Impersonal competition, where they do not, which is the pure form.
Its positive functions
- Allocation. It distributes scarce positions and rewards, and where the rules are fair it distributes them by merit.
- Motivation and effort. It stimulates people to develop and use their capacities.
- Efficiency and innovation, because a competitor who does not improve loses.
- It assigns people to roles suited to them, or is supposed to.
- It prevents monopoly and stagnation.
- It produces social change, by forcing adaptation.
Its dysfunctions
- Insecurity and anxiety, which are a permanent cost of a competitive order.
- It can become conflict when it is personalised or when the rules break down.
- Monopoly. Successful competitors eliminate competition, which is why competition law exists at all.
- It reproduces inequality. The starting positions are unequal, so competition rewards advantage as well as merit, which is the criticism in [Social Stratification] of the Davis and Moore argument.
- Wasteful duplication of effort.
- It weakens solidarity and can dissolve primary relations if it enters them.
Competition
Competition and conflict compared
| Competition | Conflict | |
|---|---|---|
| Attention is on | The object or prize | The rival |
| Personal or not | Impersonal; rivals may not know each other | Personal and directed |
| Awareness of the other | Not required | Essential |
| Continuity | Continuous | Intermittent; it has a beginning and an end |
| Rules | Conducted within accepted rules | Rules are suspended or broken |
| Means | Effort, improvement, persuasion | Force, threat, coercion, injury |
| Aim | To obtain the object | To defeat, subdue or eliminate the opponent |
| Effect on the group | Usually maintains the order | Disrupts it, and may transform it |
| Example | Two firms selling in one market; two candidates for one post | A strike, a riot, litigation conducted as a vendetta, war |
The transition between them is the examinable point. Competition becomes conflict when it is personalised: when the competitor stops asking how to obtain the prize and starts asking how to stop the other from obtaining it. What makes that happen is usually a breakdown of the rules, a scarcity severe enough to threaten survival, or the identification of the rival with a group.
A worked example
Two grocers on one road.
Competition: each stocks better, opens longer, prices keener, and neither has any interest in the other's misfortune. Attention is on the customer, not the rival. Both may prosper.
The shift to conflict: one of them puts about a rumour that the other's stock is stale. Attention has moved from the customer to the rival; the accepted rules have been abandoned; and the object is now to injure rather than to attract. The process has changed even though the situation has not.
Accommodation follows, because conflict is expensive: an understanding brokered by the market association, or a settlement of the resulting defamation dispute. Note what the law is doing in this example, because it is instructive: it does not forbid competition, which it protects; it forbids particular means, and thereby keeps the process on the competitive side of the line. That is a precise statement of the function of a great deal of commercial law.
Quick revision
- Competition is the impersonal struggle for a scarce object, within accepted rules, with attention on the object and not the rival.
- It arises from scarcity, not from human nature.
- Park and Burgess: the most elementary and universal form of interaction, and interaction without social contact.
- Characteristics: impersonal, often unconscious, continuous, rule-governed, universal, and a cause of change.
- Types: economic, cultural, social, political, racial or ethnic; personal and impersonal.
- Functions: allocation, motivation, efficiency and innovation, role assignment, prevention of monopoly, change.
- Dysfunctions: insecurity, escalation into conflict, monopoly, reproduction of inequality, wasted duplication, weakened solidarity.
- It becomes conflict when it is personalised or the rules break down.
Competition
Test yourself
1. Define competition and give four characteristics. The dissociative process in which two or more parties strive for the same scarce object according to accepted rules, with attention directed at the object rather than the rival. It arises from scarcity rather than from human nature; it is impersonal, the aim being to obtain the prize rather than to injure anyone; it is frequently unconscious, since competitors need not know who else is competing; and it is continuous and governed by rules, formal or customary.
2. Distinguish competition from conflict on five points. Attention, on the object against on the rival; personality, impersonal and often between strangers against personal and directed; awareness, unnecessary against essential; rules, conducted within them against suspending or breaking them; and means, effort and improvement against force, threat and injury. Competition is also continuous while conflict is intermittent, having a beginning and an end.
3. When does competition become conflict? When it is personalised: the competitor stops asking how to obtain the prize and begins asking how to prevent the rival from obtaining it. The usual triggers are a breakdown in the accepted rules, scarcity severe enough that losing threatens the competitor's position altogether, or the identification of the rival with a group, which brings in-group and out-group hostility into what had been an impersonal contest.
4. State the functions and dysfunctions of competition. Functions: it allocates scarce positions and rewards; it motivates people to develop and exert their capacities; it produces efficiency and innovation; it assigns people to suitable roles; it prevents monopoly and stagnation; and it drives social change. Dysfunctions: it generates insecurity and anxiety; it can escalate into conflict; successful competitors tend to eliminate competition and produce monopoly; it rewards inherited advantage as well as merit and so reproduces inequality; it duplicates effort wastefully; and it weakens solidarity.
5. What does commercial law do about competition, and what does that illustrate? It does not forbid competition, which it protects, but forbids particular means of conducting it, such as disparaging a rival's goods falsely or combining to fix prices. It thereby keeps the process on the competitive side of the line dividing competition from conflict, preserving the allocative and innovative functions while suppressing the injurious ones. It illustrates the general point that law regulates the manner of a social process rather than attempting to abolish it.
The rest of this subject
These notes are cut from the University's printed syllabus. Open the syllabus itself, or the past papers, for the same subject.