Debate: Capitalism vs Socialism
Side: Capitalism

wow! where to start? Capitalism may operate schizophrenically where it comes to human welfare but it is anything but irrational or indifferent. Socialism seemingly is always accompanied by a draconian form of totalitarian dictatorship. Every capitalist society I can think of puts limits on the Capitalist. While it took time, the US now has child labor laws, minimum wages, OSHA, and a whole hierarchy of limitations on pure capitalist free market industrial hell. Art, freedom, the family, religion, all thrive in a capitalist environment and wither in a pure socialist environment. Tired of the US as the example? Compare Sparta and Athens. Everything credited to the Greeks and the Hellenistic era is 100% Athens and 0% Sparta. Sparta took kids from their family to train as soldiers. Weak ones were abandoned in the wilderness. Their idea of art was a bronze spearhead. And many consider this the most pure example of true socialism on a large scale.Your paragraph that begins "without regulation" is a screaming outrage. Capitalism to date has always evolved to more regulations and less free market extreme. Because it is NOT prone to totalitarianism and dictatorships, it has a chance to evolve. Dictators rarely let their subjects evolve towards more freedom and their nation towards a more free market.Capitalism is forced by the market to consider non quantitative elements that affect profitability. Your examples are ludicrous. If a dairy farmer used poison in his milk, he would exterminate his market. How is that profitable? The free market takes into account human nature and some philosophical impact on profitability. Whether you lean towards Bentham's pain/pleasure propinquity or Buber's personalism, there are aspects of the equation to maximizing profit that are not obviously reflected in numbers on an income and expense sheet; If there weren't, why would accountants have a category such as good will? The efficiencies of the soviet union lied more in the totalitarian government than in socialism. Stalin abused the people you say socialism protects in order to industrialize. How many tens of millions of citizens died in order to advance the good of the people? DO you REALLY want to compare that with the abuses which occurred here as the US industrialized? The excesses of the Robber Barons led to reform. Did Stalin's excesses lead to reforms to protect the worker? Hell no! The Pyramids were built by slaves. VERY efficient. Is that efficiency enough of an argument to return to slavery?I was in the Soviet Union in the decade before the wall came down. The trains were amazingly prompt. You think that is efficient? So efficient that stores had shelves over 50% empty. Classless society? I stayed an a magnificent hotel which normal Soviet citizens were not allowed in. Freedom? The "key lady" on my floor asked me the first time I returned to my room how much it would take to buy my blue jeans, the ones on the bottom of my zipped up suitcase. Human Welfare? No one on bus or train would look up from the floor and certainly not meet my eye. Unless you were there, please don't insult millions and millions of Soviet citizens by saying they were relatively well off as you do in your summation.As for Europe, on the whole they are no more or less socialist than the US is. All the Western democracies have aspects of socialism and capitalism co-existing. Cuba? Why have so many Cubans risked life and limb to come to America and so few, if any Americans are fighting to move to Cuba? in short if you want to discuss theoretical capitalism and theoretical socialism, have fun. But in the real world, the examples are clear, capitalism leads to a better state of affairs for the most people. Let Bentham work out the equation for you.