Debate: WHATS BETTER CAPITILISM OR COMMUNISM
Side: Capitalism

The Karl Marx thing was a joke of course. I'm familiar with his manifesto and I know how to spell his name, I can clearly read after all. I've never subscribed necessity as the mother of invention. I think it's Frank Zappa. Another joke. Seriously though, desperation is what drives true change, especially in a worldwide economy where the fates of so many might hang in the balance of the fate of one corporation. Hypothetically, if we ran out of crude oil tomorrow, I guarantee that hundreds of companies would spring up in addition to those that are already there, to deliver alternatively fueled automobiles and the infrastructure needed to convert the world's economy to running on hydrogen or what have you. This is the beauty of capitalism. No system is perfect, and no system is going to give absolutely everyone a fighting chance for success. However capitalism comes a lot closer than any communist society would. It is proven to increase the standard of living everywhere it lands. Look at India, where a vastly impoverished population now has one of the fastest growing economies in the world. While there are still a lot of problems, and bureaucratic inefficiency, they are definitely coming out of the same kind of rut the U.S. was in, in the early 20th century/depression era. The common misconception I see is that unregulated capitalism caused the depression, poor working conditions, and the vast disparity between the upper class and lower class. This simply is not true. First of all, immigration drastically increased the population of the country, and most of the immigrants already had nothing or less when they got here. So yes, they worked in sweatshops, and were injured in factories, but most of all they saved, and saved and saved, and opened up storefronts and businesses across the country. Secondly, in this economically charged era, we were coming off the heels of the industrial revolution, if not still in the midst of it. This revolution which modernized so many aspects of our society, I'm sure I don't have to tell you, was spurred by capitalism: "How can we make more product, faster." This was a dangerous time to be an unskilled laborer, and it was hard, but through the hard work of the quarter a day workers and child laborers, the factory became a much safer place due to the fact that it simply is not profitable to have a dangerous work environment. Your comment about open-source would be correct, maybe it will be in a few decades. The big problem I see with your idyllic analogy (I love free stuff too) is that you can't assemble a car on the internet. You can't mine coal, stitch a dress, or make a cheeseburger with a few lines of code that represent your contribution to the global collective. Real products need real ingredients, and tangible workers, skilled or unskilled. People seldom work as hard or as well when there's nothing in it for them unless they gain from the product as well, such as the case in open-source development. It's hard to prove an unskilled worker's gain from dealing with ignorant, selfish, and gluttonous customers in a drive-thru line when they aren't being paid. This is where the part about no system is perfect comes in. Yes, I would love to live in Star Trek too, where the human race has become enlightened and moved on from our petty squabbles and simple motives of having more than our neighbors. But we don't and people who believe communism is the answer simply do not have a grip on the way the world works, and the way progress is achieved. If Henry Ford's company had been bought up and made to comprise the entire automotive market, we would all be driving Model T's or something very much like it. I would say that, while cars have had a lot of additions due to government intervention, the cars themselves, the critical components, speed, performance, have never benefited. I can tell you if the government never intervened in the automobile industry there might be more automobile deaths annually, there may be more emissions, but the average persons car would probably cost about $500 as opposed to $15,000. As for unions, I can tell you no industry needs unions and they never did to be honest. My dad is in the service industry, he owns his own corporation which has only ever had three employees, himself, my mom, and me. Because he refuses to pay someone to be able to do his job, many potential employers that have need of his valuable, but relatively cheap service can't and won't hire him, because they are contractually obligated to hire only union workers. Where does the worker benefit from that? My dad sure doesn't, pay money to work, or bust his ass to get the same amount of work? I know which choice most people would pick, the one that doesn't flatten their wallet. That's just a personal experience to shed light on my own feelings on unions. While I may be biased I think I'm pretty fair in saying that Unions only hinder progress by not letting workers have a right to their choice of hours, workplace, pay (If I'm on my own and only need to provide for myself I should be able to take a job for a lower salary than they offer if it will improve my chances of employment), etc. As for teachers, honestly if the current tax code were scrapped, replaced with fair tax and the government were much smaller (Gary Johnson 2012) I would say we should do away with teacher unions and the department of education. Privatize it! Suddenly an entire new industry pops up, and it becomes the goal of businesses across the country to give the best PRODUCT (Child's education) for the lowest PRICE. I think this would put less of a strain on people's wallets than is assumed, and would probably be an all around improvement to the way things work now. Parents suddenly become a lot more invested in their child's education when it's actually an investment. This creates a home environment where children everywhere, are pushed to their learning limits (of which there are none, for young kids). As for your analysis on Capitalism's historical effectiveness I would just ask you to keep this in mind in the debate against/for communism. The Federal Government, as much as it would like to be, can't be everywhere at once. They can not possibly regulate all the bad actors out there, and most of the bad actors have bought the government anyways! Communism can only work in terms of the community. PEOPLE everywhere have to make the voluntary choice to support everyone in the community, regardless of their status. I don't know many people who would do that, some and believe me they're great people, but not many would right now. Maybe in the future. The bottom line is the government can't just write the rules like that and make everyone level, or as close as it can and say "Good enough." A. Because that's fascism. B. because governments are inherently inefficient and are incapable of that kind of global monitoring, and C. because for all his speeches and debates, whoever spear-heads this movement is still going to be placed in absolute power over everyone's assets and is going to take advantage of that. As we know, and have seen, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Communism doesn't work simply because human nature won't allow it to. Until it does, Capitalism is the best chance we have of getting further. As for your statement about deregulation causing the current recession, this again, is simply not true. This is the classic mistake of seeing two events in sequential order and drawing a connection simply because one happened before the other. I'm sure I don't have to tell you that the main government institution for regulating the markets, the SEC, has been too busy with investment banks' asshole to do any actual regulating. Further this entire recession was caused by bad regulations, and the SEC's guarantee that when investments went south, the government would bail them out, in some sick attempt to avoid another depression. The banks had no real reason to avoid failure or measure risk sanely, because the only thing they had to lose was taxpayer money, and they don't give a fuck about that. I'll direct you here: http://reason.com/archives/2009/06/19/the-myth-of-financial-deregula  for more information on this and similar misconceptions. I'll agree with you that some regulatory measures are good, but far less than actually exist. Capitalism is a lot more effective, and a lot better at creating peace and prosperity when the markets are left to regulate themselves. For the most part, schemers and sharks get sued or other court action that removes any credibility, and since capitalism is consumer-driven, the rest of it is up to us. Consumers need to start taking responsibility for what they buy and thinking for themselves, this will be reflected in the market. But hey, those are just the facts.