issue2 [sweetbox小组第四次作业]by sara

sara0522UID: 2336981

TOPIC: ISSUE2 - "Competition is ultimately more beneficial than detrimental to society."
WORDS: 684       TIME: 2hr          DATE: 2007-6-10 上午 12:53:53

The speaker claims that competition is ultimately more beneficial than detrimental to society. I tend to agree with his/her claim for that competition really exerts positive effects on people's lives and on the society as a whole. And compared with the disadvantages it has brought, there are more advantages. To better illustrate my prospective, I would like to analyze in the passage presented below.

Firstly, competition indeed brings lots of good results in nearly every aspect of our society: economy, politics, education, etc. Economically, competition between merchants can urge them to further improve their products and services and to minimize the prices of products and services in the market so as to win more and more customers. Who is the biggest winner of the competition? The customers are, of course. Due to the competition, we customers can buy the best products at the lowest cost. Politically, politicians often try to win more and more votes, in achieving that goal, they always try to do their best and promise to be better qualified than the other candidates. They usually promise higher medicare standard and better education condition for our citizens. Who is the biggest winner of the competition? The citizens are, certainly. Thanks to the competition between those candidates, we can live in a real democracy. When it comes to education, it brings even more benefits. Children work even harder so as to keep up with their classmates. They grow more intellectually competent through competition. Since children are future of a country, we can predict that our nation will be more glorious with those clever and enterprising kids.

Yet, if we place too much emphasis on competition, some problems will arise. Some people will utilize some unreasonable and even illegal measures to make profits in competition. For example, merchants add some toxic material matter into their products to make them look better and more attractive than their competitors' products. And also, the promises made by politician may just be beautiful lies to win over more votes. Worse still, the over competition in school may create too much peer pressure and even some psychological problems among students.

So, we must prevent over-competition and illegal competition and create a sound and healthy environment for competition. Above all, we should know why people need competition. It is the demand and need of people and our society to improve so as to live and thrive. Given the limited resources, each of us has to give full play to our abilities to compete with others, so as to win more resources. In a word, competition is indispensable. So, if we can find a better way to compete with others, we may achieve an all-win result. We human beings are social animals, we live, work in a community and that is why we must know how to coexist with others. Collaboration will be the best answer. Some merchants ally to exchange experience with others and also introduce some customers to other merchants. When a politician of a party is elected, the senators of the other party will supervise and oversee his behaviors and actions. Students help each other and develop in an all-round way through teamwork. So, we know that competition will result in two consequences in two different directions. One is over-competition which features illegal and unreasonable competition. The other is competition through cooperation. The former will create vicious circle while the latter will benefit all of us.

We should always keep in mind one point that what the purpose of competition is. One man's gain is not necessary the other man's loss. Only when all of us get something, the game is a good one. Competition is neutral. Competition makes the world prosperous and flourishing, makes individuals compromising and aggressive. Whether competition is positive or negative depends on the actions people take to compete with others.
    In sum, competition is more of a positive factor than a negative one to our society. We already get plenty of benefits from competition, and if we can handle it in a better way, we are sure to get even more from it.