On balance capitalism is a better system for mankind then Communism

Need-Based Freedom CON believes that competition is bad because there are winners and losers. However, this is absurd since almost everyone enjoys a healthy dose of competition, since people often compete in sports, and games. CON and I are engaging in competition. There will be one winner and one loser. If CON truly believed that competition itself was bad, than CON is hypocritical in accepted the debate. CON might complaint might be that “loser’s” lose his or her form of income. However, these people find other forms of income. As stated previously, starvation is simply not a problem in well-developed nations. There are many businesses that go bankrupt but you do not see their CEOs and employees starving in the street. CON uses an analogy of a person needing to go to a bathroom, and therefore is not free. CON basically wants to take away the urinary system to relieve the need to go to the bathroom. Sure this would take away this need and one can talk to one’s friend. Yet the accumulation of toxic waste in your body would lead to death. As outlined previously, communism cannot provide for the needs and wants of individuals and obtain as much wealth as capitalism. Likewise, CON wants to get rid of “work” yet it is only through work and capitalism that one can obtain a vast increase in wealth which increases quality of life and satisfied desires through the use of a monetary and profit system. However, even the claim that one “needs” to work for their needs to be provided for is false. Minimum wage jobs are enough for people to survive off of, since in other nations, people make wages significantly less than that and there are still people there. The amount can be obtained simply through begging for a few minutes. The amount “needed” for survival is way less then what people earn in the US. Of course, people would rather work longer hours due to: a) Their quality of life improving dramatically from higher salaries. b) People generally do not mind working. More than 80% of US Employees are satisfied with their well-being[1] Can everyone have their “needs” guaranteed. Of course. The US offers free clinics, homeless shelters, food stamps, and so forth to the poor. What is ignored is quality. Not everyone is guaranteed the highest quality home, or medical treatment. Not every doctor can be the best, nor are all houses mansions so only a few who have either saved their earnings and/or who brought great wealth onto others can obtain them. A communist nation cannot “guarantee” that a person will be able to do what he or she wants, because the resources to even do these are limited in nature. If you wanted to be an astronaut, then there first has to be a spacecraft. Clearly there are more people who would rather become an astronaut then spacecraft available. Fulfillment of Human Satisfaction CON admits that capitalism can be used to fulfill human’s desire through the virtue of competition. CON’s objection is that they are not the intentions. However, intentions are not the same as results, and one cannot deduce results from intentions. However, CON’s own deduction and my previous statements confirm that capitalism does fulfill human satisfaction. Working hours AND output have decreased since the industrial revolution, so CON is wrong to state that capitalism leads to longer hours. There’s also no reason why people cannot work shorter hours. There are plenty of jobs that require one to only work part-time jobs. Teenagers often work part-time jobs. Instead people choose long hours. The reason they do, is as previously, most people generally like their job and prefer the tradeoff of more material then leisure. The average hours worked is the US is around 1700 hours a year [2], which out of a total year of 8760 hours, the average person in the US only spends 20% of their time working, so we don't spend all our time working. As a final note, capitalism is not goal-orientated. While companies try to achieve profit, that does not mean capitalism’s goal is to increase profit. If there were an uncompetetive monopoly, then that company can achieve huge profits. Yet capitalism allows for competition,which hurts a business’s profit. Businesses simply cannot coordinate to generate more profit through a universal consumerism message. A for-profit company can make an anti-consumerism message for profit, thus hurting the profits of other corporation. For-profit Universal Pictures produced this anti-capitalist propaganda[3]. What’s good for the individual’s profit is not good for the collective profit. Private Property In the first round I demonstrated the benefits of private property. One is the “tragedy of the commons” explained in Round 1. Furthermore, through obtaining property, one can be guaranteed use of property and access to it. CON might complain that through use of property, I exclude others however: a) Any use of property must exclude others since it cannot be used simultaneously b) I have obtained the property through trade, in which both parties simultaneously benefit. Labor had to be done to obtain it, which contributes to the overall wealth of society. Furthermore, since I had to sacrifice this property at the expense of other goods or services (due to budget constrain) that demonstrates a desire for it. Property is not simply something that the wealthy have, but any individual can obtain property. CON complains of the inequality that property causes. However, many aspects of life creates inequality. We are born with different forms of intellectual, athletic, and appearance. Should we try to solve these problems of inequality between them? Perhaps nobody achieves awards for intellectual, athletic, or beauty contests? Disallow competition? Remove consent from sex since attractive people hoard their beauty from unattractive people? Make sure all forms of entertainment get equal amount of views disrespectful of enjoyment? Laws like inheritance and property taxes remove some of this inequality. While natural resources and land might not be obtained originally from trade, the current owners likely obtained it through legitimate trade, so it would be unfair to compensate it from them. Trying to trace it back to who obtained it “unfairly” is an impossible task, and does not really matter on practical grounds. It would be beneficial to keep natural resources and land in private hands due to the many benefits of private property which I have outlined previously and the tragedy of the commons. Often times the government owns these materials first, and then sell it. The “profit” is redistributed through the social services government provides. The great benefits of property outweigh this minor cost. Social Calculation Problem: I spent over a 1000 character space in the first round showing how a monetary system solves the social calculation problem, but CON describes it as “perplexing” which is not a rebuttal. I cannot respond to this since I do not know where the confusing arises. Extend the previous argument from round 1.Value exists, whether CON thinks so or not (her own aguments rested on the idea of value). Ignoring this economic law is like trying to ignore the laws of gravity to ceate an airplane. Empirical Evidence of the Success of capitalism: CON does not dispute that capitalism has success, only the failures I provided because they are not true communism. As stated previously, they share the institutions of no property rights, which leads to the disasters of social-calculation problems, tragedy of problems, lack of productive efficiency, and incentive problems. Authoritarian regimes are not an explanation, since I have shown successful authoritarianism. CON offers no explanation why these institutions failed that is not shared with CON’s own version of communism. I have also stated that due to the speculative nature of her thesis, it is likely to be wrong which CON does not rebut. http://tinyurl.com...[1] http://tinyurl.com...[2] http://tinyurl.com...[3]