That capitalism is superior to socialism

Hello everyone. I'd like to start off by thanking my opponent for accepting this debate and I wish them luck.

Now before I get started, allow me to provide the definitions of Capitalism and Socialism, since this is what we're talking about.

Capitalism- an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.

Socialism- a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

Now that we know this, let's go on to the debate.

Section 1: So. Is Capitalism superior to Socialism? Or, to put it in laments terms. Is it better? Well, from what history has shown us, the answer is outstandingly yes. But we'll talk about that more later. For now, let's look at the benefits of Capitalism. Here are 10 benefits of Capitalism.

1. There's no alternative, at least, not yet. Much like every government type known to man, every economic policy has been attempted. Capitalism just happens to be the one that worked the best. The biggest reason being that the government doesn't control the economy. This lessens the amount of corruption, increases incentives and offers more and better information. These are fantastic benefits, since these typically end up destroying nations and economies alike. Assuming they're unlucky anyway.

2.  Capitalism operates off of a, supply and demand system. As long as you offer something someone wants, you can and will be successful. It's true, that if you don't offer something that people want, you won't make it far, but this is usually why businesses offer more than one product.

3. It encourages competition between businesses, which is healthy for an economy.

4. Business have become very efficient under Capitalism as they must always change with the times and consumer wants. If they don't, they'll probably fail though they may still retain some of their older customers.

5. The financial incentives. Under Capitalism, people are more willing to take the necessary risks to open up businesses, because they see the financial gain if they're successful. However, we don't see this in systems like Socialism, so people aren't as willing to open up new businesses. On top of that, they usually have to get the government's permission to do so and that could mean months or years of paperwork.

6. One of the greatest problems with Capitalism, is also a great benefit. Businesses going under because they couldn't keep up with the times or meet the demand of the consumers cause unemployment rates to go up. But it opens up new pathways for resources, labor and capital to move on to some more, modern and efficient industries. Take businesses like Blockbuster. Them going out of business helped pave the way for apps like Netflix and Hulu to really boom in popularity.

7. The economic freedom can also translate to political freedom. I touched up on this in #5. Now, it may not completely contribute to political freedom, but it sure is a good place to start.

8. Capitalism defeats discrimination and brings people together. Unlike Socialism, Capitalism openly encourages countries, towns, cities, etc. to trade with foreigners. This really helps not only the local economy, but the other party's as well which is fantastic and may open up even more trade opportunities. Those who do discriminate will ultimately end up losing a lot of money. So if you want to get rid of discrimination, Capitalism is clearly a good route to take.

9. There are several different types of Capitalism that a nation may practice, each with different level of government intervention. But despite the government getting involved, Capitalist economies usually always remain "free market" economies. Meaning that private businesses dominate the economy which is fantastic.

10. Capitalism has helped increase living standards in the modern world. Socialism on the other hand, has lowered them, but we'll touch up on that in the next section.

So as we can see, Capitalism has a lot of benefits. There's probably even more than what I've listed. I could probably make an entire argument on just the benefits of Capitalism, but that wouldn't be good etiquette and I probably don't have enough room for everything I have to say. So without further a due, on to the next section.

https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/1259/economics/advantages-of-capitalism/

Section 2: Socialism has failed in every single country that it's been tried in. Everyone who's taken a history class knows this. Now, I am aware that lot of people like to claim that that wasn't "real Socialism", but the problem with that is, there's only two types of Socialism so far. Socialism and Communism. There's no Democratic Socialism or whatever, there's just Socialism. Even Communism is practically the same thing, just a little more extreme. To better show how bad Socialism it's, let's look at the best modern example we have. Venezuela. Venezuela was once one of the richest nations in the world. Then Socialism came to their shores. In just 10 years, their economy was completely destroyed. Chavez enacted a lot of policies that gave him control of the entire economy. He stole land from farmers, set prices, told people what they can and can't buy, handed out food and put a lot of money into social welfare programs. Under the government's control and socialist policies, production in every industry decreased and eventually, people just stopped working. Why would they want to if they were getting free money handouts anyway? This rendered the Venezuelan currency completely worthless, and now they've outright run out of food. Last known reports showed us that they were forced to eat their zoo animals, even pets and even their medical system has collapsed. A lot of people on the Left like to blame US sanctions or corruption for it. But in actuality, it had little or nothing to do with any of those at all, but a lot to do with Socialism.

https://economics21.org/how-socialism-destroyed-venezuela

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-animals/police-believe-thieves-steal-venezuela-zoo-animals-to-eat-them-idUSKCN1AW2NN

https://www.thedailybeast.com/zoo-animals-on-the-menu-as-venezuelans-starve

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/venezuelas-health-system-in-utter-collapse-as-infectious-diseases-spread-report-says/2019/04/03/fd39a152-563e-11e9-8ef3-fbd41a2ce4d5_story.html

Section 3: I thought that a good way to end the first round of this debate would be to debunk one of the most popular arguments for modern day Socialism. These arguments concern Scandinavia, a region of Europe that consists of Denmark, Norway and Sweden. The argument is that Scandinavia is a prime example of how Socialism can be successful. This is just plain false. While, it was Socialist back in the 70's, it was far from successful. In the 70's, the tax rates ranged from 70%-175%, depending on the country you're looking at, due to the socialist policies. But now a days, Scandinavia has a free market capitalist economy. The only reason people believe they're Socialist is because they offer universal health care and "free college". Now while neither are actually free, since citizens still pay for these out of their taxes, it's an easy feat for them to accomplish since the populations of each of these country's are very small and their free markets build up enough money for it. Now there are some issues with universal healthcare and free college, but those are debates for another time. I just wanted to get this out of the way, so my opponent wouldn't have to waste their time attempting to use these arguments.

https://tfas.org/lessons-from-sweden-ebook/?kw=is%20sweden%20a%20socialist%20country&mt=b&loc=9024003&n=g&d=c&adp=&cid=6969505584&adgid=82835645187&tid=kwd-299391170555&gclid=CjwKCAiAyeTxBRBvEiwAuM8dnUfww5QKKp96b-YMA9stADOxtEnbggUWkAuC68Hte_oRJV5XrQR4SxoCEtMQAvD_BwE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzEPKrHalaY

I'd like to finish off my opening arguments by again, thanking my opponent for accepting this debate. I look forward to reading their opening arguments and responses.