socialism

Before continuing in this debate, I would like to clearly point out that while the United States prides itself on its "capitalist" system, the reality of the situation is that the United States is in reality a mixed market promulgated by forced both capitalist and socialist: the capitalist function enters in the act interactions of business and firms within the country whereas the socialist aspect enters when government places regulations in order to ensure the full efficiency of the market through the elimination of social costs, such as pollution, sickness, and other factors that take away from the welfare of the American nation. The main point that I am going to emphasize here is that socialism is only a theory, not something that has been shown to succeed or fail in practice. It is a practice that may be dysfunctional or completely successful; the problem is that placing the United States on a shift from a mixed economy to complete socialism is a precarious move considering that the outcomes of such a practice are questionable. Another economic question comes into play at the point where the majority of the world economies within the world market practice a more capitalistic system of economy. The component of capitalism is required at this point in consideration that resources are required for businesses. In addition, the United States already has a system in place that is done in order to close the gap between the rich and poor, provide welfare services, and provide for other such things that socialism in theory alone would provide for. To move on, we can now analyze some of my opponent's arguments, which seem to be rather flawed in many reasonings. Rebuttal 1: His first point about John Locke shows to be nothing more than a statement with no relevance to the actual topic considering that he doesn't show why the American government under the current system of economy is not upholding the obligation required for the people via the establishment of Social Contract Theory (I assume this is what my opponent is referring to). The mixed economy that we have established in America has been able to balance out the capitalistic and socialistic component in several occassions in order to be able to fufill the economic and humanistic purposes of the society. Capitalism has been shown to be strong in function in more conservative states, including Texas, which has provided the most abundant amount of jobs for the American people even in the more sloping economy, and Louisiana under current direction of a fiscally conservative governor that has a 6% unemployment rate (a more stable unemployment rate in comparison to the rest of the country). The mixed economy is a game, and when played correctly, it can provide great benefits for the American people and uphold society, so at this point, there really is no reasoning to my opponent's first point.Rebuttal 2: My opponent's second point shows to have more susbtance, but as I've stated before, not only does our mixed economy provide for social programs in order to be able to uphold the people anyway, but socialism is only a theory. Even if what my opponent stated is true on paper, the results of having such a system in place in totality are completely unknown considering no country has actually attempted to place a fully socialist economy in function. Rebuttal 3: This is probably the most broad and weak point of all. My opponent pretty much creates an expansive slippery slope for this point that has absolutely no basis. In American history, protests of a similar nature have occurred for similar reasons, including the Progressive Era (1900-1917), where protests came up around businesses providing poor work conditions and little salaries and the Great Depression when protests huddled around the White House during the Hoover and Roosevelt administrations. In none of these occassions did the capitalistic component of the market even come close to collapsing. There's no evidence that the OWS movement are going to in any way take down the capitalistic component of the market.