Democratic Socialism is better than Capitalism

I apologize for not providing sources for statistics. I was tired and burned out from a previous debate (I know that's a sorry excuse) and so did not provide any sources. So here they are. Life expectancy: http://www.helpage.org... HDI Index: https://en.wikipedia.org... (This is where I found the information; it is from a United Nations study, as you pointed out.) Happiness: http://www.cnn.com... (This is a study done for the World Happiness Report Update 2016, carried out by the UN's Sustainable Development Solutions Network.) First of all, I will attempt to probe that these Scandinavian countries (Norway, Sweden, Denmark) are democratic socialist. In the Socialist International (the world's main organization for forwarding democratic socialist ideals) Declaration of Principles, Section 57 of Article V, the Socialist Congress defines human rights: "Human rights include economic and social rights; the right to form trade unions and to strike; the right to social security and welfare for all, including the protection of mothers and children; the right to education, training and leisure; the right to decent housing in a livable environment, and the right to economic security. Crucially, there is the right to both full and useful employment in an adequately rewarded job. Unemployment undermines human dignity, threatens social stability and wastes the world's most valuable resource." Let's compare these core democratic socialist values to Scandinavian socialism. Trade unions? Yes. Social security and welfare for all? These countries all have strong social safety-net policies and free public college tuition as well as universal healthcare. Sweden, for example, spends 56.6% of its annual GDP on social welfare programs. Denmark spends 51.7% of theirs. This goes mostly to the aforementioned social programs as well as to the cost of running the government (38% of Denmark's workforce, for example, works in the public sector). Next is "the protection of mothers and children." Not only is public education extensively funded in these countries, all of these nations have a large amount of paid maternity/paternity leave. So I think we can both agree that these Scandinavian countries satisfy this tenet of democratic socialism. According to this Forbes article (http://www.forbes.com...), "In Norway the unemployed receive 87.6% of their previous salaries for 500 days and in Finland they receive 85.1% of their previous salaries for one year." So we have a strong unemployment safety net as well, as described in the Socialist International list of values. As for housing, all three countries have a very strong public housing network. And education--as mentioned before, these nations have free public college and fund K-12 education very well. The only one left is economic security. This is ensured by the safety-net programs that are mentioned above. So I have shown that the core values of democratic socialism are aligned with the policies of these Scandinavian/Northern European communities. Unless otherwise noted, all statistics and quotations are from here: https://en.wikipedia.org.... Here's the Declaration of Principles, if you wanted to look through that as well: http://www.socialistinternational.org... As for the current neutrality of these statistics, here's how I interpret them. They in no way, of course, prove that socialism is best. They simply prove that socialism does not necessarily cause economic and political stagnation as many proponents of capitalism say it does. Finally, about Canada: I agree it is not socialist. However, it follows many of the values and social policies proposed by the Socialist International. I believe that all of the issues concerning my statistics have been cleared up. Now for the debate. "When people put blood, sweat, and tears into their jobs, they expect to keep the majority of what they earn. In a truly capitalistic society (1800s America) there are little taxes so people keep almost all they earn. This means that whatever you make, it is yours under capitalism...Obviously for anyone who has self-interest at stake when earning money, Capitalism is the more appealing option." This makes sense. Getting to keep the money you earn is generally a good thing, until you are hospitalized for some disease or injury and can't do your job, and when you finally do get out of the hospital, they force upon you such a hugely overblown medical bill that you, now unemployed and still recovering, are forced out of your home. After that, without sufficient social safety-net policies, it's a downward spiral from there. When a social democratic government imposes higher taxes, it is to fund these social welfare policies. Your second argument is a textbook example of the "Bandwagon Fallacy," or the "Argumentum ad Populum." When you say, "The rest of the paragraph is kept for context, but focus on the first sentence. In it an admission is made that capitalism is a) more popular, b) more heavily tested, and c) has been the reason the global economy exists," you are basically providing this "bandwagon" argument--that capitalism is good because it's more popular. As to your question about how will socialism take the place of capitalism, see the above statistics. I think it will work perfectly well as an alternative to capitalism. Your third argument is funny--although I see where you are coming from, you used the same logic that you had accused me of using. "Sorry to inform you, but one example does not justify one entire economic system over another. This type of usage of examples is the same as if I was to claim that I saw a democratic socialist who tortured kids in a basement, and afterwards sold their bodies on the black market. So obviously, democratic socialism is wrong right?" And yet you're using a similar strategy when you use examples from one part of the world in one particular time to prove a point about economics. I'm not criticizing--I did exactly the same thing. But some consistency would be nice. The other amusing thing about this argument is that the economic powerhouse of East Asia is China, a communist country. (I'm not in any way advocating communism, but I would not by any stretch of the imagination call China "capitalistic and relatively free." The only country I can think of in which an economic downturn such as the one you described occurred is Japan. Although government regulation had some hand in the 90's stock market crash and resulting economic downturn, it was mostly because of the burst of a real estate and stock bubble, which was likely causing the "significant boom" that you describe. Also, I must make one thing clear. Government micromanagement/over regulation is not inherent or even specified in the ideology of democratic socialism, and I do not, in any way, endorse it. You argue in this last part that "capitalism...is the only way an economy can grow dynamically." I disagree. A strong safety net creates a stronger workforce, which inevitably creates a stronger economy. When people are supported by their government and the community, they tend to contribute back to that community in a meaningful way--more so than they would in a community that is always trying to beat, outperform, cheat, con, or swindle them, as so often happens in capitalism. This creates a mutually beneficial society that helps all parties (workers, employers, families, government) progress to a brighter future.