The Morality of Socialism

Rebutal of opponent's argumentsHowever, my point still stands-- socialism does hinge on the redistribution and removal of private property. -Isaac_MathisI'll address this at the bottom, where I will be explaining communal property versus private property.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. -Isaac_MathisI thought that would slide since I assume you're also American, which means every 4 years we're choosing between the lesser of two evils for president, and doing so seems to be okay to us. Lol But you're right, proving that socialism is less immoral than all other systems doesn't prove it is moral. I've been arguing that it is moral in other ways during this debate, and will show how it is again later in this round. 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. -Isaac_MathisI don't see what this has to do with my point at all. It seems to be a non sequitur. Regardless, this also needs a citation. Though it does seem believable considering McDonald's just has one CEO and employs probably millions and millions of employees. But, nonetheless, a claim like this would still needs a citation, and even if it's true of McDonald's, it's not true for every business as every business is different.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. -Isaac_MathisWell, I don't know if we can trust this statistic, seeing as there is no citation you provided. Though, I shall refute it right now:There is between $21 trillion and $31 trillion dollars estimated to be in Off-shore bank accounts by the mega-wealthy.[7] In addition, in these off-shore bank accounts it is possible to earn 17% interest [8] That means every year, $3.57 trillion to $5.27 trillion dollars a year that could be going to Africa, and it wouldn't even make the rich poorer since this is just the interest made off of what they already have in bank accounts. Since Africa has a population of 1.2 billion(you can just google that number, that is what I did) that means every African could be living off of an extra $2,975-4,391. However, it would be more than that if we subtracted the wealthy Africans from that. So let's look at the people living in extreme poverty in Africa, it's 414 million[9]. So, if we gave that money to those living in extreme poverty in Africa, it would be an additional $8,623-12,729 per person to live off of per year. That's actually quite significant and would improve the lives of the starving Africans tremendously. I believe that amount of money would make it that they no longer have to starve at the very least. The above is not making anyone poorer since, again, we're just taking the interest the super-rich make in off-shore bank accounts, which probably isn't even a majority of their net income anyways. They would likely still put more money in their off-shore banking accounts from other sources of income, thus raising the amount they make on interest, which could then be used to improve the lives of more people over time, perhaps extend it to South America or the people in poverty in Asia. 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. -Isaac_MathisI would say that, like property, this is a right with certain conditions, such as that there must be enough doctors and nurses to provide for everyone, that way it's not slavery. And as for your point that someone else has to provide it for them, well that's just what the society agreed to, assuming they have a democratic government. The society is consenting to it, so I don't see what the problem is. Adolf Hitler was elected and enabled democratically, was he moral? -Isaac_MathisYou're still not understanding what I'm saying though. Yes, he was moral according to majority of Germans. In German society of the time, he was considered to be a moral person, if he was considered immoral by society, they likely wouldn't have voted for him. Morality differs from society to society. When someone is elected by majority in that society, or is being approved of by majority in that society, they are, therefore moral according to that society. While he was not moral in terms of American, British, French, etc standards, he was moral for German standards of the time. Slavery was maintained by democracy in the United States, was this moral? -Isaac_MathisActually, it was maintained because of a gag rule in Congress. That is the opposite of democracy when you say a topic can't be discussed. If we had democracy, as I stated before, slavery would have been removed a lot sooner since African-Americans and white northerners opposed to slavery outnumber the white southerners in favor of slavery. It was because we did NOT have a democracy, that slavery stayed in place. Again, the United States is a republic, not a democracy, and because it was a republic, not a democracy, the people in charge of the government made it rule of congress that slavery could not be discussed. The general populace had nothing to do with that.The eradication of Native Americans from the midwest was voted on democratically, was this moral? -Isaac_MathisBut, it wasn't. We have a republic, not a democracy. I don't know that it would have been voted on democratically if we were allowed to vote for it, but if we did, then majority of people considered it moral, therefore it would have been moral according to American standards. Again, you're not listening. Each society has a different standard for what is moral that is set when majority of people in that society decide something is moral or immoral. 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.Both what I am for and anarcho-synidicalism is for is democraticly-owned companies. And no, you didn't disprove it since you seemed to have misunderstood what I was saying. As shown above where I point out flaws in each of your examples, shows this.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. -Isaac_MathisMoving 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. -Isaac_MathisAs I just thought about in another debate, the 14th amendment to the United States constitution, nor does John Locke, talk about specifically privately-owned property. Some of the writings of John Locke may imply it, but that is up for debate. Perhaps we could do another debate on the writing's of John Locke or something. So, is private property, specifically even a right? All I've seen is property in general is a right, so technically changing property from privately-owned to communally-owned does not violate the right to property, since the person who originally owned the property still owns it, but just shares it with their workers. You can see more on this in this debate that I'm taking a part in on whether or not private property is a right [10] Sources: [7] http://www.forbes.com...;[8] http://nomadcapitalist.com...;[9] http://borgenproject.org... [10] http://www.debate.org...