[Market Economy Guide] What Is Competition?

The dodo gave up the ability to fly because it had no competition for food

When mice and pigs were introduced, it could not withstand the competition and went extinct

Checkpoint

Competition, paradoxically, gives rise to cooperation and improves human well-being. A free environment is necessary for free competition.

In Lewis Carroll’s novel *Alice in Wonderland*, there appears a bird with a comical appearance. With its tough beak and sturdy legs but wings so small as to look almost pathetic, as if they were merely ornaments lightly perched on its rounded body, this bird is called the dodo. Today, the dodo can be seen only in novels or films, but it was once a real animal that lived on Earth.

Why did the dodo go extinct?

Originally, the dodo was a bird native to Mauritius, an island in the Indian Ocean. The dodo, which lived only on Mauritius in the entire world, became known to people in 1507, when Portuguese sailors first set foot on the island.

Mauritius was a paradise for birds. No mammals lived there, and thanks to that, a wide variety of birds could reproduce freely without the threat of natural predators. The island’s abundant natural environment allowed the dodo to find food easily without having to compete with one another for prey. The fierce law of nature—survival of the fittest, the need to compete constantly and strive to grow stronger in order to survive—was an exception on Mauritius alone. And the result was degeneration.

The fruit of the dodo tree, the dodo’s food, ripened naturally and fell to the ground, so the dodo did not need to climb to get it. Simply picking up the fallen fruit was enough to fill its belly. Its wings, having become useless, gradually grew smaller, and eventually the dodo became a flightless bird.

New towns in the Seoul metropolitan area, built from 1989 due to Seoul’s housing shortage... first-generation new towns: Bundang, Ilsan, Pyeongchon, Jungdong, and Sanbon

After Portuguese sailors began docking on Mauritius, the situation changed completely. Unable to fly, the dodo became an easy hunting target for them. It was placed on the dinner table in place of turkey, and its blue feathers became ornaments for aristocratic women’s hats.

An even greater tragedy then befell the dodo. The Dutch brought mice, pigs, and monkeys to Mauritius. The dodo had the habit of building its nest on the ground and laying eggs there, and those eggs became the target of mice, pigs, and monkeys. These animals raided dodo nests indiscriminately and ate the eggs. In the end, the dodo, which had once thrived on Mauritius, disappeared in just over 100 years, with the last one dying in 1681.

The reason the dodo suffered the most fatal blow of any species on Mauritius was that it was a bird whose flying ability had degenerated. Because it had lived comfortably in abundance and ease, it had lost even the minimum means of protecting itself and preserving its species—namely, the ability to fly. That is why it was driven to extinction so quickly by the intrusion of humans and other introduced species.

Would we be happier without competition?

Was the tragedy of the dodo’s inevitable extinction unique to Mauritius alone? No. The same is true of human society. If we, like the dodo, do not compete with one another or make efforts to improve, humanity too may no longer achieve creative development and prosperity and may instead fall into the abyss of decline.

In his book *Rush*, economist Todd Buchholz made a sharp observation: “To survive the merciless life of this earth and competition with predators, humans had to cooperate with one another. In the end, competition gave rise to cooperation. Competition is not a shackle dragging humanity into a swamp of misery, but the foundation that enables us to survive.”

This means that people competing and striving with one another to gain wealth and success is neither futile nor excessive greed. On the contrary, it is a natural part of human nature and can be called the driving force behind the progress humanity has achieved so far. Therefore, what is most important is an environment that guarantees the freedom to compete and strive for a better life than the one we have now. If people are deprived of the freedom to compete and make efforts, they will inevitably sink into a morass of helplessness and indolence, unable to achieve anything.

Sung-no Choi, President of the Center for Free Enterprise (CFE)

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Original title: [시장경제 길라잡이] 경쟁이란 무엇인가?

Author: Sung-no Choi

Date: 2018-10-15

Source: https://www.cfe.org/bbs/bbsDetail.php?cid=column&pn=16&idx=11147