Competition is a bad thing when it squeezes out cooperative strategies with superior outcomes. This can be expected to be more frequent in a society perfuse with pro-competitive and anti-cooperative incentives. Competition is conceptually aligned with defection strategies. The fitness landscape generally has fragile optima at cooperative strategies. That said, competitive substrategies may contribute to the beneficial outcomes of a cooperative superstrategy of which they are a part.

Not all life is competition. Ecosystems in general are a complex web of cooperation. One could say that all life is cooperation with equal merit.