It has to be both collaboration and competition. In the science community, the more that work together, the better the results. With different groups doing the same project, competition becomes necessary to fuel the speed and quality of coming upon a conclusion. Plus humans are a social species, only with a group is anything recognized. Even solo musicians have a team behind them pushing their records, shows and etc. I think collaboration is important in the sense that without feedback from others, a work produced is one minded. Competition helps in the sense that it pushes the boundaries of the social norms. For instance Gates had Windows distributed pretty well. Jobs however, took what already existed and modified at a higher quality. (Of course its pretty subjective) but the point is competition moves humanity forward. I can’t think of a profession where people aren’t inspired by others to make their performance better.

Humans have evolved traits and strategies that encourage both competition and cooperation, both biologically and culturally. Competition and collaboration have generally been complementary strategies, I think, not necessarily at odds with one another, but at this point in our biological and cultural evolution, I believe that it might be better to focus on cooperative strategies rather than competitive ones, at least on the collective, macro level, as a species. Too much focus and dependence and gut reactionary indulgence in and on primitive competitive strategies is going to kill us all.

Competition. It is true every where else in nature.

Collaboration. Survival of the fittest doesn’t really work for humans. One moment you can be in the top and then have a backstabbing friend and guess what? You are fu*ked.
Competition help encourage the spirit but not that much. When we work together we can accomplish a lot more then when we compete against each other.

A balance of both, if that were a possibility. Like @Hibernate mentioned, competition (survival of the fittest) doesn’t work when you have people in the mix. Collaboration is a bit too idealistic too as there’s always going to be a number of people hungry for power.

Corruption is/was/has been and always will be rife in both systems you mentioned in your question and has nothing to do with the basic concepts of either, but has everything to do with power mongers and greedy bastards wanting to exploit, take advantage and cheat.

@saint is wrong. there are more examples of cooperation in nature than there is competition. Not only that, we don’t go out and kill our dinner like lions do any more. ‘Nature is cruel, but we don’t have to be.’ – Temple Grandin

It is never one or the other in any social structure. Social structures are complicated and ours is, arguably, the most complicated. We care for each other. The mark of a civilisation is how they treat their most vulnerable members. Cruelty by neglect or compassion by cooperation?

Problem is… there are soon 7 billion of us on the planet. We either cooperate or it will be chaos.

Capitalism hasn’t failed. It trips and stumbles around periodically, but that’s just part of how it works.

Both. Man thrives on competition. Man builds great things with collaboration.

We already have both, everywhere, every day. Organizations frequently compete against each other: my company competes with others to obtain contracts for the type of work that our companies do. However, my company also collaborates with our suppliers and our customers once we have those contracts.

Even within my company, individuals will often compete for open positions within the organization, and (if they lose the competition for the open position but elect to remain in the organization) they are expected to collaborate with others – and must, if they expect to keep their jobs.

This compete / collaborate is pretty universal, as far as I’ve seen. I’ve never seen a human community yet where everyone competes all the time – or one which collaborates all the time, either.

The trouble with the survival of the fittest is that there comes a time when the fittest is a degenerate descendant of a much more desirable ancestor. I believe that is what is now happening to the human race. We developed to survive in a hostile environment. Our predecessors were the toughest, meanest, most blood thirsty. Look at relative recent history. The Huns thundered across Asia and Europe and left the seed by rape throughout humanity. You could say they were successful, evolution wise. They then settled down and founded great countries and survived through collaboration instead of conquest.

Today, most places in the world are more or less civilized and we are now seeing a resurgence of conquering hordes. Drug gangs have virtually taken over Mexico, organized crime runs Russia, and corporatist are taking no prisoners in the U.S. and Europe. I submit that mankind has reached its epitome and is now on the down-slope to barbarism. Brawn is supplanting the brains that made us great. Capitalism is morally neutral if regulated. Unregulated capitalism is as bad as out of control drug gangs or crime organizations. They may be crafty, but they aren’t intelligent and progressive. Mongol hordes are a sign of competition gone horribly wrong, collaboration is the only way for a modern, progressive society to survive. With today’s capitalism, there is a looser for every gain, it is a zero sum proposition. With collaboration, everybody can gain. It is possible to progress without leaving destruction in its wake.

What @marinelife said. ^^^ Both… one can’t exist without the other to check and balance any excess.

Sometimes, collaboration tends to result in competition and vice versa.

@saint Actually, there’s a tremendous amount of cooperation in nature. It’s a very important survival strategy in all sorts of species.

BOTH….and would you kindly post your source for the fall of capitalism BS?

Both are part of our nature and both are necessary for us to survive and flourish. All of our imperfect political systems are attempts to harness both and provide the conditions for a happy, productive society.