Is competition a good thing?
As a foundational principle of capitalism (at least in theory), competition ought to improve our lives by incentivizing businesses to offer quality products and services at relatively low prices. Overcharge or deliver substandard fare, and consumers will look elsewhere.
Sportspeople and their fans grasp this idea in an adjacent sense. There are trophies to be won, goals to be achieved and multimillion-dollar contracts to be signed. Competitive instincts drive the physically talented among us to run faster, jump higher and become stronger, both for their own gratification and for our entertainment.
Competition can and does bear good fruit, but we should also acknowledge its dark side: the fraudulent and soul-rotting byproducts that can befall those who fight for greatness.
A free market?
One problem with competition is that its benefits don't always materialize in practice.
Take the telecommunications industry in Canada. Federal Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry François-Philippe Champagne echoed the sentiments of many in a January 2024 interview with CBC: "while some progress has been made to lower prices, Canadians still pay too much and see too little competition."
The Finnish research firm Rewheel published a May 2022 study that ranked our nation among the most pricey in terms of wireless rates. These findings showed that Canada's cost-per-gigabyte of use is seven times more expensive than Australia, 25 times more than Ireland and France and 1,000 times more than Finland.
Canadian telecom spokespeople may dispute those numbers, but it's in their best interest to do so.
In 2013, U.S. wireless company Verizon decided against expanding operations into Canada after Bell, Rogers and Telus launched a public relations mission accusing the federal government of favouring international service providers. Our Telecommunications Act bolsters this status quo by mandating that any Canadian telecom representing more than 10 per cent of the sector must be Canadian-owned.
I'm no expert, but shouldn't all reputable businesses be allowed into our free market to thrive or fail based on their own merits?
At worst, the shady side of competition can take lives.
Boeing recently pled guilty to criminal fraud and was fined $243 million US after two 737 MAX plane accidents in 2018 and 2019 that caused 346 deaths. These crashes occurred due to faulty flight control software that pitched each jet's nose downward after erroneous input from a sensor.
Pilots and airlines were not initially educated about this functionality. Boeing is also accused of deceiving regulators who greenlighted the common 737 MAX and retaliating against whistleblowers.
There could be many reasons why this aerospace titan's leaders encouraged or condoned shoddy workmanship, but I can't help thinking: would Boeing have felt a need to do so without pressure from its longtime rival, Airbus? Both entities are huge fish in the pond, and the only predator they need fear is each other.
The price of winning
This brings me to my second point: competition can trigger humanity's basest instincts.
Losing feels horrible and is often costly. That's why corporations may want to break rules and ignore ethics for the sake of maximized profit. Others too, can stoop to regrettable lows for a shot at glory.
Lance Armstrong is one of many who used performance-enhancing drugs. Pete Rose gambled on baseball while playing for and managing the Cincinnati Reds. Kamila Valieva and several other Russian teens have dealt with figure skating coach Eteri Tutberidze, who puts her athletes on puberty blockers and forbids them from drinking water in contests as the sport's governing bodies look away.
We've also recently learned that three Canadian women's soccer team staffers (including head coach Bev Priestman) were dismissed from the Paris Olympics over allegations of using drones to spy on opposing practices.
Then there's Luis Resto, who tampered with his boxing gloves and soaked his hand wraps in plaster before a 1983 match with at-the-time undefeated Billy Collins Jr. The ensuing debacle was analogous to one man beating down another with brass knuckles.
Resto and his trainer, Carlos "Panama" Lewis, were imprisoned for their misdeeds. Yet no conviction could restore the permanently-blurred eyesight of Collins Jr., who was unable to fight again and died in a car crash that some suspect to be a suicide.
The jaw-dropping physical feats and once-inspirational lives of athletes who fall from grace are quickly replaced with disappointment in the public eye. We ask: how could they have done such a thing?
Well, everybody wants to win, and the pressure-cooker of sport can give its occupants reason to grow selfish or outright cutthroat. Even those who stop short of cheating can harbour resentment toward their opponents and bitterness within themselves, losing a healthy perspective on life.
Of course, war is the extreme of human competitiveness. We all know what happens when political or ideological rivalries boil over into bloodshed.
Competition is truly a double-edged blade. It can push people to new heights in respectable ways, but it can also shove them beyond morality and basic care for their fellow humans.
Let's keep that in mind as we watch our favourite athletes at Crankworx and the Olympics. Let's not get carried away as we put our kids into sports or schools. Let's support ethical companies and serve people well as business owners.
"Victory at any cost" is no adage to live by.
