"His fifth innovation, then, on the very eve of the Industrial Revolution, was to develop the elements of a critique of capitalism ... by identifying property and the competition to acquire it as the primary cause of alienation. This was the thought-deposit Marx and others were to mine ruthlessly, together with Rousseau's related idea of cultural evolution." - Paul Johnson, 'Intellectuals'
So much of our life experience is competition. Competition for resources. Competition for prominence. Competition for superiority, be it moral or physical.
Yet the logic of competition is pure alienation, as Rousseau describes. The more you try to get ahead of others the more you leave them behind. The better you are at getting ahead, the further from others you become.
Competition - on its own internal logic - is condemned to destroy itself. It is like the snake eating its own tail.
When other men become competitors they cease to be brothers. The natural product is isolation. In a word, alienation. And alienation from fellow people always produces psychological sickness.
The Christian answer is that a comparison with God is enough to end all desire for comparison with others. God, as a competitor, is undefeatable. He is so vastly superior to us on every single count. Comparison with God should lead to grateful acceptance of His grace.
Grace, I have discovered, is the very opposite of psychological sickness.
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