Libertarian socialism is not an oxymoron

First, I will address my opponent's claims regarding the existence of non-authoritarian socialist parties, after which I will address the capitalist system as a whole and its relation to libertarian philosophy. Finally, I will show that socialism violates basic libertarian principles. I will start with the most obvious problem with my opponent's rebuttal: poor sources. Every article that they cite on the matter is a very short Wikipedia article , providing no information about the party platform, as I did in my examples. Because of this, there is very little evidence to support their claims, despite the large volume of sources used. The sources provide no specific examples of policy goals. [1][2][3][4][5][6] All claim to be libertarian socialist, but because my opponent has not provided any specific examples of specific policy goals, one cannot determine whether they actually adhere to this philosophy in practice. As I demonstrated earlier with the example of the Socialist Party of the United States, a group can claim to support a certain ideology, but support policies that contradict that goal.[7] Because of this, the sources provided should be taken with a grain of salt. A name alone does not mean that a group automatically follows a particular ideology, as my opponent has argued throughout this debate. Because no specific evidence is provided as to whether the parties actually try to implement their ideologies in a non-authoritarian manner, my opponent has failed to satisfactorily disprove my claim that the majority of socialist parties are authoritarian in practice. My contention stands. Having addressed my opponent's lack of information, I now move on to address another piece of evidence that they use. They say that the brief existence of anarcho-communist territories during the Spanish Civil War and the Ukrainian Revolution refutes my theory that socialist governments must be authoritarian. That is hardly a smoking gun. Even if non-authoritarian socialism was upheld for the entire duration of the states' existence, three years is the blink of an eye when it comes to government. Those nations were barely established before they ended. [8][9] Because of the brevity of these fleeting socialist societies, it is hard to determine whether the systems would have survived in the future. We only need to look to Soviet Russia [10], Cuba [11], or China under Mao [12] for evidence that countries founded on the principles of socialism tend to dissolve into authoritarian regimes. Finally, I would like to reiterate the point of this argument. Even if the entirety of my argument up to this point were discounted, we must remember that the existence of societies or parties that follow the name "libertarian socialist" does not threaten my argument in any way. I am merely trying to prove that libertarianism and socialism are opposing philosophies, which I believe I have done. My opponent's entire argument seems to hinge on the idea that capitalism as an economic system is inherently opposed to collective ownership, saying, "While [sharing companies with workers] occurs in capitalist societies, it automatically makes the economy a little less capitalist and more socialist." This statement reveals a fundamental misconception about capitalism. In a capitalist system, each person is free to own property and to do what they want with it. [15] Trade is unrestricted, and the buyer and seller together decide the value of the good being traded. As such, there is nothing about trading company equity to workers that contradicts capitalism. Think about the stock market, where equity in a company is sold for money. It is no different if a worker is compensated with stock in the company. In this case, equity is traded for labor instead of money. The difference between capitalism is that the trade is voluntary; the system is inherently free. Conversely, in socialism, collective ownership is, by definition, systemic. Modern libertarianism upholds personal freedom and deregulation. In a system where systemic democratic ownership of the means of production is enforced by the government, both of these principles are violated. A system where this is completely voluntary, without government intervention (which I assert cannot happen on a large scale anyway), is therefore capitalist, and irreconcilable with socialism. The "socialism" my opponent argues for is not, indeed, true socialism, for socialism is almost universally recognized as fundamentally opposed to capitalism. This is supported by my opponent's cited parties and my own. [3][5][7][13][14] I will now address my opponent's opposition to my claim that they have not provided any evidence to support their definitions of socialism and libertarianism. Despite the fact that outright calling my argument a lie is unprofessional and borderlines on ad hominem, I concede that I should have worded that statement differently. What I meant is that my opponent had no evidence that their definitions correspond to the modern meaning of the words. If the modern understanding of a word differs from the original understanding, the original meaning is not applicable to defining the word. This, my opponent did not provide, and I did. In fact, in my opponent's third argument, they said, "The idea of applying the term libertarian to the right-wing only happened within the past half of a century." So my opponent concedes that currently, a sizable portion of the population holds to my classical liberal definition of libertarianism. I'll now respond to my opponent's ludicrous assumption that workers deserve the product of company growth. The workers have sold their labor for an agreed-upon wage. What happens to the company does not concern the worker. Although I feel that I have explained this sufficiently, it seems that my argument was not sufficient, so I will offer a similar analogy to my story of the author to illustrate. Suppose that I possess some rudimentary carpentry skills. A friend of mine is a carpenter and offers to pay me to help him work. I agree to help him make some furniture, and accept the offered payment. If he then manages to sell the furniture for such a price that he makes a greater profit off the arrangement than I do, can I demand that he make up the difference? Capitalism and libertarianism say no. By accepting the agreed-upon payment, I have waived my right to the product we made. On the flip side, if he turns a small profit, he cannot demand that I return part of what he paid me (like I said before, consensual business relations are a two way street). This give and take is central to capitalism, regardless of fairness. [15] My opponent also "would rather the oppression be approved by a majority of people, than by a minority." My opponent has essentially admitted that socialism allows a majority of people to disregard the rights and well being of dissenters. This principle flagrantly opposes the classical liberal ideology of libertarianism. They say that this is preferable to federalism or a republic, where the minority is in control. However, classical liberalism believes that government is in place to prevent oppression of any kind. That's why we have a Bill of Rights. A quick read through of the US Constitution (which has a heavy classical liberal influence [16]) shows that this is the case. Going back to the Federalist #10, James Madison believed that democracy will not prevent "the mischiefs of faction," which is essentially the oppression by one group of another. Our entire (then classical liberal [16]) governmental system was designed to prevent just this sort of oppression. The abuses of which my opponent speaks, while inexcusable, are not due to problems with the system, but because we as a country have failed to abide by the classical liberal (libertarian) values we were founded upon. As my opponent admits, a purely collectivist society violates these principles. This is not to say that oppression will never exist, but classical liberals want to use government as a tool to minimize oppression of any kind. It is clear that mob rule does not do that. They also claim that the power in a government should lie with the people themselves (which libertarians advocate, by the way [16]), because "morals are determined by majority in society." Well, not according to libertarianism. Classical liberals believe that people possess certain inalienable rights that are not determined by any government or majority. [17] The entire purpose of government is to protect us from infringement on these rights, be it by an individual or a large group. I once more assert that socialism implies the forcible violation of what libertarianism considers inalienable rights. As such, libertarianism and socialism can never be reconciled. They are, by definition, opposed. I thank my opponent for a good debate, and rest my case. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org...(Syria)#Ideology [3] https://en.wikipedia.org... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org... [5] https://en.wikipedia.org...(UK) [6] https://en.wikipedia.org...(UK) [7] http://socialistparty-usa.net... [8] https://en.wikipedia.org... [9] https://en.wikipedia.org... [10] https://en.wikipedia.org... [11]https://en.wikipedia.org... [12] http://www.chinaonlinemuseum.com... [13]https://en.wikipedia.org... [14] National Platform. Australian Labor Party. PDF [15] https://fee.org... [16] https://dlc.dcccd.edu... [17] http://www.goodmaninstitute.org...