Imitation Game

Conflict was driven by imitation, one of the major impulses behind human behaviour according to philosopher René Girard. This was also no less true of business.

Those who compete, as models and imitators were proof that imitation survives the collapse of external mediation.

In volatile markets, like the one we’re in the midst of, rivalries could be the catalyst of healthy change.

Competition is derived from cum and petere in Latin, to seek together. Businesses, even when directly at odds, continue to seek together.

All imitators select models whom they regard as superior.

It’s the superior achievement of the one, which motivates the imitation by the other.

This demonstrates, as René Girard has pointed out, that the models have been successful at their imitators’ expense.

It’s no coincidence that executives outside of the telecommunications field, still years later, continue to draw comparisons between Nokia and the iPhone, between what was the standard and what eventually replaced it.

The inference is always this: don’t be left behind.

Such comparisons change when the product itself means providing a service. Newer is, in this instance, not necessarily better. Not in the long run.

Trust takes time because reliability is a bulwark against the unknown.

“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker,” wrote Scottish economist Adam Smith, “that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.”

Self-preservation is, for all involved, contagious.

The label Me2 is sometimes invoked as a pejorative to brand businesses in the habit of copying direct competitors by crowding the market with too-similar offerings.

Objections can arise from a host of grievances. One of the most commonplace being the undercutting of potential spoils.

In road transport at the minute, many new players in the market, adjusting to cost-of-living inflation and taxes owing on instant asset write-offs, are tipping the scales when it comes to brokerage.

The drastic undercutting of rates are, even for well-established fleets with many years of experience, blurring the line of where profit margins begin and end.

“In economic life, imitation and innovation are not only compatible but almost inseparable,” writes Girard.

Innovation in a modern understanding means a departure from unbroken continuity.

Put another way, it is a destabilising force. Just look at how it applies to arts or politics.

The conflict of declining freight volumes and overcapacity is indeed a punitive cost of entry for interstate linehaul. One might describe it as being an ever-present long-term side effect.

But is it the novelties within them that define a market? Or rather the similarities among competitors?

Might Me2 be the rule rather than the exception for any segment moving through the final stages of maturation?

In command economies, the state picks winners and losers, leading to the prolonged demise of strategic industries.

These are the sectors of the economy indispensable to national security, economic prosperity, or technological advancement of a country.

The gold standard for some. Perhaps surprisingly, not for everyone.

That raises a question: how could failed economic policies, pursued time and again by sitting governments, continually be revived? Girard offers insight here as well.

“The urge to imitate is strong, since it opens up possibilities of bettering the competition,” Girard explains.

“But the urge not to imitate is also strong. The only thing that the ‘losers’ can deny the ‘winners’ is the homage of their imitation.”

Here the losers demonstrate independence by “systematically taking the course opposite to that of the winners,” Girard notes.

“Thus they may act in a way detrimental to their own self-interest. Their pride turns self-destructive.”

I’m yet to come across a better explanation.