Peer presence for programmers and managers

in the age of programming, no individual want their peers to see mistakes or failures either as a developer or manager. But often that is the case. Most of the peers wanted to take advantage of the situation. Not just that, that is the only way they can survive against competetion(it is felt, even if it is not). There are two types of peer activities to defame fellow programmer or manager. One is to find mistakes/failures of collegues and second one is to create an environment where mgmt will have negative opinion about fellows. This is all in a game. Well, it depends how Boss take it.
Why all this? Just to go up and up in career? If that is the aim, just focus your work and use merit. I do not say, criticism is not required. It is required but make it positive criticism that means do not criticise for others benefit. Criticise for just merit? Is that possible in the age of survival? Well management need to decide who is playing what.