After the fall of the Roman empire, China became the unquestioned leader in economic and military might. In the 1400s, however, just before Columbus sailed across the Atlantic, the emperor ordered their fleet – about 3,500 oceangoing naval ships – burned. The ‘treasure fleet’ was too powerful and the emperor feared usurpation. Prior to that, they had likely colonized Madagascar and there’s even some evidence that they may have landed in South America. It was not until the 19th century that the West finally surpassed China economically. This happened because China stagnated as Europe and the US grew. Why? China, after it united, was isolated by mountains, desert, and ocean. Europe, however, was filled with nations protected by nothing but their own military might, technology, and intelligence. Europe continued to be forged in the fires of competition.
If a European leader decided that technology, ships, guns, or scientific discovery was not for them, they would be killed (quite literally in some cases) by their neighbors. China, which had established itself as the world’s greatest country and collected tribute from countries flung across the Pacific until the burning of the treasure fleet, was able to isolate itself with no immediately obvious consequences. It’s competition that creates processes, technologies, and discoveries. With competition comes pain, but from that pain comes progress.
Why, you may ask, am I talking about this right now? Competition is falling out of fashion and, with that, we are losing something essential. With respect to the current pandemic, people are asking one treatment to be ramped up before it is established as effective (Trump is calling for chloroquine treatments even as they cause heart failure and brain damage). The beauty of competition is that we have enormous sums of money being poured into research and thousands of brilliant scientists are fighting to become the ones that figure out an effective treatment. This is the power of our pharmaceutical and biotech industries (although sometimes they could use a bit more competition and less FDA prevention of generics, but that’s for another day). We should celebrate competition, not complain that someone is looking at different solutions to the same problem. Their solution may turn out to be correct!
Covid 19 has brought to the fore this conversation, but it’s by no means limited to treatment research. Many have deplored the ruthlessness of global capitalism as old manufacturing plants closed or asked outright whether the government would be better suited to running our real estate and healthcare industries (and more!). Things can always be improved, but when we remove competition from the equation, progress ends. We don’t have the luxury of isolation; if America steps aside, countries like China and Russia will take our place. The world will be much worse off for it.