Competition
In nature there prevail irreconcilable conflicts of interests. Only the fittest plants and animals survive. The antagonism between an animal starving to death and another that snatches the food away from it is implacable. We may call this biological competition. [It] must not be confused with social competition, i.e., the striving of individuals to attain the most favorable position in the system of social cooperation. Social competition is present in every conceivable mode of social organization.
In a totalitarian system, social competition manifests itself in the endeavors of people to court the favor of those in power. In the market economy competition manifests itself in the fact that the sellers must outdo one another by offering better or cheaper goods and services, and that buyers must outdo one another by offering higher prices.
Market economy competition does not involve antagonism in the sense in which this term is applied to the hostile clash of incompatible interests. Psychologists are prone to confuse combat and competition. But praxeology must beware of such misleading equivocations. Military terms are inappropriate for the description of business operations. It is, e.g., a bad metaphor to speak of the conquest of a market. There is no conquest in the fact that one firm offers better or cheaper products than its competitors.
The owners of already operating plants have no particular class interest in the maintenance of free competition. They are opposed to confiscation and expropriation of their fortunes, but their vested interests are rather in favor of measures preventing newcomers from challenging their position. Those fighting for free enterprise and free competition do not defend the interests of those rich today. They want a free hand left to unknown men who will be the entrepreneurs of tomorrow and whose ingenuity will make the life of coming generations more agreeable. They want the way left open to further economic improvements. They are the spokesmen of material progress.
What makes friendly relations between human beings possible is the higher productivity of the division of labor. It removes the natural conflict of interests. A pre-eminent common interest, the preservation and further intensification of social cooperation, becomes paramount and obliterates all essential collisions. Catallactic competition is substituted for biological competition. It makes for harmony of the interests of all members of society.
