Wow, I'm like seriously late to this, but without wanting to get into the side issues, I wanted to jot down a few thoughts about honedright's original post.

On several levels, I think we do see equality applied to competition. Taking sports as an example:

- handicap in golf: the concept tries to even things out a bit between players, but the term used to describe that concept... 'handicap'... kind of says it all.
- leagues: in the UK there is a hierarchy of leagues in soccer, from the purely amateur to the top flight. It ensures that teams are not mismatched when playing in competitions. A massive discrepancy between sides in a competition is of no interest to anyone. So we apply a little structure to the sport in order to balance things up a bit.
- the phrase "a level playing field" when applied to fair competition.
- seeding in tennis. Again, to avoid unequal or undesirable matches in a tournament (like no. 1 vs. no.2 in the first round).
- etc.

And in business, another voraciously competitive environment, we see tax breaks for certain organisations, chapter 11 (another bite at the apple to even things up), protectionism in all guises, etc.

It just seems to me that the concept of equality is no stranger in competition, be it sports or commerce. That doesn't mean we're all communists or soccer players though.

P.S. I am seriously impressed at how everyone has been SUPER careful not to invoke Godwin's. Coulda happened about halfway down the first page from what I've read.