The Morality of Socialism

I'll start by countering your rebuttals.Socialism doesn't get rid of all private property, it only makes it so that businesses are worker-owned or worker-controlled. Private property, such as having land with your house, is still permitted under socialism. I'm very well aware that there are varying degrees of de-privatization between different socialist thoughts, my wording on this statement was a tad bit off. My bad. However, my point still stands-- socialism does hinge on the redistribution and removal of private property.It is relevant because if I can show that socialism is more moral than capitalism, then it, even if it is immoral to some degree, would be the more moral option because it is less immoral than the other economic systems out there.Capitalism is not the perfect mirror of socialism. Just because the two are the most widely used economic systems doesn't link the two morality-wise-- proving that capitalism is immoral would do nothing to prove the morality of socialism. This isn't a Is-Socialism-the-Lesser-of-Two-Evils debate. If it were, than your point would be valid. On a further note, if you would like to argue the morality of capitalism I would be more than happy to do so in a separate debate.You only need to look at the percent of the world who is in poverty, and dying from that poverty. In reality, claiming resources has been resulting in these deaths and impoverished people.If the CEO of McDonalds were to split his income among every single minmum-wage employee in the business, each employee would get a three cent raise. Fact of the matter is, breaking up the wealthy does much more to cripple an economy than bolster it. Again, this opens up an entirely new debate, but if you take out the pillars holding up an economy, the entire system will collapse. Another statistic: If one were to charge the top 1% wage earners in the United States with feeding Africa, they would possess the resources to feed every other person for a week. Once again, arguing that Person A is immoral simply because they have resources is not logical. They aquired those resources through work, and, of course, the work of others-- who worked willingly for pay. Slavery is of course immoral, but the only instance of someone being forced to work for another person can be found within socialism. There is nothing immoral about success while other's fail. Are you making the claim that the top 1% of Americans are directly responsible for the bottom 1%?That doesn't actually happen though. Doctors are there willingly, if there were no doctors, then it would be forced labor for us to force people to be doctors, but the fact is, we don't need to force people to be doctors.This isn't the point I was making. If someone has a natural right to healthcare, and this right comes naturally, which means they don't have to pay for it, then someone must have the natural responsibility to provide this right. If everyone has a natural right to healthcare, then no one should naturally have to pay for it, therefore doctors are essentially slaves who must provide this right. Or, the taxpayer who finances Person A's healthcare is the slave, as he must work to provide this person's right. If the right does not come naturally than someone logically has the natural responsibility to provide this right.As for your argument that as long as something is democratically chosen it is therefore moral: Three examples prove this theory wrong. Adolf Hitler was elected and enabled democratically, was he moral? Slavery was maintained by democracy in the United States, was this moral? The eradication of Native Americans from the midwest was voted on democratically, was this moral? Again, claiming that the majority is always correct is an Appeal to the Masses fallacy. Society does not determine what is or is not immoral, as society can and is often wrong. This is a strange claim, I'm more than a little confused.Keep in mind the definition of morals that were agreed upon in the beginning of the debate: the principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior.The non-aggression principle, while not necessarily crucial to the morality of socialism, isn't subjective. You are either applying force or not-- the only tie-up I can think of would be abortion, but as I stated, the fetus has not applied force to the mother. That's equivalent to claiming that the food in your stomach is violating your bodily autonomy, as it is now working against your stomach acids and digestive system. You were the one who chose to eat the food? Just as the mother is the one who chose to have sex, knowing full well the possible outcomes?Moving onto your arguments.At this point, I think I have discredited Libertarian Socialism enough, but once again I will give points as to why this is an oxymoron and would never work in the real world.Socialism requires the use of force to redistribute wealth and resources, pretending that everyone in a given country would participate in a socialist system willingly is living in the dreamworld. Utopias do not exist. Libertarian Socialism does not and cannot work, unless you can prove that it is possible to respect the wishes of the individual while simultaneously forcibly redistributing his property. Your argument as to the morality of redistribution does not change the fact that libertarianism draws roots from individualism while socialism draws roots from collectivism, they are ideologically opposite.As for anarcho-syndicalism, I'm assuming this is referring to your example of a democratically controlled economy from earlier. Again, this system would rely on the absolute morality of democracy, which I have disproven above.Your paragraph about property I will break down below. Your first statistic refers to land ownership only-- this is only one form of property, and as far as this debate is concerned, not the most important. Every single American over the age of eighteen owns at least some form of property. Your second statistic refers to rural land, not land in general. Whites do not own any more land than blacks, yet in rural settings, whites are much more likely to own farmland. So both of your statistics have been misinterpreted, I can venture to say that your final statement is discredited.In order to prove that it is immoral for some to obtain more property than others, it would have to be true that the higher-ups could provide for the lower classes if necessary. This simply is not true, however. What you are advocating for is everyone be dragged down to the same level of poverty, and then call this moral because everyone is equal in misery. A capitalist society or laissez-faire economy does not curtail development and ownership because there is no need to-- it's not like the United States is running out of land, food, water, anything. There is no need to redistribute property to "protect other's right to life" as there is no threat to the right of life for those with not as much property, no threat, that is, caused by those who have more. The rich do not "steal" from the poor, they simply do not give to the poor. To claim that it is moral to force someone to give up their income is borderline insane.Moving on to my final argument-- in order to win this debate, you would have to prove that property is not a right, and that the redistribution of said property is moral. As I have stated previously, property is in fact a right, as property is gained through labor. If we do not own the fruits of our labor, we are enslaved to work for whoever does. Whether it be a democratically controlled union, government, or collective doesn't make a difference-- you are still being robbed of what you own. To claim that the forced redistribution of property on a wide scale, that dragging everyone down to the same level of poverty, is a moral decision, is equally fallacious. Person A owning property does not prevent Person B from owning property as well. If Person A works for property, and Person B does not, it is not moral to redistribute this property so that Person A and Person B are equals. This violates Person A's right to his labor, as well as violating the non-aggression principle, which you claim to adhere to as a libertarian. If slavery is immoral, then forcing someone to work for the benefit of another is logically immoral as well.