Posted on 04/19/2010 8:58:08 AM PDT by AngryCapitalist
I have been afforded the rare opportunity tomorrow of debating my Political Discourse professor on the merits of socialism vs. capitalism. Of course I will be defending capitalism. I plan on using individual freedom as the crux of my argument, by citing some of the philosophies and arguments in favor of capitalism as expressed by Ayn Rand, F. E. Hayek, Von Mises, and the Founders. I figure that by citing the advances promoted through the competition inherent in capitalism, the freedom afforded by the absence of a system that subverts the natural order, and the fact that socialism is nothing more than state sponsored theft as the core of my argument. If anyone has any additional material that might be beneficial in trouncing this collectivist dunce I would appreciate it! I’ve waited along time to get in the ring with one of my professors so I want to give it to him no holds barred. He is an avowed socialist who constantly attempts to influence others in the class with his bilge, so I need to make the most of this opportunity, if not for my own personal aggrandizement, then at least to promote capitalism amongst my classmates.
Thanks in advance for all of your help.
Are you at a state public university or a private university? Point out Communist Russia for 70 plus years moribund economy, couldn’t even fight off Germany without help from the US in WW2 VS flat tax Russia with it’s booming economy now! Point out increasing taxes for socialist causes takes money out of the private sector, which mean loss of private sector productivity and jobs which ultimately means a loss of tax revenues to support public university professor salaries such as his(if this a state university). Point out loss of tax revenue leads to deficit spending on a federal level which means an inflation of ersatz currency(printing more false money to cover the deficit spending) which erodes the value of our currency on the international markets.
Point out that even if a socialistic philosophy could be sustained and industry controlled by the government efficiently, EPA rules are stifling the use of technology and energy production to such a insane level that a pure socialistic government is going to abort itself before it can even get off the ground. It will either be illegal or too costly under regulations to produce any sort of products or valuable commodities that could be used or sold to fund the socialistic new order even if sold in international markets. Socialism needs to be funded after all, so what will fund it when all of the natural funding mechanisms have been choaked off or legally proscribed from operating? Belief in fairies, unicorns and friendly ET’s phoning in from space?
Does your professor operate from an atheistic view point? Is he a social justice activist freak arguing that even Jesus was a marxist socialist? Point out Judas, “the first social justice advocate”, who criticized Jesus for allowing perfume to be poured onto his feet, claiming” Ought not that box had been sold and given to the poor?” Later on we know that Judas sold out Christ for 30 pieces of silver.
Ask how many avowed socialists would do the same to our country in exchange for a comfy seat on a ruling “people’s committee” somewhere able to get better goods at the apparatchiks commissary than the common masses...just like old mother Russia?
I hope some of this helps...I could go on and on!
I have a nephew (age 23) who is in college and is a Fa-LAMING LIBERAL and an Obamatron. He spews socialist venom from every pore.
He was working as a waiter (at a restaurant chain which shall remain nameless) and often lamented the “system” there in which he would take the customers’ order, bring drinks, etc., but all wait staff was required to pool their tips and split equally at the end of the evening since the wait staff helped each other in .
It was totally LOST on him that this is the way socialism works. I could NOT make him understand!
Who told you about my family’s financial state? :)
Obviously I was talking about a centrally-planned economy, not the idea of planning as such. Planning is good, when it is decentralized becase mistaken plans are self-limiting.
Massive central plans by definition don’t work.
Your point is valid, but so is Tactic’s. How well do you think your “small-scale socialism” scenario will work once your children are old enough to fend for themselves?
Actually it doesn't work morally at least for human clones either. Consider two cab drivers. One works eight hours a day. The other works twelve hours a day. Why should the the second cab driver be required to pay more taxes than the first? (I'm talking dollars here, not some loony left measure of what is equal or more.)
ML/NJ
You might also take the opportunity to talk about the broken window fallacy, which explains why government spending cannot create prosperity.
Then you can talk about why socialism is not about production, but about distribution. Unfortunately, socialism fails in practice because one cannot distribute what has not been produced, and socialism makes productive human action impossible -- for the reasons talked about in the above essays.
BTW, if you haven't already seen it, you might also be interested in the following Hip-Hop video, wherein John Maynard Keynes and FA Hayek make their respective arguments in rap music style:
He will lose the debate if he tries to use communist analogies against a socialist.
The goal of socialism is communism.
Vladimir Lenin
Ask him why he's against "sharing the wealth" or "social justice."
China is more stable now than it has been for the past several hundred years. And I don't know that I'd characterize its economy as "free market," either, given that the Chinese government pursues a very aggressive "stimulus" policy.
I'm not suggesting that China is in a good place; in fact, I think they're headed for trouble in the form of a return to the sort of bloody regionalism that tore them apart for so long in previous centuries. But we do need to look at them in the context of their history.
Have not read through the thread, but Margaret Thatcher and Winston Churchill have some great quotes.
Also, the city of Detroit is a great example of failed liberal policies. My grandparents were filing an actual City Tax return back in the 70s.
And they still get to vote for them....(sarcasm, they have been deceased for many years)
April 19, 2010
Give Me Inequality or Give Me Death
By Nancy Coppock
Okay, demanders of equality, you’ve won! We know you never bought into this “equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome” idea. Let’s just cut to the chase and make the world and all those who inhabit it equal. Let’s just wave a wand, and presto change-o! We now live in The United States of Equality. Let the income of Bill Gates be equal to that of the woman scrubbing the toilets at the Microsoft building. Let’s just cut to the chase and get to the reality of the Utopia of Equality.
Bill Gates and the toilet-cleaner are now receiving the same paycheck. A bus driver now receives the same amount in his paycheck as the top player in the NBA. The guy selling newspapers on the corner of the busy intersection now earns the same amount as the electrical engineer designing next-generation computer hardware. The teacher is rewarded for her services in an equal amount to what the latest prosperity gospel huckster preacher gets. Hooray! Equality is here. But is it what we thought we wanted?
What happens to the inner soul, the spirit of man, in an age of equality? Does our human nature change so that we all become caught up in the groovy world of peace and love? Can the nature of man become transformed so that the greatest chef in the world is now pleased to be on par with the laziest burger-flipper who ever manned a fast food grill? Would the finest opera singer be okay with equal diva status with the worst warbler to ever hold a karaoke microphone?
The truth is that equality is a death knell to the inner spirit of man. Our spirit requires that we be rewarded according to what others are willing to give or pay for our services. It is a necessity to our nature as much as food, shelter, and clothing are to preserving our lives. Without a living spirit, we would be as animals, having no desires other than what the present requires. Equality snuffs out that living spirit that burns inside us. Yet the lure of equality is drawing us ever closer to the yawning black hole of nihilistic destruction.
Proverbs says: “The spirit of man is the lamp of the LORD; searching all the innermost parts of his being.” Our inner spirit is our Creator’s lamp, the light that shines within us. It is the lamp of inspiration and revelation that guides each of us in fulfilling our individual pursuits and personal gifts. All art is invention from revelation. Even the ancients knew that the gods delivered discovery to men.
But in legislated equality, there is no place for a Creator; the Law of Man is now the prime mover, our sole provider and guide. To be inspired is to recommend the order of inequality rather than the legislated dictum of equality. Such thinking or ability must be crushed as sure as the Killing Fields of Cambodia were meant to rid that nation of the educated and entrepreneurial class.
So today, in the United States of Equality, doctors will now be selected by fiat rather than internal passion, experience, and skill. Engineers will be recruited by quota, not mathematical stamina, while our vehicles are legislated to fly by 2015, powered by perpetual motion. Teachers are revered for their tenure rather than their ability to impart knowledge and wisdom to another. Rather than the Renaissance, equality hastens the backwardness of the Dark Ages. But even in the Dark Ages, people clung to notions of hierarchy of ability for protection and progress.
This coming age of equality is an iron trap of control by those believing themselves to be like God, rather than understanding that we are merely made in His image, capable of creating for oneself and for others. Is a man who created his own job equal to the man whose created job spun into jobs for hundreds, and also equal to the man whose job produced an entire industry with job-creation rippling out into the hundreds of millions? Is creative ability due to equal opportunity or equality of outcome?
Will the human condition accept that a group of kids banging away at their instruments in their parents’ garages are equal in worth to our human existence as a group of chemists with a list of patents that cure diseases? Yet our Utopians conspire to select who must be raised up and who must be cut down to size. Concocting an equal opportunity is as difficult a task as turning lead into gold, yet the Utopians gather their statistics and infer conclusions to produce a new reality. Although each of us is as unique and individual as snowflakes, Utopians view us as mere pigeons nesting in our holes, with them in the role of our fowlers.
The truth is that in The United States of Equality, inspired individuals would choose to remain within the freedom of their own minds. Their soaring ideas could be safely enjoyed imaginatively, rather than in the outside world of crushing, leveling, spirit-numbing equality. Or else they may risk their lives and furtively create in secret, their inspired creations becoming true acts of terrorism against the state.
Equality is the path to spiritual immolation. Give me inequality, or give me death.
Capitalism: You have two cows. So?
"A Marxist begins with his prime truth that all evils are caused by the exploitation of the proletariat by the capitalists. From this he logically proceeds to the revolution to end capitalism, then into the third stage of reorganization into a new social order of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and finally the last stage -- the political paradise of communism." - Saul Alinski
Make sure that you have a LONG list of capitalist countries that are net exporters of food.
You cannot engage in an effective cooperative effort with anonymous and unknown people that you do not know, or trust. Institutional socialism requires you to do that Your family unit does not.
IMHO.
First, all of us, capitalists and socialists want good things to happen in society.
The difference is how that good is done....who does it.
Capitalists believe that government should not be involved because people can do that good on their own. Socialists want to force people to contribute, under the force of law and the punishments it may inflict.
Greed may enter the picture. If someone wants others to donate to the poor, it frees a person from donating money, time....etc..
Socialism is not cost efficient to a society. It may be cost efficient to that person who refuses to donate to charities on his own, but society will bear a heavier cost, as government employees are NOT cheap -- nor efficient.
Spend some time on how we are now arguing everything from a political perspective - - how we have lost our touch with the philosophy of government. It's us versus them and nothing more.
In closing, I recommend that you focus on the blessings of liberty. Socialism discourages (to put it mildly) liberty. Then use this from George Washington's Farewell Address:
"I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.
This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.
The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.
No sane person would think that our nation's profligate spending was good. Only party spirit, supported by our citizen's will to take from our treasury, has allowed this march toward our nation's financial ruin. We need to wake up and return to the limited government guaranteed by our constitution (in Article IV Section 4).
Tell him to watch this classic 1979 interview with the great Milton Friedman:
http://www.nmatv.com/video/1115/Milton-Friedman-and-Phil-Donahue—1979
Then ask him what he thinks Friedman got wrong.....
Are you talking about their families, when they have them?
We're all in agreement about the certain evils of large-scale socialism. It really can't work when you have more people in the group than can personally know one another.
But when we're talking about input for this guy's debate with his professor, it is best to acknowledge that there is not an absolute case against socialism -- there are contexts (such as the family) in which it undoubtedly works.
And so it would be best to acknowledge those cases, and to point out that they are based on emotional ties and shared goals. Those characteristics provide a springboard for why such small-scale, family-type systems don't carry over to larger-scale systems.
Good points!
Capitalism vs. Socialism? That is so ‘90s.
The only debate now is between Socialism and Communism.
Suggest you immerse yourself in the writings of Lenin and Trotsky. Your Commie professor won’t care. They don’t see a dime’s worth of difference between Socialism and Capitalism anyway, compared to the true faith of Obammunism.
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