Competition Does Not Always Improve Product Quality

Capitalism may not be the inherently selfish and dehumanizing system that many liberals seem to regard it as [1], but conservatives still frequently tend to overstate its benefits.  They sometimes even treat capitalism as if its mere presence begins to eradicate various moral problems in a given society as the free market is allowed to work without interruption.  Likewise, they might claim that competition between firms under a capitalistic system is a direct road to product innovation.

As a few moments of thought can reveal, however, the creation of better products and services is not the only possible outcome of a scenario where two or more businesses stand as rivals.  The issue of the finite boundaries of innovation aside, there are other clear possibilities.  What if one or both firms simply use tactics like deception, blackmail, or threats of physical violence to give themselves an advantage?  What if one or both firms merely commits to its current strategies, processes, and goals with even greater firmness?

These outcomes are logically possible.  It is not as if innovation and refinement of existing processes are the inescapable, universal results of competition!  Competition might stir up the desire for product development, but it could just as easily lead to frustration that is acted upon in illicit ways, in accordance with the will of the company members involved.  There is no single guaranteed result of intentional, direct competition, just as there is no single guaranteed result of any other corporate factors.

The presence of competitors might provoke a desire for innovation within a firm's leadership, but it just as well might not.  Instead of pretending like competition is an automatic gateway to greater product excellence, capitalists need to abandon irrelevant ideas that have no inherent connection to capitalism if they wish to possess any sort of intellectual consistency and legitimacy.  The core concept of capitalism needs to be continually distinguished from the fallacious claims of philosophically inept capitalists until the two are understood by default to be distinct.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2019/10/capitalism-does-not-hinge-on-selfishness.html