In his latest post Andrew Austin confuses overt behavior with motivation. Of
course humans cooperate with each other, little kids included. We are built
for cooperation just as we are built for competition. However, the point is
that cooperation is driven by self-interest. As I said earlier,
hunter-gatherers cooperate extensively with each other because it is in their
long-run self-interest to do so. This is true of human situations generally.
However, when self-interests collide, that is when you get conflict and
competition, and self-interests collide all the time, as, e.g., under
capitalism.
Stephen Sanderson