Beginners november tournament: On balance, anarcho-capitalism is better than anarcho-communism

In this round I'm going to show why anarcho-communism is preferable over anarcho-capitalism. I’m going to shorten anarcho-communism to communism and anarcho-capitalism to capitalism. Some accuracy is lost in this process, so please keep this note in mind. Now, let’s look at my first framework. Framework 1: utilitarianism Utility is a very abstract concept, so I'm going to use the Pyramid of Maslow to make this concept more tangible. This is what the Pyramid of Maslow looks like: (1) There are multiple levels. The more levels a person has fulfilled, the more utility that person has. You can only fulfill a higher level after all of the levels below it have been fulfilled. This is logical, because you can have lots of self-actualization, a high self-esteem, love and security, but if you're literally starving to death, you're definitely not happy. Utilitarianism is a good framework, because if you’re able to objectively prove system A generates many advantages, while system B doesn’t generate many advantages, it’s hard to counter your case. So now the first framework and the model have been explained, let's look at the first levels and how both communism and capitalism fare. Level 1: physiological Communism Let’s pretend a country with the numbers of the USA is communistic. The GDP of the USA was $17,419 billion in 2014 (2) and the USA has a population of 320,087,963 at the end of 2014. But in a communistic country people only produce what people need, which is less than what the USA tends to do. So let’s divide the GDP by 2 to get a more realistic picture. That would make $8,709.5 billion. In a communistic country the income is spread according to the needs of people. Since that’s pretty close to everybody gets the same amount, let’s just calculate the GDP per capita. That would be about $27,210 per person. Now, what are the costs of the physiological needs? The costs of food and water depend on a lot of variables like gender and age, but it seems like it costs roughly $300 per person per month (4). That makes about $3,600 per person per year. This is way lower than the income per person per year. Therefore communism is wonderful at fulfilling level 1 of the pyramid of Maslow. Capitalism In a country with capitalism the production will get distributed in an unequal way. According to the 80/20 principle (AKA the Pareto principle), 20% of the inputs lead to about 80% of the outputs. To prove the 80/20 principle exists, let's look at how the incomes in the world are distributed. A minority of the world population (17%) consumes most of the world’s resources (80%). This is pretty close to 80/20. Since people in capitalistic countries produce at a high capacity, let’s keep the GDP at the original level of $17,419 billion. So the richest 20% will get $13,935 billion. That’s $217,675 per person. The remaining 80% of the population have to share the remaining $3,484 billion. That’s $13,606 per person. But there are more than two levels of income. So I did some math myself and it turns out that 47% of the population earns less than $3,600 per year (6). So almost half of the population struggles with feeding themselves, which means these people aren’t even able to fulfill level 1 of the pyramid of Maslow. But remember that to fulfill level 1 of the pyramid, it’s not just required to have enough food and water. A shelter and some clothes are also required. Those bring some extra costs with them, so to keep things simple, let’s say 50% of the population isn’t able to fulfill all of the requirements of level 1. Level 2: safety Communism In a communistic country people don't have to worry about employment, because working is all voluntary. They also don't have to worry about resources or health, because the system makes sure everybody has the resources somebody needs. Since there’s no private property, property is also of no concern. The only thing that remains is body. But there's nothing in a communistic country that causes abundant violence or dangers. So a communistic country is also wonderful at fulfilling level 2. Capitalism In level 1 I already showed that a huge portion of the population is starving. Starving people are very dangerous. Especially when the starving people notice others have food in abundance. The starving people will then grab some weapons and attack the rich people for their food. This is a simplified version of what happened during the French Revolution. People were starving, so they started to overthrow the king. They even decapitated him (8). But there’s a second problem over here: the mafia. In a capitalistic world with no law it’s easy to start a criminal organization. Here’s a 5 step plan to get rich quickly in a capitalistic world: 1. Recruit multiple people in your crime organization 2. Get some heavy weapons 3. Walk to a random person 4. Say: “Hey, this neighborhood is inhabited by very dangerous people (the people you recruited earlier). If you give me some protection money I’ll make sure you stay safe”5. If the person pays, celebrate with your money. If the person doesn’t pay, get your allies to beat him (or her if you’re totally evil) up. Soon people will learn they should really pay you So for about half of the population level 2 isn't relevant, because level 1 wasn’t fulfilled. A big chunk of the people who remain will then struggle with level 2, because they have to deal with angry, starving people, the mafia or both. Conclusion utilitarianism It’s not even needed to evaluate the other three levels. These two levels already show communism generates quite some utility while capitalism already struggles with utility 101: feed the people. But here’s my second framework which will add subjective matters to my case. Framework 2: egalitarianism Egalitarianism is all about equality. To show why equality is important, let’s see what some of the biggest religions have to say about equality. These are Christianity, the Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism (9). Christianity Galatians 3:28:There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (10)The Islam One basic element in the value system of Islam is the principle of equality or equity… Islam teaches that in the sight of Allaah Almighty, all people are equal, but they are not necessarily identical. (11)Hinduism (translated) No one is superior, none inferior. All are brothers marching forward to prosperity. (12)Buddhism To discriminate against others--in any way--is to discriminate against your own life. (13)These four religions represent about 5,400,000,000 people in total (9). Therefore the majority of the people value equality. CommunismIt’s clear communism believes equality is extremely important. After all, the definition from round 1 states that communism includes common ownership of the means of production and direct democracy. This shows just how important equality is in communism. CapitalismIn capitalism equality is thrown out of the window. After all, capitalism is basically a free-for-all where you either have to save yourself or be at the mercy of how much others give through charity. Not surprising, income and wealth are incredibly uneven. As mentioned earlier, this will be near an 80/20 distribution and about half of the population will struggle with fulfilling their basic needs. Conclusion equalitarianismCommunism is simply scoring way higher on equalitarianism than capitalism. Therefore communism wins under this framework as well. 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