Cooperation in Swiss Government

An example of competition moderated by a requirement for cooperation may be found in the way the Swiss elect their executive, called federal council. They call this principle "concordance." In a recent election, federal councillor Blocher, the leader of the strongest party in parliament and a very competitive politician, was not reelected because of a perception that he was not cooperative. In his place parliament chose another member of his party whose prospects for cooperation in the federal council appeared better.

Posted by: Heinrich | 1/10/08

Fundamental misunderstanding of Sport

Dear Mr. Barber, You have fundamentally misunderstood the role of sports in American society. While on one level, there is the obvious competition, on another level being a member of a team requires a rather radical form of cooperation. In fact, I would argue that team sports actually encourages the sublimation of ego for its participants more than almost any other event in modern American life.

Posted by: BigDaddy | 1/10/08

Hayek

F. Hayek argues "... it is one of the necessary conditions of the extension of human cooperation beyond the limits of individual awareness that the range of such pursuits be increasingly governed not by shared purposes but by abstract rules of conduct whose observance brings it about that we more and more serve the needs of people whom we do not know and find our own needs similarly satisfied by unknown persons. Thus the more the rnage of human cooperation extends, the lesss does motivation within it correspond to the mental picture people have of what should happen in a 'society', and the more 'social' comes to be not the key word in a statement of the facts but the core of an appeal to an ancient, and now obsolete, ideal of general human behaviour [ie. group-based cooperation that dominates in hunter-gatherer tribal communities]." (The Fatal Conceit (1988), pp.112-13). I find this argument convincing, and respectfully find Professor Barber's conclusion exactly wrong. If a reader might point me to some author's who challenge Hayek's argument, and who, in the reader's view, overcome the same, I'd be very grateful for a referencem, as it seems to me that a system of private enterprise based on the principle of several property whereby individuals/enterprises compete for means to satisfy diverse ends is the only system capable of supporting our present civilisation and population, and that a call for a greater emphasis on cooperation over competition endangers a great part of the world's people to a higher degree of hunger and need than presently exists.

Posted by: Jon Leckie | 1/10/08

Presidential politics

I think that in our current presidential race we are witnessing an interesting competition between competitive and collaborative or communitarion approaches, the Democratic race especially. Obama's rhetoric is insistently collaborative--even when his political choices haven't always been. Edwards and Clinton are, by comparison, political pugilists willing to be tough and fight for what they believe. Half of Obama's appeal to younger voters lies in his insistence that we can stand together and get beyond partisanship. Build governing coalitions that reach across traditional ideological lines. Whether we can or not is another question. As this article suggests, the system itself is weighted to approve of competitive winners and losers. Thus Clinton's ability to portray Obama's eloquence as soft and unrealistic.

Posted by: Peter Kerry Powers | 1/10/08

You have it backwrds

Vasari argued that it was the spirit of competition that made Renaissance Florence great. It is a competitive environment which makes us alive, and in the case of Florence, made the Florentines feel Florentine. "Cooperation" is stultifying, deadening.

Posted by: Critic | 1/10/08

Not my experience of Americans at all

"No wonder ours is often an ­outer-­directed culture, unreflective, grasping, aggressive, and ­cutthroat." I am not an American, and I am really surprised to hear any American saying this. I know a lot of Americans, and in my experience they are lovely, friendly, and incredibly generous. They do talk rather loud, but that's hardly the worse thing in the world. And how can this author say "ours is often an unreflective [culture]" at the same time as he is writing an article reflecting on American culture? Well, actually, he might have a grain of truth in there, since he doesn't seem to be doing a very good job of reflecting on American culture. "This has never been more so than in this era when politics has, in Jonathan Chait’s recent portrait in The New Republic, become “an atavistic clash of partisan willpower,” with Christian Right pitted against the Netroots Left in a polarized media environment defined by hyperbolic talk radio and the foolish excesses of the blogosphere. " Umm, back in the 1860s I understand the Americans had a civil war. You know, with muskets and guns and dead bodies. That strikes me as rather less peaceful and cooperative than the current era. "Contrast electoral politics in our representative democracy with citizen politics in a participatory democracy, where the aim is not to win but to achieve common ground and secure public goods—a model of politics in which no one wins unless everyone wins, and a loss for some is seen as a loss for all." Of course Mr Barber cites no cases of any actual government in the world that reaches this state of perfect bliss. And the examples he cites of competition on TV - everyone around the world plays competitive games. The Americans didn't invent soccer or chess or rugby or card-playing or horse-racing. "...to the aspirations of communitarians and republicans who seek to establish a common good." The trouble with common goods is that they conflict with liberty. The communitarians don't leave much space for dissent. "No wonder American winners lose perspective and put themselves above sexual norms, above ordinary standards, above the law." Okay, according to this we should see: - American losers showing a great respect for sexual norms, ordinary standards and the law. - Non-Americans (losers or winners) showing a great respect for sexual norms, ordinary standards and the law. I think the answer to this one is "yeah, right". "According to this model, we live in a ­“zero-­sum” world where one man’s victory must be another man’s defeat. " This model is only relevant if it is right. I don't believe so. Adam Smith made a rather good case that we don't live in a zero-sum world, that instead competition, by creating incentives to be the lowest-cost provider, reduces costs and increases the prosperity of the general population. This guy is bizarre. He appears to believe that Americans are horrible, grasping people, while everyone else lives in a state of communal bliss.

Posted by: Tracy W | 1/10/08

competition

Starting with the indictment of sports I think this essay is largely wrong. In America the largest sports participation occurs in running events and most of the emphasis is on gaining a personal best. Competing against ones self is the name of the game. Personal improvement is what counts for most participants.

Posted by: DickHarriff | 1/10/08

Ancient Olympics

"And as in the Olympic Games it is not the most beautiful and the strongest that are crowned but those who compete (for it is some of these that are victorious), so those who act win, and rightly win, the noble and good things in life." -Nicomachean Ethics I.8

Posted by: Aristotle | 1/10/08

Hayek

What is wrong with Hayek's argument? No argument by Hayek is on offer. There is just a restatement of the myth of the "unseen hand". You can see what is factually incorrect about that myth in health care. Amongst western democracies, the US relies most on competition, therefore spends most on health care (by margins of 50-100%), and gets the least results, i.e., worse health, more illness, earlier death than other western democracies enjoy by putting more emphasis on cooperation. You can see it too in the area of antosocial behaviour, crime, and punishment: the US keeps a greater proportion of its population in jail than any other western democracy, by far. You can see it in the history of slavery, where claims in behalf of US south economic competitiveness kept slavery in place long after other western democracies had abandoned it, and maintained a barbaric system of white supremacy for a hundred years after that. And you can see it in the US's armed assaults on other countries since WWII. About 50 of them, most illegal under international law. Give me the Swiss, or Swedish, or Canadian, or even French model any day over the US model.

Posted by: pzbrawl | 1/10/08

Drive a mile in my car

This guy's a professor, in full employment at a university? Which is probably a good thing, as his theories can remain theories. And, luckily for America and the rest of the free-market world, they're in competitition with other, more soundly based, theories. Barber's ideas have been put into practice, of course. Most conspicuous result: a five-year wait for a Trabant.

Posted by: kiwi | 1/10/08

Competition is not zero sum

The author seems to only look at the producer side of capitalism, which is why he will overwhelmingly see losers and non-cooperation. He forgets that capitalism is an act of cooperation between producers and consumers not between producers and producers. The sucessful producer and consumer reach an agreement on the price of a good or service, creating a situation where both win. The unsucessful producer is one who cannot reach a consensus with the consumer and therefore fails. When producers cooperate we lose since that almost always means they are engaging in a trust or other price fixing scheme, which is why we want them to compete. Furthermore, your indictment of our political system is based on the idea that cooperation is synonomous with with collectivism. We all "cooperate" by agreeing to resolve our differences through a common political system where we know some one will end up losing. The beauty of the system is that even if we lose now we can try again in the future. In the mean time our Bill of Rights ensures that the losers won't get trampled by the winners. If anything, our liberal "competitive" democracy is a monument to our ability to cooperate rather than simply killing each other over our differences. The author, like many people, doesn't seem to be able to resolve disparity between the idea of survival of the fittest and his own inclination to help those in need, whom would presumably perish in a competitive society. Well let me give you a hand, there is no disparity. Just because I enjoy besting competitors in the market doesn't mean I want to see them die. Many of us donate to our churches and other charities on our own. The movement to cut off the government saftey net stems from the idea that when I choose to help, that's called altruism, when someone takes my money forcibly, that's called stealing. Why people continually cling to the idea of perfect collective societies in the face of their monumental failures throughout history is a mystery to me. Also, the Mike Vick dog fighting analogy is asinine and insulting to a neoliberal.

Posted by: Joel | 1/10/08

Off by 179 degrees...

A dear professor, (thank goodness) pre-selecting anecdotes to fit his theory w/ a few sophisticated quotes to lend some gravity to a 'puff' piece. Where to begin? Let's start w/ the first word of this screed "competition". Comes from the Latin "to strive with, to meet, coincide" and that is exactly what American competition is. We strive thru competition, to raise performance unachieved in any other manner I am familiar. The key point, which the dear professor neglects to point out in his various sports analogies is, after each contest, we get up, shake hands, and CONTINUE TO IMPROVE TO STRIVE AGAIN. (think Stanley Cup finals) "No one wins unless everyone wins" is a non sequitor. Try heaven. "Innocent concern...Rampant despotism" is too often the result of the dear professor's wished for communist solution which history proves. At least he is correct on one score. A "puppy dog tethered to a lion's leash"? Ask Iraq (2x's), Panama, Granada, WWI & WWII etc., etc. Is the dear professor tenured? Talk about competition! As Orson Welles asked(I paraphrase), what are the Swiss famous for? Cuckoo clocks.

Posted by: Edward | 1/10/08

Competition of ideas

While it’s bad form, even in this in this culture, to risk being seen as opposing cooperation, I find Professor Barber’s arguments somewhat self-serving and disingenuous, just like much of competitive human nature. Barber wants to be seen as highly valuing cooperation, yet is engaging in a competition that he is not aware of, or about which he is choosing to deceive himself and his readers. He is competing in the marketplace of ideas, as well as the marketplace of book sales. He is not cooperating with others who have different ideas about our culture and where it is heading and what we should do, praising their viewpoints (and books) and finding common ground with his. Wouldn't that be the cooperative thing to do? Instead, he is cooperating (some might say aligning) with those past and present who have shared his ideas in order to compete against those who do not, so that we, the readers, may be influenced to his way of thinking. It’s competition of ideas so that we may all cooperate better, and come to see the author as someone of wisdom who stands above the rest in his competitive field of university professors getting their ideas published. The more competitive and persuasive Barber’s ideas are, the more success, influence, status, and affiliation with like-minded others he will find. Nothing wrong with that. Isn’t it what we are all competing and cooperating for? The title of his book, Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole, as well as his opening quote, “Government and cooperation are in all things the laws of life; anarchy and competition the laws of death” are quite a bit of rhetoric/hyperbole. Like a politician competing for victory by overstating the challenges and fears we face and distorting large doses of reality (in this case by minimizing the cooperation we engage in daily, such as the enormous amounts of cooperation it takes to pull off elections, sporting events, and television shows), Barber seeks to sway us with myth (“It is not victory but a ‘personal best’ that counts” in ancient athletic competition), not facts. It is highly likely that we as a species have always coveted personal best and victory over others. Are there any facts to dispute that assertion? Mr. Barber provides no facts but seems to assume some mythical glorious humanity of the past where cooperation and personal best were the qualities we really valued. It seems to me that cooperation among teams, businesses, countries, even armies, is heightened in the face of victory or defeat. I'm no supporter of immoral and unwise military invasions, but let's not underestimate the value of a highly competitive military, or any other institution that raises the quality of life for all through its cooperative and competitive endeavors. Barber seems to be alarmingly unaware of (OK, a bit of hyperbole myself), make that commonly minimizing, his own competitive nature in the marketplaces in which he finds himself. How does one stand out and get one’s ideas and books to the wider public? Hyperbole, myth and distortion are often successful competitive strategies. I just don’t buy much of his viewpoint. If we’re going to help our society increase it’s cooperation, a worthy goal, perhaps its best not to compete against the ideas of others. Or perhaps it is. Perhaps the competitive part of our nature just can’t help it. There's no shame in being aware of it.

Posted by: nwufny2 | 1/10/08

Envy codename "Cooperation"

I wonder if Professor Barber has read "Darwinian Politics" by Paul Rubin, If he has he's missed the point and if he hasn't he should. It's true that cooperation is essential to almost all human achievement: you can't play a sport, team or individual, if you don't cooperate; you can't build a building of any size or complexity if you don't cooperate; you can't perform an operation, get an education, drive a car on a public street, or enjoy a happy family life if you don't cooperate. Everyone knows that. But people have the right to do as well as they may even if that consists of doing much better than their neighbors, and it is almost invariably the envy which extraordinary success provokes which motivates polemics against competition such as Professor Barber's. The truth is that there is no "lost art" of cooperation which needs cultivation, but rather an extant art of civilized competition which needs to learned and understood by the likes of Professor Barber.

Posted by: jt | 1/10/08

Zero Sum versus Positive Sum

Barber misses an essential component of competition, the positive-sum part. While competition does occur in terms of direct trade-offs that result in zero-sum outcomes, it also produces positive-sum outcomes when more players are added. If a more productive company gains market share at the expense of a less productive company providing the same product, it's a zero-sum outcome for the companies, but a positive sum outcome for consumers. Further, no cooperation is necessary to attain either outcome, zero or positive sum. Omission of this essential component of competition raises questions about Barber's application of a simple dichotomy between cooperation and competition. Some cooperation becomes confused with postive-sum outcomes when it should be cast in a separate role. For example, when Barber poses that monopolies, mergers, cartels and so forth are failures of "real competition" that do not produce wealth (that would be produced with competition), he's right for the wrong reason. The reason they don't produce wealth is because of cooperation specifically designed to avoid competition. This sort of cooperation is obviously not the sort advocated by Barber as something lost that deserves revival. Instead, the cooperation Barber generally appeals to for most subjects addresses competition at increasingly higher levels with more players, such as two football teams which compete at the team level based on cooperation at the intra-team level. And in a broader sense, all players in both teams benefit in cultural ways from just playing the game in a postive-sum context, separate from who wins or loses in zero-sum fashion. Barber is correct that competition at the individual level has taken on a sordid life of its own that ignores its complement in many ways - cooperation, as well as a general breakdown of competition in the marketplace. But the solution is not necessarily cooperation as the symmetrical opposite of competition - it may be another form of competition at a different level with different players.

Posted by: barry payne_economist | 1/10/08

Cooperation vs. competition

The human race's very dna is built around competition. Cooperation, although much to be desired, requires a maturity and a conscious decisionmaing that will take more than we have at this point before it trumps competition. :-(

Posted by: ArchiesBoy | 1/11/08

When cooperation and competition go together

This is not to contradict the well-taken major point of this excellent and informative piece.But it is only to point out that even in most competitive activities such as war and far from this, team- sports both competition and cooperation work together. A good team competes against its opponent but cooperates within itself. And there is a special kind of joy which comes when working one's hardest to contribute to a team in this way.

Posted by: Shalom Freedman | 1/11/08

hayek argument

try reading "the evolution of cooperation" by axelrod. There is a certain level of science and math involved, but it shows both the benefits of cooperation and the limits of competition. enjoy

Posted by: rik van hemmen | 1/11/08

Competition

Cooperation is often sought by those who don't know how to compete -- and don't want to learn how to compete. Cooperation occurs within competition; a team, some states, some families, etc. Two problems exist with the idea of making cooperation the highest goal, First, who decides what "coopeation" is? Can cooperation be different n Australia and Estonia? Second, competition is a part of human mental structure -- in fact in might be in the genes. Is it "Big Brother" cooperation that is chosen to overide a natural tendency to compete first and cooperate later? I'm still on the compete first side -- as if you can't tell.

Posted by: Bill Dee | 1/11/08

Hayek - thanks

Thanks for the reference Rik, much appreciated.

Posted by: Jon Leckie | 1/11/08

cooperation

I should point out that before Kropotkin, the radical thinker Nikolay Chernyshevsky, darling of the Soviets, noted that only the British with their form of economy could have imagined that nature was ruled solely by competition. Indeed it is the United States with its peculiar conception of individualism which is unique in its conception of human reality, much to our loss.

Posted by: Richard Gustafson | 1/11/08

COMPETITION

Great-my favorite theme lately has been MUTUAL EMPATHIC COMPASSION

Posted by: ROY HENRY | 1/12/08

the debate so far

why is it that the polarised [black and white] thinkers are the ones to flood these message boards with their boring economic and political theories. its boring not to cite any relevant material examples which might elaborate your arguments. such distorted reductionism makes jesus weep. also, it perpetuates our most significant failings as a species. stop it. except for heinrich and mr powers. you guys are okay. cant we all get just along? maybe build toward a society that allows for a more fluid exchange of the good oil. some sort of regenerative economy where capital is way less restrained by institutional thinking. the technologies are being developed bywhich individuals can assert their competitive interest in a more functional global economy. vocalising demand for these unprecedented resources is one example of how collaborative and competitive energies can merge to create something new. what a time to be alive.

Posted by: localindustry | 1/12/08

competition

Philosophic views about competition can emerge from the comfort of living in a developed country where competition is at levels that aim at throttling the global markets.Imagine an emerging economy where the opportunities are limited by resource constraints and the urge to become better is genetic and caused more by centuries of colonization and the void left in lives and history.In India for 1200 seats in the best B-schools there are 250,000 eligible aspirants.A score of 99+percentile is what matters.In competition what matters is not the idea but the spirit with which it is generated,moderated and judged.Any competition that lets the users of the product or services down or plants ideas about cheapness than quality then it should be abhored.I do not know if US has reached such cultural and ethical decay.If ever please inculcate values in the minds of youth so that there is fair competition

Posted by: subrashankar | 1/13/08

Aristotle quote

Here, Aristotle does not endorse competition per se. He simply means to point out that you must actively put your virtue to use. He says we esteem, not those who are born with brains or brawn, but those who put these gifts to good use.

Posted by: friend of Aristotle | 1/17/08

for the european model

bzbrawl - Thank you for the reply, how can Americans not see this? Well, they hardly ever leave the country,you know what I mean and think they are always the best at everything. They will not change unless they are open to other cultures and governments. I was thankful to see you reply! So I am not alone in my opinions.

Posted by: shetz | 1/17/08

Competition and Co-operation: a reference from Horowitz

Here is a relevant commentary EXCERPT from "The meaning of left and right" by David Horowitz. Do read the whole thing. " To be a Leftist, then, is to be at war with the two most profoundly liberating achievements of modern history: the liberal state and the liberal economy. These are the twin pillars of what Hayek called the Great Society, which he described as a spontaneous, “extended order of human cooperation.”[7] Such a society is not the product of vanguard schemes like the socialist design, but of a long process of adjustments to reality that eventually lead to more productive and humane institutions and rules. Capitalist democracy (a system as flawed as humanity is flawed) is, in this view, the highest stage of social evolution. In contrast, socialism belongs to the dark, pre-history of mankind. In the words of Hayek, it is “a re-assertion of that tribal ethics whose gradual weakening...made an approach to [civilized market societies] possible.”[8] Socialism belongs to a social stage based on the simple economy of small groups -- a stage that had to be overcome in order to realize the great wealth-making potentialities of the market system. Far from being a progressive conception, the socialist ethic is atavistic and represents the primitive morality of pre-industrial formations: the clan and the tribe. This is why its current incarnation takes the form of “identity politics,” the latest revolt against bourgeois individualism and freedom. Modern radicalism is the return of the repressed. Its values -- equality, cooperation, unity -- are the survival codes of small, vulnerable groups with knowable goals and shared interests. But the morality of tribal communities is self-defeating and disastrous when applied to complex economies, dependent on factors of production that are geographically dispersed and on trade exchanges that are trans-national in scope. In the context of a modern extended economic order, where goals are not shared, where market prices encapsulate knowledge beyond the capacity of a central authority and in situations so complex that no planner can rationally allocate economic tasks, the socialist agenda and its tribal ethos produce social atavisms -- the paternalistic politics, fratricidal nationalisms and economic despotisms, universally characteristic of socialist states. Socialist morality is a seductive illusion. Because it does not rest on real world assumptions, the socialist ethic -- if put into practice -- would threaten to undermine the life basis of vast communities of present-day humanity and to impoverish much of the rest. Far from being progressive, the Left’s demands for “social justice,” if realized, would destroy the very basis of social wealth (as it has in the former regions of the Soviet bloc). In the modern world, competition is not the contrary of cooperation, but the form that cooperation must take in order to coordinate the activities of millions of people unknown to each other, pursuing goals which are not common and cannot be shared. The profit motive is the engine of wealth not only for the rich but for the poor as well. In the real world, the attempt to plan economic systems produces inefficiency and waste; the attempt to redistribute wealth diminishes well-being and individual liberty; the attempt to unify society, crushes its freedom; the ambition to make people equal, creates new tyrannies and submerges human individuality in totalitarian designs. For a long time, the tribal ethos of socialism was concealed in the universalist membrane of the Marxist movement and the liberationist impulse of its proletarian myth. But the collapse of Communism has disintegrated the Marxist idea and fragmented the culture of the international Left. The result is a proliferation of post-Marxian theories and identity politics that no longer base themselves on the universalist category of economic class but on the particularist identities of gender, ethnicity and race. The class struggle has been replaced by status conflict; the universalist idea by quasi-fascist doctrines of racial solidarity, group rights and anti-liberal political agendas. These agendas are still inspired by the essential radical theme. They share the Rousseauian desire to redefine and repossess the world in terms of a collective idea of self, to regenerate the lost paradise of human beginnings, and to unify alienated society under the redemptive aegis of a tribal will. “An atavistic longing after the life of the noble savage,” as Hayek has written, “is the main source of the collectivist tradition.” Thus, the post-Marxian Left has begun its career by launching an all-out assault on the third great achievement of modern history, the liberal community itself. This community, whose paradigm is America, is founded in a universal compact that transcends tribal identities and the multi-cultural particularisms of blood and soil. “No nation before ever made diversity itself a source of national identity and unity,” an historian has written, “a nation created by people of all classes and ethnicities, immigrating from all over the world.”[9] America is the unique crystallization of an idea of nationality residing in a shared commitment to universal principles and pluralistic values. This creed is the culmination of an evolution that extends backwards in time to Jerusalem, and Athens, and Rome. It encapsulates lessons that were accumulated through practice and acquired by faith, that are inscribed in the teachings of sacred tradition and the institutions of secular law. These traditions (as it happens, Judaeo-Christian traditions) and these institutions (in fact, bourgeois-democratic institutions) have led us to the truths that are self-evident, and on which our freedom finally depends."

Posted by: PhilBest | 1/20/08

cooperating to create open source intellectual property

Sorry I'm late to the conversation. (Hat tip to Arts & Letters Daily.) When I read Denis Dutton's pithy teaser, I was hoping to read about the emergence of cooperation to develop software. Even though this article goes in a different direction (and I'm enjoying the debate it has incited), I still think something can be learned from what's happening in software development. I recommend Eric Raymond's seminal essay, "The Cathedral and the Bazaar," as an introduction to the concept. Although I couldn't disagree more strongly with Prof. Barber's thesis and conclusion as it applies to politics, I do believe that cooperation is a better way to steward intellectual property when it comes to software. To compete in software means you hoard the intellectual property (the "code") and allow only a closed community of developers to read it, study it, and change it. All of those developers are employed by the copyright holder and serve the exclusive profit-maximizing interests of the corporation. The open source development model is the opposite. You license your intellectual property with a "copyleft" to preserve open access that allows the whole world to study your ideas -- and to improve them. There is still competition, but it's a competition of ideas so that the best and most useful improvements get added to the common code base to advance the goals of the project. This is how Linux has evolved. Sun Microsystems' recent purchase of MySQL AB is only the most recent example demonstrating that developing products the Open Source Way doesn't mean that wealth isn't created.

Posted by: Tim Chambers 1E4AF729D5CEFFD0 | 2/22/08

the West's longest successful period?

The longest continuous period of peace and progress on Western record was/is Minoan Crete---longer than Greece, Israel, Rome or any other war-based society. Crete did not fall because they did not prepare for life as war: Homer's Mycenean "heroes" tried that and fell apart 10 times faster. Crete was no utopia---just a far more successful model for what worked, meaning family-based cooperation, living dynamically and creatively for today in harmony with nature, and neither heroicizing individual power nor demonizing those with coveted resources. http://ancientgreece-earlyamerica.com

Posted by: Dr Jack Dempsey | 2/26/08

Cooperation in the System

I would like to add my own interpretation to that argument. While there may not be cooperation on the individual level, such as physically seeing the person you are helping or cooperating with, cooperation is rather built into the system. So this dichotomy between competition and cooperation is false. You don't sacrifice one for the other.

Posted by: Alex Perrone | 3/27/08

virtue is habit

To Aristotle habit is everything.

Posted by: artistotle | 6/4/08