args

America should become a Social Democracy

Contention 1: Freedom For starters, if America were to become a Social Democracy, our civil liberties will be preserved. We also, would hopefully have the additonal civil liberties of legalized gay marriage. Furthermore, on economic issues, my opponent and I are actually arguing for two different types of freedom. He argues for unfettered Capitalism, a more laissez faire economy. Now while this does guarantee more property rights for the wealthy and the most privileged, I would argue that this means more exploitation, and less freedom for the common people. Before America even did have a welfare or a regulatory state, we were more laissez faire. Sure, business had more freedom. More freedom to contaminate our water supply, exploit child laborers, suppress unions, etc. Social Democracy makes it harder to exploit. By making people free from want, Social Democracies allow people to reach for their aspirations, while free market Capitalism creates conditions which makes social mobility more difficult. Thomas Paine recognized this, which was why he wanted us to do many things which would now be components of a Social Democracy. Contention 2: Money and Happiness First, I'll address the Greek point. My opponent brought up the fact that Greece has higher tax rates but neglected to tell you that there fiscal mess was caused by corruption which allowed rich Greeks not to pay taxes. Next, The fact of the matter is, that Canada and Denmark, and all of the other countries we're debating about, are more socialist than the U.S. "The government took small steps in 2012 to cut back on welfare state benefits and costs." Small steps. Incremental tinkering does not change the fact that Denmark still has a far stronger welfare state than we do. My point on flexicurity is that even when the Danes were reducing their regulations, they also were beefing up their welfare state. Denmark still has a strong welfare state, and high taxes. It also has more social mobility. Again, Denmark and Canada both have Universal Healthcare. New Zealand does too. My opponent notes that New Zealand has a mixed system. This means that people have the option of private care, but the government picks up the slack giving healthcare coverage to everyone who cannot afford private care. "The burden for the core of the healthcare system rests with government expenditure (approx. 77%)." http://en.wikipedia.org... Note that this was backed with a citation which links to the World Health Organization. So, not only is there universal healthcare in New Zealand, but the vast majority of New Zealanders get their healthcare from the government. New Zealand may not have an extremely progressive tax code, but it stil does have more universal benefits than the U.S. New Zealand has government housing and universal healthcare. The point still stands. Again, all the countries ahead of us in social mobility: 1. Denmark, 2. Australia, 3. Norway, 4. Finland, 5. Canada, 6. Sweden, 7. Germany, 8. Spain, 9. France, and 10. USA All of these countries are at least slightly more socialist than the U.S.. all of these countries have universal health care. The countries ahead of us in happiness are: 1. Norway, 2. Denmark, 3. Australia, 4. New Zealand, 5. Sweden, 6. Canada, 7. Finland, 8. Switzerland, 9. The Netherlands, and 10. USA My opponent said Norway, New Zealand, Canada, and Denmark aren't really Social Democracies. I pointed out that all of these countries are at leas more socialist than the U.S. Furthermore, that still leaves 6 countries which are ahead of us, 6 countries which, at the very least have universal healthcare. Clearly, countries that are more socially democratic have people who are more socially mobile, and people who are happier. Sweden My opponent notes economic growth in Sweden from the period 1870-1970. He omits the fact that this was the period when Sweden became a Social Democracy! By the 1930s, many people were praising Swedish Social Democracy for becoming the "middle way" between communist command economies and free market economies. When comparing average income between Sweden and the U.S., my opponent is comparing apples and oranges. We simply have the largest economy in the world. Even when wealth isn't distributed fairly, the average American does worse than the average Swede. Curiously, Swedish wealth is distributed so fairly, that even though they have a much smaller economy, lower income Swedes, all the way up to the 45 percentile, make more than their American counterparts. http://super-economy.blogspot.com... We have more GDP per Capita than Sweden, which means that if our wealth is more evenly distributed, the standard of living of lower and middle income Americans (even those who currently are better off than Swedes) would go up. The fact of the matter is that when wealth is more evenly distributed, there is greater consumption to match productivity. My opponent never addressed the consumption point. He did try to paint a rosy picture of American income inequality with the whole Smith vs. Jones comparison. However, the middle class has been shrinking, and experiencing hardship. In fact, middle class Americans have just gone through their worst decade in a long time. The middle class has it's lowest share of the national income that it's had at any time since WWII. http://www.bostonglobe.com... Looking at how our income, rather than how our wealth, is distributed makes things seem more egalitarian than they trully are. The reality is that the bottom 80% of Americans have 6-7% of the nation's wealth. http://www.currydemocrats.org... Furthermore, while productivity has gone up by 46%. Median income per household has only gone up 15%. The other 31% of growth due to greater productivity went to the rich. This means that wealth that would have gone to the average American flowed upwards to the top 1%. Not only is this unfair to the people achieved greater productivity, but this is bad for the economy. When productivity goes up 46%, there are 46% more goods and services on the market. When 31% of the resulting wealth goes to the top, most of that money will go to bank accounts. Again, there's the car analogy. By the way, Henry Ford paid his workers well precisely because he realized that they would buy his cars. This, in a nutshell, is why redistributing wealth will help the economy. The pie should be sliced more evenly in order to insure that the pie can grow at a stable rate. On the recession point, I cited Paul Krugma, a Nobel Prize winning economist. My opponent asserted that Krugman was wrong about everything. In order to back this assertion, he cited Reisman, an economist who never won a nobel prize. The truth is that we were both playing a game of cherry picking an economist who backed our views, so I guess that point was a draw. (Although Krugman has the edge because again, he did win a nobel prize.) Contention 1: I've shown that Social Democracy preserves civil liberties, while also guaranteeing people freedom from want. I've also impacted the importance of this freedom. My opponent argued that Capitalism insures property rights for the rich. Granted, but it also causes more exploitation and thus takes away freedom from common folks. Contention 2: I've shown that by limiting inequality, social democracy is good for the economy. Again, the rich guy won't buy 400 cars. My opponent also demonstrated this by praising Denmark and Canada, while praising Sweden from 1870-1970, the years Sweden became a Social Democracy. Contention 3: I've shown that the 9 happiest countries in the world are all at least more socialist than we are. I've won all 3 of my contentions. Vote Pro Social Democracy and the resulting financial security makes society more democratic, free, happy, and prosperous.