There is a primal force that propels us forward, urging us to leap, to strive, to conquer—the inherent repulsion of staying where we are. We are addicted to the feel-good hormone our body releases in the process of achieving a goal—dopamine. In a free market this propulsion is directed towards wanting to provide better or cheaper products or services than competitors. Competition is the heartbeat of progress ensuring an increasingly large amount of value is delivered to consumers.

Innovation’s Propulsion

Competition is the fundamental controlling force of the market. Without competition, businesses don’t need to innovate. If there are no competitors providing a similar offering as you do or supplying satisfying substitutes, there is no reason to improve your good’s or service’s quality and decrease its price. In fact, the force compelling businesses to continue increasing an offering’s value—by increasing the quality or decreasing the price—is competition. They are forced to, because otherwise customers will spend their money elsewhere.

Human beings always want to achieve greater goals and climb the status ladder, no matter if they are living in a free market or in a communist system. However, in a communist system this propulsion is directed towards deceiving one’s fellows, as one cannot utilize it productively but only advance on the cost of others instead of cooperating peacefully.

Central talking point of critics of free market competition is that it is wasteful. Multiple companies are striving towards achieving simultaneous goals. Hence, their resources could be used more efficiently and produce less waste. Opposing this theoretically valid point, history shows clearly that free market competition is providing better goods for cheaper prices. For example, currently the market is in the process of providing better monetary units. To find the most efficient way of accomplishing a goal, you need to let market participants compete.

A Force of Nature

Nature is cruel. If you do not outcompete your gazelle peers by running faster than them, you become a lion’s lunch. Hunter-gatherer humans competed to gain resources like food and mates. Two centuries ago, Greek athletes sprinted naked and Roman charioteers thundered. Fast-forward to today: Silicon Valley titans duel with algorithms, Olympic gymnasts defy gravity, and spelling bee champions wield lexicons like swords. The stage changes, but the drama remains. Competition is deeply ingrained in humans and not a phenomenon of modern clashes like being the first to land on the moon or providing the most shareholder value.

For economics, Friedrich Hayek described how competition drives the process of price discovery, and Israel Kirzner investigated how entrepreneurs contribute to the market equilibrium by seeking ways to reap unexploited gains. He stressed how entrepreneurs seek profit in competitive markets by producing more efficiently. Providing more value costing less is the only way to convince free humans to buy your offering.

A Darwinian Fire

Picture a laboratory—a mad scientist hunched over bubbling flasks. Innovation thrives here. Why? Because competition fans the flames. Edison raced Tesla to harness electricity; Jobs and Gates jousted over personal computing. Each clash birthed breakthroughs—the light bulb, the iPhone, the internet. Without competition, we’d still be scribbling on stone tablets. Companies pivot, pivot again, and pivot once more. Blockbuster meets Netflix; Nokia meets Apple. Adapt or fade—it’s survival of the fittest. Through free competition every market participant is being assigned to that place where the services they can perform are used most beneficially for society.

Free market competition brings prices down. Just consider the technological advances of the last two decades. While twenty years ago, it was great if a hard drive had hundreds of megabytes of storage, today users can easily save terabytes of data. The price per byte of storage has fallen drastically. This is free market competition in action. Consider space travel. Just recently, SpaceX started reusing rockets and decreased prices enormously. Free enterprise means new entrepreneurs can attack the status quo. Heavy regulations hamper the opportunities for new competitors to provide better offerings cheaper and, as one consequence, create boom-and-bust cycles.

Embracing Competition

Compete, and you sharpen your blade. Athletes chase records, musicians seek virtuosity, and chefs vie for Michelin stars. Excellence blooms when rivals spar. Imagine a concert hall—the pianist’s fingers blur, the violinist’s bow sings. They push each other to crescendos, creating magic. Whether you’re coding software or baking croissants, competition whispers: “Be better.” Reap some of that dopamine by making steps towards being superior to your competitors. Do not shy away since you cannot avoid competition anyway. Your favorite sport, a job interview, and love, too, is competition.

In the marketplace, keep watch for better options costing less. The suppliers of the goods and services you are searching are constantly incentivized to be better and cheaper. If you need to buy an expensive good or service, take the time to compare and consider if you should switch your present provider. That is the way to profit from the market’s competing forces. Do not advocate sheltering specific societal groups from competition. If consumers see a higher value in the goods and services provided by a specific group, they will be ready to pay higher prices.

Harnessing Competition’s Fruits

Competition is not only the force driving you forward, it’s a fundamental control mechanism of the market. Embrace it, learn from it, and celebrate the dance. Jump into competition to feel alive and reap its personal benefits. Compare options in the market to find opportunities and reap its societal benefits. Remember how the free market directs humans’ innate drive to compete to provide better offerings cheaper. What competitive quest have you recently embraced?

Think for yourself and question everything, my fellow liberty people!