In school, the performance of students is based on testing that is compared with other students. To get into the good universities and graduate schools, one must do well relative to others on standardized tests. Success is determined through academic competition. In high schools, students strive to be popular by going out on the most dates or doing similar things that are examples of social competition. There are countless awards shows that honor competition of one sort or another.
Competition seems to be the basis of modern American society.
Darwin's ideas also had a profound effect on the communist revolution in Russia. Marx had ideas about the evolution of society that he felt had a scientific basis in Darwin's theory of evolution. Marx said that society continually evolved, the end product of such evolution being a socialist society. Just as in nature this change was brought about through struggle, Marx advocated revolution to bring about the societal changes he thought were inevitable. Lenin took these ideas to Russia, where he led the revolution of the proletariat.