Unregulated capitalism is amoral

Moral - of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior; capable of right and wrong action. (1)Immoral - not moral: conflicting with generally or traditionally held moral principles. (2)To hold up the Burden of Proof, Pro must prove that capitalism is not capable of right and wrong action and does not conflict with generally or traditionally held moral principles. Amoral, by the definition provided, simply means morally apathetic or not holding to any sort of morals, good or bad. "Neither moral nor immoral."However, Pro's arguments seem to contradict their own position in the debate. I will prove how capitalism can be immoral. Rebuttals1. Capitalism in the PastCapitalism is immoral in that it does not adhere to moral principals in the treatment of human beings. My opponent even says that there is "the willingness of private financial interests to exploit people for profit". Exploiting people can hardly be considered an amoral as it has a negative connotation and, in society, is considered to be a wrongful act. The nature of capitalism, according to my opponent, says that it allows and even wants to exploit people as it only began to shift away from total exploitation at the hands of legislation. The base form of capitalism in this point, was immoral. The working conditions provided by pure capitalism were terrible, the hours when unregulated were far too strenuous for humans to handle adequately. The system only changed when "forced change" was thrust upon the system. Therefore, capitalism is not amoral, as it promoted and tended to drift to the immoral treatment of human beings as capital instead of people.2. Capitalism NowAgain, my opponent points out immoral acts that happen at the hands of capitalism and capitalists. "Children still die working in factories today, this happens in any country that has not passed laws to protect workers from the exploits of business interests - Korea, Mexico, and India are but a few capitalist countries where exploitation is rampant because business goes largely unregulated."As you can see from this sentence taken directly from my opponent's argument, capitalism can indeed be seen as an immoral system. Any system that allows children to die, unless forced to change by law, could be seen, from a moral sense of view, as immoral. Also, it says that workers need laws to "protect" them from capitalism. Why would you need to be protected from a system that is supposedly amoral? Protections are needed in capitalism because the system is inherently immoral. If left unchecked, as seen and shown extensively by my opponent, capitalism leads to unfavorable treatment of human beings and the immoral actions of people in the system. Therefore, we can conclude that the system favors immorality and is not neutral as my opponent claims. 3. A System Based on GreedMy opponents next arguments point out how capitalism is greed based and therefore only has one goal: profit. This goal, if left unchecked, will consume the system and lead to morally ambiguous choices. Instead of being neutral, capitalism favors immoral practices in order to try and obtain the goal of increased profits. It's a system that, according to my opponent, lies and gives us "empty promises". Is lying a morally ambiguous action? Or is it seen, through a moral lens, to be immoral? Society would say lying is immoral. "Other examples of rampant greed: trading in hedge funds, derivatives and speculation on water, food or fuel resources that are vital to life."All of these things, trading on hedge funds, trying to create a market for things "vital to life" do not sound morally neutral in the slightest. They sound immoral as they do not adhere to what society would consider right and just. My opponent goes on to say Wall Street, the face of Capitalism, is addicted to "gambling" and is resistant to regulation. If a system is so resistant to regulation, which seems to take into account human wellness, society would say that capitalism is against human wellness. All of these things seem to be immoral. Something that is morally neutral would do neither good nor bad but stay completely neutral. Having addictions, lying, gambling, denying human rights, resisting laws to protect human well being and focusing primarily on greed all are things indicative of a immoral character. If you applied all of these things I have just listed to a single person, society would call such a person a monster. Not morally neutral. Say you meet a person who is addicted to gambling, lies and makes empty promises, denied human rights for profit, resisted laws to protect wellness and was driven by greed you would NOT call this person amoral but immoral.A. Capable of Right and Wrong ActionOne of the definitions of moral is that an entity is capable of right and wrong action. To be completely amoral, capitalism would have to be capable of only neutral action. However, due to the nature of the system, capitalism causes plenty of immoral actions (and some moral ones as well). The greed driven nature of the system causes actions to happen such as lying, death and ignoring the public voice. All of these things are actions that are considered immoral by society. Capitalism can also cause moral action. In recent news about the Carnival Triumph that was stranded at sea, Carnival is offering full rebates and extra money to the passengers. This can be seen as moral because it is seen as just compensation for a trip gone wrong. An amoral action would be to refund the trip but the trip only since that would be only fair, but capitalism as a system of competition and pleasing the customer, has led Carnival to go beyond the amoral action of equal compensation and drift into the realm of moral compensation by giving the people more than they deserve. (3)Therefore, capitalism is capable of right and wrong action and is therefore moral and not amoral.ConclusionCapitalism influences many immoral acts and behaviors of people within the system due to the nature of the system to favor things such as greed, lying and human exploitation. Using two definitions of moral and one definition of immoral I have shown that capitalism is not morally neutral but indeed has immoral and moral actions, consequences, outcomes, tendencies and attitudes. The Resolution is negated.Thank you.(1) http://www.merriam-webster.com...(2) http://www.merriam-webster.com...(3) http://www.kltv.com...