Capitalism cannot fullt accomodate human needs without implementation of certain socialist policies

However, I am somewhat challenged in seeing the argument as illustrated. My opponent has manufactured a scenario that really doesn't exist, nor has he offered socialism as a solution to this fabricated scenario. I will offer actual examples of where capitalism is superior to socialism in providing for the needs of its people. It would be helpful for us to look at what we must assume from his resolution to be a better alternative, i. e. the socialist model. In essence socialism is where the state controls production and distribution to meet the needs of its people. To best illustrate this point let us look at the Soviet Union; a socialist system that I am intimately familiar with and exemplifies as pure of a socialist society as you will find. My opponent points out the basic needs of people, and how something like food is a basic need, so I will stick with that, because the examples are easy to analyze and find. Under the original Soviet model collective farms were centrally managed. "The theory behind collectivisation was that it would replace the small-scale unmechanised and inefficient farms that were then commonplace in the Soviet Union with large-scale mechanised farms that would produce food far more efficiently. Lenin saw private farming as a source of capitalist mentalities and hoped to replace farms with either sovkhozy which would make the farmers "proletarian" workers or kolkhozy which would at least be collective in nature. "[1] However the theory was a tragic failure and resulted in famine, and starvation. "The dreadful famine that engulfed Ukraine, the northern Caucasus, and the lower Volga River area in 1932-1933 was the result of Joseph Stalin's policy of forced collectivization……The death toll from the 1932-33 famine in Ukraine has been estimated between six million and seven million. According to a Soviet author, "Before they died, people often lost their senses and ceased to be human beings. " Yet one of Stalin's lieutenants in Ukraine stated in 1933 that the famine was a great success. It showed the peasants "who is the master here. It cost millions of lives, but the collective farm system is here to stay. "[2]. Quickly they began to understand that the socialist model of providing basic needs, like food was failing, and incorporated some miniscule capitalist private alternatives, which proved to be much more successful. After Stalin died, Khrushchev made a visit to the US, and was very interested in learning how the capitalist farmers in the US were far better at feeding the people of the US, and beyond than their own farmers back in the USSR. He visited a farm in Iowa and was impressed by the yield per acre, and the quality of the product. He was further fascinated by the meat yield per pig. The capitalist model of supply, demand, competition was obviously better prepared to provide the basics of food distribution and production than the socialist model [3]. I will now indulge my opponent in his manufactured scenario of a drug that can never be recreated which is created by the evil capitalists for sale to the highest bidder. This isn't exactly the way things work. So drug X is created by this drug company, and it is proven to be a success. To get to this point the drug company had to invest huge sums of money to create this product, i. e. costs. So now the product is ready for market. The assumption my opponent has is that there is a fairly arbitrary price that can be charged, and that competition is not a factor, both are false. First, in arriving at a price, yes profit is definitely the prime factor, but not simply profit margin on the individual sale of the product, but rather striking a balance in profit margin, and volume of sales [4] to offset the costs and achieve a net profit. Volume is an important factor, so providing this product to as many as possible without eroding the profit margin is optimum. Now, for competition. Name a product where the monopoly via a patent has actually held true in a capitalist environment. The competition of your fictitious drug company is not going to sit by and let market share of a product be taken from them. They will do what the need to in order to regain their stake in the market. They may not make an exact match, but will most likely find a similar product with a similar function in order to compete, this is the nature of capitalism. Again, I will point out that socialism hasn't been pointed to by my opponent as a better system, or solution to his perceived problems with capitalism. I will point out that in a socialist society such a drug as the fictitious one he created would probably never be produced. Capitalism is the mother of innovation, and socialism is the mother of inefficiency. The unique characteristics of innovation within capitalism is clearly demonstrated by Baumol [5] in his book (see footnote) where he does a comparative analysis of economic systems, and how the best system to address the needs of men is capitalism. Although not a perfect system, as there is no such thing as perfection in such things; capitalism is the best hope in satisfying the fundamental needs of men, and is far superior in doing so to socialism. . http://en.wikipedia.org... . http://www.loc.gov... . http://www.isbnlib.com... . http://www.businessdictionary.com... . http://press.princeton.edu...