Recursive Utility: On Learning to Learn and the Emergence of Mercenary Capitalism

Agreed, on learning to learn. Recursive utility.

On the (later) observations of the benefits to that learning process of competitive socioeconomic systems, as mentioned, I partially agree. A degree of competition is healthy but, invoking a general principle of recursive utility again, when competitive adversarialism becomes a goal and an end in itself – as it most certainly does – mercenary corporate behaviour percolates to ascendance; the system self-selects for competitive advantage over and above the utility of that advantage.