Forum:Cooperation or Competition

From Campaigns Wikia

One of the disconnects in modern politics is the people's need for a cooperative government that serves the public interest, while the candidates feel a competitive drive to defeat the other candidates and secure the benefits of power for themselves.

The two sides of the issue -- voters and candidates -- struggle to have this inconsistency resolved in their favor. By advertising their own virtues and denigrating the qualities of their opponents, candidates strive to make elections a competitive arena. Usually the candidates -- who are spending the most money on elections -- win this tug of war, and the election ends up being competitive instead of cooperative.

If the public wants politics and government transformed into a cooperative process, it must clearly demand that candidates address the public interest, and not merely their personal and partisan views. It must seek new political parties which seek to unify the electorate rather than divide it. It must insist that successful candidates abandon private interests, no matter how their campaigns were financed.

Conversely, the time is ripe for a political party to abandon partisanship and seek to represent the interests of all the electorate. Serving the public interest demands an openness and accountability in government that is presently a dream. But nothing less will do to reinvigorate the system.

If one political party can demonstrate its desire to represent the entire constituency, it will experience such success that all parties will be forced to follow. The rhetoric has the power to breed a new political reality.PowerofIdeas 08:48, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I think "cooperation vs. competition" is the very fundamental (evolutionary) debate in the political spectrum in America today. Look at the political implications progressive parenting books, for example:

http://www.alfiekohn.org/index.html --AndreyF 15:49, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

• Andrey, it's really simple, and there is no disconnect. At the end of the day, everybody's here for themselves. Nobody wants to hear that; we want to think that we're nice, good people, but the fact of the matter is that everything we do is, ultimately, for ourselves. I can sure look back through my own life and see places where I could have done something for someone else and didn't. Likewise, I can look back and see places where other people could have put me first and didn't. Not saying that's the way it should be (that's for the various religions to duke out), but that's the way it is. People are people, and we do 'good' things for the profit we get out of it. If there was no profit for doing something good, nobody would ever do it, politician or ordinary citizen. Compaqdrew 12:48, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

• • So, do we want this to be the way the system works, or do we want to change it? Another good book to read is David Korten's The Great Turning, which describes the difference between the current quest for empire and the power that comes with it vs. the quest for community and the freedom that comes with it. Fundamentally, we have a choice, and we've been choosing competition long enough. Chadlupkes 13:02, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

• • Chadlupkes, I guess I really don't think we can. The historical record shows that the most economically-competitive societies (free markets) are the most efficient, while the least-competitive ones result in a dictatorship every time. Communism, a great and wonderful theory on paper, fails miserably when tried, because people are not given any motivation to perform any acts for society (and therefore do not). If you have a suggestion for a way to develop a more-cooperative society I'm all ears, but I guess I don't see how it can be likely to work; my limited history knowledge seems to indicate that the more-competitive a society the more it succeeds, the less-competitive, the less-so. Compaqdrew 13:09, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

First off, what you are describing is the results of the choices that we have made, rather than the choice we have. I would much rather cooperate with people with different perspectives to develop legislation and ideas that address all of our concerns rather than just focus on my own worldview. I'm willing to cooperate with anyone who is willing to cooperate with me, and that's a fundamental choice that I can make in any given situation. The record is written by the 'winners', and doesn't reflect our potential. With the winners being those who make the most money instead of helping the most people, or those able to game the system and 'win' at the expense of others, I avoid the perspective that we are all seeking to win. I'm seeing more and more people gain this realization and use it to guide their choices. Communism has never been tried, at least not the ideal articulated by Marx and others. And the reason for that is because the people at the top made the choice not to really follow the plan, but instead focused on gaining as much for their own benefit as possible.

I think one of the questions we need to ask ourselves is what the definition of success is. Is it acceptable and desirable for us to teach our children that they should be focused on their own well-being at the expense of cooperation, or can we figure out how to teach them that cooperation is what lifts all boats? I think we can, and I think that's the quest that we should try to be on. Chadlupkes 19:25, 15 July 2006 (UTC)