The long term coexistence of fisheries exploiting the same marine resource depends crucially on how the competition between them is organised. Traditionally, fisheries policies that mediate competition assume that fisheries maximise profit or yield and are engaged in a race to fish. But economic anthropology of fisheries casts doubts onto profit maximizing behaviour, and suggests that capacity maximization and a race for boats may be occurring. Financialization also encourages fishing entities to increase their capacity. Using a simple model, we study the effects of capacity maximization on fisheries economics taking into account technical and financial constraints faced by fishing entities. We show that when competing entities face the same constraints, competition for the exploitation capacity of a natural resource comes down to the sharing of a pie and that the size of this pie is determined by technical efficiency and rates of return. When entities face different constraints, competition for capacity leads to the survival of only the least constrained fishing entity. Our results support the idea that together, globalization, financialization, substitution of local credit systems by general banks, and policies that encourage competitiveness, will result in highly capitalized fleets and the fossilization of small scales fisheries. To prevent this, fishing policies should go against their past tendency to increase competition, support technological progress and anticipate financial changes. Rather, fishing policies should reinforce local financial cooperation between operators of the fishing sector and control fishing efficiency at a "reasonable" level.
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