Capitalism

"Similar to how most people agree that monarchy or oligarchy is an illegitimate form of government, as they do not provide consent from the governed, so too is capitalism and other systems of economy. Socialism provides a means through which people can consent to being governed in an economic sense. Under socialism, workers control their own businesses. They have a say over the rules and regulations the business would have over them. Whereas, under capitalism or other systems this system of consent is not present. We don't get to choose who the business owners are, and they are positions of power and authority, so one wonders why economics is different when determining legitimate power. In addition to having a say over a business you work for, you are also compensated more under socialism. With socialism, a CEO or business owner would not be there to take majority of the money the company earns. Instead, this capital would be spread across the workers. Therefore, socialism benefits the majority in society, rather than an elite few." Con, it seems here you are confusing capitalism with plutocracy and corporatism. I see this commonly happening with pro-socialist arguments. Also, not every business is run by an elite few unless you're talking about big corporations. Businesses in capitalist countries benefit the owners, the employees, and other people through "Cooperatives are actually, in many ways, more successful than traditional business models. For example, 80% of cooperatives survive the first 5 years of being in business, compared to 41% of the traditional business model." Cooperatives have been founded in capitalist countries.: "Since cooperatives are difficult to start up, and banks seem to hate them, this is, I believe, the primary reason why there are so few of them. That, and we all live primarily in capitalist economies that favor the traditional business model that is an oligarchy." Huge wall street banks in America have shown themselves to be very socialist, as well as power hungry. This should be in common knowledge by now. The reason businesses fall, by the way, is often because of huge government regulations or poor business decisions.. "In a comparative study performed by Gabriel Burd"n and Andr"s Dean, where they looked into how cooperatives performed in the Uruguayan economic crisis between 1999-2001, it was found that Workers cooperatives employment index rose, while their capitalist counterparts fell in employment" As I mentioned in Round 2, the US has remained wealthy and businesses have remained succesful despite a $20 trillion debt. "In addition to this, average wage remained higher in worker cooperatives than in capitalist businesses." Again, there are ocoperatives in capitalist countries. "Now, transitioning to socialism in general: there is one example of a socialist nation that, by all means, was a socialist success. This nation was Yugoslavia under Josip Broz Tito". Yugoslavia was dependent on foreign aid. It was, in no way, succesful because of its own wealth. "So, Yugoslavia's downfall can't be blamed upon having been socialist, but because many countries ganged up on them." This may be true, but there are many countries that are failing or have fallen because of socialism, whereas I have not seen the same in many capitalist nations. "Secondly, there is Bolivia. Since having voted in a socialist party in 2006 and which has become more socialist since, Bolivia has had it's GDP soar from $8 billion to $33 billion and has the fastest growing economy in Latin America." Bolivia is still an extremely poor country and is improving very slowly. As mentioned in round 2, Cuba and Venezuela, 2 socialist latin American countries, are riddled with poverty and have seen very slow economic growth. https://fee.org... http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com... http://community-wealth.org... https://en.wikipedia.org... http://www.nationaldebtclocks.org... http://www.borgenmagazine.com... http://www.azomining.com... http://www.worldatlas.com... https://en.wikipedia.org...(PPP)_per_capita https://smallbiztrends.com...