Debate: WHATS BETTER CAPITILISM OR COMMUNISM
Side: Communism

There seems to be several points you make:A]your ignorance If you do not know your opponents position, then you do not fully know your own. It is also good practice to make sure you know what your talking about before you talk about it. 1. The Necessity of competition for improvement. "Necessity is the mother of invention". People still have needs, competition or not. While competition can certainly add to the difficulty, there are ways of large scale co-operation which doesn't involve a planned economy that can better allocate resources. Where those ways are not applicable, government regulation can actually improve industry performance(look at the car industry). Also, the recession is due to de-regulation, the repeal of parts of the Glass-Steagall Act. Also, NASA and nation wide highways were only possible at the time of their creation due to government support. Simply put, examples abound of ways less competitive models or even government involved models can be even more efficient then unregulated capitalism.Consider open-source software development. Its nature is drastically different due to technological considerations then producing other products, but it works. It also creates a culture, and a political mindset. In the open-source community you can find a nice microcosm of what I would like to see in the future. The "base" or economic productive capability is what creates the "super structure", or politics, culture, etc. You seem to be approaching communism as if it is a superficial attempt at a quick fix, it is much more. 2. Unions Unions are only useful up to a certain point, then they become reactionary. We have surpassed that point in most industries in America, but a few industries and the economies of other companies may find them useful. Further more, they derive from the basic right to freely associate and are a result of worker interests. There are reasons union membership drastically went down just a few decades ago in the states. Eventually, the union becomes an entity unto itself, almost independent from the workers and it is then that it tends to become a problem. As for firing teachers, its actually beneficial to the good teachers for the bad ones to be fired, so long as the bad ones are a minority that is. This means firing them should be good for the union as well, except teacher pay isn't strongly related to their performance and so the less stable members the less the union becomes payed. Eventually, good teachers pay to keep bad teachers so that bad teachers can continue to help pay for all the teachers voices. If schools could find a way to make teachers pay based more on merit then unions would be more willing to fire bad teachers so that they can be replaced by good ones. (cause it means more money, of course there would be a time delay between changes in the pay method and union policies) Of course though, implementing such a program would be tricky and difficult but doable. 3. Historical analysis of capitalism effects on production. Yes, capitalism is effective at production. Its even better when its properly regulated. Consider stocks, without a government agency and laws for reporting accurate information businesses may find gaining trust from investors more difficult, resulting in less demand for stocks and less funding from IPOs and stock sells. Consider regulations on emissions, which may increase costs but it does so industry wide, so that every company must improve their technology(it provides the initiative the market may lack). I could continue with examples. Also, yes regulation can also harm improvements in technology, like the current patent system. However, not all regulation is bad regulation. Finally, I haven't really argued for communism, but rather against an idealistic black and white interpretation of several economic issues. I hope I've added a little grey, maybe even a color or two?