I am waiting for you to show me that it was bad. Competition early on was more about survival than it was about gain. Look at the people in the past several hundred years, who came up with new and novel ideas, inventions such things as the printing press, just to pull an old one) which did not result in “competition” but rather, a means of increasing knowledge by making information more available. Or the light bulb (Edison) by a person who was famous for competing with himself - and changed the lives of multitudes. One can go on and on about inventions, many of which resulted in wealth for the individual. But there was no “competition” with others. In all of these, it was “I win, and you win”.
Your issue about people with no skill (and there are far fewer of them than you might want to posit) have always been taken care of by one means or another in history. People with even minimal skill can find jobs - just look at what Goodwill Industries, and Catholic charities have provided. There is a real difference between lack of skill, and lack of motivation. And in the 70+ years I have been around and observing, I have found way, way more of the latter. And the older I get, the more I hear from people between high school age and say, age 30, that they don’t “like” this or that job; or it is “too hard”, or they have been fired repeatedly for failure to show up and put in a day’s work. A friend of mine is head of a landscaping company, and is one of the larger landscaping companies around. 3 months ago, he was worried, as he had more work aailable than he had good workers. And no, he was not paying minimum wage; he simply could not find people who were willing to work hard. I have known him for 18 years, and met a number of his crew. Pushing a lawn mower is not rocket science; but it does mean you might break a sweat. Plenty of people are not willing to do that.
Condemned to compete with millions? Not even.
As to college graduates who don’t have a job - not sure what they were expecting when they took a major in American Studies. maybe they need to assess what they have for skill sets and consider a skilled worker position. They might have to go back to a 2 year program to learn a trade, and if their pride does not get in the way, they will eventually be earning far more than their classmates who also took that degree.
When I referred to mediocre, I was referring to the people who will not put their heart and soul into their work. They don’t care to be the best they can be; they slide by, doing the minimum or barely more, doing not much more than marking time. I have had employees who, after finishing the tasks assigned, would come and ask what else they could do. And I have had a couple who figured that any job should be slowed down sufficiently to consume the time remaining in the day. They appeared to be approximately the same intelligence-wise; one was motivated, and the other had minimal work ethic. The first one was obviously going to achieve things. The second was less than a C- grade overall.
