That Democratic Socialism is a good System

The Con presents Democratic socialism as an oxymoron, however, he does this in a way which simply does not accurately represent what Democratic Socialism is. He states that Socialism is a "sinister, insidious system in which the state possesses all the land and property, and levels of private ownership are very low. " This is a disingenuous presentation of my position and the Con is trying to strawman me into defending a position I do not hold. I do not believe that the government should own the means of production, and run the economy as a command economy. While I do support the nationalization of certain things in the United States (such as private highways, railways, airports, seaports, electricity, water, and the Federal Reserve), I do believe that we should still have a market system but we should abolish current ownership structure of a single owner who controls the wealth generated by a particular enterprise without generating any wealth themselves. Rather I believe that enterprises should be socially owned by their employees and run in a democratic manner, particularly in the form of worker-owned cooperatives. The largest socialist organization in the United States, Democratic Socialists of America, of which I am a member, answers the criticism leveled by the Con by stating: "Democratic socialists do not want to create an all-powerful government bureaucracy. But we do not want big corporate bureaucracies to control our society either. Rather, we believe that social and economic decisions should be made by those whom they most affect. Today, corporate executives who answer only to themselves and a few wealthy stockholders make basic economic decisions affecting millions of people. Resources are used to make money for capitalists rather than to meet human needs. We believe that the workers and consumers who are affected by economic institutions should own and control them. Social ownership could take many forms, such as worker-owned cooperatives or publicly owned enterprises managed by workers and consumer representatives. Democratic socialists favor as much decentralization as possible. While the large concentrations of capital in industries such as energy and steel may necessitate some form of state ownership, many consumer-goods industries might be best run as cooperatives. Democratic socialists have long rejected the belief that the whole economy should be centrally planned. While we believe that democratic planning can shape major social investments like mass transit, housing, and energy, market mechanisms are needed to determine the demand for many consumer goods. "This represents an identical, albeit better elaborated, position to mine. The con claims that the people must control the economy in order to control the government, and vice versa, and I agree. However, this must be controlled by ALL the people. Democracy is a system in which all the people control the government, and thus in order for the economy to be controlled by the people it must be controlled democratically, and this is what I advocate. Capitalism is a system in which enterprises and the means of production are owned privately in the form of corporations, which are in turn owned by select individuals, rather than by the employees who create the wealth in society. In his description of democracy, the con is correct that democracy is based on the idea of freedom, however, it is also founded on the idea of equality, the idea that no man should have power over another and that authority derives its power from the consent of the governed. Democratic Socialists hold that freedom can only exist if there is equality in society and that no one is ordained by birth or social status as having greater power, be it economic, social or political than another. When this is the case, we find that "freedom" is nothing more than privilege with one person being able to exercise more influence over society than another. As Capitalism is a system which inevitably results in mass inequality, as seen in many countries such as the Untied States. The con concedes this point, when he acknowledges that capitalism may not succeed for many, it does succeed for some. The result of this mass inequality in wealth is that fewer people, ie the wealthy, exercising control over the government, rather than the people. We already see this in the United States, as demonstrated by a study from Princeton University which found that "Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organised groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence. " This is not a democracy. When a select few control the power in society, this is known as oligarchy. As we can see, capitalism is not the "true partner" to a democratic government that the con claims it is. The true partner to a democratic government is a democratic economy. Finally, the last paragraph of his argument, the con claims that the socialism "fails everyone" and then claims that socialism can only succeed through the government. This is a complete contradiction which undermines the entire point the con is trying to make. . http://www.dsausa.org...https://scholar.princeton.edu...