Essential services should be socialized, and privatized services should be regulated.

I will offer rebuttals and a closing statement. My opponent claims that nations with universal healthcare are not nearly as wealthy as the United States, and that the 2nd most richest nation on Earth (People's Republic of China) has only half the GDP of the US. For starters, this is incorrect. The PRC has an overall GDP of 12.61 trillion USD (. https://www.cia.gov...), with the United States at 15.68 trillion USD. To offer a rebuttal to my opponent's claims that countries with universal healthcare are not as wealthy as the United States, this maybe true on an overall GDP scale (US is the first in GDP), this is not at all the case per capita, which, because of wealth production increasing with population, is the most reliable GDP measure of wealth. According to the International Monetary Fund (2012), the United States ranks 11th in GDP per capita, ranking behind Norway, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, and Canada. My opponent saying that progressive work policies increase life expectancy can be used as a support for regulations of the market. The United States, as it stands, has the highest healthcare costs as a percentage of GDP (17.9%), and has the lowest accessibility in the developed world. It is for this reason I believe healthcare fits into my first premise of Round 1. Regarding education, my opponent again uses overall GDP as a measure of civilian wealth. As explained above, this is already a false premise. Also, my opponent doesn't explain how Australia and Canada having only 1/5th of US GDP proves public education may not serve economies well. Even if private schools were competing to drive to costs, it may still be affordable to some families, and charity schools wouldn't be widespread (See previous rounds). If people are not receiving adequate amounts of food and healthcare, hoarding wealth would not be the ideal thing to do. This isn't to say that we need to get 50% of everyone's bank accounts, but a percentage of the wealth should be taxed and given to the needy. The problem with large-scale businesses is that many of them will use their wealth and influence to pressure Government officials, leading to crony Capitalism. This is why Government much regulate businesses to prevent this from happening. When it comes to public policy, the people should be thinking for themselves. And a decent education helps establish critical thinking skills. My opponent claims that public education has been used to indoctrinate children, and that is true. But in the United States, political beliefs are diverse, and given the freedom of information we have, to indoctrinate all children into a certain set of beliefs would be extremely difficult. The problem with Con's assertion that Communist nations have used public education for indoctrination, is that those nations did not have freedom of information, or freedom of speech. Therefore, parents could not criticize public school systems, and children could not get information for themselves. That is not the case in the developed world (although, given the public apathy of the United States, we need to be extra-wary in this day and age). What happens when the economy is stagnant (like the Great Depression)? People aren't going to be able to get jobs right away, therefore, temporary Government assistance is needed. While we should wean people off of welfare, we should not end it. My arguments on the markets only giving services to those who can pay doesn't come from emotion, rather, from the basics of how markets work. You pay, you get a service. You don't pay, no service. As I said in the previous round, this is fine for most services in the economy, but when people can't pay for food, education, or healthcare, it is a problem. A problem that can best be solved at the public level. The people selling products on the market usually only have one incentive: profit. Profit is not a bad thing, it is a great incentive; but it becomes a problem when people lose access to basic services to maximize profit. The birth of industrial Capitalism was the cause of low working standards, but there is no reason to assume that absent Government regulation, businesses would improve working conditions. If you have no incentive to change them (enormous amounts of wealth were being created, no incentive), and there are no laws, conditions will not change. Children were working to keep from starving. This is not ideal, for children should be at school, in proper growth conditions. The PRC has had an industrial economy for a while, yet working conditions are not improving. Large amounts of wealth are being created, but they remain at the top, due to lack of labor laws. Worker's unions are largely stamped out. While this may help people in the developed world buy cheap products, it is not fair to the workers in the world. Regulation and fair trade laws are needed to fix the problem. Progressvism didn't create wealth, but it spread it around, and provided better working conditions for the working class citizens. Initially slow wealth generation does not remove the implications of suing a large business in a court of law. In the end, you will have the same result, the business being forced to compensate the people and promise not to harm the environment. So passing one universal law would be more efficient compared to a property rights system. I will affirm Pro's point that Government run sewage systems pollute rivers. However, businesses would do the same, thus making the argument invalid. The Government should promote the nonpolluting chemical toilets, that would be a much better solution. The social market provides basic services to all citizens universally in a country, while continuing the marketplace to flourish, provided that they follow laws. Scandinavia provides all citizens with an equal footing, spreading the wealth created around. The argument my opponent used for Saudi Arabia can be debunked by the statement the preceded it, "correlation is not causation". There are many countries with universal healthcare and numerous social programs that rank higher than the United States on the economic freedom index. They remain more economically free. To say that regulations in general deny economic freedom would be debunked by the Heritage index. However, the types of regulations that the US does have are less than stellar, I will affirm by opponent's position on that. The argument my opponent uses in Round 3, that in some cases, trusts would be "nothing to worry about" is an incorrect analysis. The basic theories that both Con and I support (Competition drives down prices) would not apply with a monopoly. Antitrust legislation breaks up monopolies to protect competition. While it may reduce a company's incentive to become a monopoly, it still has them competing in the marketplace. Summary: My 3 basic premises from round one remain unchanged. Socialism, if done universally, is detrimental, however, if done on certain services, can expand access to all members of society. Capitalism can still work on most services in the economy. Regulations to protect the worker are needed to ensure that no exploitation is done. Quality public education, universal healthcare, low-cost/no-cost universities, and high standards of living are found all across the developed world, and given enough support, the United States can provide the same. Closing statement: I would again like to thank my opponent for this debate, especially for respectfulness. I would also like to thank Debate. org for allowing us a medium in which to debate. Although I support mixed economies, I can see where Con is coming from due to my former support of Free-Markets and Libertarian ideas. I wish all who read this well.