Capitalist scum, Communist scum, no difference.

Con would like to address the comments made in the second round by Pro, specifically this statement: “I do not admire your ability to utilize typography to emphasize your opinion as it is no better then a troll using caps.” To be clear the way I engage in debate on DDO follows a very standard model of argumentation practiced in academia, philosophy, and law (see: Argumentation: The Study of Effective Reasoning, 2nd Edition [The Great Courses] by David Zarefsky, professor emeritus at Northwestern University. Moreover, on DDO I am not interesting in my opinion but rather engage in debate, substantiated always by reason and evidence. The suggestion that I am a “troll” is both untrue, unjustified, and superfluous to the debate. That said, let me begin the debate, which as you will read does not contain my opinions but relies on standard models of argumentation and nothing else. A definition of Scum including synonyms and antonyms So the proposition is “Capitalist scum, Communist scum, no difference.” Given Pro did not provide a definition of scum or provide an example of capitalist or communist that could be consider scum, Con consult dictionaries and common usage these terms. The most problematic term is the word scum. However based on the context we can say based on the dictionaries definition that scum refers to “a dishonest, unkind, or unpleasant person.”[1] The synonyms and antonyms are quite interesting, they provide a basis for the counterclaim that capitalist scum and communist scum are different because one synonym for scum is proletariat (see Ann Applebaum footnote below) and an antonym is aristocracy.[2] Definition of capitalist and communist as well as their discernable differences—usage and concrete examples: Capitalist : Investopedia say that capitalism and capitalists are participate in an economic system based on the notion of private ownership.[3] “The production of goods and services is based on supply and demand in the general market (market economy), rather than through central planning (planned economy).”[4] The dictionary provides an example of proper usage, using the following sentence: “capitalist who lost everything in the ’29 crash.”[5] This refers to the stock market crash, which collapsed due to speculation and bad investment, not because of government directed action. It seems like many of the capitalists in the lead up to the market crash of 1929 were dishonest, therefore if they were dishonest and participated in a private economy, we can say with certainty based on definition that they were (1) scum (meaning dishonest by way of financial fraud of some kind) as well as capitalist (given that the stock market was a mechanism for private investment). And yet, this example shows that this problem was unrelated to a planned economy or communists, therefore capitalist scum and communist scum must be different kinds of scum and not the same scum. Communist & Communism with usage and concrete examples: According to the dictionary, a communist is one an adherent of communism. Communism is defined as “a way of organizing a society in which the government owns the things that are used to make and transport products (such as land, oil, factories, ships, etc.) and there is no privately owned property.”[6] Moreover, here is an example sentence from Anne Applebaum: “On one side stood Hitler, fascism, the myth of German supremacy; on the other side stood Stalin, communism, and the international proletarian revolution.”[7] (See original synonyms for the word “scum”). In addition, according to communist theory, the achievement of a truly communist society entails a change from paying people according to their productivity to paying “each according to his needs,”[8] the opposite of the theory of capitalism as defined by Adam Smith in Wealth of Nations. What example can Con give of communist economics in practice? One example of both “scum” (meaning dishonest, unkind, unpleasant) and “communist” (meaning government control rather than private control of the economy) comes from Mao’s China. One of Mao’s major initiative during the late 1950s and early 1960s was the Great Leap Forward. The most serious failure of the Great Leap Forward was in agriculture. Misconceived irrigation projects leached nutrients from the soil, and mass mobilization for work projects exhausted and demoralized the people. Here, too, the government worked with misleading statistics (dishonest, meaning specifically “scum”). Relying on faulty expectations and inflated reports, the government took so much grain that in many areas practically nothing was left for the peasants. Massive famine resulted. “The number who died is difficult to determine, but 16 to 27 million is a conservative estimate, 30 million is plausible.”[9] Here we find a different problem, one created and implemented by what by definition can be called communist, communist scum no less. Conclusion for Round Two: Using accepted definitions for the words in the proposition “capitalist scum, communist scum” as well as illustrate clear differences, Con has been able to undermine Pro’s major arguments. [1] "Scum." Merriam-Webster.com. Accessed August 30, 2014. http://www.merriam-webster.com.... [2] "Scum." Merriam-Webster.com. Accessed August 30, 2014. http://www.merriam-webster.com.... [3] Capitalism Definition | Investopedia (Investopedia) http://www.investopedia.com... [4] Capitalism Definition | Investopedia (Investopedia) http://www.investopedia.com... [5] "Capitalist." Merriam-Webster.com. Accessed August 30, 2014. http://www.merriam-webster.com.... [6] "Communism." Merriam-Webster.com. Accessed August 30, 2014. http://www.merriam-webster.com.... [7] Anne Applebaum, New York Review of Books, 25 Oct. 2007 [8] Conrad Schirokuer & Donald Clark, Modern East Asia: A Brief History (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company 2008), 364. [9] Conrad Schirokuer & Donald Clark, Modern East Asia: A Brief History (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company 2008), 364.