Capitalism has FAILED the bottom 50%

Thank you for your rather short reply. My opponent has firstly failed to define Socialism and has then seemingly re-defined it to try and rescue his argument. The Western economies he seems to admire are not run as Socialist states. They all have a very vibrant private sector and captal is freely held by private individuals who in turn can trade without government interference. The banking sector, currencies, markets are largely undistorted by an overbearing government meddling. In short they are largely Capitalist. I am English, but live in Germany and I can inform him that Germans do not see their nation as Socialist. What my opponent appears to mean by "Democratic Socialism" is Capitalism with a larger welfare state, than one would see in economies such as Singapore, Switzerland, Hong Kong, UAE, USA etc. He therefore concedes my argument and his debate against Capitalism is over. So lets "look it up". What can we make of the differences between some of these nations in Europe. The data below is according to the Economic Freedom foundation (which effectively indexes how Capitalist a country is). Most of the nations mentioned by my opponent are categorised as "mostly free" (the second highest score), indexing between 70 to 80 points out of 100. Meaning the pillars, of economic freedom are substantially maintained: - Rule of Law (property rights, freedom from corruption); - Limited Government (fiscal freedom, government spending); - Regulatory Efficiency (business freedom, labor freedom, monetary freedom); and - Open Markets (trade freedom, investment freedom, financial freedom). Infact there are only a few countries in Western Europe outside of the "mostly free" categorisation. Firstly there is Switzerland which is categorised higher in the "free" section between 80 and 100 points out of 100. Secondly there is France, Spain and Italy in the "moderately free" category between 60 and 70 points out of 100. Thirdly there is Greece which is in the lower "mostly unfree" category with Mozambique and Bangladesh between 50 and 60 points our of 100. Greece has a huge government sector and a Socialist bias (like Bangladesh for example) to its economy. I need hardly tell you out of Switzerland and Greece, which economies and people do better. The Swiss are active particpators in their economy, expect nothing from government (other than security) and strive hard. The Greeks are expectant of handouts and large pensions built on bail-outs from more successful economies and taxation of its citizens. So all this really leaves you with is France, and I am not sure that you could really build a case that France is an economic powerhouse deriving fantastic standard of living for its bottom 50%. France underperforms its European counterparts, is the second worse Debt:Income ratio country in the G7 beaten only by Italy. Its economy struggles under the weight of government intervention to allow comapnies to create wealth for its citzenship. The highest GDP per head in Europe is (guess where) Switzerland, where the bottom 50% share in a vibrant, stable economy. So I think your analysis was as superficial, as it was short. The data is freely available from the Economic Freedom foundation (2016 report). Good luck with the rest of the debate.