Capitalism is an immoral system

The attempt to define an economic system as either moral or immoral is a difficult undertaking. For my purposes, I will agree to use my opponent"s proposed basis for determining the ethical nature of an economic system: a system is moral if it only has "positions which are completely necessary" and if it allows egalitarian institutions. There are potential issues with using the term "necessary" to describe an individual"s contributions to the economy. If we are using necessary to mean required for survival, then the only moral economic system would be no economy at all: trade or specialization of labor is not necessary for survival. Therefore, I believe we can quickly discard such a definition of necessary. Instead, I believe my opponent is using "necessary positions" to mean services that provide value at least equal to their cost. As such, capitalism is a moral system because it incentivizes the existence of necessary position more than comparable systems, disincentivizes unnecessary positions more than comparable systems, and is the most egalitarian economic system possible. Through market forces present in capitalistic systems, value is appropriately assigned to products and services. The conjunction of supply and demand ensures products and services are adequately valued via their price. The accuracy of market prices relies upon free entry and exit into or out of specific markets. Attempts to restrict exit and entry via non-private intervention leads to surplus and/or shortage in many cases. To delve into this topic would be to venture into economic analysis at a level I believe unnecessary for my argument. Instead, I will discuss it through the examples used by my opponent. My opponent posits that the business owner is an unnecessary position: the owner provides no value and instead leeches from the labor of his or her employees. The evidence presented in favor of this is the existence and success of democratic cooperatives. However, if the business owner were unnecessary, we would expect to see most businesses, if not all, run via a democratic cooperative. If the business owner is leeching value from employees, then all competing cooperatives would be able to operate at lower cost due to the absence of the dead-weight owner. The reason we do not see a majority of cooperatives, however, is because the business owner most definitely adds value. The owner provides many services. These may include management and direction, but almost always includes investment of capital. A business owner provides a valuable service in assessing economic opportunities and using his or her judgement to invest capital in potentially valuable undertakings. This service cannot be compensated for via wage and is instead repaid by the profits of the business. To remove this incentive (perhaps by state seizure of created businesses), would be to create a system in which capital is not assigned accurately to opportunities based on value, and leads to the creation of unnecessary positions (i.e. a "dirt farmer"). Therefore, there are not unnecessary positions inherent to capitalism. Next is the evaluation of capitalism in its egalitarian nature. My opponent is inaccurate when comparing businesses to governments. Not everyone can be a business owner? In a sense, everyone IS a business owner! Capitalism provides for the ultimate freedom and equality because individuals are unrestricted from participating in economic activities. Every individual is free to make the choice of working or not working. If an individual believes a certain payment is not worth the service they are providing, that individual can choose not to provide the service. An employee in a factory is not forced to be there. He or she is not required to provide their labor for that wage. To confuse the economic transaction of trading service for a wage with slavery is a deceitful twisting. Slavery is no way inherent to capitalism. Slavery can exist independent of the economic system: a state-owned mine can most definitely make use of slaves. Possession of freedom does not require possession of omnipotence. Two individuals with unequal personal wealth operating in a capitalist system are not unequal with respect to the fundamental characteristics of egalitarianism. The fact that both are unrestricted by statute to labor in or establish business as they choose makes them equal. Capitalism, as it allows individuals and groups of individuals to own production (rather than the state), thus provides for a free and egalitarian society.