competition

28:5.18The Di­vine Coun­selors, to whom this or­der is at­tached, uti­lize them to re­flect from one world to an­other the ben­e­fits to be de­rived from spir­i­tual ser­vice. And by us­ing the per­for­mances of the best to in­spire and en­cour­age the mediocre, these se­con­a­phim con­tribute im­mensely to the qual­ity of de­voted ser­vice in the super­uni­verses. Ef­fec­tive use is made of the fra­ter­nal com­pet­i­tive spirit by cir­cu­lat­ing to any one world in­for­ma­tion about what the oth­ers, par­tic­u­larly the best, are do­ing. A re­fresh­ing and whole­some ri­valry is pro­moted even among the se­raphic hosts.

71:6.1Pres­ent-day profit-mo­ti­vated eco­nomics is doomed un­less profit mo­tives can be aug­mented by ser­vice mo­tives. Ruth­less com­pe­ti­tion based on nar­row-minded self-in­ter­est is ul­ti­mately de­struc­tive of even those things which it seeks to main­tain. Ex­clu­sive and self-serv­ing profit mo­ti­va­tion is in­com­pat­i­ble with Chris­tian ide­als—much more in­com­pat­i­ble with the teach­ings of Je­sus.

71:5.3Through­out the ear­lier ages of any world, com­pe­ti­tion is es­sen­tial to pro­gres­sive civ­i­liza­tion. As the evo­lu­tion of man pro­gresses, co-op­er­a­tion be­comes in­creas­ingly ef­fec­tive. In ad­vanced civ­i­liza­tions co-op­er­a­tion is more ef­fi­cient than com­pe­ti­tion. Early man is stim­u­lated by com­pe­ti­tion. Early evo­lu­tion is char­ac­ter­ized by the sur­vival of the bi­o­log­i­cally fit, but later civ­i­liza­tions are the bet­ter pro­moted by in­tel­li­gent co-op­er­a­tion, un­der­stand­ing fra­ter­nity, and spir­i­tual broth­er­hood.

81:6.207. Ef­fec­tive­ness of me­chan­i­cal de­vices. The prog­ress of civ­i­liza­tion is di­rectly re­lated to the de­vel­op­ment and pos­ses­sion of tools, ma­chines, and chan­nels of dis­tri­bu­tion. Im­proved tools, in­ge­nious and ef­fi­cient ma­chines, de­ter­mine the sur­vival of con­tend­ing groups in the arena of ad­vanc­ing civ­i­liza­tion.

71:5.1Com­pe­ti­tion is es­sen­tial to so­cial prog­ress, but com­pe­ti­tion, un­reg­u­lated, breeds vi­o­lence. In cur­rent so­ci­ety, com­pe­ti­tion is slowly dis­plac­ing war in that it de­ter­mines the in­di­vid­ual’s place in in­dus­try, as well as de­cree­ing the sur­vival of the in­dus­tries them­selves. (Mur­der and war dif­fer in their sta­tus be­fore the mores, mur­der hav­ing been out­lawed since the early days of so­ci­ety, while war has never yet been out­lawed by man­kind as a whole.)

71:5.2The ideal state un­der­takes to reg­u­late so­cial con­duct only enough to take vi­o­lence out of in­di­vid­ual com­pe­ti­tion and to pre­vent un­fair­ness in per­sonal ini­tia­tive. Here is a great prob­lem in state­hood: How can you guar­an­tee peace and quiet in in­dus­try, pay the taxes to sup­port state power, and at the same time pre­vent tax­a­tion from hand­i­cap­ping in­dus­try and keep the state from be­com­ing par­a­sit­i­cal or tyran­ni­cal?

69:2.2Be­fore the dawn of early fru­gal­ity and prim­i­tive in­dus­try the lot of the av­er­age tribe was one of des­ti­tu­tion and real suf­fer­ing. Early man had to com­pete with the whole an­i­mal world for his food. Com­pe­ti­tion-grav­ity ever pulls man down to­ward the beast level; pov­erty is his nat­u­ral and tyran­ni­cal es­tate. Wealth is not a nat­u­ral gift; it re­sults from la­bor, knowl­edge, and or­ga­ni­za­tion.

64:6.333. Com­pe­ti­tion is health­fully stim­u­lated by di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion of races.

72:4.4One quar­ter of the school time is de­voted to play—com­pet­i­tive ath­let­ics—the pupils pro­gress­ing in these con­tests from the lo­cal, through the state and re­gional, and on to the na­tional tri­als of skill and prowess. Like­wise, the or­a­tor­i­cal and mu­si­cal con­tests, as well as those in sci­ence and phi­los­o­phy, oc­cupy the at­ten­tion of stu­dents from the lower so­cial di­vi­sions on up to the con­tests for na­tional hon­ors.

72:5.10Two hun­dred years ago the profit mo­tive was wholly dom­i­nant in in­dus­try, but to­day it is be­ing rapidly dis­placed by other and higher driv­ing forces. Com­pe­ti­tion is keen on this con­ti­nent, but much of it has been trans­ferred from in­dus­try to play, skill, sci­en­tific achieve­ment, and in­tel­lec­tual at­tain­ment. It is most ac­tive in so­cial ser­vice and gov­ern­men­tal loy­alty. Among this peo­ple pub­lic ser­vice is rapidly be­com­ing the chief goal of am­bi­tion. The rich­est man on the con­ti­nent works six hours a day in the of­fice of his ma­chine shop and then has­tens over to the lo­cal branch of the school of states­man­ship, where he seeks to qual­ify for pub­lic ser­vice.

71:5.4True, com­pe­ti­tion in in­dus­try is ex­ceed­ingly waste­ful and highly in­ef­fec­tive, but no at­tempt to elim­i­nate this eco­nomic lost mo­tion should be coun­te­nanced if such ad­just­ments en­tail even the slight­est ab­ro­ga­tion of any of the ba­sic lib­er­ties of the in­di­vid­ual.

68:4.7The sur­vival of a so­ci­ety de­pends chiefly on the pro­gres­sive evo­lu­tion of its mores. The pro­cess of cus­tom evo­lu­tion grows out of the de­sire for ex­per­i­men­ta­tion; new ideas are put for­ward—com­pe­ti­tion en­sues. A pro­gress­ing civ­i­liza­tion em­braces the pro­gres­sive idea and en­dures; time and cir­cum­stance fi­nally se­lect the fit­ter group for sur­vival. But this does not mean that each sep­a­rate and iso­lated change in the com­po­si­tion of hu­man so­ci­ety has been for the bet­ter. No! in­deed no! for there have been many, many ret­ro­gres­sions in the long for­ward strug­gle of Uran­tia civ­i­liza­tion.

50:4.9A Plan­e­tary Prince is not vis­i­ble to mor­tal be­ings; it is a test of faith to be­lieve the rep­re­sen­ta­tions of the semi­ma­te­rial be­ings of his staff. But these schools of cul­ture and train­ing are well adapted to the needs of each planet, and there soon de­vel­ops a keen and lauda­tory ri­valry among the races of men in their ef­forts to gain en­trance to these var­i­ous in­sti­tu­tions of learn­ing.