Government is sociopolitically motivated toward socialism.

A Continuation of the Fish AnalogyWhether or not the man being taught how to fish pays for the lessons is not the center of the problem. The problem is that his neighbor, who has no vested interest in fishing (and especially his neighbor's ability to fish) is forced to contribute to payments for another man's fishing lessons. Taxation is coercive in nature. Those who engage in tax evasion are criminally charged and fined. Simply by not paying the government for services that they may or may not support, people are sent to prison; paying taxes, in other words, assures a person the ability to maintain his full rights. Although this is not directly related to this debate, your ideal incorporates the idea that "there would be no currency at all"? What would the alternative be? How would this be pragmatic, even hypothetically? The Free MarketThe opponent's claim that "the average American citizen is a little stupid" works against his case. Rather than focusing on market forces such as profitability, price, and consumers' purchasing power, socialism would depend on the unintelligence of the common man to determine the distribution of wealth and handle all industry, which would be run socially.How would a free market become "mob-controlled"? That more accurately describes socialism. Under the free market, the system is very organized, driven by the "invisible hand," as Adam Smith called it. [1] The marketplace would be self-regulating through competition and supply/demand principles. When the government regulates industry, then less successful business models can be upheld over successful ones and natural supply/demand are misrepresented. The ResolvedMinimum wage is an unsuccessful policy that oppresses the poor. The unemployment rate among teenagers in the US is twice as high as regular unemployment, and it has increased ever since stricter minimum wage laws were passed. [2] People whose work contribution deserves less than minimum wage are not employed, because if businesses were to employ them, they would simply be engaging in charity. And without minimum wage laws, people would not be paid "only $.01/hr," as opposed to $10.00/hr. Rather, people will be paid as much as their labor costs. If an employer dropped someone's salary to one penny an hour, the employee will just be employed by another business that actually compensates better. The "invisible hand" will determine appropriate salaries, due to competition among businesses to hire the most skilled laborers through appropriate compensation. A) Three words: Private disability insurance.B) "The government can help ensure the security of the elderly by reducing the tax burden on individual citizens, especially in retirement accounts, capital gains, and estate taxes." [3]C) In a free market society, the distribution of wealth is more favorable and the standard of life will rise, even for this teenage mother. Other alternatives would be to turn to private charities or private orphanages. Through government intervention, not only would the entire system suffer, but all of the people mentioned in these hypotheticals would suffer. SocialismAscribing a benefit or right to a group can only be done (as a shorthand) if that group is defined by the criterion of holding the benefit or right. Socialism holds the rights of the fictional collective above the rights of an individual just as theocracies place the rights of their proclaimed divine above that of individuals. In other words, "Collective Good" is a category error.On the other hand, the free market is run by the individual. In any functional free market, a government would have to exist; I am not proposing an anarchist agenda. However, the government would solely exist to uphold legal contracts and uphold the framework of the justice system. Laws would exist, but they would not interfere with competition and autonomy of the private sector. Businesses that are "immoral" simply would die out due to competition that the public views as moral. Services provided by a business with a flawed model will die when put into a competition against a business with an ideal model, as perceived by the public (i.e., those who determine "demand.") ---Free market capitalism > Socialism ---[1] http://en.wikipedia.org...[2] http://web.archive.org...[3] http://www.libertarianism.com...