More and more commentators have been using the term "winner take-all" economy to describe the state of American capitalism and its work culture.  What do they mean?  They picture an economy driven by only one thing:  personal enrichment at the expense of everyone else.  It's the logical outcome of Adam Smith's thesis about the "self-interest" at the heart of the free enterprise system.
     But a "winner take-all" economy is more than attenuated or exaggerated self-interest.  It is the decision to regard one's personal fortune as paramount, absolutely paramount:  no one else's interest matters.  If one cannot "have it all," she has lost not just the battle, but the war, too.  To use a term bandied about in sports circles, "Winning isn't the only thing; winning is everything."
     All of us of course like coming out on top.  Many of us thrive on competition.  Most of us appreciate the trappings of affluence.  But to decide that we are the only ones entitled to such things, that we alone should have the absolute best is a gross mischaracterization of what it means to be human.
     God didn't make us to put each other down.  He made us to build each other up.  To give up ourselves for the greater good of another.  All is not fair, as the saying goes, "in love and war."  All is fair when we consider, to use Paul's words to the church at Philippi, "Others as more important than ourselves."
     A "winner take-all economy" will never win.