Economic Freedom ought to be valued over economic equality

As the nobel prize winner in economic science FA Hayek stated, "Even the striving for equality by means of a directed economy can result only in an officially enforced inequality - an authoritarian determination of the status of each individual in the new hierarchical order." It is because I agree with Nobel prize winner in economic science F.A. Hayek that I must affirm the resolution resolved: that In the realm of economics, freedom ought to be valued over equity. Before we jump right in I would like to clarify that the original wording of the resolution was "Economic Freedom ought to be valued over economic equality" I much preferred this wording and got it concreted in my mind before they changed it, that being said, I use the words equity and equality somewhat interchangeably. For clarification purposes in round I will provide a few definitions before we begin Definitions: Economic equality refers to an economy in that all of the inhabitants are equally wealthy, and have the same status in the economy, because they have had the same opportunities, non discriminant on race, gender, skill, culture, or wealth condensation. Economic freedom is the key to greater opportunity and an improved quality of life. It's the freedom to choose how to produce, sell, and use your own resources, while respecting others' rights to do the same. After what homeschoolers would call an enormous amount of research, I have decided that what economic freedom best achieves is a healthy economy. So this will be my value, or what I'm striving to achieve. While my criterion, or my means of achieving my value is economic freedom. A key element of the success of a system in promoting prosperity will be that in rewarding excellent output, it will be rewarding the hard work, courage, alertness, and commitment that makes for excellence. Now, since I have quite a bit to cover, let's move on to my 3 contentions. Contention 1: True economic equity leads to socialism An economic and political system based on public or collective ownership of the means of production. Socialism emphasizes equality rather than achievement, and values workers by the amount of time they put in rather than by the amount of value they produce. It also makes individuals dependent on the state for everything from food to health care. China, Vietnam and Cuba are examples of modern-day socialist societies. Twentieth-century socialist governments were overthrown in Czechoslovakia, East Germany and the U.S.S.R. This article was taken from economicshelp.org and clearly states that Socialism emphasizes equality rather than achievement. Today I will be promoting my value of a healthy economy by encouraging capitalism, not socialism. C1, SA: Socialism is an impractical economic philosophy To quote Austrian economic philosopher Ludwig Von Mises, "People tend to consider socialism impractical because men lack the moral qualities demanded by a socialist society. It is feared that under socialism most men will not exhibit the same zeal in the performance of the duties and tasks assigned to them that they bring to their daily work in a social order based on private ownership of the means of production. In a capitalist society, every individual knows that the fruit of his labor is his own to enjoy, that his income increases or decreases according as the output of his labor is greater or smaller. In a socialist society, every individual will think that less depends on the efficiency of his own labor, since a fixed portion of the total output is due him in any case and the amount of the latter cannot be appreciably diminished by the loss resulting from the laziness of any one man. If, as is to be feared, such a conviction should become general, the productivity of labor in a socialist community would drop considerably." SB: Socialism leads to economic desparity There has never been a society that had no social classes. An especially important point since we have numerous recent examples of societies that tried to create a classless society and failed miserably. Many people have noted that the rich-poor wealth gap in the Soviet Union and communist China is actually larger since socialism and communism replaced the previous systems. Similar to friends, exercise, and education; people have varying relationships with Money. Some people collect money, some people love to make money, some people love to spend money, and some people are afraid of it. Treating everyone the same causes huge problems. Socialism treats the people as a whole, and gives power to the government, so in reality, those who govern would be the upper class, and the governed would make up a consistant lower class, with no class in between. This is what happens when absolute power is given to the government. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. SC: over regulation in such Markets stifle innovation, creating the cycle of poverty Treating everyone equally takes the incentive to improve out of life. People in free societies can make decisions for themselves and create new products and basically improve their position in society by innovation and dedication. This is impossible in a socialist society. C2: Economic freedom ecourages innovation This was taken from Capitalism magazine Jaana Wilson, Fall of 2012. "Economists understand that innovation drives economic growth. Big innovations based on harnessing steam power, discovering electricity, the computer revolution all have spurred economic growth. But what drives innovation? That is what the "peak growth" economists are either mute or mistaken about"some blame, incredulously, neo-liberal policies of deterring innovation and economic growth. Mr. Corcoran, however, correctly identifies that we need freedom to boost innovation and economic growth. It is competition in free markets that pushes companies to outperform each other in coming up with new, better, less expensive products and services, and more efficient processes and technologies for producing them. " SA: Economic freedom is an incentive for success The primary variable in the success of a system is the promise of reward for hard work and dedication, this has been proven in my previous statements, and this is the only system that aknowledges human nature. SB: Consumers' voices are heard. This makes their decisions determine what products or services are in demand. C3: Economic equity leads to socialism, which takes away from individuality. In order to achieve the goal of "Equal Results", you can't acknowledge the inherent uniqueness in each of us. as -- Jeff Landauer and Joseph Rowland, the authors of Socialism, the Imortance of philosophy stated: "Socialism is a form of anthropomorphism. It attempts to see a group of individuals as having a single identity similar to a person. ... Socialism demands that the group be more important than the individual. It requires the individual to sacrifice himself for the alleged good of the group." . Disadvantages of socialism include slow economic growth, less entrepreneurial opportunity and competition, and a potential lack of motivation by individuals due to lesser rewards. SA: Economic freedom leads to the most successful economic system: capitalism Given what we know in 2014, saying that capitalism will make a society richer than socialism should be about as controversial as saying the earth is round, not flat. If you're a politician, socialism puts power in your hands while capitalism takes it away. If you want to use the government to control people's lives, socialism is a wonderful vehicle to do just that while capitalism robs you of that opportunity. If you would rather live off the dole than to work or alternately, prefer to make money off "who you know" instead of "how good a service you provide," again socialism works better for you. It's just as Winston Churchill once noted, "The inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries." Perhaps the strongest argument working in favor of capitalism is that there is no alternative politico-economic system which has proved itself to work in our modern age. Almost every attempted implementation of socio-communism has failed (for example, look at China " they abandoned total communism long ago and are slowly creeping towards capitalism) and any central government risks large amounts of corruption. What"s more is that if, for example, America became socialist and imposed many strong measures on corporations to regulate their behavior, the largest companies (Trans-National Corporations) would most likely move their industry elsewhere, and potential entrepreneurs would be scared to invest in capital, irreparably damaging America"s economy. So as you can see, changing the economic system isn"t even an option. SB: Socialism strangles economic growth: This is done by by penalizing success and rewarding failure. When you loot the successful people in a society to give it to the less successful, you quite naturally reduce the number of successful people and encourage more people to fail. This leads to a never-ending cycle. The more people in need there are, the more the successful must be penalized to pay for them. The more the successful are penalized, the fewer successful people there are. This causes wealth to concentrate in fewer hands, the economy slows down, and even more people need help. It goes on and on until you get a slow economy that can't produce enough tax revenue to sustain itself. That's exactly what killed the Soviet Union, it's killing Greece right now and sadly, the United States and most of Western Europe is on exactly the same path. In conclusion, true economic equity promotes socialism, and socialism promotes a stagnant economy. While economic freedom promotes capitalism, and capitalism promotes an economy of innovation, and constant improvement. And it is for all of these reasons that I would strongly urge a vote for the affirmative.