Capitalism is superior to Communism/Socialism

THAT RUSSIA IS A SOCIALIST STATE First of all, if Russia has a free market and private ownership of property then it’s capitalist, it cannot be a capitalist nation, fitting all of the definitions of capitalism, but not really be capitalist. It makes no rational sense, if my opponent wants top claim that Russia is a Socialist State, he must show how it is Socialist. Secondly, my opponent states that Russia is socialist as per their constitution, and cites their constitution, but fails to show where, I read the whole document and nowhere does it say that Russia is Socialist. But regardless, as per Vladimir Putin’s decree, the Russian Federation is selling public property and means of production to the private sector. MORE DEBUNKING My opponent has decided to fabricate facts by claiming that my source only says 262 million people are incarcerated in the US, which is completely false for 2 reasons: One, my source does not say that and can be found here for the readers to verify: http://reason.com... Two, the US has a population of only 320 million; to say that 260 million of them are in prison is just nonsense. Three, I said that 262 million people were killed by the state during the 20th century, not a socialist state. Finally, it just happens to be that the Great Depression was NOT caused by the private sector, but by the Federal Reserve System who inflated the money and created a bubble, followed by rapidly contracting the money supply. This popped the bubble and created a depression- that’s what historically happened, see Milton Friedman. RESPONSE My opponent states in a very ill-informed attempt to prove that Socialism is better than Capitalism: “Having a socialist based system would lead to or recessions or depressions. All Capitalist production leads every five or ten years to a recession. In other words, when the capitalist can't sell all the produce that they have created in order to maximize profits they get rid of thousands upon thousands of workers. The current economic crisis has seen 9 million familes loosing there homes after the biggest housing construction boom. So now capitalist consider money be more important than people? It now comes up to just plain ethics. Where else if this were a socialist system this senario would have played out in a different manner.” This isn’t even grammatically correct, but the way I interpret it he’s trying to say that Capitalism has recessions and depressions occasionally. Uh-yeah, it’s called the “business cycle,” basically stated prosperity cannot last forever but rather has to end at some point. Either way this isn’t necessarily unethical, if you’re running a store and you’re making no money at all, what are you supposed to do with your employees? Have them keep working for no wages? Fire them? You can’t just pull money out of your rear end can you? How would this be handled differently in a Socialist system? The government has been trying for fifty something odd years to help those same poor people that were poor way back in 1966 under the Johnson administration. But thus far these programs have gotten us nowhere, and the number of poor people in the US has increased rapidly. A COMPARISON In proving either system superior, we cannot rely on hypothetical scenarios and theoretical prosperity, we have to look at how these systems work in the real world because we benefit if there is prosperity in the real world, but we do not benefit from theoretical prosperity. And comparing a 1st world capitalist nation to a 3rd world or 2nd world socialist nation doesn’t prove anything. Thus I will take a first world demonstration of both systems, and chose whichever real world example of capitalism and socialism which are the best. To represent Capitalism I have chosen Switzerland, since it is the best relative to every other capitalist nation today. To represent Socialism I have chosen the Netherlands, because it has the best quality of living relative to every other socialist nation. As I stated in the beginning of this debate: “this debate concerns the quality of living, opportunities, and overall productivity in a given nation, as well as morality.” So that’s what we will be analyzing. WAGES The average wages in the Netherlands, in USD, is 2,500$ a month,{1} whilst the average wages in Switzerland are 6,750$ a month.{2} In other words Switzerland’s wages are 170% higher than that of Netherlands, the even more interesting part is Switzerland has no minimum wage! LIFE EXPECTANCY The average life expectancy in Switzerland is 82.5 years, whilst in the Netherlands it is 81.23 years, making Switzerland #9 and the Netherlands #24. {3} so the Swiss live 1.27 years longer than the Netherlanders. UNEMPLOYMENT The unemployment rate in the Netherlands is 6.9% as opposed to 4.5% in Switzerland. {4} this means that the Swiss are 35% less likely to be unemployed as opposed to the Netherlanders. INFLATION The inflation rate in the Netherlands is 0.6%, whereas in Switzerland it is -1.1%. So the Netherlanders are still being taxed without representation, whereas the Swiss are being reverse taxed. Also the wages of the Netherlands are being eaten away by this inflation rate, whereas the wages of the Swiss are increasing gradually. {5} GDP PER CAPITA The GDP per capita in the Netherlands is 44,400$ per person, whereas in Switzerland it is 80,200$ per person. The Swiss have nearly double the GDP per capita as the Netherlanders! CONCLUSION Switzerland has beaten the Netherlands in every way shape and form, it’s just an overall better nation to live in, and that’s because of capitalism. {1}. https://www.justlanded.com... {2}. http://www.tradingeconomics.com... {3}. http://www.infoplease.com... {4}. http://data.worldbank.org... {5}. http://data.worldbank.org... {6}. http://data.worldbank.org...