Economic Nonsense: 29. The economy should be based on co-operation rather than competition
It is competition that makes the economy work. Producers compete with each other to supply consumers, and consumers bid against each other to decide who buys. When goods are in short supply consumers bid up prices, sending a signal to producers to produce more and thereby redress the shortage. Competition allocates resources efficiently. The same steel that makes a bridge cannot also make a ship, and resources are allocated where they achieve most value and where they command the highest prices. Competition for workers drives up wages. It is competition throughout the economy that motivates people and sends the signals that tell people how to improve their circumstances.
If people attempted to base an economy on co-operation, it is difficult to see how they would know what to. Without the signals sent by competition in prices and resource allocation, they would not know what to produce, in what varieties and to what standard. The experiment with the socialist economies of the Soviet Union and its satellite states was an attempt to plan by co-operation instead of competition, and it failed miserably. State factories were inefficient and outdated and they produced shoddy goods. Shortages were a feature of everyday life.
State officials attempted to estimate needs and to instruct factories to produce goods accordingly. They had no knowledge of what people actually wanted. In a competitive economy, producers vie with each other to guess what the public will want, so that they can profit by producing it. In a co-operative economy they do not compete with each other, so some official or committee has to make the decision, with little at stake if they got it wrong, which they often did.
There is nothing wrong with competition. Misguided ideologues tried at one stage to eliminate it from schools, and some still do. In fact competition spurs people to improvement. It is usually friendly, with people looking to the achievements of others to see how they might improve their own lives. It is a fact of nature just as much as is the empathy we show towards others. Competition works, and it is a force that improves lives. In an economy it is essential.