Is competition good, bad, or a little of both?

As the question is put up in business section I will focus my response to competition in business.

Competition has its advantages as well as limitation, but on the whole it has been demonstrated that in business competition is essential in the interest of consumers.

The biggest advantage of competition is that it forces businesses to become responsive to the needs and preferences of customers. In absences of competition all business will become monopolies, manipulating prices and supplies to their advantage. The harmful effect of such monopolistic behavior is now well recognized by experts, and as a result most of the democratic countries toady have laws that restrict the activities of monopolies.

However, competition can become unhealthy also. Companies may spend too much money unwisely on advertisement, hurting their own interest as well as wasting resources of the society. Some companies may engage in unhealthy price cutting. This may result some company closing down. Such behavior also hurt the common interest of society by making some productive resources idle. Also multiple suppliers tend of a product tend to restrict the ability of suppliers to draw full benefits of economies of scale.