Competition: Fostering Division
Tools of Oppression in Relationships
This article is part of my Tools of Oppression in Relationships series. Click here to start from the beginning.
Competition promotes the idea of winners/losers, encouraging a mindset of scarcity and conflict. It pits individuals, groups, and nations against each other, fostering division instead of collaboration. This tool is deeply embedded in power-over systems, creating hierarchies and reinforcing inequalities.
In human societies, competition is often framed as natural and necessary. We’re taught that competing for resources, jobs, and recognition drives innovation and progress. However, this perspective ignores collateral damage caused by competition, both to individuals and to the collective. I’ve written about the negative effects of competition before in Crush Competition in Children.
At an individual level, competition fosters a constant state of comparison and inadequacy. It can lead people to measure their worth against others, leading to stress, anxiety, and a diminished sense of self-worth. The emphasis on winning often undermines intrinsic motivation and personal growth, reducing life to a zero-sum game.
At a systemic level, competition justifies inequality, perpetuates class and resource disparities, and creates social stratification. Competitive logic fuels capitalism’s relentless pursuit of profit, often at the expense of environmental sustainability and human well-being.
As a tool of oppression, competition is weaponized to keep people in conflict rather than collaboration. It fosters mistrust and isolates individuals, making collective action harder to achieve. This is particularly harmful in marginalized communities, where competition for limited opportunities can create rifts and prevent solidarity.
Psychological Underpinnings of Competition
The Role of Fear
Competition often thrives on fear (another tool of oppression that I will talk about in the next article of this series): fear of not having enough, inadequacy, or irrelevance. When individuals compete, they are not just striving for success – they are often running from failure. The root question is not “How can we thrive together?” but “How can I ensure that I don’t lose?” This creates a relational dynamic where people protect themselves at the expense of others, undermining trust and collaboration.
The Myth of Individualism
Competition is reinforced by the myth of individualism, which tells us that our success is solely a product of our own efforts. This narrative obscures the ways in which all achievements are interdependent. Even the most “self-made” individual relies on countless unseen relationships – family, friends, teachers, mentors, peers, and the environment itself. By framing “success” as a solitary pursuit, competition erases the web of connections that make thriving possible and diminishes the role of relationships in shaping outcomes.
Competition as Self-Oppression
An often overlooked aspect of competition is the way it creates internal struggle. When people are locked into competitive dynamics, they are not only battling others, they are also battling themselves. The constant comparison to others leads to a fractured self-concept, where one’s value is contingent on outperforming others. This makes it nearly impossible to experience genuine self-acceptance and self-compassion, as the inner dialogue is always, “Am I enough?” Competition, then, is not just oppressive externally; it is a form of self-oppression that limits personal growth and authenticity.
Missed Opportunities for Relational Depth
Competition creates a transactional view of relationships, reducing others to obstacles or benchmarks. This perspective robs us of the depth and richness that relationships can offer. A colleague becomes a rival for promotion, rather than a partner in shared success. A friend’s achievement becomes a point of comparison, rather than a source of mutual celebration. In these moments, competition narrows the lens through which we view others, leaving little room for empathy, collaboration, or true connection.
Irony of Competition’s Inefficiency
One of the most ironic and profound truths about competition is that it is inherently inefficient. While it is often championed as a driver of progress, competition frequently delays or undermines collective achievements. Consider the environmental crisis: nations compete over fossil fuel extraction while ecosystems suffer, despite the fact that cooperation could lead to faster, more sustainable solutions. Similarly, in personal relationships, time and energy spent on competing for status, attention, or validation could be redirected toward mutual growth and shared success.
Competition is one of the ecological relationships that organisms engage in to survive. Unlike the other ecological relationships (see the table below), competition uniquely results in negative outcomes for all parties involved. It drains resources, energy, and opportunities, often leaving both competitors worse off than if they had cooperated.
This is important because it demonstrates that even in nature, competition is not the most effective strategy for survival. Its innate inefficiency creates tension and waste rather than fostering growth and balance. When we apply the same competitive framework to human systems – whether economic, social, or relational – the results are often destructive.
When it comes to the environment, we see the effects of competition very clearly. Rather than cooperating to steward resources, humans often approach environmental relationships with a competitive mindset – seeking to “win” more water, land, or energy at the expense of others.
Countries, corporations, and communities compete for ownership of limited freshwater supplies, often prioritizing economic gain over equitable distribution. This competition exacerbates inequality and leaves vulnerable populations with insufficient resources.
Deforestation, urban sprawl, and agricultural expansion reflect humanity’s competitive drive to claim space, disregarding the long-term impacts on soil health, climate stability, and wildlife habitats.
The race for fossil fuels demonstrates how competition prioritizes short-term profits over the development of sustainable solutions, leading to ecological destruction and an escalating climate crisis.
At first glance, competition may appear beneficial for those who “win.” However, competition ultimately harms everyone. The victories achieved through competition are often fleeting, achieved at great cost to relationships, communities, and the broader systems that sustain us. Just as interpersonal competition creates rifts and reduces trust, competition for resources perpetuates unsustainable systems, cycles of inequality, scarcity, and exploitation that harm humanity as a whole and undermine our collective well-being.
In relationships, competition drives wedges where collaboration could build bridges. It isolates individuals in their pursuit of dominance, leaving behind a trail of broken trust and missed opportunities for mutual growth. At the macro level, this same dynamic plays out on a global scale, where competition for land, water, and energy destabilizes ecosystems, strains international relations, and leaves the most vulnerable populations at risk.
Ultimately, competition fosters division, not progress. It reinforces the illusion that success must come at someone else’s expense, a zero-sum game that leaves humanity trapped in unsustainable patterns. If we are to create relationships and systems that truly serve us, we must shift from competition to cooperation, recognizing that our survival and flourishing depend on working together. By dismantling the structures that perpetuate competition, we can cultivate relationships that prioritize harmony, balance, and shared prosperity.
Click here to read the next article in the series - Fear: The Cornerstone of Control