By that logic capitalism with its constant competition is highly wasteful.
Capitalism does not really involve more “competition” than is inherent in human nature anyway. What it does WRT competition is precisely to try and ensure that it leads to favorable outcomes, largely by making property rights more well-defined and more easily protected. (‘Tragedy of the commons’ scenarios result from competing over an exhaustible ‘commons’ for which neither property rights nor customary access rules are defined.)
it’s a rule imposed from above by governing bodies which are mostly interested in selling the performance for money.
You might be assuming that professional athletes are not collectively “interested” in having their performance be popular when it gets sold for money. The opposite is very much the case. Yes, much of the appeal of sports is in its “fair contest” aspects—we would not be happy with a “pure entertainment” surrogate where the outcome of every contest was actually pre-determined in advance! But of course every sport has its rules.
So does then socialism of the Soviet variety involve considerably less?
Soviet socialism involved more wasteful competition than modern free-market (‘capitalist’) economies, by far. Much of that competition played out in the political arena, through the handing out of all sorts of special privileges and permits as “prizes” to be won. I’m not sure what a social system that involved “considerably less” competition might actually look like. Neo-cameralism of the Moldbuggian variety is often said to have some (rather minor) benefits in reduced social competition, but the costs are rather uncertain and potentially quite high.[1]
[1] (I actually think it might have a useful role to play, but only for the narrow use case of transition from weak authoritarian government like what you see in most of the non-Western world, to something like modern liberal democracy.)
In any case, we started with you saying competition is wasteful. So what are the alternatives?
I’ve tried to outline feasible options for the issues in the OP elsewhere in the comment thread. Anyway, ‘we started’ with you saying competition among high-school students has to be desirable and non-wasteful, precisely because it is a competition. My point was just that this is not quite correct.
Capitalism does not really involve more “competition” than is inherent in human nature anyway. What it does WRT competition is precisely to try and ensure that it leads to favorable outcomes, largely by making property rights more well-defined and more easily protected. (‘Tragedy of the commons’ scenarios result from competing over an exhaustible ‘commons’ for which neither property rights nor customary access rules are defined.)
You might be assuming that professional athletes are not collectively “interested” in having their performance be popular when it gets sold for money. The opposite is very much the case. Yes, much of the appeal of sports is in its “fair contest” aspects—we would not be happy with a “pure entertainment” surrogate where the outcome of every contest was actually pre-determined in advance! But of course every sport has its rules.
So does then socialism of the Soviet variety involve considerably less? I am not sure of the point you’re making.
Soviet socialism involved more wasteful competition than modern free-market (‘capitalist’) economies, by far. Much of that competition played out in the political arena, through the handing out of all sorts of special privileges and permits as “prizes” to be won. I’m not sure what a social system that involved “considerably less” competition might actually look like. Neo-cameralism of the Moldbuggian variety is often said to have some (rather minor) benefits in reduced social competition, but the costs are rather uncertain and potentially quite high.[1]
[1] (I actually think it might have a useful role to play, but only for the narrow use case of transition from weak authoritarian government like what you see in most of the non-Western world, to something like modern liberal democracy.)
Citation needed. This looks plain false to me.
In any case, we started with you saying competition is wasteful. So what are the alternatives?
I’ve tried to outline feasible options for the issues in the OP elsewhere in the comment thread. Anyway, ‘we started’ with you saying competition among high-school students has to be desirable and non-wasteful, precisely because it is a competition. My point was just that this is not quite correct.
Sigh. Bullshit. Quote me, please.
It’s only a few comments upthread and you already can’t distinguish between me and a straw monster living inside your mind.