Capitalism

First, I hope you don't mind that I will copy and paste previous arguments for this round. I will type up new things in the later rounds, just this round I will take what I have in other debates and paste it here. First, I'm doing this because I have talked about this a lot of times before, and it doesn't really change for what I have as examples and argument. Secondly, I fear I may not be able to respond in time if I were to type up an entirely new argument since I don't have much time right now, and I may not be able to do it tomorrow. I've been very busy with the holiday and all. At any rate, here are my arguments:Similar to how most people agree that monarchy or oligarchy is an illegitimate form of government, as they do not provide consent from the governed, so too is capitalism and other systems of economy. Socialism provides a means through which people can consent to being governed in an economic sense. Under socialism, workers control their own businesses. They have a say over the rules and regulations the business would have over them. Whereas, under capitalism or other systems this system of consent is not present. We don't get to choose who the business owners are, and they are positions of power and authority, so one wonders why economics is different when determining legitimate power. In addition to having a say over a business you work for, you are also compensated more under socialism. With socialism, a CEO or business owner would not be there to take majority of the money the company earns. Instead, this capital would be spread across the workers. Therefore, socialism benefits the majority in society, rather than an elite few. Next, I will be talking about democratic businesses and how successful they are. Democratic businesses, which is one way in which socialism is achieved and is the type of socialism I will be mainly arguing for, are known as cooperatives. Cooperatives are actually, in many ways, more successful than traditional business models. For example, 80% of cooperatives survive the first 5 years of being in business, compared to 41% of the traditional business model. [1] Now, while a cooperative is difficult to start, mainly because banks almost never lend to cooperatives and it's hard to find like-minded people in the same business as you to come to together and start a cooperative, when they are started, they do well enough to survive usually, as mentioned before. Since cooperatives are difficult to start up, and banks seem to hate them, this is, I believe, the primary reason why there are so few of them. That, and we all live primarily in capitalist economies that favor the traditional business model that is an oligarchy. [2] In a comparative study performed by Gabriel Burd"n and Andr"s Dean, where they looked into how cooperatives performed in the Uruguayan economic crisis between 1999-2001, it was found that Workers cooperatives employment index rose, while their capitalist counterparts fell in employment. [3, pg. 520] In addition to this, average wage remained higher in worker cooperatives than in capitalist businesses. [3, pg. 523]Next, I will point out that it is possible for worker cooperatives to be extremely successful and that they can turn over profit at a rate as good, or even often better than traditional businesses. Mondragon Corporation is the largest cooperative in the world and "is the tenth-largest Spanish company in terms of asset turnover and the leading business group in the Basque Country. " [4] Therefore, it is not the case that traditional businesses have a monopoly on profit turnover. Now, transitioning to socialism in general: there is one example of a socialist nation that, by all means, was a socialist success. This nation was Yugoslavia under Josip Broz Tito. They had the highest standard of living of any Eastern European nation, and a GDP growth of greater than 5% for most of the years it was socialist[5]. While it is true Yugoslavia fell eventually anyways, this was in large due to NATO and Reagan inciting a silent revolution in Yugoslavia to introduce and pressure them into taking a market economy. [6] In fact:"There is evidence that the US administration in liason with its allies took the decision in the early 1980s to destabilise and dismantle Yugoslavia. The decision to destroy Yugoslavia as a country and carve it up into a number of small proxy states was taken by the Reagan adminstration in the early 1980s. A "Secret Sensitive" National Security Decision Directive (NSDD 133) entitled "US Policy towards Yugoslavia. " (Declassified) set the foreign policy framework for the destabilization of Yugoslavia"s model of market socialism and the establishment of a US sphere of influence in Southeastern Europe. Yugoslavia was in many regards "an economic success story". In the two decades before 1980, annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth averaged 6.1 percent, medical care was free, the rate of literacy was 91 percent, and life expectancy was 72 years. While NSDD 133 was in itself a somewhat innocous document, it provided legitimacy to the free market reforms. A series of covert intelligence operations were implemented, which consisted in creating and supporting secessionist paramilitary armies, first in Bosnia then in Kosovo. These covert operations were combined with the destabilization of the Yugoslav economy. The application of strong economic medicine under the helm of the IMF and the World Bank ultimately led to the destruction of Yugoslavia"s industrial base, the demise of the workers" cooperative and the dramatic impoverishment of its population. " [4]So, Yugoslavia's downfall can't be blamed upon having been socialist, but because many countries ganged up on them. Secondly, there is Bolivia. Since having voted in a socialist party in 2006 and which has become more socialist since, Bolivia has had it's GDP soar from $8 billion to $33 billion[7] and has the fastest growing economy in Latin America. In addition, the extreme poverty levels went down from 38.2%, just before the socialists were elected, to 18.8%[8] and the general poverty rate went from 68.4% to 38.6%[7]. While Bolivia is still a poor nation, it is improving widely under socialism. Bolivia did not see this kind of growth under capitalism. Sources:[1] . http://www.uk.coop...[2] ;[3] . http://disjointedthinking.jeffhughes.ca...;[4] www. uk. coop/sites/default/files/uploads/attachments/worker_co-op_report. pdf[5] ;[6] . http://www.globalresearch.ca...;[7] . http://data.worldbank.org...[8]