Communism

ConcessionsMy opponent makes a few key concessions by dropping some of my major arguments. The first concession is that true Communist societies are those in which the people voluntary choose to band together and work for a communal good. He also concedes the two main impacts from this argument, namely that Communism promotes equality and that the USSR and China are not Communist societies. The second concession is that the Communist societies would promote Human Rights better than Capitalist societies possibly could because Communism promotes respect for human life and for human dignity. Please extend this arguments cleanly across the flow; they will have important applications later in the round. True CommunismHis first rebuttal is that there is no incentive to work in a Communist society; I have four responses to this attack. First, keep in mind that he conceded in the last round that Communist societies are voluntary collectives in which the people strive to promote the well-being of all. Individuals who do not wish to join a Communist society and who care only for their own interests would never join this voluntary collective, while individuals who do wish to promote the good of their fellow men would. Insofar as this is true, the incentive "problem" would never plague Communist societies because the people who join them would bet those who strive to promote the welfare of all. Since Communism is, by definition, a voluntary collective, the self-interested would not be forced to join. Second, Marx notes in the Manifesto that Communist societies are at the "end of history", meaning that they would only exist when humans evolve socially to the point that they no longer depend on petty self-interests for pleasure. Marx notes that in the modern era, Communism could never exist; however, Communist societies will probably exist in the future. History has proven that societies are becoming increasingly open to notions of equality, so it is feasible that at some point, people will be able to forgo petty interests in favor of the welfare of humanity. The impact is that just because humans are not currently altruistic does not mean that they will not be altruistic in the future, meaning that in a true Communist society, the incentive problem would not exist.Third, Communist societies have a coercive apparatus to deal with individuals who hope to leech the communities' resources. One of Marx's most famous lines from the Manifesto is "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." In other words, individuals must put into the community according to their abilities, and in return, they receive goods from the community in proportion to their needs. If individuals who can contribute to the community choose to shirk their responsibilities, they will not receive anything from the community in return. However, individuals who are genuinely unable to contribute would be taken care of under this provision. This also solves the incentive problem because it provides an additional incentive for individuals to achieve individual interests by working through the community. Fourth, Communist societies can solve the incentive problem by allocating respect in a novel manner. According to psychologist Abraham Maslow, one of the most fundamental human needs is recognition; this is the most powerful motivating factor because human beings are social creatures. Conceptions of beauty, sexual morality, sexual desires, presentation, etc. are all influenced by society, and almost everything that anybody has the function of garnering recognition and respect. Economist Thorstein Veblen's theory of conspicuous consumption, for example, explains that individuals spend funds on goods and services for the purpose of displaying income and wealth. This, in turn, functions as a means of garnering social recognition. In our society, we allocate respect to individuals who have the most wealth and thus manufacture a positive feedback mechanism by which we promote greed and wanton individualism. A Communist society, however, could allocate respect to the most altruistic individuals and could refuse to grant respect to the wealthy simply because they are wealthy. This would create competition to become the most altruistic and would thus create a positive feedback loop with the end goal of promoting the welfare of others.His second attack about the bourgeoisie is actually completely false. In the Manifesto, Marx explicitly notes that the bourgeoisie is the reason that capitalism exists, and notes that just as the bourgeoisie ovethrew the noblemen and aristocrats of the Middle Ages, so too can the proletariat overthrow the bourgeoisie class and create their own society. The bourgeoisie do not act as a bridge between the wealthy and the destitute because they are the reason that Capitalism exists in the first place. Economy He extends his arguments from his previous speech even though he concedes that Communism is voluntary collectivism. Since his attacks focused on the USSR and China, which are not Communist societies according to his concessions, there is nothing to extend here. In fact, you can extend the link-turn that he conceded to because they negate his economic arguments from his first speech. Capitalism He makes no effort to defend the attacks I made on capitalism; the only thing that he claimed was that the same thing could be said about Communism. Note, however, that my attacks discussed the dangers of unregulated corporations, which would not exist in a true Communist society. This means that the attacks could never possibly apply to Communism. Insofar as this is true, you can extend all of the dropped analysis about the dangers of Capitalism. By falsely claiming that they could be applied to Communism as well, he openly conceded that these attacks were valid criticisms of Capitalist societies. Since we both agree that these are problems with Capitalism, please extend this arguments cleanly across the flow.