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1 results

  • 9 - The Critique of Competition

  • from Part III - The Wider View
  • Jonathan Hearn, University of Edinburgh
  • Book:
    The Domestication of Competition
    Published online:
    26 January 2023
    Print publication:
    16 February 2023, pp 252-273

  • Summary

    Chapter 9 asks how we can critically evaluate competition in this kind of society, particularly from within its own terms of reference - that is, as an ‘immanent critique’. The premise that domesticated competition is a work of human artifice implies that it is something we have some control over and can shape. I argue that the pervasive image of the rule-governed game, and ideas such as ‘the level playing field’, encode the basic cultural resources from which any criticism must be constructed. Moreover, competition works best within certain bounded spheres of practice - e.g. business, democracy, science - and its worst distortions are often a result of competition transgressing these boundaries, as when money interferes with politics. I argue that maintaining such separation and balances of power among distinct institutional spheres, arenas of competition, is critical for liberal society.