capitalism vs. socialism

REBUTTAL: The only statement which my opponent gave regarding which was the better system was "But in another way, (Socialism) brings all productivity to a halt, thus running the nation itself into the ground. " Firstly, this is not necessarily true. There is no reason why Socialism, if done correctly, needs to bring productivity to a halt. Secondly, my opponent does not give any evidence for why this is true. To quote the great Christopher Hitchens "A claim brought forth without evidence can just as easily be dismissed without evidence. " ARGUMENTS OF MY OWN: ARGUMENT 1: Socialism (when done correctly) gets rid of much of the unfairness In a Capitalist system, we get huge differences in the amount of money one person has. We get an upper class which controls a hugely disproportional percentage of the money and then a lower class which is either underemployed or unemployed. Since corporations (and therefore jobs and therefore money) are in the hands of the very rich the lower class is at the mercy of the upper class. Because the corporation-owning people (and not the Government) regulate jobs as well as wages they can do whatever they want. The well-being of the lower class is almost entirely at the hands of the upper class (This is a short passage on Marx's views on exploitation of labor . https://www.marxists.org...). Capitalism, aside from giving too much power to too few unregulated people, also favors generational wealth. If Fred Trump is a millionaire, his son Donald is going to be extremely wealthy too (barring poor financial actions). If Bob has to work at a fast food restaurant to provide for his family there is no way for his son to jump out of poverty into the middle or upper class. There is no way for him to go to college (he lacks the money). There is no way for him to start a business (he lacks the money). There is no way for him to get a decent job (he lacks the money to get the qualifications). In other words, Bob's son will be stuck in poverty for the rest of his life. The romantic ideal that Capitalism rewards those who work hard is quite simply not true. ARGUMENT 2: Socialism can create a fostering of art If there is a lack of art in this country it is only because of the lack of commercial properties for art. Capitalist logic then decides that because the business of writing serious novels or poetry cannot compete with the business of making magazines that more people should make magazines and less people should try to create art. People will often lean towards cheap entertainment as opposed to higher entertainment and when the only motive for creation is profit it becomes impossible to create things that will not yield high profits. With Socialism we can have state sponsored art (this sounds so propagandic but it doesn't have to be), which would pay people to go into the arts and write poetry or paint. The idea of state-sponsoring something to make it more appealing is not limited to the idea of art. Take for example the Soviet Union (which I'd like to note is an absolute failure of a Socialist state), which state-sponsored chess. It made it extremely profitable to become a professional chess player whereas in America it was extremely hard to make a living playing chess. This is the main reason why the USSR dominated the world chess scene for much of the 20th century, there were great players living in America but they had more incentive to go into accounting than to try and become professional chess players. ARGUMENT 3: Government-subsidized services With Government subsidized-services like health care, welfare, and education we can increase the well-being of all the people in a state. Take for example the country of Denmark which is a sort of pseudo-socialist country (note it is not actually a Socialist country and still suffers from many of the problems which Capitalist countries face). They have free healthcare and free education through college. Every person; regardless of race, gender, or wealth gets the same education and the same health care. Denmark is also a hub for small businesses with 70 percent of companies having 50 employees or less (. http://blog.peerform.com...). Countries with some socialist ideas have also proved that quality education can be provided for free and the literacy rates of North Korea (100 percent), Cuba (99.8), Russia (99.7), China (96.4) all rank above the USA's lackluster 86 percent (see references 2 and 3). Socialism can provide things to everyone which Capitalist societies cannot. This concludes my argument. Best of luck to my opponent. __________ References: 1. . https://www.marxists.org... 2. . http://www.ditext.com... 3. . http://blog.peerform.com... 4. . http://world.bymap.org... 5. . http://www.huffingtonpost.com...