Democratic Socialism would be an improvement over Capitalism/Social Democracy

Thanks to Pro for allowing me a little more time to respond to earlier criticisms before moving on to new ones. I will first address the criticisms made by my opponent in round 3 and then I will point out some flaws in the responses he made to my criticisms in round 4. The first point my opponent brought up was the problem of corruption and the undue influence of the wealthy that is often found in representative democracies. I am in full agreement with him that this is a serious threat to democracy and equality but my opinion differs from his on how we can fix it. He believes that the best way to rid corruption from the electoral process is through direct democracy. The benefit of this is that it gives absolute and total authority to the people. The problem is that it could be somewhat inefficient to require a referendum on all issues that are deemed major by the people. Instead of this, I would argue that the best way to stop corruption is to keep representative democracy in place but ensure that elected officials act on behalf of their constituents. The best way to both eliminate corruption and to ensure that the representatives are carrying out their constituents' wishes is to introduce publicly funded campaigns so that each candidate receives an adequate amount of money to try to convince voters that they are best suited to hold the posit they are running for without relying on wealthy donors who often influence policy in their favor. This way, officeholders will only be influenced by the people who elect them and will be able to enact popular reforms despite opposition from the wealthy. One other benefit to this system is that it gives the people more ability in influencing their representative while still giving power to elected officials who tend to have a better understanding of the issues than the general public. My opponent claims that inequality and exploitation are exacerbated by social democracy and that wages do not keep pace with productivity in this system. None of these claims are true. First, inequality and exploitation are actually drastically reduced by social democracy when compared to capitalism. Second, as was seen during the 1950-1970s in the US, wage growth was almost identical to productivity growth. Pro also claimed that social democracy actually keeps the flaws of capitalism. This is true in some sense, as social democracy does keep most of the flaws. But the benefit to social democracy is that it dramatically reduces all of these things. It reduces inequality, exploitation, pollution, corruption, and economic volatility, while still leaving room for the benefits of capitalism: rapid growth in productivity, efficiency, innovation, entrepreneurship. Next I would like to address several of the rebuttals made by my opponent in response to my criticisms. First, on the issue of direct democracy, I agree that low turnout is often due to the feeling that we have little influence, but I think that this is more due to the fact that we don't think our one vote will actually count and less due to the fact that we are simply electing representatives and not actually voting on policy. Second, while I do not think that economic efficiency should trump democracy, I do think that there should be a balance between the two. On the issue of minorities, your different arguments are a bit conflicting. On the one hand you say that the system works simply because each person is going to vote in their own interests and on the other hand you are saying that a majority would not gang up on the minority for their own benefit because of a devotion to equality. Which one is it, a devotion to equality or each person voting in their own interests, that helps achieve an egalitarian society? And if it is the latter, what is to stop this situation from occurring? On the issue of efficiency, I am not going to argue for slavery or the suppression of workers wages for maximum efficiency. Instead, I will be arguing as I have throughout this debate for balance. In the case, I believe there should be a balance between wage equality and efficiency that leads to growth. In my opinion, this balance can best be achieved in social democracy, which retains the efficiency that markets provide while allowing workers to join unions that help them reap their fair share of the earnings. Finally, my opponent did not address my concern that while democratic socialism may be best for the workers in the short term, it can actually be harmful in the long term. This is because productivity growth would likely be greater in a social democracy than a democratic socialist economy. The reason for this is that there is greater efficiency due to relatively free markets and there is more innovation and entrepreneurship due to the possibility of bettering one's standards of living. When wages stay on pace with productivity as they would in a social democracy where unions hold bargaining power for the workers, wage growth for the workers would actually be greater in social democracy than democratic socialism. If this trend remains for an extended period of time, the wages for those at the bottom would end up passing those of workers in democratic socialism. Therefore, while democratic socialism may be best for workers in the short term, a regulated capitalist system can provide higher wage growth as well as an opportunity for upward mobility unlike what is seen in democratic socialism.