Democratic Socialism would be an improvement over Capitalism/Social Democracy

Thanks to my opponent for those remarks. I will first offer my own critique of democratic socialism as described by my opponent followed by a rebuttal of the criticisms my opponent made against social democracy. I would like to begin by bringing up a few issues with the Direct Democracy system that he is proposing. First, this system would be incredibly inefficient. In Switzerland, referendums and initiatives are voted on by the people but only when the proposals receive a certain number of signatures. To mandate that every major issue be voted on by the people would require nearly weekly referendums which would not only cost large amounts of money but would also presumably have low turnout meaning that the votes would not be true representations of popular opinion. This directly contradicts your assumption that socialism would be a natural result if direct democracy. If a mandatory voting system were implemented it would be very harmful to the economy. To require every citizen to go and vote once a week or so and take away a half an hour to an hour of their day would reduce either economic output significantly on the days where there were referendums. In addition to this, you have not clarified what would constitute a major issue that warrants an referendum. How would it be decided when a referendum would be held? If it were decided the same way as in Switzerland than I fear there would be significant delays from when an initiative is first introduced and when it receives the number of signatures necessary and it can be voted on. Take the issue of a natural disaster. If a hurricane were to strike somewhere on the East Coast the aid would be needed as quickly as possible but while I have no doubt that the initiative would receive the number of signatures needed quickly, it would still require a referendum to be scheduled and then carried out. This would take significantly longer than a quick vote in Congress, whether it was already in session or an emergency one was called. On the other hand, if you leave te responsibility to the elected leaders, they would presumably rarely call referendums because they get more power and influence if they do not. Lastly, I would argue that in the planned economy you are proposing, it would be necessary to make many quick decisions that simply do not have time to be voted on. If this happens however, you no longer have the people voting on these issues and therefore, it is unlikely that a socialist society would ever emerge. But if you give the people the power to make all economic decisions it would be inefficient and the economy would probably not last long. My next area of disagreement is you assessment that if you institute a system of pure Direct Democracy, then socialism is the natural outcome. You are assuming that the only issue people will vote on is their immediate well-being. You are ignoring the other factors that would likely affect the votes of each person. I suspect that many would decide to keep a capitalist system with more regulation once they see the inefficiencies of a planned economy. They would opt for growth, productivity, and an opportunity to rise up through the ranks in the future over a system where there is less growth, more inefficiency, but an equal distribution of less. An additional issue is the possibility of each person voting with only themselves in mind, a certain group that constitutes a majority would decide to group together and vote in their collective favor by harming the minority. I would lastly like to point out that while my opponent made a couple criticisms about social democracy rarely lasting long due to conservatives waiting for the right moments to role back the programs that were central to social democracy's success. While I am not going to deny that this does happen, I would remind my opponent that we are debating which system is best, not which system is prone to negative opinions. This being said, the same could potentially happen to democratic socialism as I doubt it would be popular to force people to the polls as frequently as would be necessary. In addition to this, planned economies are inherently inefficient and in this case would likely lose popularity as growth and productivity growth stagnate, even if wage distribution is fair. Those are the main problems with the system of Direct Democracy that my opponent is proposing but I would now like to point out some flaws with democratic socialism assuming that all else works and that people vote in their own interests thus leading to the establishment of a socialist economy. First, a planned economy is much less efficient than a capitalist one. Thanks to the law of supply and demand, capitalist economies effectively distribute resources and set prices in a natural way that brings about economic growth far better than any planned economy could hope to. When regulated effectively, this growth can be channeled into the creation wage and job growth also. However, when a government takes control of the economy and you are left with a planned economy, that level of efficiency can no longer exist and there is no longer balance. Here is an example of how a planned economy run by the people could have a negative impact on overall growth. Let's say that when all costs are added up for a farmer, including salaries, fuel, seeds, etc., it costs $10 to produce a bushel of wheat. In a capitalist economy a farmer would sell his wheat for that price because when you have competition among all the wheat farmers and the going price of wheat is $10, each farmer will produce just enough wheat so that the average cost is $10 and once that is hit, they will stop because from then on they would just lose money. If a farmer were to raise their price, no one would buy their wheat but if they were to lower their price they would lose money. Therefore, the only option is to sell the wheat for $10, and everything works out fine. This is an example of how a market effectively sets the amount of wheat produced and at what price. The problem is, in your system, the people would have control of what price the wheat would be sold at. It is logical to assume that since each person would vote in their own interest, they would want the price to be lower than $10, so let's say that instead of $10 they set the price at $8. Now, the farmer would have two options. One is to simply leave the industry. The other is to keep farming and go into bankruptcy since they would no longer receive enough money to make up for what they spent. While this is a fictitious and simplified example, it illustrates how a planned economy is ineffective at distributing resources and setting prices and would likely upset the balance achieved through the capitalist system at the center of social democracy. One of the biggest problems with democratic socialism is that over the long term it can actually hurt those that it intends to help. While a planned economy may be able to distribute income evenly, the economic and productivity growth is much smaller. This means that while each worker is guaranteed to get their fair share of the earnings, the earnings they will receive are not as large. On the other hand, moderate exploitation can be found in a social democratic economy, but thanks to the efficiency of the capitalist system and the incentive for innovation that comes with the possibility of bettering oneself, economic and productivity growth is much higher. When unions are in place to bargain collectively for a fair share of those earnings, the workers actually gain more money each year than in a democratic socialist economy. Due to the fact that I am low on characters I can't elaborate much on this, but my main point that I want to get accross is that in social democracy, unions can ensure that productivity is even with wages. Since productivity growth is greater in capitalism, the wage growth is greater. Eventually, SD wages surpass those in a planned econ