"Hence the slimeball behavior observed all over this godforsaken planet."
Americans think that what is true is true for the entire planet.
The truth is that the American culture is an Anglo culture with an Enlightened twist.
Anglo culture is based on competition for the sake of competition -- exactly what you write about in your article. Not the truth, but power is the ultimate foundation.
Other cultures are not Anglo cultures. Some are based more on the truth, embracing even other truths, while others are worse than the Anglo cultures, competing till death do us part.
So, you are hitting the nail (or the face) right on, but you must also learn to look in the Anglo mirror better.
Anglo democracies are different from other West-European democracies, for instance.
Anglo democracies vote in districts so only the winner ends up representing all.
In Western Europe there are two versions that are both distinct from the Anglo democratic system.
On the one side it is pure representation (a portion of 10% of the votes would translate into a portion of 10% of the seat, hence pro-portion-al). No competition at all, because from among the twelve parties a majority must be wrought, and that requires cooperation. At the ultimate foundation we find standing upright (!) with one own's truth, and next a willingness to find compromises that work for all in that majority. Coalitions change every four years, so in the long run a large group of voters end up getting more of what they want than in Anglo democracies where particularly the elite gets more of what they want.
On the other side in Western Europe, a compromise is established between the full form of representation and the Anglo system of winner-take-all. A good example is Germany where they also vote in districts, yet right after the votes got cast and the winners of each district are known, the seats are adjusted to bring them in line (make it right!) with what all voters wanted. They would add seats for the party with 10% of the votes that did not win any district, so that party ended up having about 10% of all seats. They make it right, so the voters are empowered to their fullest.
Anglo democracies have a tendency to support war. Presidential elections, always Anglo (i.e. winner-take-all) in essence, they can lead to civil wars. And they have led to civil wars, particularly when the winner and the loser were neck-and-neck. The losing voters lost so much, no representation at all; the other guy (!) making the decisions for four years. It can be too hard to bear.
Anglo culture has been dominating the modern world for four centuries, with the more truthful nations competing out of necessity -- but never winning the race to the bottom.
All these nations are capitalist nations, but some treat the bottoms of their society a whole lot better than the Anglo cultures. Just look at the gini map of the world to see the USA the richest nation treating its poor the worst of all rich nations.
Please, remember to look in the mirror and recognize that you are not representative of the world. You are an Anglo, and any time you say the world is this or the world is that, then you are an Anglo for certain. the rest of the world would most likely not use that phrase.
Other than that, Clem, a fantastic read with good insights in human nature. Our upright position helped us conquer other animals, so we became more populous. Once we became more populous, there was competition about who could conquer the other animals, so that is how the story started. Upright to dominate the other animals, and once that was done, use that dominance against each other, particularly once human settled (and our central divine persona changed from a life-giving female goddess to an angry dominating male god).
