Socialist countries make up 13 out of the top 15 countries in the world when measured with the Human Development Index.

This is just categorically false; not a single country in the top fifteen of the HDI are socialist. All of them are pretty strongly capitalist nations. . . So I have no idea what you're talking about it.

the fact it accounts for social justice means it is morally superior to capitalism.

This is a similarly ridiculous claim; not only is social justice so vague a concept as to be essentially inapplicable in any practical sense, but the intention behind whatever system we're talking about (presuming "it" is socialism) is largely irrelevant. Woodrow Wilson segregated the government because he thought it would be ultimately better for blacks, but this is obviously consequentially inferior to not segregating the government; ergo caring about blacks and not conducting segregation is morally superior.

And I hope you recognise that capitalists care about human well-being just as much as socialists do. . .

To adhere to the capitalist system would violate the ethical responsibility of each individual.

Umm, how?

Socialism is nothing but the next evolution in the way humanity conducts politics.

So are you just hoping to get away with the flagrant conflation of economic and political systems, here?

The whole system instead relies on the scientific approach to identify a problem, analyze an issue, and hypothesize a solution.

And it has been demonstrated time and time again that trying to engineer the economy in such a technocratic way simply doesn't work. If you want to assume a sort of scientific centrally planned economy (I don't know if you do, because I'm still confused about the "I like the free market, but I'm also a socialist") then it'd be pretty easy for me to demonstrate why a benevolent social planner would still opt for a capitalist market.

A terrible version of social darwinism run amuck

Haha, no. What a ridiculous caricature. Capitalism doesn't preclude the existence of either charity or a social safety net.

It is rather better for society to achieve greater prosperity and equality through application of a systematic, empirical, and objective governmental infrastructure instead of the anarchic chaos of capitalism.

Oh so you do want a planned economy?

Yeah, they don't work.

It has the ability to create a system of social justice that has yet to be implemented in human history. Capitalism itself was an evolution from the disorganized systems of government present throughout much of human history. It was the evolution of political economy and a new concept of the economic system formed.

Again, massive conflation of political and economic structures here. And, I don't know about you, but capitalism's accomplishment of providing 99pc of all the wealth in history to 1pc of human population in history is a pretty big victory for "social justice", whatever you actually mean by the phrase.

Socialism is not the attempt to replace capitalism. Rather it’s the attempt to combine the economic knowledge that capitalism brought the world with utilitarian philosophy.

I guess that's why utilitarians like J.S. Mill were classical liberals. . . Although you've so far utterly failed to define social justice, what sort of socialism you think you're propagating or why capitalism is incompatible with utilitarianism.

Social justice is justice in the distribution of wealth, opportunity, and societal privilege.

Well thank God we finally have a definition.

Far from the Robin Hood approach, it simply is the involvement of human social constructions to ensure that every member in a society fulfills their responsibilities and also receives their dues.

And how are you calculating/defining these variables?

Wealth disparity in the world expounds how capitalism has created a glaring issue in need of address. As of 2014 those who made more than $1 million a year compiled only .7% of the world’s total population yet had 44% of the world’s total wealth. Those who made between $100 thousand and $1 million were 7.9% of the world’s population and owned 41.3% of the world’s wealth. Together, this means that 85.3% of the world’s wealth resides in the hands of only 8.6% of its population. Or to show the more important side, over 90% of the world’s total population has only 14.7% of the total wealth.

So? You're yet to demonstrate why this is a bad thing, you're yet to provide any sources and you're yet to account for the fact that most countries don't actually apply capitalism as most economists would want them to.

France is ranked as the best country in the world for healthcare

France isn't socialist, and the healthcare system in France is far from socialised. France utilises (like Singapore, the other best country in the world depending on how you measure their respective systems) quite a marketised system; like most other good healthcare systems (Germany, the Netherlands, et cetera).

And all of this is without mentioning the current economic woes in France due to a number of policies surrounding monetary economics and taxation.

followed by Italy and a slew of countries with universal healthcare.

Italy isn't socialist, nor is universal healthcare a socialist concept.

Whereas the US appears only at 37 on the list. Why?

Because the US has a ridiculous healthcare system.

that means they spend less per person each year and still have a dramatically better system.

I'm not surprised.

The success of the French in healthcare is simply the result of a socialized system.

That's just not true.

Everyone is covered under the health care program. Funds are financed 60% by payroll taxes and 40% by a proportional income tax. Although patients do have a co-pay, however these have been reduced and people in many cases have been exempted from it. To combat this co-pay, over 90% of the population has a secondary, voluntary, health care insurance. This means that out-of-pocket payments don’t exceed 9% of health expenditures. Premiums for these voluntary services are not based on medical history either, but on income.

What does any of this have to do with socialised healthcare? Especially when you consider that most French physicians are private practitioners.

The objection of government involvement usually lacks any sort of objective and systematically formulated argument. They lobby for the deregulation of different industries with a blind faith comparable only to that of religion.

The amount of ignorance in these two sentences alone is staggering; you show an incredibly shocking lack of awareness about economics and the evidence for/against certain propositions.

Problem is that humans have proven over the millennia that we as a species are about as rational as our distant cousins.

Great, you also don't understand what economists mean when they say rational. When economists say "rational", they mean utility-maximising. And of course you have the entire discipline of behavioural economics, which tries to account for cognitive biases which could affect how humans reason in their approach to utility-maximisation.

Neither the government or the businessman are more responsible, moral, or logical than the other.

And yet you think it's possible to have a scientific, objective government.

the faster the decrease in mortality occurs.

Jesus.

Any evidence, or logic behind that position? Or are you merely defining morality in a useless way as to beg the conclusion?

The government is separate from this. There is hope to trust the government.

You just said that neither is better than the other.

If one can successfully separate greed and the search for profit, government corruption and irresponsibility will decrease.

It's kind of funny, then, how the most developed capitalist economies are usually the ones with the least political corruption.

Socialism only fails when politics and greed combine to produce corruption in the system.

You're still yet to define socialism, but if we're sticking with some scientifically planned economy then no it doesn't work because it's wildly inefficient.

The improvement comes in the attempt to introduce utility as a means of measuring both wealth, possession, but importantly emotional happiness and satisfaction.

Except no capitalist/economist has ever seriously denounced the importance of emotional well-being. Hell, the definition of "rationality" in economics is built so as to allow for such considerations.

Is it not intriguing that depression plagues the wealthy and satisfaction plagues the poor? This is why socialism is a higher moral system.

So it's morally justified if everybody is so stupid as a result of their shit standard of living that they don't know any better, and are therefore satisfied with said shit standard of living?

And that's ignoring the point that you've again failed to provide any evidence, nor seem to have an understanding of depression or where it comes from. Concentrated depression is at least partially the result of civil society itself; human beings were not designed to be civilised.

Many may argue that morality is controversial to use in measuring the utility offered by a governmental system.

Well it patently is; you use utility to measure morality, not morality to measure utility. . .

Things that can be determinably moral through objective observation based on maximizing the enrichment of life.

This is like the single true proposition you've made in the entire Wall of China that I've read so far.

as it imposes an arbitrary will upon another being to detract from his enjoyment.

I find it amusing you use this reasoning to argue that murder is immoral, but you're completely fine with the government imposing its will on the people just because you (in all your probable economic ignorance) think it's the best way of doing something.

This appeal of course is greed.

And freedom, prosperity, logic, empirical evidence. . . Et cetera.

Economically, centralized wealth slows an economy and the opportunity to maximize a states development falters.

Okay, but you're yet to demonstrate how this is explicitly a capitalist phenomena. Rising income inequality is pretty-well accounted for, being the result of rising rent, strict IP laws, the breakdown of the familial structure, harsh government sentences for minor crimes and a whole host of other complex factors.

It is an economic fact that the fluidity of money is necessary to growth.

What are you talking about here? The velocity of money? If so, the concentration of wealth/income isn't that big an issue besides the negative impact it has on investment in human capital at the lower-end of the socio-economic spectrum. What exactly do you think rich people do with their money? Stash it under a mattress?

The millennial generation is pumping needed resources into the struggling economy through their consumer spending.

Just, what? "Resources" don't remain stagnant if they aren't being spent on something.

Action must be taken to reduce income disparity through social goals and programs; whether it is the raising of a minimum wage, universal health care, or universal higher education.

Or, instead, abolishing the minimum wage and expanding wage subsidies, deregulating zoning requirements and planning laws, liberalising the IP system and fixing the broken primary-secondary school system. You've given no evidence that your proposals are the right ones, and they most probably are not.

If a proletariat were to complain about the terrible service of his ISP (Internet Service Provider), he would be lucky to receive a letter in the mail or an email.

Not really. . . There are numerous options available to people who actually know what the hell they're doing.

When in line at an airport security stop, why does a VIP or priority line exist?

Probably because they have a first-class ticket and want to get to the plane sooner? Splitting the load is just efficient, stop shoehorning your sociological biases in.

Examples like this

Holy shit, you aren't seriously trying to demonstrate the "immorality" of capitalism by comparing first- to economy-class on airlines are you?

It places arbitrary value on the consumption of goods and creates a type of crass demand for the consumption of products.

Not really; it places value on economic growth. Seriously, just go and talk to an economist. Quite often you'll hear things about how individuals should be saving more; how the US tax system disincentivises savings, et cetera et cetera.

The more elite one becomes, the less work he has to engage in.

I love how you're trying to measure "work" by the physical demands of certain kinds of work.

I look forward to your response.












From Youthdebates. Quoted bits are him, otherwise me.


I just, I can't even.

I could have sworn you made almost this exact thread a month or so ago...

I couldn't have; the quoted post was made just today.

if it's not clear to you what it is by now, then you haven't really been paying attention, i would argue

I'm not interested in having a discussion about values with no practical considerations. Until he actually defined social justice and the implications it would have for policy, it's a pointless exercise. "Oh, you want justice in the distribution of wealth (or whatever it is), then great but what the fuck do you mean by justice?"

So why didn't you tell this to whoever posted that?

I did.

It's a copy-paste from right before I posted it there.

I stopped reading about halfway in truthfully, this guy just sounds like gibberish.

"YouthDebates" Aaaaah

Anyway yeah, this is just sad. You are right about that. I can't really see any valid points in this.