Competition is superior to cooperation as a means of achieving excellence

A1. The only practical way to determine "excellence" is by competition Achieving excellence has two parts: (1) knowing what excellence is, and (2) working towards implementing it. The part where cooperation fails is knowing what excellence is. Con simply ignores the requirement to know what excellence is. Saying that excellence is whatever most benefits the general welfare is only the goal. That does not tell anyone what to do. Does the iPhone or the Droid provide the most improvement to the general welfare? Without a competitive marketplace, there is no way to ever know. The requirements are so complex and the needs of the general public so diverse, it is impossible for an authoritarian government, a committee working by a consensus or a poll of consumers to get it right ahead of time. Moreover, the common case is the the general welfare is best improved by having multiple products. A competitive marketplace will determine how many, and what each should be. Con ignores the whole problem of knowing what best promotes the general welfare. He argues that for some reason one can ignore that part of the problem and interpret "achieving" as beginning from the starting point of knowing exactly what ought to be done. If it were true that cooperating in achieving any defined goal produced excellence, then authoritarian regimes would always achieve excellence, and quite clearly they do not. Competition is absolutely essential to achieving excellence, because it is the only way to find out what the excellent is. Con is interpreting the resolution as if it said, "Assuming we know what to do to achieve excellence and everyone agrees what that is, then after that the best way to implement it is through cooperation." That is not a reasonable interpretation of the resolution because it would lead to wildly unrealistic debates. It would be along the lines of a resolution that asserts, "The best way to achieve excellence is to follow the will of God, assuming each person knows what the will of God is and all agree." Sure, but it is far too removed from the real world to be subject to a rational debate. In our resolution, if everyone knew and accepted what best improved the general welfare, no one would want to break out on his own. There would be reason to compete. Thus, the resolution would become equivalent to, "If there is no reason to compete, is competition better than cooperation." That is nonsensical, so it cannot be correct interpretation. A2. Only authoritarianism can suppress competition I did not equate cooperation with authoritarianism. I said that cooperation has no means of dealing with dissent other than authoritarian suppression. I granted their are some few cases where both the goal and the methods are so clear that no one wants to dissent. If the people of Haiti need food and water, the obvious thing to do is to ship it in. Dissent will be virtually nonexistent, so there is no need for dealing with it. However, such cases are rare. Most of the time, even if a numerical majority agrees, there will be dissenters. If the model is competition, then the dissenters can leave and form their won team or join a competing team. Con argues that the resolution implies that everyone knows perfectly exactly what best promotes the general welfare, and therefore there will be no dissent. Of course, that situation has never occurred on any country on earth and there is no chance it ever will occur. We are not debating hopelessly idealized societies, we are debating real ones ... right? In real societies, competition gives dissenters a place to go, and that greatly raises the general welfare both in terms of providing alternative solutions and making dissenters more content. The general welfare cannot be best improved by suppressing dissenters. N1. Con argues that cooperation means everyone focuses on achieving the general welfare, unlike competition. If so, then Con should tell us whether it is Apple's iPhone that was developed without concern for the public, or was it Motorola's Droid? I claim that both were equally attempting to improve the general welfare, and that competition in fact produced the greatest benefit. N2. Con claims that Communist governments failed because they didn't "cooperate" with the people. That is incorrect. Neither the government or the people knows ahead of time what to do that best benefits the general welfare. Only competition can discover that. Authoritarian rulers would like their countries to be prosperous; that gives them more power. Only competition reveals how to achieve it. N3. Con proposes a contradiction, claiming that cooperation is best because people think alike, while at the same time cooperation does not require people to think alike. Is the theory that some people can offer diverse ideas, but once the consensus asserts the common plan, then those whose ideas are rejected will not want to pursue them? That does not happen in the real world. In a relationship, like a marriage, the goal is not the general welfare of society. The goal is accommodating the views and goals of two people in a satisfactory way. The example does not apply. --------------------------- Con's case is built upon the preposterous assumption that everyone knows or will soon come to recognize what promotes the general welfare. He cannot and does not explain any case of how the general welfare of society is best improved through cooperation alone. That applies to everything from competitive political elections to product development. Once goals and methods are agreed upon, then cooperation will follow from that point, because there is then no reason to compete. The important, indeed critical, step to achieving excellence is competition. The resolution is affirmed.