French philosopher Bernard Stiegler writes about the need to have an ideal that informs the competition of the market place. This ideal would prevent competition and efficiency from degenerating into what he calls shamelessness, a state he associates both with globalization and with the suppression of individuation in modern societies:

“Imitation cannot be the first or unique principle of a new political and economic community. It is precisely to the degree that relations between countries allied in the same political community are not reduced to economic exchanges and competition, but instead presuppose a common interest above particular interests, that one can distinguish between a political union and a simple league of economic interests like the Hanseatic League or the Alena today, as well as countless other zones of special economic exchanges.

The goal, therefore, is to bring into being among the inhabitants of the nations which form Europe as diverse co-existing occurrences one consistant idea—a European idea, or in other words the affirmation of a way of life which incarnates a certain state of mind : a European way of life. The European way of life must express a European state of mind which is, itself, historically constituted by the European notion of reason—by an idea of reason which is a typical European heritage but which, far from being a purely formal concept, must be understood with Freud as desire and incarnated as motif.

However, desire is itself intrinsically a power of sublimation. What made the eris of Hesiod into the power of the polis—a fact that deeply impressed the young Nietzsche—was the implication that eris will raise you towards an ideal : towards ariston. The peasant in Works and Days is certainly in a relationship of competition or imitation with another peasant, but that relationship pushes him towards a higher ideal. This ideal, which is equivalent to the role of a hero or a god in Greece, will send us back to the concepts of justice and shame which the Greeks, the inventers of laws, called dikè and aïdos—concepts which are not merely « values but instead founding principles.

Aidôs, which can also be translated as modesty or honor, is the basis of eris. If this isn’t true, then eris is no longer a good eris, as Hesiod says . Instead, it becomes a force for self-destruction, an expression of the death drive, or a war—and it leads to wars. However, unlimited competition which is not bounded[5] by unifying principles will lead to a world without shame ; in the name of efficiency, it will reduce everything to the lowest common denominator. Unlimited competition dumbs everything down, whether it is television or social legislation, as Mr. Le Lay shamelessly once admitted. This leveling of everything—this new form of totalitarianism—is what Nietzsche called nihilism.”

— Constitution and Individuation

My Comment (to follow)