Fiscal equality is unjust; therefore, capitalism is the best economic and political system.

I was unsure about the mechanism for earning this equal money, but I do believe that we can consider ourselves in agreement that the government forcing fiscal equality is unjust. Given this, I should remind the reader that the only thing CON must do in this debate is show that there is a better system than unregulated capitalism. To debate the justness of fiscal equality would essentially be to debate the proposition: "Regardless of the fact that some jobs are harder and require more skill than others, everyone should be paid the same wage." Preposterous. 1) Bias towards those who already own property. My opponent has conceded that such bias exists. He states that "all property is earned during one's lifetime from one's work." This is simply false. My opponent seems to have never heard of inheritance. Quite frequently, an individual will use money they have inherited to fund activities or business ventures that they could not have with only the money they have earned themselves. Good examples would be the Ketchup Queen (John Kerry's wife) and George W. Bush. 2) Monopolies can exist. My opponent has conceded that monopolies can exist as well. He states that "small businesses often succeed in competition against large companies" due to some lacking property of the monopoly. However, in reality, it is much more often the case that the monopoly puts the small business down. How many Mom & Pop grocery or convenience stores have been put out of business by Wal-Mart? How many Mom & Pop stores have driven Wal-Mart out of town? The argument speaks for itself.... obviously the monopolies and other huge corporations put small businesses under. My opponent argues that Microsoft and Intel are not monopolies. Intel owns more than 80% of the x86 and x64 chip market, with AMD being the only real competitor. AMD's influence is waning, especially with the launch of the Core i7 two weeks ago. Microsoft has major companies around the world by the proverbial short & curlies... how many large companies use OSX or Linux? 3) Polarized wages. My opponent refers to this as "classes" for some reason. I'm not sure why. In a system where there IS an unemployment rate, the supply of workers wouldn't change, and thus, a drop in current workers would not yield a change in the price the companies would pay the workers. The company may temporarily raise the price they pay workers, but only to fill the positions in the ensuing emergency. Essentially, this argument is that infrastructure-related jobs are in higher demand than service-related jobs. As for the professorship... that is a best case scenario... I would argue that the average MBA student makes more than the average English major with an equivalent amount of education. 4) Externalities. My opponent argues that the effect of externalities is temporary and thus concedes that they do exist. However, the problem of externalities is not that they cause temporary problems, but that they CAN cause problems. In an unregulated market, externalities can cause huge fluctuations in a local economy virtually overnight. For example, as Hurricane Katrina neared the US coast, gas prices rose faster than would be possible in a regulated market. Again - my opponent concedes that externalities DO cause problems in capitalist markets, but writes their influence off as minimal. This is not the case, as it can be seen quite clearly, both historically (Great Depression) and presently (Gas Prices) that market speculation (an externality) can drastically change prices overnight. To sum up, my opponent has conceded 3 of my 4 objections to capitalism (1, 2, & 4). ****************** 1) Regulated Capitalism My opponent tries to pretend that he has proven that safety is not important enough for the state to regulate and that the market will take care of itself. This is obviously not the case. There were numerous lawsuits against auto companies concerning Michelin tires, SUV's that flipped over easily, and he Ford Pinto (otherwise known as the Car-That-Explodes-When-Rear-Ended). In these cases, even though the danger to public safety was egregious and severe in the extreme, people kept buying the product until the government forced the company to make changes. He also argues that polarized wages and monopolies cannot exist in the free market. How is it that they do, then? CEO and waitress salaries are two prime examples of this. In a well-regulated system, it would be impossible for there to be such egregious disparity in wages. This is not an argument for fiscal equality, but rather an argument for a regulated system that keeps the distribution of wealth in check by creating wage floors and ceilings - in other words, creating a more normalized bell curve on the distribution of wealth. The problem of externalities cannot be entirely solved by regulation, but price caps would go a long way towards solving the problems. Consider if there had been a price cap on gas following 9/11 - the fast inflation of the price of gas would have never occurred. The main purpose of regulating against externalities is to prevent fast inflation. Conclusion? Regulated capitalism fixes the polarization of wages problems with wage cielings and floors, producing a better bell curve in the distribution of wealth. Regulations against monopolies prevent monopolies themselves and help to further mitigate the bias of pre-ownership of property. Price caps help solve the problem of externalities. Regulated Capitalism is better than unregulated capitalism. 2) Libertarian Marxism I'm not sure what definition of Marxism yields the determination that there is no fiscal inequality. There is fiscal inequality in every economic system except some sort of pure communism. My opponent also asserts without any reason that there is no competition in this system, that this system necessitates fiscal equality, and that there is no individual motivation. All three are incorrect. Consider a system wherein persons have a vested interest in participating in politics because political power equals economic power. The people control the means of production via the government. This simply means that the majority of the people (or the people in the middle of the bell curve) would control the economic direction of the country. This in no way means that obtaining an education and becoming a doctor will yield the same income as being a garbage man. There are still businesses, poor people, rich people... Innovation and competition are directed towards producing goods of superior quality at cheaper prices. This system would completely eliminate the bias towards pre-ownership of property except that those people would be better able to afford an education. However, if education was the duty of the state, even that objection would disappear (in fact, this may even be more just than capitalism because it advances equality of opportunity). Monopolies would not exist due to government regulation of market shares. The polarization of wages would largely disappear with wage floors and ceilings, and a vast middle class would develop. Lastly, externalities would create only very small waves in a market where prices are fairly stagnant and inflation minimal. ****************************** I urge a decision in favor of one of these two systems. Fiscal equality is inherently unjust, but this does not necessitate that capitalism is the answer. My opponent has merely contended that capitalism is the best system, but conceded that it has at least three flaws, which I have shown to be eliminated by Regulated Capitalism or Libertarian Marxism. Vote CON. ************** Thank you for reading, and much thanks to Wjlements for an excellent topic. For the record, personally, I endorse regulated capitalism over unregulated capitalism simply for the fact that the regulations act as safety nets... and the Libertarian Marxism thing was kind of an experiment ;)