The Ideology of Competition

In November of 2022 I obtained what I had obsessed over for the most part of that year. After a sleepless night awaiting my Law School Admission Test results, I turned on my phone and frantically logged into the website. To my elation, the score was exactly what I hoped for. I was now ready to apply to the universities I believed offered the best legal education. I felt as if I had won the ultimate competition. Throughout my undergraduate studies, I had internalized the competitive nature of the law school admission process. When I permanently moved to the U.S. from Italy, where universities are open for everyone to enroll, the prospect of competing with my peers was appealing. Finally, I thought, I had found a place in which I could distinguish myself on the basis of dedication and intellect. Competition seemed to be valuable per se.

Yet, once the shallow joy of a test score faded away and acceptance offers trickled in, I began feeling hollow. Did I waste months studying for a test simply to prove that I could win the prize? Was I unreflectively chasing some abstract notion of prestige? I needed answers, or at least plausible explanations. Some came from French anthropologist René Girard, who formulated a mimetic theory of desire. The theory, in its basic form, proposes that our desires are not innate or original to us but are mimetic, meaning they are imitated or borrowed from others. We desire objects, statuses, or goals not because of their intrinsic value but because others desire them. As people imitate each other's desires, they become rivals competing for the same objects or goals. This competition can escalate, leading to conflict and violence. (https://iep.utm.edu/girard/)

The journey of an ambitious law school applicant, law student, and practicing attorney seems to fit squarely in Girard’s worldview. At first, as the world around the applicant desires a spot in the nation’s best ranked law schools, she comes to internalize the righteousness of picking one school over the other based on nebulous prestige. Once enrolled, the herd once again pushes her towards a few “elite” outcomes: a corporate firm, and a clerkship. Predictably, both the former and the latter have their own pecking order. Some law firms are more desirable because considered inherently “more prestigious”; the same applies to clerkships. After having completed these Olympic games, the newly-minted lawyer will begin jockeying for the desired promotion as a partner, vying to defeat her competitors along the way.

But what if one decides to rebel to this vicious cycle? Barack Hussein Obama sent waves of shock around Harvard Law School when he decided to pass on a federal clerkship to join a small and unknown Chicago civil rights firm. The students at Harvard thought that Obama, who had been president of the Law Review, was making a “catastrophic mistake.” A partner at Sidley Austin simply called him “crazy.” (Garrow, David J. 2017. Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama.) It would be far too easy to dismiss those students and law firm partners as blatantly misguided given Obama’s later success. However, something more sinister and ominous happens when young students are talked out of their dreams to follow a pre-established track. Had Barack Obama been more sensitive to social cues, the country might still be waiting for its first African-American President.

In the context of a group of students and ambitious professionals, competition can be defined as a zero-sum contest where participants, homogeneous in skill and potential, engage in a rivalry for limited coveted positions. I believe that in certain sectors of the U.S. economy, i.e. white-collar jobs and education, competition functions as an ideology. First, it has a dogmatic dimension, it is assumed as good practice and almost never questioned. Second, it is propagandized, it is encouraged without acknowledging its complexity and nuances. Third, it is mythologized. Myths and narratives around winners of academic and professional competitions are constantly created to bolster its legitimacy and coherence. Finally, competition creates exclusivity, it promotes a sense of superiority and exclusiveness for those that compete, often casting shame on those that do not. The most troubling aspect is that the more one competes, the more vicious the competition becomes. For instance, one can easily see how gaining admission into law school is not nearly as fiercely competitive as obtaining a federal clerkship. The same comparison can be made between a clerkship and an appointment to a high government position. The latter involves a vast more profound degree of viciousness, as the latest Supreme Court confirmation hearings have demonstrated. Simply put, one who enters a certain line of work can expect to compete with her colleagues in perpetuity and with escalating degree.

Abandoning these competitive dynamics is incredibly hard, because students and professionals end up defining their identities in terms of these standard badges of success. For some, however, the opportunity costs of remaining within this system are enormous. During my time at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. I had the pleasure of meeting a former appellate litigator. He had achieved substantial financial success in his life, and was the embodiment of the prestige career ladder. A Yale Law School graduate, a Supreme Court clerk, a partner at a top D.C. firm. “All my life” he told me “I simply did the next competitive thing. Three years ago, I realized I did not even like practicing law.” To me this sounded particularly disturbing. Here you had an astoundingly intelligent man, who could have contributed to society in many different ways. Yet, he spent thirty years competing for something he did not enjoy. Yes, the money was good. But was it worth it? It is paradoxical that in this American competitive scheme, the more prestigious the academic outcome, the fewer the opportunities. Law schools should be a beacon that expands our horizons, not a gate that narrows them.