Libertarian socialism is not an oxymoron

In bold will be points made by my opponent, in bold and italics will be direct quotes RE: Multiple socialist parties are authoritarian However, these authoritarian socialist parties do not have a monopoly and what the ideology of socialism means. There are also many parties that are libertarian socialist, such as the Democratic Union party of Syria[15], the Freedom and Solidarity party of Turkey[16], The Republican Democrats of South Africa[17], the Solidarity party of the UK[18], and the Kurdistan Democratic solution party[19]. I can provide many more if you want, but this should suffice for my point. ...my opponent has no evidence other than their own assertions. I provided evidence already in round 2 of the original meanings of the words libertarian and socialist. So, this is a lie that I provided no evidence. In fact, libertarian, used in order to describe leftist parties and individuals, has been around since the mid-1800s, and is still used today. The idea of applying the term libertarian to the right-wing only happened within the past half of a century. Noam Chomsky is a famous person alive today who identifies as a libertarian socialist[20], wikipedia has an entire page devoted to libertarian socialism where you can read about other people who identify with libertarian socialism[21] and political compass, a pretty well-known political survey giver, even has a category known as “libertarian left”[22]. Not only are most existing groups that identify as "socialist" fundamentally authoritarian, which is contrary to libertarian principles, but I argue that no socialist society can be anything but. But that would be ignoring history. Also, I think claiming that most existing groups who identify as socialist are authoritarian also needs evidence. I already provided 5 examples of parties who are libertarian socialist, and there are many more. Anyways, there were at least two socialist societies which were done with no government and were not authoritarian: Revolutionary Catalonia of the Spanish Civil war, and the Free Territory of Ukraine of the Russian civil war. Both can be looked up on wikipedia if you so wish to do so. Both were eventually taken over by authoritarian states. The one weakness that libertarian societies, such as those, have is that they use a volunteer army. The authoritarian states that took them over used conscription, so already, the libertarian states were at a disadvantage since they would have a much smaller military. So, while these societies were short-lived, they did maintain their anarchy/libertarian states for the entire duration they were around, which for both was a few years. In addition, what you said here would be a cherry-picking fallacy, because you’re ignoring readily-available evidence. And a cherry-picking fallacy is “the act of pointing to individual cases or data that seem to confirm a particular position, while ignoring a significant portion of related cases or data that may contradict that position.”[23] My opponent pointed to examples of authoritarian socialist countries and parties while ignoring the examples out there which are not authoritarian, which I offered above. Re: Author analogy, specifically the part on agreements where workers get part of the company occurring in capitalist economies While this happens in capitalist economies, it automatically makes the economy a little less capitalistic and more socialist. This is exactly how socialism can be achieved without any force: if business owners agree to making ownership of the company split between the workers of said company. Re: Choice removed in socialist economy Just like the choice to be able to steal from someone should be removed from a libertarian society, so should the choice to be able to deprive your workers the right to the product of their labor. The business, in and of itself, is a product of the workers’ labor. They are entitled to a portion of the business, and thus violence is justified in order to gain control of what should have been theirs. Violence is justifiable in libertarian societies, as mentioned above, when rights are violated. Re: Democratic oppression You do realize that “oppression” would occur no matter what system we have, right? I would rather the oppression be approved by a majority of people, than by a minority. In our “esteemed” republic, we had slavery for almost a century, and there are countless other cases where a minority was allowed to oppress another minority, such as extremist Christians oppressing the LGBT community, and I could name more things that are happening in our republic, but that is probably not necessary. In a republic, a minority is permitted to oppress another minority. In a democracy, that would be prevented. Only a majority would be able to oppress a minority. While that’s not good, it’s better than the potential of minorities doing it to other minorities. I mean, if you’re going to argue the “tyranny of the majority” argument, then show me an example of a country that had no tyranny. You probably can’t. I consider that argument a moot point. In fact, a democracy probably would have ended slavery sooner in our nation since African-Americans and white northerners who wanted to end slavery back then, outnumbered the white southerners who wanted to keep slavery. So… what exactly is bad about a democratic rule that isn’t applicable to other means of ruling? For one, morals are determined by majority in a society. There’s no way to argue morals are objective, each society has a different set of morals. So, shouldn’t the ones in power be the people themselves in order to ensure that what is moral in that society is what actually happens? ...the fact that the workers feel entitled to more than they were compensated for does not change the fact that to forcibly appropriate a company"s resources is theft Sure, and technically it is also theft to steal something that was originally stolen from you. But we’d all agree that this is justified theft, since you’re taking something that originally belonged to you. That’s how I view the workers taking over a company. Also, keep in mind that I’m not suggesting that the workers be the sole owner of the company, the business owner would still own the company too, they would just do so jointly with the workers there. It’s not exactly stealing anything, it’s just making the business owner share. And again, it’s justified forced sharing because the workers are entitled to the product of their own work, which you haven’t refuted that point, so I assume you think it’s a valid point. Re: Socialist party USA argument… again I believe I refuted this point before with showing how there are other socialist parties which are libertarian socialist and not authoritarian in any way. Just because the Socialist USA decides to use ideas that involve the government, doesn’t mean every socialist party agrees with that. The thought process behind this statement is that if a person does not receive exactly what they want or for their labor, they did not fully consent, No, I didn’t argue that, this is a strawman. I argued that you don’t fully consent when you have no other options. People have no other option other than these two in a capitalist society: work under someone, or make people work under you. The latter is not possible for everyone, because that means everyone would be a business owner. That’s not possible because most businesses need employees, and if everyone was a business owner, there would be no employees. So, some people are forced to be employees de facto. Anyways, please tell me how there is consent in a system where you have no choice but to work under someone in order to survive? Also, you still never refuted the idea that workers are entitled to the product of their work, as I said, I think I can assume you agree to this. Classical liberalism holds that the needs of one person do not justify taking what belongs to another, Exactly, which is why business owners should not be taking the product of their workers’ labor by having sole ownership of the company. The product of a worker’s labor belongs to him. Growth of the business is a result of the worker’s labor, so they are entitled to own the business too. I believe I’ve sufficiently refuted all of my opponent’s arguments. Sources: [15] https://en.wikipedia.org...(Syria) [16] https://en.wikipedia.org... [17] https://en.wikipedia.org... [18] https://en.wikipedia.org...(UK) [19] https://en.wikipedia.org... [20] https://en.wikipedia.org... [21] https://en.wikipedia.org... [22] https://www.politicalcompass.org... [23] https://en.wikipedia.org...