To refute yet another lie peddled by the right-wing market fundamentalists: humanity has now spent about 200 years in a state of capitalist competition. (and not even all of humanity). However, we spent at least 99% of our history as hunter-gatherers in a tribal structure. And in tribal structures you have to co-operate to survive. Selfish idiots who try and gather all available resources (whether or not they can actually use them in their lifetime) would have been shunned by this kind of tribe. That’s been the state of affairs for 99% of the 200,000 years we have existed as a species
So that means we have spent vastly more time on this planet in a co-operative, extended family / tribal societal arrangement where the kind of competition neo-liberalists try and insist is the default state of human affairs would have gotten you shunned and left to die on the savanna.
Don’t let them try and con you into thinking that the only way you can prosper is by doing each other down: this is the heart of their anti-trade-union rhetoric by which they destroy any solidarity between working people, so that any negotiations are reduced to a solitary individual versus a large corporation, with all of the power and resources held by the company.
The default state of human society is co-operation, solidarity and mutual aid: it is the artificial entities known as corporations who have turned us against each other for their own benefit.