Mostly is - specifically around hiring and work, so it's relevant to this discussion. It's a highly competitive market for talent where small incremental differences make a big difference.

To clarify, your point is about the nature of competition. Capitalism is but one type of competition. Hiring for astronauts is certainly a competition for resources, but since it is not a flow of transformable resources among a network of profit seeking nodes, it ain't a market.

Spot on. Perhaps I should have clarified that it's a metaphor in the original post.

That is not capitalism. Socialism could have athletic competitions and rigorous selection for public sector programs as well. That is not inconsistent with public ownership of resources.

To demonstrate something about capitalism, one should use an example from capitalism, not try to contort something from government into capitalism.

Isn't this essentially a winner-take-all situation, though?

Capitalism tends towards winner-take-all systems, but not all winner-take-all systems are capitalistic. I find the example fitting.

Capitalism actual doesn't veer toward winner take all. Government does, elections do, etc. Capitalism leads to people voting with dollars so instead of a red or green car being given a vote, the red car may be cheaper if lots of people want it.

Yeah, that's why there is AMD and Intel, NVIDIA and AMD, Apple and Microsoft, Google and Facebook.

> the red car may be cheaper if lots of people want it.

Also see the pharma industry, right? The US government isn't all governments either, in some countries parties actually rule together, compromise and whatnot. And considering getting money out of elections isn't even attempted in earnest, the question really is what is the tail and what is the dog here.

The US government rules as a big power structure. Now Red happens to be on the pinnacle of that, but that doesn't mean Blue has no say in what happens.

It just means things are a lot more "costly" for Blue and/or Blue things (like climate change policies).

But of course in the primary layer a lot of things become infinitely costly for Blue things. (Because they fall under executive rights.) But there are a lot of other layers. (State legislatures/governors, city level issues, and so on.) And though a higher layer can force things on a lower layer, but it's not zero-cost, so usually things settle into an ugly compromise.

Good example. Elections are definitely winner-take-all, i.e. we get red cars or green cars. But under capitalism, I can choose which I want. Elections are not about individual choices.

elections are winner take all in the literal sense (except where you have representative democracy), but to they extent that they are about policy, i wouldn't say its as simple as that.

It is a winner-take-all situation, but it is not an example of capitalism, and should not be used as an example of capitalism.

Use an example of capitalism to justify an example of capitalism. If capitalism is a winner-take-all system, there should be endless examples.