Two competing forces within a company: the need to compete in the market and the internal petty politics.

The need to compete in the market is the ground truth; if the company doesn't create value and successfully compete against competitors it will not survive.

It's a grueling slog, and it can be painful, but this competition is what creates value for the collective.

The internal petty politics arise, fundamentally, out of the need to not make your boss look stupid.

If you make your boss look stupid, you're way more likely to be managed out.

So you'll be enthusiastic about your boss (and your boss's boss, and onwards) plan, even if you don't think it will work.

Internal petty politics (kayfabe) will grow to take all available space.

In most companies, the kayfabe can only grow so much, because the company has to keep competing to stay alive.

But if a given company has no real competition, if they are a monopoly, then this petty internal politics and creeping bureaucracy has no counter; the organization becomes an ever more zombie-like organization, creating less and less value.

When a big monopoly doesn't innovate due to coordination costs, if they capture regulators, it makes it so the whole market also doesn't innovate.

Society does better when organizations need to compete to stay healthy and strong.