What reason does George give for not trying to cheat?

Kurt Vonnegut's short story "Harrison Bergeron" is set in the future (the year 2081) in a society in which everyone is equal. Everyone is equal because anyone that stands out in terms of intelligence, talent, athleticism, or physical beauty is made handicapped.
George and Hazel are the title character's parents. George wears headphones that interrupt his thoughts with loud and painful noises. Hazel sees his pain and encourages him to rest from the handicaps for a while. George refuses to do so for two reasons. One reason is that taking off the handicaps that are given by the Handicapper General will result in fines and imprisonment. Another reason is that George feels that the handicaps people wear are part of a sort of enlightened society in which everyone is equal. He feels that if he took off his handicaps, and others did as well, society would go back to its more savage form in which everyone was in competition with everyone else. The textual evidence can be found in the quotation below: 

"You been so tired lately—kind of wore out," said Hazel. "If there was just some way we could make a little hole in the bottom of the bag, and just take out a few of them lead balls. Just a few."
"Two years in prison and two thousand dollars fine for every ball I took out," said George. "I don't call that a bargain."
"If you could just take a few out when you came home from work," said Hazel. "I mean-you don't compete with anybody around here. You just set around."
"If I tried to get away with it," said George, "then other people'd get away with it—and pretty soon we'd be right back to the dark ages again, with everybody competing against everybody else."