Socialism

You can go first.

When creating a topic in the future, It is wise not to suggest the challenger "go first" given the nature of the debate. I am the challenger, And therefore I'm required to challenge your premise, Your concept, Your context. . . . Your argument. Since I'm going first, I'll get to dictate the terms.

The problem with Socialism is essentially, As Ludwig Von Mises put it, The problem of economic calculation. Since socialism seeks to subject private property and the distribution of capital goods to the jurisdiction of a worker's collective, Any market activity borne from this planned economy would lack a sufficient and rational feedback mechanism, I. E. A price system. The price system is particularly significant in that it allows producers and consumers to gauge their interests through transaction. With socialism, The feedback mechanism is deficient, Or at best, Lacking of scope. Rather than allowing for individual interests to converge in industry, Interest is arbitrarily determined by a presumptuous collective. This naturally facilitates the poor allocation of resources.

Furthermore, This lack of economic calculation hampers the profit motive. The pursuit of profit facilitates competition which fleshes out high quality products as well as the most efficient use of resources in their creation. It provides variety as opposed to rationing in the socialist economy. Not to mention, Without the profit motive, An incentive problem arises. If one is to produce according to one's ability but receive according to one's needs, What incentive would there be in distinguishing oneself through talent, Skill, Or hard work? Why go to school? Why specialize in a particular trade? Socialism is an ideal with no rational economic basis. It's a fiction sensationalized as "altruism. "

That's it for now. I think this much suffices as an opening argument.

I disagree with your statement on how people won't have incentive, Less people will have incentive but there would still be people moving into these fields, Thomas Sankara is a famous example of someone who's organised a functioning socialist society, And while he was leading the nation they had the most progress. Ability to trade, Education programs (which will bring more people into the industry), Etc. This was short lived how ever when he was assassinated and his nation went back down the toilet. This system has worked in the past yet it very rarely get's taken into consideration due to capitalism being global for the most part.

"I disagree with your statement on how people won't have incentive, Less people will have incentive but there would still be people moving into these fields, Thomas Sankara is a famous example of someone who's organised a functioning socialist society, And while he was leading the nation they had the most progress. Ability to trade, Education programs (which will bring more people into the industry), Etc. This was short lived how ever when he was assassinated and his nation went back down the toilet. This system has worked in the past yet it very rarely get's taken into consideration due to capitalism being global for the most part. "

You mean, There would be people who are assigned to those fields. And Thomas Sankara's revolution is hardly an example of a functional Socialist society since it lasted just four years. What about the Nazi's? The Maoists? What about Cuba? All of them had initial success, But for the reasons I mentioned above Socialist economies eventually are unsustainable, As with the aforementioned cases. Look at Sweden, Which is often praised for its Socialist practices. Sweden had to privatize many of its industries (pension, Health care, Education, Railroad, Etc. ) because it was burning through the capital stock it built by the 70's through unsustainable welfare programs. What about Greece? It went bankrupt.

Can I take it that your not addressing the economic calculation problem means that you're conceding the point?

Thomas's fall has nothing to do with his form of governing being inadequate, He was assassinated by a political opponent (with the help of the french) and undid all progress Thomas has made. This isn't an isolated incident either, Catalonia, The Hungarian commune, The pairs commune, The Zapatistas of Chiapas, Seychelles and there's probably more I'm unaware of. All of these nations didn't fail because of incompetence of their governance but because of capitalism's ruthless nature, If capitalism hadn't intervened with these communist/socialist nations they, Theoretically, Could be thriving to this day. Also I hope you don't actually think the Nazis were socialist, They marketed themselves as such to appeal to the public but (much like the liberal party of Australia) they were adopting liberal labels to get the public to side with them, The Nationalist part of it is the bit that was accurate to their policies. Also, In Cuba 76% of labor is privatized, That's not really socialism. And Greece isn't a socialist country at all, It borrows socialist ideas, And (when compared to other European countries that borrows ideas from socialism) Greece isn't very socialist. Greece failed because it continuously got deposits from the private sector with zero foresight to whether they would turn a profit from these deposits, So now their in debt (there are other contributing factors but this is the most apparent). The idea that Greece is an example of failed socialism was created by Brietbart (known for creating conspiracy theories) and popularized by Fox news. Also before we move forward, I reject the ideas of Maoism and Stalinism, I'm not advocating for either of these political ideologies. But these terrible ideas (mostly) came from incompetence and greed. Most, If not all of what these ideas achieved weren't what was intended by Marx when he created the manifesto, But what was achieved in the examples I've given, Was.