No matter what people might say, there is ALWAYS co-operation, even in the most competitive arenas. Finding ways to make co-operation and competition mutually supportive is key to our future.
Love this reminder that competition is not all bad. I see the balance in the competition being contained within a cooperation. In your example, the rules of the game containing the competition between teams, and the rules of the wine cooperative containing the individual wine makers. When the competition tries to contain cooperation (like in oligarchies and cartels), bad things happen...
Thanks Mark - fascinating insight into Azorean wine-growing. I note that they are low, shrub-like vines, as found in the hottest regions of Spain (La Mancha and Valdepeñas), not the classic hedges of Bordeaux or Burgundy, or the head-height vines more like you find in a greenhouse - or Rias Baizas of Galicia. As someone who has tried without great success to rebuild a dry-stone wall, those serried ranks of walls is indeed some thing quite extraordinary - the feat of building them is no doubt another example of collaboration between islanders. Small-holding, subsistence existence was probably less competitive then - the competition was really with nature to survive at all!
Love this reminder that competition is not all bad. I see the balance in the competition being contained within a cooperation. In your example, the rules of the game containing the competition between teams, and the rules of the wine cooperative containing the individual wine makers. When the competition tries to contain cooperation (like in oligarchies and cartels), bad things happen...
Thanks Mark - fascinating insight into Azorean wine-growing. I note that they are low, shrub-like vines, as found in the hottest regions of Spain (La Mancha and Valdepeñas), not the classic hedges of Bordeaux or Burgundy, or the head-height vines more like you find in a greenhouse - or Rias Baizas of Galicia. As someone who has tried without great success to rebuild a dry-stone wall, those serried ranks of walls is indeed some thing quite extraordinary - the feat of building them is no doubt another example of collaboration between islanders. Small-holding, subsistence existence was probably less competitive then - the competition was really with nature to survive at all!