The successful ones would get more successful. Those least successful would get discouraged and give up or just march in place. There are plenty of instances where these conditions exist today and have existed in the past. For the most part we like to work together with others. When we like what we are working on we tend to put more energy into it.
All human progress is incremental.
We get an idea or see what another person is doing and we try to improve on it. When the team incentives are present, we let everyone know about our improvement. In my experience the Europeans and Asians are much more attuned to teamwork than Americans. The list stretches over the horizon. Almost alone, culturally speaking, we always feel surprised when a team succeeds at something important.