Perhaps so.
In my experience highly competetive environments breed emotions that i find counterproductive to self growth and inner peace except insofar as to experience them, see them for what they are and move past them.
Perhaps for others this is not the case, however that is not my only problem with competiton for resources being the method of resource allocation. If we base “who gets what” on who is better on getting it, we are essentially saying that those of us who don’t excell at business deserve a lower standard of living than those that do. Put another way, those that are willing to do anything, no matter the impact on those around them, are more deserving of the necessities of life.
If capitalism is our main method of assigning value then we are assigning the most value not to those who are doing the most good, but those who are extracting the most from those around them. This not only creates a pretty terrible worldview, it creates a pretty terrible world. What wealth hasn’t been created by the sweat of another’s brow or by exploiting resources that come from a planet that is the birthright of every earthling for one’s own profit? What giant corporation (the “winning team”) doesn’t seek to externalize as many costs as possible to be paid by the losers? (Every kind of pollution, lost biodiversity, destruction of every virgin forest, the almost complete sterilization of the oceans)
That is the extreme i suppose and that doesnt mean that everyone who has a comfortable income acts that way, though certainly the very wealthy do, who as you have said also benefit from the law of increasing returns which makes the problem much worse.
It is pretty frustrating how much life seems to be wasted today pretending to kill other people in a virtual world, I havent owned a television in almost 20 years let alone a video game console so i totally get where you’re coming from. But I sort of suspect that that habit may be, like drug and alchohol addiction or any other escape mechanism, A way of dealing with a world that doesnt seem to make sense. Then again I also find it difficult to put myself in the shoes of someone who spends all their time in that way. There is certainly plenty of competition taking place there though, I’ve found myself amongst people caught in that trap before and they are definitely competitive about their video games.
You have narrowed it to the domain of business, which is the point of the article. open up much wider than that.
There is competition in every domain, including who can be the most pious.