Collaboration vs. Competition

Competition is easier to understand and run, while cooperation is more complex and fragile. Cooperation is difficult to establish but easy to destroy; it is a form of harmonious relationships which people and the government need to comprehend. Unfortunately, business and education systems continue to encourage competition, almost ignoring the power of collaboration and maintaining the cherished belief that competition is the way to success. However, cooperative businesses have higher incomes, cooperative students have higher grades, and hiring managers, who are able to work together, have fewer vacant jobs. Scientists, who consider themselves cooperative, have more published papers than their competitive colleagues. It is not surprising that cooperation enhances creativity. This book report aims to discuss whether competition described in The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins is a better form of governance than collaboration depicted in Ecotopia by Ernest Callenbach.

Collaboration, in comparison with competition, is a better form of governance. This conclusion can be made after reading Ecotopia and The Hunger Games, which are utopia and dystopia respectively. These novels demonstrate completely opposite forms of governance. The ruthless dictatorship of Panem and its capital city Capitol in The Hunger Games is based on merciless and cold-blooded competition, Forcing children to kill one another this is the Capitols way of reminding how totally people are at their mercy. Such type of governance leads to the inevitable collapse in the future as people cannot compete to death and tolerate it forever. In contrast, in his book Ecotopia, Ernest Callenbach writes about the utopian community in which it is possible to jointly own and use the land as well as production, grow healthy food, work, and take common decisions. All this system works well because of collaboration, not competition. Cooperation in Ecotopia means reaching a fair agreement, choosing a suitable legal form for the joint ownership of the land, doing Collaboration vs. Competition together in the community, and learning how to properly manage community facilities.

Unlike Ecotopia, The Hunger Games shows competition, violence, and loneliness that are represented as possible rules of existence in the future. It depicts the cruel world in which the fittest survive. Such world cannot bring happiness to people. Teenagers are forced to participate in the competitions that lead to death. The main rule of these Hunger Games is that participants have to kill each other as there can be only one winner. The Hunger Games appear to be a special tool used for manipulating peoples consciousness. Cooperation is not valued in this state system; the government shows that individuals attempts to violate the rules will always be stopped. By forcing young people to kill each other, the President of the Capitol shows how great his power over others is. However, the main character, brave girl Katniss Everdeen, decides to go against the system and break the rules. She fights for liberation from the tyranny and violence ofSnow, the President of the Capitol. During the Hunger Games, she behaves not like all other participants because she does not wish to compete or kill anyone as she really cares about people. Violating the rules, Katniss wins a moral victory over the tyrannical power.

In summary, it is possible to say that collaboration works much better than competition. The Hunger Games conveys to readers that competition leads to such problems as hunger, poverty, and eternal struggle. In contrast, the collaboration of all people working towards the same goal, shown in Ecotopia, results in learning how to make fair decisions together with the whole community, speak sincerely, and not escape emerging conflicts but resolve them. If competition reveals evil inside humans, collaboration evokes the best in them. In the world where competition occupies a significant place, most people yearn for more meaningful and better lives in which there is a place for warmth, kindness, unity, and cooperation. All individuals should always collaborate with each other and share resources instead of fighting for them.