Many claim ours is a new era of the so-called ‘strongman’, where zero-sum, realist, competitive politics and culture rules the day. But philosopher of science Manuel Delaflor argues this will be the final act of the worldview based on competition, survival of the fittest, and ‘might is right’. Through examples stretching from biology to game theory, Delaflor argues that cooperation, not competition, is the optimal strategy to adopt throughout our lives and societies.
For millennia, our dominant narrative has cast human progress as an arena of winners and losers, a relentless struggle where only the victorious should stand tall. History books lionize conquerors, empires, the victors. This drama has shaped how we imagine success: survival of the fittest, richest, strongest, a cultural mythology so pervasive that we rarely question its foundations or validity. We've learned that excelling means surpassing others. Children are pushed into competitive games, rewarded for outpacing others. Academic honours reserved for the top percentile, athletic competitions that crown champions while forgetting the rest. These structures shape not just behaviour but identity itself, conditioning children to view life as a zero-sum game.
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Neo-Darwinist interpretations of evolution emphasize a brutal contest of "survival of the fittest", and from the shadows of history we see this everywhere. Surprisingly, once we dig deep into it, turns out this storyline is fundamentally flawed.
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How did we arrive here? Is all of it a natural truth that highlights a necessary aspect of our humanity? What if it is based on a specific interpretation of nature rather than reality? Neo-Darwinist interpretations of evolution emphasize a brutal contest of "survival of the fittest", and from the shadows of history we see this everywhere. Surprisingly, once we dig deep into it, turns out this storyline is fundamentally flawed. Peter Kropotkin was one of the first to challenge this narrative, documenting how animals survive through cooperation as much as through competition. Mutual aid, he observed, is just as much a part of our evolutionary history as the Darwinian struggle. Modern science vindicates this view with mounting evidence. And if we pause and think, cooperation reveals itself not as some starry-eyed idealism whispered by dreamers, but as evolution's strategy for survival across billions of years. Nature's most spectacular achievements aren't solo performances but symphonies of collaboration. Biologists have documented life's greatest leaps forward, breathtaking transitions where formerly independent entities surrendered their isolation to create something greater. From solitary cells that joined to form the first complex organisms, to early humans who discovered that collective hunting and shared shelter meant the difference between flourishing and extinction. After half a century dissecting ant empires, E.O. Wilson condensed the lesson to a single maxim: “Selfishness beats altruism within groups; altruistic groups beat selfish groups.” Evolution’s jackpots, he argued, go to collectives that weaponize altruism, not to lone predators gnashing their teeth at the edges.
But altruism is such a bad word, isn’t it. One that is thrown to show that you are weak… or at least that is what some want us to believe. Nature itself delivers a brutal verdict on the topic. Across two decades in the Kalahari, Tim Clutton‑Brock watched meerkat clans ride out scorching droughts that wiped out smaller rivals. Groups with plenty of non‑breeding helpers fed pups and pregnant females even when rain vanished; when helper numbers fell below a critical threshold, whole groups disappeared from his study area. The take‑home is simple: in harsh times, cooperation, not solitary dominance, is the surest hedge against extinction. Anthropologist Margaret Mead noted a healed femur bone was the first sign of civilization, it meant someone cared for the injured until they recovered, a profound act of cooperation rather than abandonment of the weak. This is both seductively beautiful and profoundly powerful. Imagine for a moment the enormous repercussions of it. Significant resources were needed to sustain a human life with assistance from others. And they did it.
Psychology offers further striking evidence that our competitive framework is not only outdated, but remarkably inefficient. The classic Robbers Cave experiment demonstrated how arbitrarily divided boys at summer camp transformed into bitter enemies when competing for trophies, yet when forced to cooperate on shared goals like restoring the camp's water supply, hostility melted away. I dare to say that much of the friction in our polarized societies stems not from irreconcilable differences but from the competitive structures we have learned to inhabit. Repeatedly, hard data show that competition often sacrifices efficiency and well-being for a narrow definition of success. When individuals fixate on beating others, they waste resources, duplicate efforts, and hoard knowledge and resources like demented lunatics, all without any survival benefits. Psychological research led by John Tauer and Judith Harackiewicz had college hoop‑shooters fire hundreds of free‑throws. Pure rivalry and pure teamwork produced similar scores, but spirits only soared when teammates cooperated inside a wider contest, duelling another squad. That mixed format drove intrinsic‑motivation scores up by a full standard deviation, proof that we train harder for the team beside us than for the rival in front. Isn’t that powerful? Silicon Valley folklore claims cutthroat competition drives invention, but again, evidence suggests otherwise. Open research, knowledge sharing, and strategic alliances accelerate breakthroughs far more effectively than siloed rivalry. Teams that collaborate create more novel solutions than those jealously guarding information. The Internet emerged from open cooperation among scientists, not from “wanting to make money.”
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The bitter irony stings: our cherished cutthroat instinct, is not merely morally bankrupt but factually stupid.
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Game theory delivers another rebuke to competition's inevitability. In Robert Axelrod's famous tournaments, computer programs played the Prisoner's Dilemma hundreds of times. Contrary to the wet dreams of libertarians, the winner wasn't the most aggressively competitive strategy, but Tit-for-Tat, a cooperative algorithm built on reciprocity and trust. Cooperation proved to be the most solid strategy; it outperforms aggressive competition every single time. These results rip the mask off humanity’s collective delusion, the gut-deep belief that betrayal is the safest path. So why is that while soulless algorithms instantly grasp cooperation's power, humans remain trapped in their self-made paranoid fantasies, clinging to strategies that even cold mathematics has demolished? The bitter irony stings: our cherished cutthroat instinct, is not merely morally bankrupt but factually stupid. We strut about congratulating ourselves on our strategic brilliance while behaving exactly like frightened apes, too terrified to recognize that our greatest strength has always been in the connections between us, not the frantically hoarded pile of food. From a philosophical perspective, Simone Weil offers us profound insight into this cooperative imperative through her concept of 'attention' - a radical form of receptivity to others that transcends self-interest. For Weil, authentic attention means suspending our ego to truly see another being in their fullness. Weil's understanding of vulnerability as a human condition suggests that our greatest strength lies not in isolated triumph but in our capacity for genuine connection.
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This isn't idealism but pragmatic facts supported by hard evidence.
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All the world's a stage, and we now find ourselves at a climax in the human story. The weight of evidence from different fields converges on a revelation both surprising and profound: cooperation is a far more intelligent and beneficial paradigm for progress than competition. In every measurable dimension, from psychological well-being to resource efficiency to innovation to long-term sustainability, cooperation produces superior outcomes. This isn't idealism but pragmatic facts supported by hard evidence. The competitive framework we inherited is not a law of nature; it's a choice. Even those who champion "self-interest" belie their own philosophy in practice. The same billionaires who preach rugged individualism eagerly accept bailouts, tax incentives, and socialized infrastructure. Ayn Rand, the high priestess of selfishness, collected Social Security benefits. The irony is both brilliant and exquisite: the most ardent champions of competitive self-interest invariably depend on complex cooperative systems they refuse to acknowledge… Revealing that even at the pinnacle of supposed “individualist success,” cooperation remains the foundation.
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We don't need to prove competition metaphysically "wrong"; we simply need to assess its results. When a model consistently yields suboptimal or even destructive results, clinging to it becomes an imposed dogma, a religion that demands sacrifices without delivering miracles.
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Why, then, do we cling so fiercely to the competitive model, even as evidence mounts against its effectiveness? Partly because competition is familiar, its short-term rewards tangible, its narratives compelling. But what served our ancestors scrambling for scarce resources is ill-suited for a globally connected civilization with unprecedented abundance and existential shared risks. Here, a framework called Model Dependent Ontology offers crucial insight. This approach suggests we abandon the futile hunt for absolute "truth,” that shimmering mirage that has led civilizations into so many deserts and instead recognize that all our beliefs are simply models, tools we use to navigate the world. The value of any model lies in its power to generate beneficial outcomes, accurate predictions, and effective control within specific contexts. We don't need to prove competition metaphysically "wrong"; we simply need to assess its results. When a model consistently yields suboptimal or even destructive results, clinging to it becomes an imposed dogma, a religion that demands sacrifices without delivering miracles.
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Imagine reframing society not as a battle of each against all, but as a collective endeavour, more orchestra than battle. In an orchestra, individuals don't compete to drown each other out; they coordinate to create something amazing.
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Glimmers of a new cooperative reality are already emerging, not as distant utopian dreams but as functioning systems outperforming their competitive counterparts. The Human Genome Project finished two years ahead of schedule due to nightly public data releases. The development of COVID-19 vaccines shattered previous timelines through unprecedented scientific collaboration. The Mondragon Corporation in Spain, the world's largest worker cooperative, has demonstrated for decades that enterprises can succeed through inclusive decision-making rather than cutthroat hierarchy, consistently outperforming traditional corporations in both productivity and worker satisfaction. Wikipedia, created through volunteer cooperation, outcompeted commercial encyclopaedias built on the profit motive. Even Arnold Schwarzenegger, often hailed as a hero of individual achievement, publicly emphasizes the networks of support that enabled his success, acknowledging that “self-made” narratives are just silly attempts at grandiose fairytales. These aren't naive utopias; they're working models here and now, laboratories of a cooperation-centred future already outcompeting their alternatives. The whole movement of open-source software is based on the premise that anyone skilled enough can add to the code. Imagine reframing society not as a battle of each against all, but as a collective endeavour, more orchestra than battle. In an orchestra, individuals don't compete to drown each other out; they coordinate to create something amazing.
Picture a child born today growing up in a society that prizes collaboration. In school, she learns through projects that emphasize each student's strengths and differences rather than cutthroat grading curves. In her community, cooperatives ensure everyone has food, healthcare, and clean energy because pooling resources simply makes more sense than hoarding. She watches leaders work as partners tackling crises side by side. By adulthood, hoarding knowledge or sabotaging others feels as primitive as burning witches. Nobel Prize-winning economist Elinor Ostrom demonstrated through decades of research that cooperative governance systems consistently outperform both private competition and centralized control. The key to doing well lies in eliciting their cooperation. Less conquest, more courtship. By reframing our goal from individuals’ victory to mutual victory, we can transform zero-sum games into positive-sum collaborations, alchemizing conflict into creation. As envisioned in Star Trek, "The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity."
We stand at a dramatic crossroads, the tension high, the outcome uncertain. But the next scene is ours to write. We can continue down the path of rivalry, risking collapse under its inefficiencies, or seize this chance to unite in common cause. The latter path isn't altruistic; it's profoundly logical, supported by the full arc of human understanding and the weight of empirical evidence across domains. As the house lights dim on the age of competition, a new spotlight illuminates a stage where cooperation takes the leading role in human affairs. The audience of future generations watches, hoping for a much-needed evolution where humanity stands together, taking a collective bow for having the wisdom to work as one. The final act of competition is ending; the age of cooperation awaits its opening line. Let's step forward and speak it, together.
5th May 2025
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