If you live in America, you are in competition by default. Whether you are at work or in the market, in your neighborhood, in the town’s public parks or even at home, Competition is in the air! Even without being aware, you are surrounded by it. Competition is the heart throb that pumps up America and Americans. It is the center piece of American economic policies and hard wired in its social mind set.
It manifests in your everyday life. At work it’s called scrambling to get to the next echelon by getting the best performance rating. In the market, it means elbowing out the crowd to get the best goods at the least cost while supplies last, and in the neighborhood, it is vying for the biggest and the nicest house, with landscape that could go in the pages of the House and Garden magazine. On balmy Saturday afternoons, you can see it in your town’s public park where Junior is being goaded by parents and the coach to be a pro. While at home, you are competing to get attention away from that addictive gadget, the ubiquitous cell phone, so that the family can claim some shared time instead of seeing you rush to respond to the office e-mail!
Hyper Competition is the American Way
I am constantly struck by the irony that even in this land of plenty of resources, we have a penchant for competing for everything, everywhere. Rarely do Americans face shortages in things that make life easy and pleasurable. Yet, we are so stressed and harried! Why?
The temperamental anthropologist in me likes to peek into cultures to see why people behave in a certain way. I like to find the pieces to the puzzle that answer this question. The first place I look for is the language; the proverbs, the axioms in the everyday usage because the ethos of a nation or an era is hidden behind words. Hidden therein lies the heart of a culture that perpetuates its life. Here are a few illustrative expressions:
“Winning is not everything, it’s the only thing.”
“You win some, you lose some”
“Anything you can do, I can do better”
“Winner takes it all”
My quick read on American culture would tell me right away that Americans are fiercely competitive. They are risk takers who nurture a “Can do” attitude and aspire to be number one in everything they do. This would immediately tell me why Americans are chronically stressed out and harried despite the remarkable abundance surrounding them. After all, America is still considered the richest and politically the most powerful nation in the world, which raises the second question, shouldn’t average American feel more satisfied, secure and be the happiest because of America’s prowess? They ought to, but they are not number one on the world’s happiness index. (Published every year by the United Nations)
Aside from the din of the 24/7 news cycle, with the focus on terrorism at the forefront, scaring the American public, there is another reason why Americans are leading frenetic lives, chronically struggling with work-life balance. And that reason is the ideology of Competition; so densely woven into the fabric of society that it is hard to think of any activity where ability to compete is not a requisite, except for perhaps sleeping.
Aspirational Americans and Success
Since America does not have a formal class system, with its visible signs of success as in other cultures, the only overt indicator of success is money in terms of assets, and what one can afford. Although, America does not have an overt social or caste system, it does have its elite and bourgeois defined by the wealth and ownership or lack thereof. Informally, Class in America is defined predominantly by education; not just the degrees one accumulates but whether it came from private school versus public school, ivy-league versus the state or community colleges. That determines, if one enters the working world through the trenches, or as a professional, or welcomed in the ranks of first level manager in the executive cadre.
What differentiates America from France, India, China and many other nations is that in America mobility across the social class is possible and societally acceptable. Since this is the most fundamental difference between America and the rest of the world, the only way to rise above your station in America is through competition and self-reliance.
American literature is replete with Horatio Alger stories of an earlier century to the more modern success stories. Whereas, the earlier stories were about poor youths rising up to the middle class through hard work, grit and sheer determination; the modern ones revolve around legendary investors, inventors and entrepreneurs with their ingenuity, hard work, hard-nosed decisions and an ability to compete successfully.
Growth is a yardstick without end, which has resulted in robust surge in merger and acquisition activities.
Competition is ingrained in Economic Policies
In the pre-1980s era, competition was the centerpiece of American life and there was still a spirit of fair competition. Consumerism was the preferred vehicle for growth and influenced the economic behavior of the population. The concept of “Bigger and better” was as applicable to automobiles and houses as to the manufacturing facilities, offices and trade hubs. However, monopolies and oligopolies were discouraged by the Federal Trade Commission, a governing body that presided over the trade, so that a competitive and free market could flourish with fair trade practices that would benefit the society. The American Main Street was thriving, as well as the Wall Street because the whole point of competition at the core of economic policy, was to promote entrepreneurism, create quality goods and services while empowering consumers with wider choices of goods in the marketplace at affordable prices. Quality was the hallmark of American manufactured goods and won the trust of consumers not just in America but worldwide.
FTC, Capitalism and Competition
True to the principle of Democracy, the Government did not control prices or production quotas, instead they established the Federal Trade Commission to oversee compliance to the fair trade laws and self-regulation by industries. The federal government in partnership with states, actively supported American business through investment in building infrastructures that would facilitate interstate trade. Capitalism existed to empower American businesses to optimize profits, while serving the public with a wider choice and an array of prices to fit the pocketbooks of all consumers. Businesses benefitted their investors, generally without investors’ interference, unless the business was failing. Competition was the idea that ensured that the markets be served by the best producers of goods and services.
For the American businesses growth was the first priority, and maximizing investors’ value was an important byproduct of planning with long term views and sustainability. There was a tacit understanding between the capitalists and investors, that a long term holding of stocks was necessary for the survival and growth of business. People held on to their stocks and bonds long term and lived with the cyclical ups and downs, trusting that in the long run they would benefit. Only a prolonged downward slope in income and profits would cause the selloff. Their portfolio was reflective of the attitude, “You win some, you lose some” but on an average they came out ahead. Competition in those times was not a zero sum game.
A Paradigm Shift in How We Compete
However, a paradigm shift has occurred over the last two decades because now, the concept of “All or nothing” has taken hold. Much of today’s business activities focus on aggressive pursuit to corner the market share, which ultimately reflects in high stress, high productivity environment in the work place, affecting both; the employers and the employees alike.
In the early 1980s, a triad of computerization, access to better information and fierce competition in the financial services resulted in greater participation of public at large in the stock market. And during late 1990s, the proliferation of personal computers, internet and other sophisticated communications technologies have given rise to activism among investors. Trading has become a fast and furious activity. “Greed is good” has made greed culturally acceptable. Now, the investors want to see their profits go up on quarterly basis, (If not on daily basis, by the individual day traders) and so the rules are changing fast, as are the focus and practices on the Wall Street, thereby challenging the basic tenets of Capitalism of earlier times.
Planning now is opportunistic and Strategies are short term. Rapidly measurable results of a company’s performance can sink or boost a business. Growth is a yardstick without end, which has resulted in robust surge in merger and acquisition activities. This often results in layoffs and reorganization, adding the stress on employee morale.
The Vulnerability of Americans
Which brings us to why the Americans are so stressed and so competitive. Most of the working people’s lives are affected by these quarterly results (including the executives’ lives too). From being considered “human capital” and talents to be nurtured and prized, employees have become disposable commodities. Finance departments of the companies are continually evaluating whose job can be eliminated so as to cut costs and maximize the profit. “Faster, Better, Cheaper” has taken over the quality paradigm. The new slogan has replaced the business paradigm from “Quality is number one” to “Progress, not perfection”.
The push for productivity improvements with fewer available resources has edged the employed people to the limit. Work-life balance is becoming a fantasy. Add to that the fear of being replaced by a younger digitally savvy generation that can handle the latest and greatest technology or by robots and machines with artificial intelligence! It is not surprising that employees feel that the security of having a job with a good pension, decent benefits and growing within the company are long dead. People feel vulnerable. The current corporate and the public policies are yanking away the safety nets like pensions and healthcare even as the medical science keeps extending human life span to 90 years and beyond. Additionally, there is a looming threat of Artificial Intelligence potentially threatening the livelihoods, making for an uneasy scenario for future.
The creed of maximization of profits has also flattened the organization pyramid, so the competition is intense and unrelenting because the only bright spots are in a corporation are the C- suites, where compensation is so out of proportion in relation to the rest of the employees’ compensation that even being fired might seem a blessing at that level because the severance check could be equal to the annual budget of a small town!
Competition now is cut throat, the kind you see in the wild! We are back to the survival of the fittest, and therefore everyone has to be hardwired and attuned to competition, whether it is to get into a good college, for a good career path or to get a sweet spot on the career ladder.
Even the entrepreneurial path is now besieged with venture capitalists who want to see quick results. The mom and pop shops that used to be a way to survive independently have been decimated by mega-stores and e-commerce. Small businesses now fear the guiding principle of big businesses who have embraced “Disruption” as their modus operandi. Even well established businesses in certain industries have gone through upheaval because of online technology. The change are coming at a warped speed and neither the governments nor the private sector has caught up! The new regulations are in a flux because the American politics itself is changing in a fundamental ways. So the whole economic landscape has become murky and the personal lives of Americans also have become unpredictable.
Like Descartes, at this point all I can say is that, “I think, therefore I am” but I am questioning, what is the real purpose of our life? Where do we fit in between Reality and Virtual Reality?