The core spirit of capitalism: competition

The core spirit of capitalism can be summed up in two words: competition.

Competition drives every country to undergo technological revolutions. Technological revolutions, in turn, lead to significant improvements in production efficiency. With substantial gains in production efficiency, a price advantage is gained. This price advantage manifests as direct product competitiveness: cheaper goods will eliminate all companies that lose their competitive edge.

In capitalism, as competition reaches its extreme, we will eventually reach a society completely replaced by machines that perform human labor. In other words, humans will ultimately become unemployed. If the machine is controlled by private owners, humanity loses its value of existence. Because without participating in labor, under the rules of capitalism, why should there be a wage? Without wages, how can one afford to buy things? Without money to buy things, how can one survive?

According to capitalist ethics, the capitalists who control this all-powerful machine have the right to eliminate all other human beings. Because those who fail in competition are not worthy of survival. Capitalism believes that free competition is the fairest, and competition brings wealth, which leads to paradise. In reality, however, from a long-term perspective, the competition of capitalism ultimately leads to a disheartening social landscape: an all-powerful machine mocking all the hungry human beings.

Is capitalism a mental illness? Humans tend to only accept the victories that competition brings, but not the failures and misfortunes that it also brings. This obsession with competition, this fervor for victory, and this resistance to failure is indeed the root cause of various forms of madness and alienation deep within the human spirit.

The future China aims to end not just all these misfortunes, but this very mental illness itself. This is the true meaning of civilization.