Globalization and ubuntu by Mogobe B. Ramose from the African Philosophy Reader edited by P.H. Coetzee and A.P.J. Roux The Metaphysics of Competition Competition, competitiveness is the dogma of economic globalization. According to this dogma even the human right to life - human dignity - must be subordinated and reduced to totalizing drive to make profit without limits. Profit-making then becomes irrational and unethical precisely because it loses its character as a means to rational and ethical ends. This logic and dynamism of contemporary economic globalization is in fact contrary to the original meaning of competition. Etymologically, competition means the common pursuit of a common goal: it means, - cum petere - to seek together the best solution to the right problem, in the right place and at the right time. It also means that the selection of the best is not reduced to the unique. Seen from the perspective of the original meaning of competition, the dogma of contemporary economic globalization is oriented towards the exclusion of the other in this case especially the other human being. This orientation towards the exclusion of the other is fundamentally and practically a negation of exteriority. To negate the the exteriority of the other is ontologically tantamount to denying their existence: it is equal to killing them. On this reasoning, the logic of the contemporary dogma of competition proceeds from the metaphysical premise of thou shalt kill another human being in order to survive. The problem with this metaphysical premise is that it accepts a restricted understanding of survival. The restriction lies in the fact that it upholds the thesis that individual survival comes first. Everything, including killing another human being, is permitted provided it is done in the name of individual survival. The problem here is the following. The imperative of individual survival is meaningless unless it accepts a prior premise, namely, that whatever seeks its own survival must exist first. Acceptance of this premise is incomplete without the acknowledgement that whatever exists is there without the possibility and the right to grant prior consent to its existence. In other words, existence is contingent. Strictly constructed, the contingency of existence imposes upon the human being - and all that there is - the duty to refrain from killing anyone since no one has the prior, superior, nor, exclusive right to exist. No one has the prior, exclusive, and superior title deed to life. Thus from a metaphysical point-of-view, the duty to refrain from killing the other results in the condition of an existential stalemate: it is the condition in which relations cannot become dynamic since they must remain only stagnant. In the sphere of human relations, the transition from stagnation to to dynamism imposes the duty to justify the killing of a human being. At the same time, it permits the killing of non-human entities in pursuit of either individual or collective survival. pg 642
Posted on: Tue, 29 Jul 2014 19:33:12 +0000
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