Negative Brief

2009-2010 NCFCA Lincoln-Douglas
Debate
Negative
Brief
Resolved: That competition is
superior to cooperation as a means
of achieving excellence.
Joshua R. Mirth
Table of Contents
Definitions:.................................................................................................................................................4
Competition:........................................................................................................................................................4
Superior: ............................................................................................................................................................5
Cooperation: ......................................................................................................................................................5
Cooperate: .........................................................................................................................................................6
Means: ...............................................................................................................................................................6
Mean: .................................................................................................................................................................6
Achieve: ............................................................................................................................................................6
Excellence: .........................................................................................................................................................6
Contest:...............................................................................................................................................................6
Values/Criteria:...........................................................................................................................................7
Ability.................................................................................................................................................................7
Aggression (Anti-value)......................................................................................................................................7
Cheating (Anti-value).........................................................................................................................................8
Competition.........................................................................................................................................................9
Confidence..........................................................................................................................................................9
Efficiency..........................................................................................................................................................11
Excellence.........................................................................................................................................................12
Friendship..........................................................................................................................................................13
General Welfare.................................................................................................................................................16
Individualism....................................................................................................................................................18
Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic motivation......................................................................................................................21
Motivation.........................................................................................................................................................23
Prosperity:.........................................................................................................................................................24
Quality...............................................................................................................................................................25
Rational Self-interest........................................................................................................................................25
Success..............................................................................................................................................................26
Victory:..............................................................................................................................................................27
Applications:............................................................................................................................................28
Business.............................................................................................................................................................28
Cold War...........................................................................................................................................................30
Constitutional Convention................................................................................................................................31
Credit Cards:.....................................................................................................................................................32
Credit Unions:...................................................................................................................................................34
Debate...............................................................................................................................................................36
Education...........................................................................................................................................................37
Healthcare.........................................................................................................................................................39
Human Nature...................................................................................................................................................43
Natural Selection / Basis for life.......................................................................................................................45
Science..............................................................................................................................................................47
Society...............................................................................................................................................................48
Sports.................................................................................................................................................................51
Subsumption / Balanced Neg............................................................................................................................52
War....................................................................................................................................................................54
Joshua Mirth PARADE, Wisconsin
Definitions:
Competition:
The act or action of seeking to gain what another is seeking to gain at the same time and
usually under or as if under fair or equitable rules and circumstances: a common struggle
especially among individuals of relatively equal standing. - Webster's New International
Dictionary, 3rd Edition, Unabriged
The act of seeking, or endeavoring to gain, what another is endeavoring to gain, at the same time;
rivalry; mutual strife for the same object; also, strife for superiority; as the competition of two
candidates for an office, or of two poets for superior reputation. - Noah Webster's 1828
Dictionary
The act or process of competing : rivalry: as a : the effort of two or more parties acting
independently to secure the business of a third party by offering the most favorable
terms b : active demand by two or more organisms or kinds of organisms for some
environmental resource in short supply - Merriam Webster Online Dictionary
Compete (root of competition): [to]engage in a contest; measure oneself against others -

Princeton Wordnet
"Competition is an open market process of discovery and adjustment, under conditions of

uncertainty, that can include interfirm rivalry as well as interfirm cooperation." - Dominick
Armentano ( professor of economics emeritus at the University of Hartford, expert on antitrust
policy and insurance regulation, and author) Antitrust: The Case for Repeal, 1986
“Competing with oneself” is not competition
The definition of competition requires an opponent, it is an interactive activity, therefore, you can’t
compete with yourself.
Kohn, Alfie, “No Contest: The Case Against Competition,” Revised Edition, 1992, Houghton Mifflin,
New York NY, ISBN 0-395-63125-4, p. 6
“There is a difference between allowing one person to succeed only if someone else does not, on
the one hand, and allowing that person to succeed irrespective of the other’s success or failure,
on the other. Your success and mine are related in both competition and cooperation (though in
opposite ways); they are unrelated if we work independently
“We sometimes assume that working toward a goal and setting standards for oneself can take
place only if we compete against others. This is simply false. One can both accomplish a task
and measure one’s progress in the absence of competition. A weightlifter may try to press ten
Negative Brief Definitions: Definitions:

pounds more than he did yesterday, for example. This is sometimes referred to as “competing
with oneself,” which seems to me a rather unhelpful and even misleading phrase. A comparison
of performance with one’s own previous record or with objective standards is in no way an
instance of competition and it should not be confused with it. Competition is fundamentally an
interactive word, like kissing, and it stretches the term beyond usefulness to speak of competition
with oneself. Moreover, such sloppy usage is sometimes employed in order to argue that
competition is either inevitable or benign: since nobody loses when you try to beat your best
time, and since this is a kind of competition, then competition is really not so bad. This, of
course, is just a semantic trick rather than a substantive defense of competition.”
Superior:
Situated higher up or farther from a bottom or base. Of higher degree or rank: taking
precedence: of a higher order, nature, or kind. - Webster's New International Dictionary, 3rd
Edition, Unabriged
Higher or greater in excellence; surpassing others in the greatness, goodness or value of any
quality; as a man of superior merit, of superior bravery, of superior talents or understanding, of
superior accomplishments. - Noah Webster's 1828 Dictionary
Cooperation:
The act of cooperating: a condition marked by cooperating: a joint operation: common effort or
labor. - Webster's New International Dictionary, 3rd Edition, Unabriged
To work or act together toward a common end or purpose. - The American Heritage Dictionary
of the English Language
Cooperation means more than putting people into groups. It suggests, rather, group participation
in a project where the result is the product of common effort, the goal is shared, and each
member's success is linked with every other's. Practically, this means that ideas and materials,
too, will be shared, labor sometimes will be divided, and everyone in the group will be rewarded
for successful completion of the task. -
Kohn, Alfie, “No Contest: The Case Against Competition,” Revised Edition, 1992, Houghton
Mifflin, New York NY, ISBN 0-395-63125-4 p.50-51
Difference between cooperation and coercion

VINCENT D. NICHOLSON “Cooperation And Coercion As Methods Of Social Change” PENDLE
HILL, 1934, http://www.pendlehill.org/php/260-php001
By “cooperation” is meant those processes of education and persuasion in which the solution to a
conflict is sought by the free-willing assent of both parties. By “coercion” is meant those
processes by which one party to a conflict seeks to subject the other party to an outward
compliance without an inner or free-willing assent.
Cooperation and coercion are based on widely different ideas


Throughout all history civilized man has had recourse to two methods of adjusting conflicting
interests and effecting social change. These contrasting methods may be defined by the terms
“cooperation” and “coercion.” They do not stand in complete contrast either philosophically or
politically. There is an intermediate ground in which they tend to merge into one another and the
lines of distinction are not clear. Generally speaking, however, they involve widely different
theories in regard to the nature of man, the morality of social conduct and the technique of
effective group action. In practice they have had widely different results both in the inner life of
man and in the character of social institutions and instruments.
Cooperate:
To act or work with another or others to a common end: operate jointly. - Webster's New
International Dictionary, 3rd Edition, Unabriged
Means:
Third person singular form of mean (verb). - Webster's New International Dictionary, 3rd
Edition, Unabriged
Mean:
Something intervening, intermediate, or intermediary. Something by the use or help of which a
desired end is attained or made more likely: an agent, tool, device, measure, plan, or policy for
accomplishing or furthering a purpose. - Webster's New International Dictionary, 3rd Edition,
Unabriged
Achieve:
To bring to a successful conclusion: carry out successfully: accomplish. To cause to end: make
to cease: bring about the end of. - Webster's New International Dictionary, 3rd Edition,
Unabriged
To gain or obtain, as the result of exertion. - Noah Webster's 1828 Dictionary
Excellence:
The quality of being excellent: the state of possessing good qualities in an eminent degree: an
excellent or valuable quality. - Webster's New International Dictionary, 3rd Edition, Unabriged
An [sic] valuabale [sic] quality; any thing highly laudable, meritorious or virtuous, in persons, or
valuable and esteemed, in things. (Brackets added) - Noah Webster's 1828 Dictionary
Contest:
A competition based on skill, in which prizes are offered. - The Incentive Performance Center
A struggle between rivals -Princeton WordNet

Values/Criteria:
Ability
Cooperation promotes positive interdependence, not the sacrificing of ability
New York NY, ISBN 0-395-63125-4 p. 201
If CL [cooperative learning] is something more than casual groupwork, it is something less than
altruism, or at least than the narrow version of altruism that requires an individual to sacrifice his
or her own interests. In asking children to work together, we are not demanding that they ignore
their own academic well-being in order to make sure that someone else understands the material..
Positive interdependence means that when you succeed, I succeed, too; my interest in your
learning is matched by your interest in mine.
Having to help other’s doesn’t lower the achievement of better pupils
New York NY, ISBN 0-395-63125-4 p. 51
Having students help each other raises the question of whether students with lower ability are
being helped at the expense of those with higher ability. Knowledge, happily, is not a zero-sum
product. Anyone who has taught to tutored often pulls one to a more sophisticated understanding
of the material. The cliché about teachers' learning as much as their pupils is quite true, and the
tutoring that takes place in a cooperative classroom actually benefits both the helper and the
helped more than a competitive, or independent study arrangement.
Aggression (Anti-value)
Competition demands aggression.
New York NY, ISBN 0-395-63125-4, p. 143
What is the relationship between competition and aggression? On one level, the question makes
little sense since the two are not really distinct phenomena that can be related: competition is a
kind of aggression... The arrangement is by its very nature a struggle or (depending on how one
uses the word) an aggressive enterprise. Thus Horney was able to write: “Hostility is inherent in
every intense competition, since the victory of one of the competitors implies the defeat of the
other.”
If there is a connection to be drawn, then, it is only between trying to defeat someone and trying
to do him harm beyond what is necessary for victory. The mediator between these two actions
presumably would be feelings of hostility – which invariably attend competition at some level.
Watching aggressive behavior doesn't eliminate aggressiveness, it compounds it.

New York NY, ISBN 0-395-63125-4, p. 144
Watching others be aggressive does not discharge our won aggressiveness. What seems to
happen instead is straightforward modeling: We learn to be aggressive. Our restraints against
aggression are lowered. Whatever explanation we devise for this effect, however, one study after
another has failed to show any catharsis [draining off of aggression due to watching others be
aggressive, or to using aggression productively] effect.
Competition produces arousal, making us predisposed to act aggressively.
New York NY, ISBN 0-395-63125-4, p. 148
Many theorists propose that competition generates a high level of arousal, meaning that we may
not immediately become aggressive as a result, but that we are predisposed to respond in this
way if we are then frustrated by something. Of course most of us encounter frustrations all the
time, so the competition-aggression link remains fairly solid.
Cheating (Anti-value)
Competition promotes cheating in all fields
Kohn, Alfie, “No Contest: The Case Against Competition,” Revised Edition, 1992, Houghton
Mifflin, New York NY, ISBN 0-395-63125-4
It would be a mistake, however, to restrict a discussion of cheating to athletics. A news dispatch

from the 1985 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science began as
follows: “Medical leaders and journal editors agreed today that highly competitive pressures in
modern science were provoking cases of outright fraud and en even wider range of white lies and
deception that they said were eroding the integrity of science...Dr. Robert G. Petersdord, vice
chancellor for health sciences at the University of California San Diego, said...The competition
to win academic promotions and federal research grants was causing an undetermined number of
scientists to exaggerate of cheat in reporting research they had done.”
Consider also the wide range of unethical and sometimes illegal behaviors in political
campaigns: smearing opponents, accepting and laundering illicit contributions, tapping phones,
stealing documents, forging letters, and burying all of this under and avalanche of lies. (The
point of Watergate, remember, was to win a contest.) Then there are the bribes and sabotage that
have come to be seen as a routine part of doing business, the selective use of evidence and the
hundred other dirty tricks that are common practice among lawyers, the way the truth is stretched
for effect when journalists compete for space and recognition the fat that premedical students
sometimes ruin each other's experiments. Pick your field,; if people are competing, many of
them are going outside of the boundaries that have been established to delimit acceptable ways to
win.

Competition
The very nature of competition produces “abuses” of it.
New York NY, ISBN 0-395-63125-4, p. 160
If we get rid of troublemakers, if we don't go too far in our quest for victory, the there is nothing
intrinsically wrong with the win/lose structure.
If you were an advocate of competition, this is precisely the tack you would take. No matter how
frequently they seem to appear , you would argue that abusive, self-destructive, violent, or
immoral behaviors are corruption of real competition, which is in its essence as virtuous and
healthy as these”exception” are nasty and neurotic. To argue in this way is also to enjoy an
appreciable rhetorical advantage, since such a position appears pleasingly moderate: you are not
saying all competition is bad, but merely that it should not be done to excess. What could be
more reasonable?
…
In the case of competition, the root cause of abuses is the competitive structure itself. “Abuses”
then, is really something of a misnomer since these actions do not represent the contamination of
competition but rather its logical conclusion....Hostility is virtually built into an arrangement
where someone else's fate is inversely related to your own. So it is that a structural imperative to
beat others invites the use of any means available. “The aim of competition is to win and the
temptation is to win at any cos,” wrote Arthur combs. “Although it begins with the laudable aim
of encouraging production, competition quickly breaks down to a struggle to win at any price.”
This process is part of the natural trajectory of competition itself. The only distinction that a
competitor qua competitor knows is that between winning and losing; other distinctions, such as
between moral and immoral, are foreign to the enterprise and must be, as it were, imported.
They do not belong. The only goal that a competitor (again, qua competitor) has is victory; the
only good is what contributes to this goal. If a new goal is introduced – particularly one that
interferes with winning, such as staying within the guidelines of appropriate conduct – it is likely
to be pushed aside. This does not meant that people who do so don't understand how to compete;
on the contrary, they understand perfectly. Their behavior follows from the structure.
Confidence
Competition increases self-doubt
Most people in any contest lose, and losing causes feelings of inadequacy, so competition tends to hurt
more than it helps
New York NY, ISBN 0-395-63125-4 p. 108-109

There are several very good reasons why trying to outperform other people fails to allay the very
self-doubts that gave rise to this behavior. The simplest explanation is that most competitors lose
most of the time. By definition, not everyone can win, and, in practice, few do. In a one-on-one
contest, the odds are 50-50; more commonly, competition is structured to produce a single
champion and many more losers. If we feel impelled to prove ourselves by triumphing over
others, we well feel humiliated when they triumph over us. To lose – particularly in a public
event – can be psychologically detrimental even for the healthiest among us. At best, some
exceptional individuals might emerge without damage to their self-esteem, but it is difficult to
see how losing can enhance it. No one in a culture as competitive as ours is unfamiliar with the
experience of being flooded with shame and self-doubt upon losing some sort of contest. And
when we add the phenomenon of anticipating loss to the occasions of actually losing, it becomes
clear that the potential for humiliation, for being exposed as inadequate, is present in every
competitive encounter.
The more importance that is placed on winning- in the society in the particular situation, or by
the individual – the more destructive losing will be.
The possibility of losing makes one anxious and unproductive
New York NY, ISBN 0-395-63125-4 p. 121
We can identify three reasons that competition leaves us insecure and anxious. The first and most
obvious is apprehension about losing. Regardless of talent or psychological healthiness, the
experience of having to prove oneself by outperforming someone else is invariably unsettling, to
say the least. The constant possibility of being defeated simply is not conducive to feeling
secure. When we do actually lose, this effect is compounded in subsequent competitive
encounters. The process soon takes the form of a self-fulfilling prophecy: the fear of losing
makes it more likely that this is just what will happen. Apart from its effect on performance, of
course, anxiety is undesirable in its own right. It is one more unhappy legacy of the race to win.
Fear of winning also reduces performance.
New York NY, ISBN 0-395-63125-4 p. 121
The second reason for our anxiety concerns feelings of apprehension about winning. Now this
seems most paradoxical given that the whole point of competition is to win. But if we think
about it, we realize that it is not uncommon for capable competitors to trip themselves up just as
it seems they are about to triumph. Consider the case of athletes who “choke” in the final round,
a phenomenon that only recently has become the subject of scholarly interest.” The
psychoanalytic tradition helps us to see that this pattern is neither random nor inexplicable.
Rather, such people are recoiling from winning in a deliberate (if unconscious) way.
Competition causes anxiety, lowers performance

Anticipation of failure is an anxiety cause, most people fail in a competitive context, so they anticipate
failure, become anxious.
New York NY, ISBN 0-395-63125-4 p. 63
Not only is competition not enjoyable enough to elicit high achievement — it is a distinct cause
of anxiety. Even it the tangible stakes (money, job, trophy, grades) are not always high when
people compete, the psychological stakes invariably are. In any given competition, most people
will lose. Anticipation of failure combined with — and fueled by — memory of previous failure
is a recipe for agitation, nervousness, and similar emotional states that interfere with
performance when why occur to any significant degree.
…
Those who defend competition typically do not deny that it produces anxiety; instead, they insist
that anxiety motivates us to perform better. It is true that slight anxiety can be productively
arousing. The “Yerkes-Dodson law”, as it has come to be known, states that there is an optimum
level of arousal for every task, and that this level is lower for tasks that are ore complex and
difficult. But it would seem that competition often produces inhibiting levels of anxiety. At best,
the stressfulness of a competitive situation causes us to try to avoid failure. And truing to avoid
failure is not at all the same thing as trying to succeed. On the contrary, as the well-known
motivation theorist John Arkinson wrote, “The tendency to avoid failure...functions to oppose
and dampen the tendency to undertake achievement oriented activities.” The need to cut one's
losses often results in reluctance to enter the competitive arena in the first place: deciding not to
apply for the job or promotion, staying away from competitive recreation, remaining silent in the
classroom, and son on. The person trying to avoid failure who is forced to compete may,
paradoxically, become so agitated as to bring on failure --- and this can happen irrespective of
the task's nature or difficulty. In any case, he or she certainly will not be in an ideal state for
creative problem solving.
Efficiency
Competition precludes the more efficient use of resources that cooperation allows. Cooperation
takes advantage of the skills of each member, non-cooperative approaches requires the same task to be
performed by more than one person
New York NY, ISBN 0-395-63125-4, P. 61
Competition also precludes the more efficient use of resources that cooperation allows. One of
the clear implications of the research conducted by David and Roger Johnson is that people
working cooperatively succeed because a group is greater than the sum o its parts. This is not
necessarily true for all activities of course; sometimes independent work is the best approach.
But very often — more often that many of us assume — cooperation takes advantage of the

skills of each member as well as the mysterious but undeniable process by which interaction
seems to enhance individuals’ abilities. Coordination of effort and division of labor are possible
when people work with each other, as Deutch saw. Non-cooperative approaches, by contrast,
almost always involve duplication of effort, since someone working independently must spend
time and skills on problems that already have been encountered and overcome by someone else.
A technical hitch, for example, is more likely to be solved quickly and imaginatively if scientists
(including scientists from different countries) pool their talents rather than compete against one
another.
Here it is not competition that is peculiarly unproductive; any kind of individual work suffers
from this drawback. But structural competition has the practical effect of making people
suspicious of and hostile toward one another and thus of actively discouraging cooperation.
Excellence
not the same thing as superiority
Simply beating someone doesn’t tell us if a performance is excellent.
Robert N. Singer & Richard F. Gerson, Athletic Competition for Children, p.253:
“If the athlete is being evaluated only on the basis of whether or not a rival as been beaten, little
information is really provided relating to the level of excellence achieved in the performance.”
Success in competition doesn’t require absolute excellence, only superiority to opponents [76]
Coakley, Jay J., Ph.D., Center for the Study of Sport and Leisure, University of Colorado, Colorado
Springs, “Sport in Society: Issues and Controversies,” fourth edition, 1990, Times Mirror/Mosby
College Publishing, St. Louis, MO. ISBN 0-8016-0304-8 GV706.5.C63, pp 75
It is ironic that popular beliefs tend to connect the achievement of excellence with competition.
Victories within competitive reward structure are not inevitably tied to the achievement of
excellence; victories only require comparatively better performances than the opposition. Victors
may achieve excellence, but in many cases they simply come up with mediocre performances
surpassing the performances of opponents. In fact, nothing more than this is necessary to be a
winner within a competitive reward structure.
You only have to be good enough to beat your opponent in a competition [31]
When discussing the relationship between competition and excellence, remember the success in a
competitive reward structure does not require an excellent performance, only a good enough
performance to beat opponents.

Cooperation inspires people to excellence
New York NY, ISBN 0-395-63125-4, p. 241
What does lead to excellence, then? This depends on what field and task we are talking about,
but generally we find that people do terrific work when (1) they are inspired, challenged, and
excited by what they are doing, and (2) they receive social support and are able to exchange
ideas and collaborate effectively with others. The data show that cooperation makes both more
likely.
One can strive to reach a standard without competition, the confusion of the two is a cultural
defect
New York NY, ISBN 0-395-63125-4 p. 89
The dependence on sports to provide a sense of accomplishment or to test one's wits is similarly
misplaced. One can aim instead at an objective standard or attempt to exceed one's own previous
record – the latter being what some people mean by the unfortunate phrase “competing with
oneself.” Such noncompetitive striving can be very satisfying indeed, and cooperative games
requiring skill and stamina similarly seem no less invigorating for the absence of a winner and a
loser at the end. These games, as I will show shortly, often involve considerable strategy,
proving that the obstacle to be overcome need not be another person. If large numbers of people
defend competition because they want to be challenged, this cannot be surprising: it is the same
confusion between achievement and competition that we have encountered before, and it is
understandable given the hegemony of competitive games in our culture. Within such a game
striving is striving for victory, so someone who knows only competitive games will come to
equate the two.
Competition only produces excellence among those who are good to begin with. [55]
This belief [that competition leads to excellence] is accurate only if excellence is defined in
terms of the accomplishments of a small segment of the population. Competition generally
encourages those who already excel to develop their skills even further. For those who are
unsuccessful, competition often creates frustration and disappointment and eventual withdrawal
from participation.
Friendship
The hostility bred by competition seeps through into other relationships.

New York NY, ISBN 0-395-63125-4, p. 135
The assertion one sometimes hears to the effect that competition need not interfere with
friendship assumes that our orientation toward someone can switch from supportive to rivalrous
and back again as if we were changing television channels. It is simply unrealistic to think that
the hostility engendered by and experienced during a contest will evaporate into thin air, leaving
the friendship unaffected. I do not mean to say that no one has ever had a satisfying relationship
with a competitor, but that competition inhibits such relationships, just as it corrodes the
relationships we have already developed.
Competition makes us desire the failure of others, spreading even to non-competitive activities.
New York NY, ISBN 0-395-63125-4, p. 136
Competition by its very nature damages relationship. Its nature, remember, is mutually exclusive
goal attainment, which means that competitors' interests are inherently opposed. I succeed if you
fail, and vice versa, so my objective is to do everything possible to trip you up. This attitude
does not reflect a neurotic or sadistic orientation on my part. It is the heart of competition itself
because competition decrees that both of us cannot succeed. This effect is easiest to see where
we compete face to face, but even where the contest is indirect, such as the diffuse pursuit of a
consumer's dollar in which market share is gained at the expense of anonymous competitors, I
will regard others – and correctly so - as stumbling blocks on my path.
Under conditions of competition, “the failure of others has the same relative effect as one's own
success,” so the failure of other is devoutly to be wished. It is a small step from wanting
someone else to fail at a particular task to wanting bad thing in general for that person.. I come
to associate your disappointment with my pleasure, even when we are not in a zero-sum
situation. It is another small step to adopt an adversarial posture all the time. One fails to
distinguish between those others who are rivals and those who are not (at least for the moment).
Put the two tendencies together and the pattern of behavior that emerges is one of treating
virtually everyone as inimical to one's own goals and wishing them ill. “In a competitive
culture,” writes Henry, “any body's success at anything is one's own defeat, even though one is
completely uninvolved in the success.
Competition encourages us to objectify others, turning them into entities that must be beaten, not
humans
New York NY, ISBN 0-395-63125-4, p. 138
At this point, let me recall the distinction between pursuing a goal independently and pursuing it
competitively. Obviously the former is not conducive to relationship since interaction is ruled
out. My success and your success are totally separate, so I don't have to have anything to do
with you. But competition entails a kind of perverse interdependence: out fates are link in that I

cannot success unless you fail. Thus I regard you merely as someone over whom to triumph.
Because you are my rival, you are an “it” to me, an object something I use for my own ends.
This dynamic is found in virtually all exploitative relationships... But competition takes
objectification a step further since I not only use you but try to defeat you. True, you regard me
in the same way, and this creates a symmetry that is not present in, say, the boss's relationship to
his worker. But it is a fearful symmetry. For competitors, the objectification is doubled; the
prospects for relationship are twice buried.
The very nature of competition demands depersonalization.
New York NY, ISBN 0-395-63125-4, p. 139
Depriving adversaries of personalities, of faces, of their subjectivity, is a strategy we

automatically adopt in order to win. Some people do this more effectively than others, but the
posture is demanded by the very structure of competition. We may try to reassure ourselves with
talk about friendly competition,” but the fact remains that seeing another person as a rival and
seeing her as a “partner in a living event” are fundamentally incompatible stances. It is difficult
to imagine a more telling indictment of an activity than the fact that it demands such
depersonalization.
Competition breads contempt
Envy of winners' status & contempt toward the unsuccessful.
New York NY, ISBN 0-395-63125-4, p. 141-142
Contempt for other is induced by competition in two ways. First, envy for what the winners
have (and bitterness at their having it) easily congeals into enmity.
…
The second kind of contempt...is directed at the losers. It derives from the effort of winners –
and here we may specifically point to the economically privileged – to justify their success by
maintaining that winning is their natural reward for being winners. This is not a tautology.
Certain people are believed to enjoy the status of being winners in advance of actually winning.
These winners are good people, not only capable but virtuous, and their victories are therefore
always deserved. The corollary is that those who lose deserve their fate, too, and merit only
contempt.
...
Despite the outrageous arrogance of this view, winners are sometimes successful in persuading
losers of its validity. This has two consequences : (1) the losers' contempt for the winners is
mixed with self-contempt, and (2) the losers will set about not to change the system (a move that
would in any case be dismissed as “sour grapes”) but only to become a winer next time. Thus

there is no one to press for structural change. The contempt for losers, then, not only tears at the
fabric of human relationship but functions as a powerfully conservative force.
Competition and lack of care for others produces dehumanization

Vinluan-Arellano no date cited (Katherine, essayist, “Stop dehumanization of people to stop wars,”
http://www.yonip.com/main/articles/nomorewars.html)
A society where human contact, affection and care is withdrawn breeds people who could easily
adopt the attitude and practice of dehumanization. Children growing up orphaned or abandoned.
Adults so involved in the “rat race” or “dog-eat-dog” world of high competition. Human beings
living in isolation from other human beings.
Dehumanization leads to rape, prostitution, and devalues life. This in turn leads to war.
Vinluan-Arellano no date cited (Katherine, essayist, “Stop dehumanization of people to stop wars,”
http://www.yonip.com/main/articles/nomorewars.html)
In peace time, dehumanization has led to the acceptance of abortion, infanticide, euthanasia or
mercy killing of the old and sick, the legalization of the “right to die,” prostitution, and human
cloning.
In war time, dehumanization is a key element in propaganda and brainwashing. By portraying
the enemy as less than human, it is much easier to motivate your troops to rape, torture or kill.
Ethnic cleansing or genocide would always be perceived as a crime against humanity if human
beings belonging to another race or religion are not dehumanized.
Cooperation encourages positive interaction, as experience shows
New York NY, ISBN 0-395-63125-4, p. 149
Even in a mercilessly competitive society, there are pockets of cooperative activity – enough, at
least, so that each of us knows what it is to work with others to paint a room, prepare a report,
cook a meal. To remember such experiences is to know that cooperation encourages us to view
out collaborators favorably; it is to understand how cooperation teaches us, more roadle readily?,
the value of relationship. Cooperation means that the success of each participant is linked to that
of every other. This structure tends to lead to mutual assistance and support, which in turn,
predisposes cooperators for feel and affinity for one another. At the very least, cooperation offers
an opportunity to interact positively (which independent effort does not and which competition
actively discourages); at the most, it provides and irresistible inducement to do so.
General Welfare
Link to cooperation:

Cooperation results naturally from looking out for the group’s welfare.
New York NY, ISBN 0-395-63125-4, p. 66
When we compete, we do so out of a primary concern for our own welfare. If the welfare in
question is instead that of a group of people, then cooperation follows naturally. Working
together as a group would not be a strategy for maximizing individual gain but a logical
consequence of thinking in terms of what benefits all of us. Will I lose in order that the group
will gain? Sometimes such a trade off will occur, but it will not be seen as catastrophic. More to
the point, this question would not even occur to someone whose world view is different from our
own. It would seem as odd as your feet asking whether the body as a whole benefits from
jogging at their expense.

Individualism
Definitions
Individualism - political and social philosophy that emphasizes the moral worth of the
individual. (Encyclopedia Britannica Online)
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/286303/individualism
- A doctrine holding that the interests of the individual should take precedence over the interests
of the state or social group. (Answers.com) http://www.answers.com/topic/individualism
Conformity - Agreement between an individual's behavior and a group's standards or
expectations. A conformist is one who follows the majority's desires or standards. - (The
American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by
Houghton Mifflin Company.) http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/conformity
General Quotes
"Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law." -- Ayn Rand
"Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a
minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities
(and the smallest minority on earth is the individual)." -- Ayn Rand
"Collectivism requires self-sacrifice, the subordination of one's interests to those of others." -- Ayn
Rand, Letters of Ayn Rand
"Collectivism, unlike individualism, holds the group as the primary, and the standard of moral value."
-- Mark Da Cunha
"Freedom is an intellectual achievement which requires disavowal of collectivism and embrace of
individualism." -- Onkar Ghate
Competition shapes conformist robots

George Leonard, “Winning isn’t Everything. It’s Nothing” p. 46
“A culture dedicated to creating standardized, specialized, predictable human components could find no
better way of grinding them out than by making every possible aspect of life a matter of competition.
‘Winning out’ in this respect does not make rugged individualists. It shapes conformist robots.”
Emphasis on competition produces conformity

Arthur Combs, Myths in Education, p. 19
“Competition can only work if people agree to seek the same goals and follow the same rules.
Accordingly, as competitors strive to beat each other’s records, they tend to become more alike.
If total conformity is what we want in our society, worshiping competition is one effective way
to get it.”
Negative Brief Values/Criteria: Individualism

Competition dampens individualistic creativity

Alfie Kohn, No Contest, p. 130
“I noted that competition dampens creativity. This is partly because the pressure to outdo
someone else tends to make us conservative. We do not want to risk anything that could
endanger our victory. Thus the music critic Will Crutchfield finds that piano competitions result
in interpretation that are ‘all too similar to one another.’ In trying to win, performers concentrate
on making no mistake but ‘shy away…from the big technical risks, the truly astonishing effects.’
[Crutchfield, Ills of Piano Competitions] Creativity is anti-conformist at its core; it is nothing if
not a process of idiosyncratic thinking and risk-taking. Competition inhibits this process.”
Competition is responsible for conformity in students

Jules Henry (American Anthropologist at Columbia University, and the University of Chicago)
“In order not to fail most students are willing to believe anything and [not to care] whether what
they are told is true or false.”
Cooperation thrives on diversity

Alfie Kohn, No Contest, p. 211
“Notice that none of this analysis supports the idea that children should –or, with CL
[Cooperative Learning], do—become interchangeable members of a collective, relinquishing
their selves to some amorphous blob of a group. It is competition that creates conformity;
cooperation thrives on the diversity of its participants and the distinct contributions made by
each.”
Cooperation encourages discussion, which is a way of exploring new ideas

Michael Marland (British Educator)
“Talking is not merely a way of conveying existing ideas to others; it is also a way by which we
explore ideas, clarify them and make them their own.”
Competition encourages uniformity, not individualism
New York NY, ISBN 0-395-63125-4, p. 129-130
But competition does not promote the more substantial and authentic kind of individualism. On
the contrary, it encourages rank conformity. Here is George Leonard: “A culture dedicated to
creating standardized, specialized, predictable human components could find no better way of
grinding them out than by making every possible aspect of life a matter of competition.
'Winning out' in this respect does not make rugged individualists. It shapes conformist robots.”

This is quite logical since one can speak of outdoing others only if one is dong the same thing
they are. Apples are not better than oranges; one can make relative judgments only about like
quantities. As Arthur Combs put it, “competition can only work if people agree to seek the same
goals and follow the same rules. Accordingly, as competitors strive to beat each other's records,
they tend to become more alike. If total conformity is what we want in our society, worshiping
competition is one effective way to et it.” Notice that this is not simply an empirical observation
(“people tend to act alike when they compete”) but an analysis of the nature of competition.
Unique characteristics by definition cannot be ranked, and participation in the process of ranking
demands essential conformity.

Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic motivation

Explanation of Intrinsic and Extrinsic motivation
Intrinsic motivation is motivation that comes from within oneself or the activity one is pursuing. We
are intrinsically motivated when we do things because we like doing them, or because we feel they are
the right thing for us to do. If you're motivated by a sense of duty or feelings of kindness, you are
intrinsically motivated.
Extrinsic motivation, on the other hand, comes from outside, and is generally related to one's degree of
success, or failure. You are extrinsically motivated if you do something in the hope of receiving pay, or
a prize, or for fear of being punished.
Cooperation is a form of Intrinsic motivation

Cooperation is based upon a mutual, voluntary agreement to work together. The most common reason
people choose to do this is because they believe the task would be more enjoyable or successfully
accomplished if done with others. These are both signs if intrinsic motivation. Additionally,
cooperation builds a team dynamic, encouraging people to help each other and build a sense of duty
towards one another, which is one of the most powerful forms of intrinsic motivation.
Competition is a form of Extrinsic motivation

This should be fairly obvious. Competition is supposed to motivate us by linking our success or failure
with the receipt of some prize, or compensation. This is clearly extrinsic motivation.
Competition = extrinsic
New York NY, ISBN 0-395-63125-4
“The reward for extrinsically motivated behavior is something that is separate from and follows
the behavior. With competitive activities, the reward is typically 'winning' (that is, beating the
other person or the other team), so the reward is actually extrinsic to the activity itself.
Extrinsic motivators aren't as motivating, and eat away intrinsic motivation.

New York NY, ISBN 0-395-63125-4
Like any other extrinsic motivator, competition cannot produce the kind of results that flow from
enjoying the activity itself. But this only tells half the story. The use of extrinsic motivators
actually tends to undermine intrinsic motivation and thus adversely affect performance in the
long run. The introduction of, say, monetary reward will edge out intrinsic satisfaction; once this
reward is withdrawn, the activity may well cease even though no reward at all was necessary for
Negative Brief Values/Criteria: Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic motivation

its performance earlier. Money may work to 'buy off' one's intrinsic motivation for an activity.
Extrinsic motivators, in other words, are not only ineffective but corrosive. They eat away at the
kind of motivation that does produce results.”
Intrinsic motivation produces the best performances

New York NY, ISBN 0-395-63125-4, p.60
We do best at the tasks we enjoy. An outside or extrinsic motivator (money, grades, the trappings
of competitive success) simply cannot take the place of an activity we find rewarding in itself.
“While extrinsic motivation may effect performance,” wrote Margaret Clifford, “performance is
dependent upon learning, which in turn is primarily dependent upon intrinsic motivation.” More
specifically, “a significant performance-increase on a highly complex task will be dependent
upon intrinsic motivation.” In fact, even people who are judged to be high in achievement
motivation do not perform well unless extrinsic motivation has been minimized, as several
studies have shown.
Competition is an extrinsic motivator, thus it doesn't work as well.

New York NY, ISBN 0-395-63125-4, p.60
Competition works just as any other extrinsic motivator does. As Edward Deci, one of the
leading students of this topic, has written, “The reward for extrinsically motivated behavior is
something that is separate from and follows the behavior. With competitive activities, the reward
is typically 'winning' (that is, beating the other person or the other team), so the reward is
actually extrinsic to the activity itself.” This has been corroborated by subjective reposts: people
who are more competitive regard themselves as being extrinsically motivated. Like any other
extrinsic motivator, competition cannot produce the kind of results that flow from enjoying the
activity itself.
Extrinsic motivators adversely affect performance in the long run
New York NY, ISBN 0-395-63125-4, p.60
But this only tells half the story. As research by Deci and others has shown, the use of extrinsic
motivators actually tends to undermine intrinsic motivation and thus adversely affect
performance in the long run. The introduction of, say, monetary reward will edge out intrinsic
satisfaction; once this reward is withdrawn, the activity may well cease even though no reward at
all was necessary for its performance earlier. Money “may work to 'buy off' one's intrinsic
motivation for an activity. And this decreased motivation appears (from the results of the field
experiment) to be more than just a temporary phenomenon.” Extrinsic motivators, in other
words, are not only ineffective but corrosive. They eat away at the kind of motivation that does
produce results.
Negative Brief Values/Criteria: Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic motivation

Motivation
Competition only motivates if we believe we can win [122/186]

Motivation depends on the belief that it is possible to achieve a particular goal. We have all
heard coaches say that you will not be able to do something until you believe you can do it. Of
course, the coaches are correct, but their advice is based on an oversimplified conception of how
a person’s beliefs are formed. Beliefs are not suddenly manufactured in a locker room before a
game. They are built on past experiences combined with personal definitions of the nature of the
task being undertaken.
Examples illustrating how perceived chances of success influence motivation are not difficult to
find. For example, a student who sees no chance for obtaining a satisfactory grade on a test will
not be motivated to study. And if a tennis player faces someone who hits aces on every serve and
passing shots on every service return, motivation soon disappears. We have all felt a lack of
motivation when we faced a competitive situation in which our chances for success were zero.
The point here is simple: competition will destroy motivation when there are no perceived
chances for success.
Goals other than competitive success better maintain motivation [81]

This is why coaches of weak teams try to convince their players that a victory is always possible
if they will only try hard enough. If players don’t believe them, as often happens, the coaches try
to produce motivation be making pride an issue or by setting goals apart from winning. Some
coaches are good at this, and they re able to maintain the motivation of their players through
losing seasons simply by focusing attention on the achievement of goals other than competitive
success.
Competition creates motivation for simple activities, destroys it for difficult ones. [74/179]
College Publishing, St. Louis, MO. ISBN 0-8016-0304-8 GV706.5.C63, pp. 74
When an activity is simple, competition will generally enhance motivation and performance
output (Cratty 1973; Gross and gill, 1982). Simple activities are usually those requiring the use
of physical force (like lifting weights), uncomplicated motor skills (like riding a stationary bike),
or easily mastered cognitive operations (like adding “2” to a series of numbers). These are
boring tasks, and competition simply makes them more interesting by adding a reason to
Negative Brief Values/Criteria: Motivation

perform them well.

When an activity is complex (like trying to assemble your new personal computer), or when it
involves unfamiliar actions (like trying to wind surf for the first time), or when it requires
difficult cognitive operations (like trying to solve a complicated calculus problem), competition
will generally destroy motivation.
…
The relationship between competition and motivation is often positive in sport because most
sport activities are relatively simple. They demand endurance, strength, and basic physical
skills. However, when sport skills are underdeveloped, or when competition becomes extremely
anxiety-provoking, both the level of the participants’ motivation and the quality of their
performances are likely to be low.
The motivation to do well is different than the motivation to win
Beating someone is a compensatory way to feel good about oneself in replacement of confidence or
actual ability.
New York NY, ISBN 0-395-63125-4 p. 100
Doing well, as we saw earlier, is different from doing better than others. This is nowhere clearer
than in the case of their respective motivations. All of us enjoy the sense of accomplishment that
comes from being particularly good at something. Sometimes it is convenient to assess that
performance by comparing it to those of other people. But the individual who feels good about
herself and is simply interested in doing well does not go out of her way to outperform others.
She does not seek out relative judgments. She is content with a sense of personal satisfaction,
sometimes buttressed, depending on the activity, by a consideration of absolute standards. (She
can check out the number of questions she answered correctly or see how long it took her to run
a mile.) The desire to be better than others feels quite different from this desire to do well.
There is something inherently compensatory about it. One wants to outdo in order to make up
for an impression, often dimly sensed, of personal inadequacy. Unlike the joy of flexing one's
muscles or intelligence, which is sufficient unto itself, one wants to be stronger or smarter than
others in order to convince oneself at some level that one is a good person.
Prosperity:
Turn:
Link: prosperity = economic growth
“Prosperity: an economic state of growth with rising profits and full employment” –
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
Impact: Growth propagates an unfair income distribution

Karl E. Case (professor of economics at Wellesly College) & Ray C. Fair (prof. Of econ at Yale),

“Principles of Economics”, © 2002, www.prenhall.com/casefair

“One cause of growth is capital accumulation. Capital investment requires saving, and saving
comes mostly from the rich. The rich save more than the poor, and in the developing countries
most people are poor and need to use whatever income they have for survival.
“Critics also claim that the real beneficiaries of growth are the rich. Choices open to the “haves”
in society are greatly enhanced, bur the choices open to the “have-nots” remain severely limited.
If the benefits of growth trickle down to the poor, why are there more homeless today than there
were 20 years ago?”
Quality
Economic competition doesn't improve quality or safety because they're not visible attributes. If
people can't easily compare an attribute, it's hard to compete on it, because competition requires
comparison. It can lower costs because those are easy to compare. But the easiest way to lower
costs is to lower quality. Since quality is an invisible attribute (at least at the time of purchase) it
will not be competed on as much as price, and will therefore suffer at the hands of price cuts.
Beating others and doing quality work are two completely different concepts
New York NY, ISBN 0-395-63125-4 p. 239
The growing clamor to make hospitals, school, industries, and now even government more
“competitive” raises once again the question of whether this goal has anything to do with
reaching excellence, or whether we have simply blurred the two ideas, overlooking what should
be an obvious fact — that beating others and doing quality work are two completely different
concepts. Whether the first leads to the second is a legitimate question, but the answer, contrary
to conventional wisdom, is that it almost always does not.
Rational Self-interest
Cooperation is the natural result even if we only look out for ourselves, if we consider the long-
run.
The tragedy of the commons shows one aspect of this.
New York NY, ISBN 0-395-63125-4, p. 66
Shifting to a concern for the group's welfare, which constitutes a change of goals, involves a
radically different way of looking at the world. But even if we keep our individualism intact, an
inquiry into various strategies for satisfying ourselves suggests that competition still makes little
sense. The practice of trying to beat others, which derives from the assumption that my success

depends on your failure, is productive only in the short run. If we evaluate our success over the
long haul – a relatively modest shift in perspective that continues to ignore the question of what
is best for the group – working together often benefits us as individuals.
Consider Garret Hardin's notion of the “tragedy of the commons.” From the perspective of each
cattle farmer with access to a public pasture, it is sensible to keep adding animals to his herd.
But the same reasoning that makes this decision seem sensible to one individual will make it
seem sensible to all individuals. Each will pursue his self-interest, the grass will be depleted, and
everyone will lose. (If the first, the process would simply be accelerated; the more competition
the faster everyone loses.) In order to see this, we must adopt the perspective of the group. But
even if we adopt this perspective temporarily, with our ultimate purpose still being to benefit
each individual, it becomes clear that cooperation is more productive.
Morals should be thought of with respect to the long run and society at large
A more accurate distinction is between the particular interest of a contending group and the
general interest of society at large. The realm of morals is identified with this regard for the
general interest. Another distinction that has real value is the short view as contrasted with the
long view. A moral judgment of any social action is concerned with its ultimate effect rather than
with its immediate objective.
Success
De-Link: success doesn't have to equal beating someone. See also Victory.
Success can be defined without competition. Many goals, i.e., writing a book, can be set without
thinking about comparing it with anyone else.
New York NY, ISBN 0-395-63125-4 p. 38
But success and competition are not at all the same thing. Put plainly, one can set and reach
goals — to prove to one’s own and others’ satisfaction that one is competent — without ever
competing. “Success in achieving a goal does not depend upon winning over others just as
failing to achieve a goal does not mean losing to others.” A moment’s reflection reveals this as
an undeniable truth. I can succeed in knitting a scarf or writing a book without ever trying to
make it better than yours. Better yet, I can work with you — say, to prepare a dinner or build a
house. Many people take the absence of competition to mean that one must be wandering
aimlessly, without and goals. But competition simply means that one is working toward a goal in
such a way as to prevent others from reaching their goals. This is one approach to getting
something done, but (happily) not the only one. Competition need never enter the picture in
order for skills to be mastered and displayed, goals set and met.

Victory:
Impact Turn: Victory != excellence because it only requires us to beat someone else, not achieve
a standard. It can also distract us from excellence.
Pursuing victory is counter-productive to achieving excellence.

John McMurty (quoted by William O. Johnson, From Here to 2000, p446):
“Actually, the pursuit of victory works to reduce the chance for excellence in the true
performance of the sport. It tends to distract our attention from excellence of performance by
rendering it subservient to emerging victorious. I suspect that our conventional mistake of
presuming the opposite---presuming that the contest-for-prize- framework and excellence of
performance are somehow related as a unique cause and effect---may be the deepest-lying
prejudice of civilized thought.”
Victory can distract from looking for excellence

New York NY, ISBN 0-395-63125-4 p. 56
It is true, of course, that the relative quality of performance is what determines who wins in a
competition, but this does not mean that competition makes for better performance. This is
partly because those who believe they will lose may see little point in trying hard. The same is
true for those who feel sure of winning. But even where there is enough uncertainty involved to
avoid these problems, the fact remains that attending to the quest for triumph, to victory as such,
to who is ahead at the moment, actually distracts one from the pure focus on what one is doing.
Helmreich proposes this as one explanation for his surprising discovery that competition is
counterproductive in the real world: “Competitive individuals might...focus so heavily on
outshining others and putting themselves forward that they lose track of the scientific issues and
produce research that is more superficial and less sustained in direction.” And more succinctly:
“They may become so preoccupied with winning...that they become distracted from the task at
hand.”
Competition produces elitism, only improves those who are already good [26/72]
A heavy emphasis on competitive reward structures in sport produces results very similar to what
happens in classrooms where strict grading curves are used: the best athletes are encouraged to
excel, average athletes get frustrated at the scarcity of rewards, and the poorest athletes drop out.
Therefore if excellence is defined in terms of the overall accomplishments of the general
population, competition may have negative consequences because it tends to create elitism.

Applications:
Business
Business is a miracle of cooperation.
The Economist, “The silence of Mammon”, Dec 17th 2009,
http://www.economist.com/businessfinance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15125372
The first is that business is a remarkable exercise in co-operation. For all the talk of competition
“red in tooth and claw”, companies in fact depend on persuading large numbers of people—
workers and bosses, shareholders and suppliers—to work together to a common end. This
involves getting lots of strangers to trust each other. It also increasingly involves stretching that
trust across borders and cultures. Apple’s iPod is not just a miracle of design. It is also a miracle
of co-operation, teaming Californian designers with Chinese manufacturers and salespeople in all
corners of the earth. It is worth remembering that the word “company” is derived from the Latin
words “cum” and “pane”—meaning “breaking bread together”.
Competition takes focus away from doing the best for customers
Grace Augustine (research associate with the William Davidson Institute, an educational institute
focused on researching and supporting organizations in emerging markets. She writes for the
NextBillion blog and has an interest in economic development and clean technology for the world’s
poorest citizens), “Competition vs. Cooperation at the Base of the Pyramid”, Stanford Social
Innovation Review, January 14, 2009 10:00 AM,
http://www.ssireview.org/opinion/entry/competition_vs_cooperation_at_the_base_of_the_pyramid_bop
/
However, as organizations working at the BoP compete, their focus can shift – from the customer
to the competitor. If competition is not dealt with properly, it becomes a battle of resources and
reputation, instead of a fight to serve the poor in the best way possible.
Competition changes businesses focus

/
From my perch at the William Davidson Institute, I have seen that as competition heightens,
resources and energy shift away from improving direct delivery of goods and services towards
building legitimacy in established markets. Leaders tell their teams: we have to have a case study
written about us; it is time to re-brand ourselves; our Web site needs a facelift; why don’t we try
Negative Brief Applications: Applications:

to co-brand with a company, etc.
Competition for workers may put them in less productive positions.

/
Take talent, for example. The war for talented individuals with the skills and the passion to work
at the BoP is intense. If an employee at a U.S. intermediary organization were to decide that he
or she may be better suited for a project on the ground, how likely is it that his or her employer
would say, “Oh yes, that sounds great, we want you to have the greatest impact possible.”
It is much more likely that the organization would do everything in its power to hold on to that
highly-skilled person, regardless of whether or not it resulted in the greatest good for society.
This is partially because we believe that our organization, and our cause, with which have
sacrificed so much for, must be doing the most good.
Negative Brief Applications: Applications:

Cold War
USSR vs US space race was hampered by competition, and may not even have been a good thing.
New York NY, ISBN 0-395-63125-4, p. 241 (footnote)
Thus, for example, we might question the assumption that the United States was able to put a
man on the moon as soon as it did by virtue of being in a race with the USSR. Rather than
inspiring excellence, the fact of being in a contest meant that each country was struggling with
problems that the other country had already solved. Competition in general is distinguished by
just such redundancy; it is inherently wasteful; since each rival cannot benefit from what the
other knows. (Of course, the space-race example overlooks the question of whether putting
someone on the moon was worth the enormous expense in the first place. That, not
coincidentally, is exactly the kind of question that people almost never ask when they are in a
race.)
The failure of the USSR doesn't mean competition works.
New York NY, ISBN 0-395-63125-4, p. 241
The dissolution of the Soviet Union has led a lot of American sot construct the following
syllogism: since (a) our economic system is based on competition, (b) their system collapsed,
and (c) we were rivals, this must mean that (d) competition works. It would take considerably
more space than I have been allotted here to offer a serious challenge to this rather dubious bit of
deduction. Suffice it to say that the very adversarial nature of th relationship between the two
countries — competition writ large, in other words — has had a great deal to do with trouble
experienced on both sides of he old iron curtain. Of course, many factors played a part in
sinking communism, but if we are looking for a simple explanation, we wold do well to focus
not on the absence of competition but on the absence of the Soviet citizen’s commitment to his
or her work, chiefly due to the lack of personal autonomy and genuine democracy in that
country.
Negative Brief Applications: Cold War

Constitutional Convention
CX: Is the Constitution excellent?
IMPACT: If yes, it's because they eventually cooperated.
The Constitutional Convention got nothing done because they wouldn't compromise
Clarence B. Carson, historian, PhD from Vanderbuilt University, “Basic American Government,”
1993, American Textbook Committee, ISBN 1-931789-19-3
“[Benjamin] Franklin contributed most to the convention by avuncular admonitions to the

delegates to compromise, to compose their differences, and to put aside so much of their
personal desires as might be necessary to accomplish to object at hand. When the convention
appeared to be nearly breaking up over the question of equal or proportional representation,
Doctor Franklin said: 'When a broad table is to be made, and edges of plans do not fit, the artist
takes a little form both, and makes a good joint. In like manner here both sides must part with
some of their demands, in order that they may join in some accommodating proposition.'”
IMPACT: Compromise is cooperative; it was the lack of cooperation that made the Constitutional
Convention take so long.
Compromise of 1787 (Bicameral legislature):

The bicameral or two house legislature of the United States Congress is the result of a compromise
between supporters of the “New Jersey Plan,” who favored a legislature in which all states were
equally represented, and supporters of the “Virginia Plan” in which representatives were awarded in
proportion to population. A delegate from Connecticut, Rodger Sherman, proposed what became
known as the “Great Compromise” or the Connecticut Compromise of 1787. This compromise
balanced the concerns of both factions by creating a bicameral legislature comprised of a House and a
Senate. This compromise served a two-fold purpose, both securing widespread support within the
Constitutional Convention and creating what was, in the eyes of the founders, a more effective means
of government. The House was designed to be receptive to the demands of the people, whereas the
Senate was that house in which legislatures could debate and more deeply consider the effects of
legislation.
Negative Brief Applications: Constitutional Convention

Credit Cards:
Summary: We buy almost everything with credit cards these days. They have made purchasing
more convenient, faster, and possible in more different ways than anything since paper money. And
they require cooperation between banks, stores, and companies, or they wouldn't work.
Credit cards are made useful by cooperation

Bryan Caplan and Edward Stringham, (Department of Economics and Center for Study of Public
Choice George Mason University), “Networks, Anarcho-Capitalism, and the Paradox of
Cooperation”
The credit card industry has all the defining characteristics of a network industry. (Carlton and
Frankel, 1995; Economides, 1995; Evans and Schmalensee, 1995, 1999) There are links and
nodes between consumers, merchants, and their banks, and there are significant network effects,
as the value of a credit card increases with the network size. Evans and Schmalensee (1999,
p.138) describe, “[P]ayment cards are provided through a network industry in which participants
are linked economically in unusual ways. Payment cards are useless to consumers unless
merchants accept them, but merchants have no reason to accept cards unless consumers carry
them and want to use them.” From the consumer’s perspective a payment card is more valuable
if widely accepted, so issuers will wish to be part of a large network.
Credit card issuers devote much of their energy to cooperation.

Cooperation”
Visa and MasterCard are not-for-profit membership corporations comprised of thousands of
member firms and finance their services with membership fees. (Hausman et al, 1999) They
provide infrastructure and a large network of users, which increase the value of individuals’
cards. As Cowen would expect, competing credit card issuers devote much of their energy to
cooperation.
Credit card cooperation is welfare enhancing
Cooperation”
To the extent that there is cooperation it is welfare enhancing and is not used for collusion.
Cooperation was required to start credit card companies
Cooperation”
Negative Brief Applications: Credit Cards:

Visa originated in 1966 when the Bank of America licensed its card nationally and shortly spun
off its franchise system to create a nonstock membership corporation (Evans and Schmalensee,
1999, p.66). MasterCard has similar origins. It was a cooperative effort because they had to
induce many banks, many merchants, and many consumers to use the card. Laffont and Tirole
(2000, p.180) write: Consider the joint ventures Visa and MasterCard in the credit card industry.
These associations are each owned by thousands of member banks, which compete for customers
on one side of the market and for merchants on the other side. The merchant’s bank, the
‘acquirer,’ and the customer’s bank, the ‘issuer,’ must be bound by an interconnection agreement
if the transaction between the customer and the merchant is to use a Visa or a MasterCard.
Credit cards cooperate without colluding
Cooperation”
In a transaction in the Visa and MasterCard networks are four parties: the consumer, the
merchant, and their two respective banks. Consumers are able to choose which credit card to
carry, merchants able to choose which types of payments they accept, and their banks are able to
choose whether to join the Visa and MasterCard networks. Each of these seemingly disparate
parties is able to have dealings with each other without giving birth to a collusive mega-network.
(Stringham, 1999)
Negative Brief Applications: Credit Cards:

Credit Unions:
Summary: Credit Unions are not-for-profit, cooperative alternatives to banks. Precisely because they
don't seek profits, they are able to offer higher interest rates on savings, lower rates on loans, and
generally lower fees for banking services. In addition, they often work to educate people about the best
way to manage their finances. This because they are driven by cooperative effort, not competition for
profits.
The Credit Union Philosophy:
“not for profit, not for charity, but for service,"
Credit unions offer better rates to customers

Brett Arends, “For Better Banking, Check Out a Credit Union,” The Wall Street Journal, August 28,
2008, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121978460014474069.html
"Credit unions very often beat their banking counterparts in terms of offering lower rates on loans and
higher rates on deposits," says Greg McBride, economist for Bankrate.com. "For a consumer who's
shopping around for the best deal, that has to include looking at credit unions."
Lower rates are the result of not having to seek out profit.
Brett Arends, “For Better Banking, Check Out a Credit Union,” The Wall Street Journal, August 28,
2008, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121978460014474069.html
In normal times, credit unions boasted that they could offer a better deal than banks because they didn't
have to make profits for outside shareholders.
Of course, these days the same goes for a lot of traditional banks as well. Instead, the new "no longer in
profit" (NLIP) sector is losing billions. Big banks are currently passing the hat around Wall Street,
Washington, Singapore and Dubai looking for help.
So instead many credit unions can boast that they don't have to pay for billions in losses on subprime
mortgages and other bad loans. As an added bonus, few of them waste money on expensive marketing
and advertising campaigns, takeovers, huge executive bonuses, and the kind of costly "growth"
initiatives that CEOs chase to give their stock options on Wall Street the needed juice.
Credit unions look out for members interests

Credit Union National Assoctiation http://www.creditunion.coop/history/cu_philosophy.html
In 1935, when credit unions were helping Americans through the Great Depression, the treasurer of a
Midwestern credit union said that credit unions were "not for profit, not for charity, but for service,"
and that philosophy holds true today.
Negative Brief Applications: Credit Unions:

Credit unions continue to look out for their members’ interests and provide a level of service that is not
generally available at other financial institutions. Whether it’s providing a loan to help a member cover
unexpected medical bills, giving financial counseling to a member whose company closed its doors, or
simply offering a better deal on a used car loan, credit unions make a difference for their members and
the communities they serve.
Negative Brief Applications: Credit Unions:

Debate
Summary: Debate would lose all educational value if we dropped coop, it would only lose the win/lose
structure if we lost competition.
See Also: Subsumption / Balanced Neg
The goal of debate should be learning, putting winning first is unacceptable.

Mike Larimer, NCFCA President, National Christian Forensics & Communications Association
President’s Letter, July 2009
Competition refines speaking and thinking skills in a way that other activities simply cannot
match. The pursuit of excellence which accompanies fair and honest competition, in its purest
sense, does a great job of preparing our students to engage the culture. But if the awards and
accolades become the goal instead of the training we should impart, then at its best the trophies
are hollow and at its worst we’ve made an idol of this activity. If those of us who are coaches and
leaders lose sight of this fact, then we’ve also set the stage for the students to follow our example
and pursue questionable practices in the name of winning. This is unacceptable and compromises
the vision for the league.
Negative Brief Applications: Debate

Education
See Also: ability (value)
Summary: A common affirmative argument that is coming out is the idea that education has been
crippled by cooperation and would be aided greatly by an increase in competition. Primarily the
argument here is that public schools (funded by the government and thus somehow tied to cooperation)
are failing and that an increase in competition through vouchers would increase the efficacy of public
schools. We'll examine this one at a time.
1. The unique link between cooperation and public schools is tenuous. Private schools of all kinds
require structural cooperation.
2. American education is not the nightmare it is portrayed to be.
3. American education is not outpaced by other countries on the basis we have public funds for
education.
4. A cooperative learning style increases the learning ability.
5. Increased competition between private and public schools through vouchers will not improve either.
American classrooms are fundamentally competitive
New York NY, ISBN 0-395-63125-4, p. 198
I have already argued that few values are more persistently promoted in American classrooms
than the desirability of trying to beat other people. Sometimes this lesson is presented with all
the subtlety of a fist in the face, as with the use of spelling bees, grades on a curve (a version of
artificial scarcity in which my chance of receiving an A is reduced by your getting one), awards
assemblies, and other practices that redefine the majority of children as losers.
At other times, competition is promoted tacitly, perhaps even unwittingly, by pitting students
against one another for the teacher’s attention and approval. This may occur through the use of
manipulative behavior management strategies – for example, a public announcement such as : “I
like the way Joanne is sitting so nice and quiet.” (A contest has been created for Nicest, Quietest
Pupil, and everyone except Joanne has just lost.) Or it may follow from the conventional
arrangement of asking a question of the whole class.
Explanation of CL
University of Minnesota, “What is cooperative Learning?”, November 2009. http://www.co-
operation.org/
Cooperative Learning is a relationship in a group of students that requires positive
Negative Brief Applications: Education

interdependence (a sense of sink or swim together), individual accountability (each of us has to

contribute and learn), interpersonal skills (communication, trust, leadership, decision making,
and conflict resolution)
Cooperative Learning successful at promoting achievement

[US Government] Office of Research,“Cooperative Learning”, June 1992.
http://www.ed.gov/pubs/OR/ConsumerGuides/cooplear.html
Cooperative learning is a successful teaching strategy in which small teams, each with students
of different levels of ability, use a variety of learning activities to improve their understanding of
a subject. Each member of a team is responsible not only for learning what is taught but also for
helping teammates learn, thus creating an atmosphere of achievement.
CL being used in England

BBC News, “Education, Summer Schools to Help Ethnic Minority Pupils”, 1999.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/341212.stm
The project will focus on the development of specific skills within two areas of study with a
particular emphasis on problem solving, active and co-operative learning.
English universities promoting cooperation (with France!)

BBC News, “Cross-channel University to open”, February 2003.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/2724205.stm
The University of Kent says that it will contribute to the economic development to regions on
both sides of the English Channel. And it is intended to "provide an international focus for
higher education co-operation between Britain and France".
English universities cheap and doing well.

The Economist, “University Students Abroad”, November 2009.
http://www.economist.com/world/britain/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14927238
Overseas students increased at a sharper rate, rising by more than 20%. Many more foreign
students—those from the European Union pay the same tuition fees as their British counterparts
whereas those from other countries are charged far more—are now enrolled on British campuses.
A weaker pound should make the prospect more attractive. Tuition fees and accommodation at
an elite institution in Britain cost international students about £18,000 a year—roughly the same
as in Australia and less than in America, where costs are closer to £24,000.
Negative Brief Applications: Education

Healthcare
Competition increases deaths in health care

BBC News, "NHS competition 'costs lives'”, 29 January 2003,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2701899.stm
The rate of deaths from emergency admissions for heart attacks was used to determine quality of
care. This measure is widely used in the United States.
They [Professor Carol Popper and colleagues at Bristol University's Centre for Market and Public
Organisation] compared death rates in those hospitals with no local competition - one in three trusts
- with those that had to compete for business.
They found the death rates among these patients were much the same in the early 1990s.
However, they discovered death rates started to vary once competition took hold in the health
service.
According to their study, death rates were highest in those areas that had to compete for business.
Doctors at the Cleveland Clinic cooperate, and it's the most efficient hospital in America.
Jerry Adler and Jeneen Interlandi, “The Hospital That Could Cure Health Care”, NEWSWEEK, Nov
27, 2009 http://www.newsweek.com/id/224585/page/1
As Cosgrove [CEO Dr. Delos M. Cosgrove, a former cardiac surgeon] told a Senate hearing in
June, the [Cleveland] [C]linic's business practices offer a potential model for the American
health-care industry as it strains to bend the ever-rising cost curve. The evidence was in the 2008
Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care, which reported that of the five medical centers ranked best by
U.S. News in 2007, Cleveland Clinic provided the most cost-efficient care, measured by
expenses incurred during the last two years of life—$31,252, nearly 50 percent below the most
expensive. The clinic's distinctive feature is that in contrast to most other American hospitals,
where doctors are essentially autonomous professionals, at the clinic physicians work on fixed
salaries and yearly contracts. An outsider might describe this relationship as "employer-
employee," although Cosgrove [CEO Dr. Delos M. Cosgrove, a former cardiac surgeon] prefers
a teamwork analogy; he calls Cleveland Clinic "the world's second-largest group practice" (after
Mayo Clinic, which is organized similarly). This saves money in many small ways, such as on
expenses for medical supplies and devices. "Because we're all on a team," says Dr. Joseph Sabik,
chairman of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery, "instead of stocking 30 different heart valves,
we can stock two or three, and unless there's a good medical reason to do otherwise, that's what
we use." And it saves money in one large way, by divorcing doctors' income from the number of
procedures they perform. That, in turn, reduces the incentive for unnecessary tests, whose cost to
the economy was estimated at $210 billion a year in a recent report by PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Competition between medical insurance companies wastes $210 billion every year.
Negative Brief Applications: Healthcare

The same study estimated that another $210 billion is wasted each year on medical paperwork.
That, though, is one potential savings that has mostly eluded Cosgrove. At the clinic's patients'
accounts office, rows of cubicles are piled high with file folders and printouts, testimony to its
dealings with thousands of different health plans from hundreds of insurance companies all over
the country. Thousands of times a day, clerks pick up the phone and get put on hold like anyone
else who calls an insurance company. Industry estimates put the average cost of handling a phone
call at $3, to each party. This is the hidden cost of competition; whatever else a government-run
health-insurance system would accomplish, it would impose a uniform billing system on the
current one, in which clinic's 2,000 doctors require 1,400 clerks to handle their billing.
Cooperating drove down costs of medical care for Duke University

But in 2006 Cleveland Clinic abandoned the traditional departments in favor of 25 "institutes"
organized by disease or organ system. This works well for patients, who don't care whether their
back pain is cured by a rheumatologist, a neurologist, or an orthopedic surgeon. But, says Regina
Herzlinger, an expert in health-care economics at Harvard Business School, it runs afoul of the
dominant fee-for-service system of medical billing, which discourages cooperation across fields.
When Duke University Medical Center set up a disease-management system for congestive heart
failure, coordinating the efforts of cardiologists, primary-care doctors, pharmacists, and nurse
practitioners, it drove down the cost of treatment by 40 percent in a single year, while reducing
readmissions and improving outcomes. But that highlighted the central paradox of health-care
economics: a patient's "cost" is the hospital's "revenue." The unintended result of the Duke
experiment, says Herzlinger, was that the unit lost tens of millions of dollars a year. The chief
beneficiaries were the insurance companies, which saved on reimbursements.
Eliminating competition between doctors drove up quality.

At Cleveland Clinic, by contrast, the institute system worked because all its doctors were already
on salary. This eliminates the competition for patients between departments, and the incentive for
doctors to perform additional tests and procedures. The system also "drives our quality up,"
Cosgrove says, because it frees doctors to concentrate on their practices, not the minutiae of
running a small business
Competing private insurers waste money on health-care.


But a visit to Cleveland Clinic makes it hard to avoid the conclusion that if you're looking for
"waste" in the health-care system—defined as expenses that do not directly contribute to medical
outcomes—a good place to look is the nation's cobbled-together system of competing private
insurers. Nissen, who considers himself less bound by the need for circumspection, points out
that "the overhead for private insurers is 29 percent. For Medicare, it's 3 percent. If what's left
over is what you can spend on patients, I think 97 percent is a much better deal."
Competition may lower quality in heatlh care

Vicki Fong (Penn State University), 8 April 2005, "Health care competition may not result in better
quality", Public Health News
For several decades, competition within the health care industry has been touted as the way to curb
rising prices by reducing inefficient practices and improving quality and safety. But a study of 341
HMOs suggests that more competition may not automatically solve price and quality-of-care
problems as hoped for by legislators, regulators and employers.
"Our findings show that less, not more, competition was associated with better health plan
performance in several -- though not all--factors," says lead author Dennis Scanlon, associate
professor of health policy administration at Penn State. "This finding seems counterintuitive, but it
is possible that more HMO competition may result in providers finding it difficult to respond to
competing quality initiatives. Also, competition may be focused more on driving down the plans'
premiums, resulting in less attention to quality."
Zero Sum competition in health care reduces value

Michael E. Porter (University Professor, Harvard Business School), Elizabeth Olmsted Teisberg
(Associate Professor of Business Administration, Darden Graduate School of Business
The University of Virginia), "Redefining Health Care: Identifying the Root Causes", Harvard
Business School, May 2006
Health care competition is not focused on delivering value for patients. Instead, it has become zero
sum: the system participants struggle to divide value when they could be increasing it. Although
health care offers tremendous value, the unnecessary costs of zero-sum competition undermine and
erode that value. It is the zero-sum competition in health care that has created the unacceptable
results detailed in Scoping the Problem: high costs, low or variable quality, under- and
overtreatment, too many preventable errors in diagnosis and treatment, restrictions on choice,
rationing of services, limited access, and a raft of costly lawsuits.
Zero-sum competition in health care is manifested in a number of ways, none of which creates
value for patients:
Competition to shift costs

Competition to increase bargaining power
Competition to capture patients and restrict choice
Competition to reduce costs by restricting services

Competition bad for health care
New York NY, ISBN 0-395-63125-4, p. 239-240
A similar dynamic is now at work in the field of health care, where many institutions are being
pressured for the first time to become “competitive”. More hospitals and clinics are being run be
for-profit corporations; many institutions, forced to battle for “customers,” seem to value a
skilled director of marketing more highly than a skilled caregiver. As in any other economic
sector, the race for profits translates into pressure to reduce costs, and the easiest way to do it
here is to cut back on services to unprofitable patients, that is, those who are more sick than rich.
This is exactly what insurance companies are doing under the banner of “competitiveness”;
denying coverage to those who need it most. In many cases, there is not even any greater
efficiency to show for the greater inequity. “Among providers, competition has led to a stunning
round of spending on facilities and equipment in an attempt to lure pations form other providers
— and never mind if the new facilities are [unnecessary].” The result: hospital costs are actually
higher in areas where there is more competition for patients.

Human Nature
Responses:
1. Competition isn't human nature (cards)
2. Talking about excellence, not what's most natural.
3. Human nature isn't necessarily good.
4. Human nature is self-interest, so we think competition is human nature, but it isn't, and in fact
cooperation would be natural if we realized it was better for us.
Competition is a learned phenomenon
We in the U.S. are taught to compete, but we have to be taught because experience shows that it is
learned.
New York NY, ISBN 0-395-63125-4 p. 25
“Sports psychologists Thomas Tutko and William Bruns agreed, basing their opinion on
considerable experience with athletes of all ages:
‘Competition is a learned phenomenon… People are not born with a motivation to win or to be
competitive. We inherit a potential for a degree of activity, and we all have the instinct to
survive. But the will to win comes through training and the influences of one’s family and
environment. As the song in South Pacific put it, “you’ve got to be carefully taught.”*
*Tutko & Bruns, Winning is Everything and Other American Myths, p. 53
“In the united states, we are carefully taught, and the result is that excepting the kind of invisible
cooperation that is required for any society to run, Americans appear to be uniquely
uncooperative as a people. David Riesman, the eminent sociologist, found an interesting irony in
‘the paradoxical belief of Americans that competition is natural — but only if it is constantly re-
created by artificial systems of social roles that direct energies into it.’”
Competition is a culturally defined situation

Mead’s research shows that people will compete or cooperate depending upon which their society
encourages.
New York NY, ISBN 0-395-63125-4 p. 36
“The most basic conclusion which comes out of this research [is] that competitive and
cooperative behavior on the part of individual members of a society is fundamentally
conditioned by the total social emphasis of that society, that the goals for which individuals will
Negative Brief Applications: Human Nature

work are culturally determined and are not the response of the organism to an external, culturally
undefined situation.”
Margaret Mead, Cooperation and Competition among Primitive Peoples, p. 16
Example of the above

Iroquois cooperate both in work and in leisure activities.
New York NY, ISBN 0-395-63125-4 p. 36
“THE IROQUOIS INDIANS — Beyond the degree of cooperation required to achieve the
greatest efficiency in production, there was found, especially in agricultural activity, cooperation
for the purpose of experiencing the pleasure of group work.”
B.H. Quain, The Iroquois, p. 256
The conclusion of the above three points:

New York NY, ISBN 0-395-63125-4 p.38
“Competition is a matter of social structure rather than human nature. Competition may be an
integral part of certain institutions in contemporary Western society, such as capitalism, but it is
clearly not an unavoidable consequence of life itself.”
Competitiveness is dependent upon one's culture

Encyclopedia of Psychology , “COMPETITION”, Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology, 2nd ed. Gale
Group, 2001.
Americans uniquely praise competition as natural, inevitable, and desirable. In 1937, the world-
renowned anthropologist Margaret Mead published Cooperation and Competition among
Primitive Peoples, based on her studies of several societies that did not prize competition, and, in
fact, seemed at times to place a negative value on it. One such society was the Zuni Indians of
Arizona, and they, Mead found, valued cooperation far more than competition. For example, the
Zuni held a ritual footrace that anyone could participate in, the winner of which was never
publicly acknowledged and, in fact, if one person made a habit of winning the race, that person
was prevented from participating in the future. After studying dozens of such cultures, Mead's
final conclusion was that competitiveness is a culturally created aspect of human behavior, and
that its prevalence in a particular society is relative to how that society values it.
Negative Brief Applications: Human Nature

Natural Selection / Basis for life
Equivocation on compete. Natural selection is not the same as competition. Competition tends to hurt
organisms' chances of survival more than it helps.
Natural selection is not a competitive process
Natural selection is about who survives, but there is no inherent reason that my survival always
precludes yours.
New York NY, ISBN 0-395-63125-4, p. 20
“In fact, there is no necessary relationship between natural selection and competitive struggle. As
Stephen Jay Gould put it recently:
‘The equation of competition with success in natural selection is merely a cultural prejudice…
Success defined as leaving more offspring can… be attained by a variety of strategies—
including mutualism and symbiosis—that we could call cooperative. There is no a priori
preference in the general statement of natural selection for either competitive of cooperative
behavior.’
Gould’s point is that there is nothing about evolution that requires competition. And, indeed, Darwin
himself made clear that he was using the term ‘struggle for existence’ in a ‘large and metaphorical
sense, including dependence of one being upon another.’”
Nature discourages competition
New York NY, ISBN 0-395-63125-4, p. 21-22
“Natural selection does not require competition; on the contrary, it discourages it. Survival generally
demands that individuals work with rather than against each other — and this includes others of the
same species as well as those from different species. If this is true, and if natural selection is the engine
of evolution — The central theme of “nature”, as it were — then we should expect to find animals
cooperating with each other in great numbers. And so we do.
“It was Petr Kropotkin, in his 1902 book Mutual Aid, who first detailed the ubiquity of cooperation
among animals. After reviewing the habits of species ranging from ants to bison, he concluded that:
‘Competition … is limited among animals to exceptional periods… Better conditions are

created by the elimination of competition by means of mutual aid and mutual support…”Don’t
Negative Brief Applications: Natural Selection / Basis for life

compete! — Competition is always injurious to the species, and you have plenty of resources
to avoid it!” That is the tendency of nature, not always realized in full, but always present.
That is the watchword which comes to us from the bush, the forest, the river, the ocean.
“Therefore combine — practice mutual aid!…” That is what Nature teaches us.’*”
*Petr Kropotkin, Mutual Aid, pp. 74-75
Nothing in the doctrine of natural selection requires competition

Encyclopedia of Psychology , “COMPETITION”, Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology, 2nd ed. Gale
Group, 2001.
This doctrine [natural selection], which posits that those species best able to adapt to and master
the natural environment in which they live will survive, has suggested to many that the struggle
for survival is an inherent human trait which determines a person's success. Darwin's theory has
even been summarized as "survival of the fittest"-a phrase Darwin himself never used - further
highlighting competition's role in success. As it has often been pointed out, however, there is
nothing in the concept of natural selection that suggests that competition is the most successful
strategy for "survival of the fittest." Darwin asserted in The Origin of Species that the struggles
he was describing should be viewed as metaphors and could easily include dependence and
cooperation.
Negative Brief Applications: Natural Selection / Basis for life

Science
“Science would be ruined if, like sports, it were to put competition above everything else” ~Bernoit
Mandelbrot (French and American mathematician, best known as the father of fractal geometry)
Competition in science encourages questionable practices.

Warren 0. Hagstrom, University of Wisconsin, Madison, COMPETITION IN SCIENCE, American
Sociological Review 1974, Vol. 39 (February): 1-18
The argument for the functionality of competition among autonomous scientists is analogous to
that about competition in economic markets. Competition in science also may have some of the
dysfunctions of competition in economic markets. It may involve unnecessary duplication of
effort, as I shall discuss below, and it may inhibit cooperation. The competitive environment
clearly places many scientists under stress. Some will tend to use illegitimate means to win
priority. In their studies of medical experimentation, Barber and his associates (1973:ch. 4)
found that scientists who had been relative failures in their competition with others but who still
strived to achieve success were more likely than others to undertake ethically questionable
research with human subjects. Other scientists will be tempted to fudge their data to produce
acceptable results (see e.g., Westfall, 1973), but the public nature of science probably inhibits
such practices (Hagstrom, 1965:85). On the other hand, cases are well known where ideas, or
even data, are appropriated without acknowledging the original sources. This theft of ideas
ranges from outright plagiarism to a scientist's learning of another's research program and then
working quickly and covertly to obtain the results first (see discussions in Merton, 1957, 1963,
1965; Hagstrom, 1965:86f; and Gaston, 1971). The failure to recognize the research
accomplishments of another scientist in accord with his expectations is the source of priority
disputes.
Secretive behaviour in science is has costs which cooperation can solve.

{Make obvious point that competition encourages secrecy}
Warren 0. Hagstrom, University of Wisconsin, Madison, COMPETITION IN SCIENCE, American
Sociological Review 1974, Vol. 39 (February): 1-18
Secretive behavior has both personal and social costs. It tends to isolate the individual scientist.
This takes some of the fun out of science and may reduce productivity by inhibiting valuable
feedback from others at the early stages of research.5 This personal cost, lower productivity, is
also a social cost. Other social costs might include duplication of effort and a diminution of
solidarity in the scientific community. Individuals may attempt to avoid these costs by
cooperating with their competitors on a "division of the problem"; this may be possible in small
specialties.
Negative Brief Applications: Science

Society
Cooperation doesn't require an idyllic state of harmony
New York NY, ISBN 0-395-63125-4 p. 155-156
To cooperate, as I have tried to show in earlier chapters, is not to sacrifice either an achievement
orientation or a strong sense of self. On the contrary, success will more likely be the result of
working with other people, and the same might be said for healthy self-esteem. Here I would
like to rescue cooperation from yet another misconception: it does not imply some idyllic state of
harmony among participants. To the question “But how do you expect people to agree on
everything?” we answer, “They don't – and that's why a cooperative framework for dealing with
disagreement is so critical.”
Essentially, exchanging ideas is better, and cooperative, while trying to prove a point is destructive,
and competitive. - me
Many social activities are based on cooperation

New York NY, ISBN 0-395-63125-4 p. 18
“The truth is that the vast majority of human interaction, in our society as well as in all other
societies, is not competitive but cooperative interaction.” - Educational psychologist David and
Roger Johnson
Cooperation is vital to society

New York NY, ISBN 0-395-63125-4 p. 18
Anthropologist Ashley Montagu
“Without the cooperation of its members society cannot survive, and the society of man has
survived because the cooperativeness of its members made survival possible.”
Without cooperation, we would have chaos [143]

Steve Kangas [Areas of study include economics, sociology, religion, evolution, game theory, chaos
theory, meritocracy theory, environmentalism, women's studies, American and European history, crime,
media studies, race, nature vs. nurture and welfare issues. Bachelor of Arts, Russian Studies],
"Spectrum Five: Competition vs. Cooperation", © Copyright by Steve Kangas, editor, 2000,
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-spectrumfive.htm
But imagine what it would be like to live in a society where each individual competes against
everyone else, without any cooperation at all. You wouldn't dare walk outside, for your neighbor
could shoot you and take all your property. Nor could you rely on the police to protect you, since
law enforcement is a form of social cooperation. In a perfectly competitive world, only the
Negative Brief Applications: Society

strongest or luckiest would survive.

But what if you were fortunate enough to be one of the strongest or luckiest? After killing off
most of society, you would only find yourself among survivors who were highly competent
killers themselves, and the terror would start anew. And even if you emerged the final victor, the
rewards would be slight… how rich and satisfied can you be when you're a hermit?
All species avoid this bleak scenario through cooperation.
Competitors would often be better off cooperating [126]

Hostile cooperation, on the other hand, is what exists between competitors. This may seem
paradoxical, yet there is a good reason why competitors often cooperate with each other: the
rewards are greater. For example, if everyone fights for a piece of the pie, then the fight may
become so costly that the pie will be nearly gone when it comes time to divide it. It's much better
to forget the fight and come to an agreement from the very beginning. An example of hostile
cooperation is family members who are contesting a million-dollar will. If they fight for the
money too hard, then no one will get any, because it will all go to their lawyers' fees. Hence, it's
in their interest to strike a deal.
Competition in human society is deadly [61/185]

War is an obvious example of deadly competition within the human species, but most people
don't realize that the same continues even during times of "peace." In our competitive economy,
those who lack the skills, education, talent or opportunity to compete well become poor. And the
poor suffer from death rates that are at least six times higher than the rich. (5) This higher death
rate is due to a lack of resources: namely, health care, nutritious food, toxic-free environments,
winter heating, information and education, and countless other means and devices that would
protect and prolong their lives.
Here, critics may object that the above observation is based on a faulty assumption. We do not
live in a zero-sum economy (where someone's gain is necessarily someone else's loss). We
actually live in a (slightly) positive-sum economy, where the standard of living is rising for
everyone. This is certainly true, but our standard of living grows extremely slowly -- whereas the
population pressing against it tries to grow much faster. Therefore it's still quite possible for a
positive-sum economy to experience deadly competition for limited resources.

Cooperative society is not as Utopian as it would seem [97]

Critics charge that humans are naturally competitive animals -- after all, they evolved that way.
To create a perfectly cooperative society, they charge, is both impossible and utopian. This is
certainly true, but fortunately, there is a way around it. Competition for survival is only one of
the many thousands of ways that humans compete. Humans also fulfill their desire to compete
through games, sports, contests, social status, career status, academic status, even mating.
Eliminating the need to compete for survival would hardly eliminate the countless other ways
that humans compete. Competition could still be used to improve society, even a sustainable one.
The social contract is one way humans cooperate to survive (Hobbes) [77/105]
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679): Hobbes correctly identified that humans were locked in a deadly
competition for limited resources. But he misdescribed the "state of nature" as an anarchic,
chaotic, individualistic world where people were engaged in a "war of everyone against
everyone." Thus, Hobbes believed life in the state of nature was "solitary, poore, nasty, brutish
and short." To resolve this, humans agreed to cooperate for survival, by agreeing to surrender
some of their freedom in return for peace and stability. They did this by creating a social
contract -- that is, a large group agreement to cooperate and abide by the laws of the
government.

Sports
Commonly cited benefits of sports have nothing to do with competition
New York NY, ISBN 0-395-63125-4, p.88
First, physical fitness obviously does not require competition – or even any rule-governed game.
As the recent popularity of aerobics and other noncompetitive approaches to exercise makes
clear, one can get a fine workout without a win/lose structure. Second, the camaraderie that
results from teamwork is precisely the benefit of cooperative activity, whose very essence is
working together for a common goal. Intergroup competition – the creation of a common
enemy, a We versus they dynamic – is not necessary for group feeling, as I will show in chapter
6. The distinguishing feature of team competition is that a given player works with and is
encourages to feel warmly toward only half of those present, so cooperative activities are twice
as desirable if this is our criterion.
Negative Brief Applications: Sports

Subsumption / Balanced Neg

Competition constructive only when cooperative
David W. Johnson & Roger T. Johnson (College of Education, University of Minnesota), “Cooperation
and Competition: Theory and Research”, 1989
Competition is first and foremost a cooperative activity. Appropriate competition takes place
within a context of cooperation. Competitors have to cooperate on the nature of the contest, ow
to determine who wins and who loses, the rules governing their behavior during the competition,
where the competition occurs, and when it begins and ends. This underlying cooperation
foundation to competition keeps the competition in perspective and allows participants to enjoy
the competition, win or lose. The stronger the cooperative foundation, the more constructive the
competition. When it does not matter who wins and who loses, such as when playing tennis with
a friend, the cooperative goal of enjoying each other's company while obtaining exercise
dominates. The shared cooperative experience then dominates. Constructive competition thus
provides a fun and exciting change of pace within ongoing cooperative relationships to
demonstrate mastery of the skills and knowledge required for the cooperative efforts. Intergroup
competition is often more constructive than interpersonal competition as teams tend to handle
winning and losing more constructively than individuals do.
Competition must be mixed with cooperation for everyone to improve [81]

College Publishing, St. Louis, MO. ISBN 0-8016-0304-8 GV706.5.C63, pp. 77
In summary, uncontrolled competition only produces excellence among an elite few; its effect on
the overall level of achievement and participation in the general population is likely to be mixed,
but negative consequences are common. Negative consequences take the form of elitism,
overspecialization, and the stifling of creativity. To avoid these negative consequences,
competition must be controlled and balanced with the cooperative and developmental aspects of
the sport experience. Only then will achievements be widely distributed throughout the general
population.
Competition is always cooperation

Benjamin R. Tucker, "The Attitude of Anarchism Toward Industrial Combinations", 1899,
http://praxeology.net/BT-AIC.htm
"That the right to cooperate is as unquestionable as the right to compete; that the right to compete
involves the right to refrain from competition; that co-operation is often a method of
competition, and that competition is always, in the larger view, a method of co-operation;"
The purpose of conflict is to reach an agreement. Better to cooperate early than fight.
Negative Brief Applications: Subsumption / Balanced Neg


There are those who promote combat for the sheer love of fighting or for reasons of personal
gain. Such motives can have no place in a moral justification of coercive action. In the light of
true social values, the goal of all conflict is not a sullen truce, but an agreement, guaranteed in
stability by a willing spirit of agreement. The time to begin this achievement in the spirit of man
is in the early stages of the conflict. There is an intimate accommodation between the end and
the means employed to secure the end. They must be harmonious. The one must be appropriate
to the other. For certain purposes of logic the two words “end” and “means” are placed in
apposition, but all phases of a social situation are parts of a single process. The desired goal of a
cooperative solution of any conflict can never be achieved until the spirit of cooperation is first
achieved in the minds and hearts of the persons involved. If the history of man indicates the
difficulty of such an achievement, it also indicates the futility of attempting to produce a state of
goodwill by methods that are pregnant with ill-will. It is probably true that certain methods of
coercion can be harmonized with the spirit of good-will, but it is by this test that the morality and
the efficacy of any social action must be judged.
Negative Brief Applications: Subsumption / Balanced Neg

War
“War’s stupid. Nobody wins. You might as well talk first, you have to talk last anyway.” - Henry
Allingham (last surviving British WWI veteran).
War invigorates the very foundation of violence in society, destroying health, human rights, and
the environment, threatening the end of civilization.
Levy and Sidel 2007 (Barry, Adjunct Prof. Community Health @ Tufts U School of Medicine, former
medical epidemiologist for the Centers for Disease Control, and Victor, Prof. Social Medicine @ the
Albert Einstein Medical College, epidemiology and biostatistics @ Harvard Medical School, “War and
Public Health,” p. ix)
War accounts for more death and disability than many major diseases combined. It destroys
families, communities, and sometimes whole cultures. It directs scarce resources away from
protection and promotion of health, medical care, and other human services. It destroys the
infrastructure that supports health. It limits human rights and contributes to social injustice. It
leads many people to think that violence is the only way to resolve conflicts—a mindset that
contributes to domestic violence, street crime, and other kinds of violence. And it contributes to
the destruction of the environment and overuse of nonrenewable resources. In sum, war threatens
much of the fabric of our civilization.
War is the worst impact

Grapel 4 (Jerome, Author, “Why War is Bad?” Because You Never Asked, May)
http://www.postcman.info/essay/whywarisbad.htm
As I write this essay, the second Bush Oil War has become the fiasco it always deserved to be.
The latest piece of firewood thrown onto the flames of this madness is the graphic international
diffusion of the inhuman treatment of Iraqi prisoners. The few days it has taken me to digest and
turn this material into some kind of life giving substance has produced the following thoughts:
War is bad. War dehumanizes. War is the single most aberration man has ever conceived of. War
should only be entered into after the most exhausting efforts are made to avoid it . and even then,
don’t we all know that something has gone terribly wrong, that we’ve failed miserably, that
we’ve let ourselves down, that the idea of good guys and bad guys, in a real war, becomes less
and less relevant until everyone involved is reduced to a brute animal state that should have been
exorcized from the human condition long ago? The acts of gross humiliation perpetrated against
the Iraqi prisoners seem hardly abnormal when one considers the venue they took place in. War
is madness. War is a breathing organism of squizophrenic behavior. The unacceptable becomes
routine in such an environment. Everything we’ve ever been told to respect and hold dear is not
just ignored, but reversed. Any nation that does not try to avoid war with every fiber of its being,
is committing the ultimate act of immorality. Although it generally goes unnoticed or
overlooked, there has never been a war anywhere where this kind of bestiality has not taken
place. Why all this fuss for the normal behavior of such an abnormal setting?
Negative Brief Applications: War

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2009-2010 NCFCA Lincoln-Douglas

Compete (root of competition): [to]engage in a contest; measure oneself against others -

"Competition is an open market process of discovery and adjustment, under conditions of

“Competing with oneself” is not competition

Negative Brief Definitions: Definitions:

Difference between cooperation and coercion

Negative Brief Definitions: Definitions:

VINCENT D. NICHOLSON “Cooperation And Coercion As Methods Of Social Change” PENDLE

To gain or obtain, as the result of exertion. - Noah Webster's 1828 Dictionary

Negative Brief Definitions: Definitions:

Negative Brief Definitions: Definitions:

It would be a mistake, however, to restrict a discussion of cheating to athletics. A news dispatch

Negative Brief Definitions: Definitions:

Negative Brief Definitions: Definitions:

The possibility of losing makes one anxious and unproductive

Negative Brief Definitions: Definitions:

Negative Brief Definitions: Definitions:

Simply beating someone doesn’t tell us if a performance is excellent.

Negative Brief Definitions: Definitions:

Cooperation inspires people to excellence

Negative Brief Definitions: Definitions:

Negative Brief Definitions: Definitions:

Depriving adversaries of personalities, of faces, of their subjectivity, is a strategy we

Envy of winners' status & contempt toward the unsuccessful.

Negative Brief Definitions: Definitions:

Competition and lack of care for others produces dehumanization

Cooperation encourages positive interaction, as experience shows

Negative Brief Definitions: Definitions:

Negative Brief Definitions: Definitions:

Competition shapes conformist robots

Emphasis on competition produces conformity

Negative Brief Values/Criteria: Individualism

Competition dampens individualistic creativity

Competition is responsible for conformity in students

Cooperation thrives on diversity

Cooperation encourages discussion, which is a way of exploring new ideas

Negative Brief Values/Criteria: Individualism

Negative Brief Values/Criteria: Individualism

Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic motivation

Cooperation is a form of Intrinsic motivation

Competition is a form of Extrinsic motivation

Extrinsic motivators aren't as motivating, and eat away intrinsic motivation.

Negative Brief Values/Criteria: Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic motivation

Intrinsic motivation produces the best performances

Competition is an extrinsic motivator, thus it doesn't work as well.

Negative Brief Values/Criteria: Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic motivation

Competition only motivates if we believe we can win [122/186]

Goals other than competitive success better maintain motivation [81]

Negative Brief Values/Criteria: Motivation

perform them well.

The motivation to do well is different than the motivation to win

Impact: Growth propagates an unfair income distribution

Negative Brief Values/Criteria: Motivation

“Principles of Economics”, © 2002, www.prenhall.com/casefair

The tragedy of the commons shows one aspect of this.

Negative Brief Values/Criteria: Motivation

Negative Brief Values/Criteria: Motivation

Pursuing victory is counter-productive to achieving excellence.

Victory can distract from looking for excellence

Negative Brief Values/Criteria: Motivation

Competition changes businesses focus

Negative Brief Applications: Applications:

to co-brand with a company, etc.

Competition for workers may put them in less productive positions.