Socialism

“I am a socialist, and a very different kind of socialist from your rich friend Reventlow.”

“Political and economic theory advocating state ownership and control of the means of production, distribution, and exchange.”(6)

“a political community under one government.”(6)

"Sections 114, 115, 117, 118, 123, 124, and 153 of the Constitution of the German Reich are suspended until further notice. Thus, restrictions on personal liberty, on the right of free expression of opinion, including freedom of the press, on the right of assembly and the right of association, and violations of the privacy of postal, telegraphic, and telephonic communications, and warrants for house-searchers, orders for confiscations as well as restrictions on property, are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed." (Reich President, Hindenburg, the Reich Chancellor, Hitler, the Reich Minister of the Interior, Frick, and the Reich Minister of Justice, Guertner) (2)

 

“permitted the regime to arrest and incarcerate political opponents without specific charge, dissolve political organizations, and to suppress publications. It also gave the central government the authority to overrule state and local laws and overthrow state and local governments. The decree was a key step in the establishment of the Nazi dictatorship. Germany became a police state in which citizens enjoyed no guaranteed basic rights and the SS, the elite guard of the Nazi state, wielded increasing authority through its control over the police.” (3)

“The regime’s policy of borrowing against future prosperity seemed to be literally paying off. Nazi propaganda trumpeted what it called a German financial miracle. Yet with additional expenditures exceeding additional revenues by almost 300 percent, public debt increased in the first two years of the Nazi regime by 10.3 billion Reichsmarks.” (1, pg 37-39)

“The unlimited expansion of state expenditures flouts every attempt to draw up an orderly budget. It has brought state finances, despite the drastic tightening of tax legislation, to the brink of collapse and threatens now to destabilize both the national bank and the currency. No financial recipes or systems-no matter how ingenious or well thought out- and no institutions or set of fiscal mechanisms can suffice to rein in the disastrous consequences of unbridled deficit spending on the currency. No national bank is capable of propping up the currency against the inflationary policies of the state.”(1, pg 37-39)

 

“Hitler bridged what he and his leadership knew to be a precarious financial situation with military adventures that had terrible consequences for millions of people. Dispossession, deportation, and mass murder became major sources of state income.” (1, pg 37-39)

“The percentage of Germany’s wartime revenues derived from external sources-that is, revenues from occupied countries, forced labor, and persecutedJews- is about 70 percent.” (1, pg 327)

 

“1 In education, in the US this was reinforced by the Coleman Report (Coleman et al., 1966) which collected and analyzed nationwide data, concluding that student achievement was primarily determined by family background, not school resources.”

40 years ago, a man from the Soviet Union walks into a local shop. He asks the clerk, “You don’t have any meat?” The clerk says, “No, here we don’t have any fish. The shop that doesn’t have any meat is across the street.”

“as Marxists, the Bolsheviks believed that private ownership of the means of production provided the basis of political power. By nationalizing it, they undermined the opposition. They further acted in the conviction that a centralized and planned economy was inherently more efficient than a capitalist one and would in no time turn Soviet Russia into the most productive country in the world.” (1)

“In the first year of the new regime all but the smallest industrial enterprises were nationalized. Agricultural land, the main source of national wealth, was for the time being left at the disposal of peasant communes, with the understanding that sooner or later it would be collectivized. Private ownership of urban real estate was abolished, as was inheritance. The state (that is, in effect, the Bolshevik Party) became the sole owner of the country’s productive and income-yielding assets.” (1)

“2. Socialism Gives the Rich Unlimited Power

For the sake of the argument, I will assume that all wealthy individuals are evil and selfish, Pro offers government coercion in Socialism as the solution. This argument makes the fatal assumption that the rich will not seek influence and benefits from the state. It, however, contradicts our assumption of the rich's evil intent. Far from keeping the rich in check and solving Pro's problems, Socialism offers the rich their greatest weapon against the poor yet: The State. The wealthy of society will continue Pro's harms, but this time as special interests in government, utilizing the resources of the whole state.”

Capitalism perpetuates crime in two ways.

 

• Greedy robber barons like Andrew Carnegie are able to profit while the poor are enslaved to the burden of doing hard manual labor to keep his business successful.
  
• Privatized education restricts the ability to obtain the high-demand skills necessary to get a great paying job and thus turn to crime to make a living.
  

When socialism witnesses its power being abused firsthand, it naturally inspires a rebellion. This is what happened when Hitler turned on his own fellow socialist, it led to a movement which would actively oppose him known as The Black Front. 

“This is why we see the greatest evils committed by governments. They are the enforcers of society, accountable only to themselves. Hitler and Stalin, the most evil men responsible for the most death and destruction in human history, would not have gone far without the power of the socialist German and Russian governments. That is why Socialism is wrong, it gives these evil people the greatest power to destroy.”

Con doesn’t acknowledge the criticisms I raise about Education, theEnvironment, and Healthcare. -Pro

"This is technically straw-manning my previous point. Not all wealthypeople are inherently evil people" -Pro

The State isn’t required for this specific kind of person to commit the most atrocious crimes. -Pro

"Money doesn’t make people evil. Money is an amplifier, so these individuals who abuse this privilege give other wealthy people a bad name. Taxing them will likewise reduce the amount of damage they can cause." -Pro

"Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude." – Alexis de Tocqueville

My opponent correctly points out that every system has its flaws and that’s true. Capitalism itself also has a dark history and continues to kill people today. -Pro

Hitler and Stalin are frequently used as examples to illustrate why socialism is bad. However, socialism since then has changed significantly and branched out over time. 

The socialism of today is therefore not the socialism used by Hitler and Stalin. German people like Otto Strasser have ensured that socialism learned from its mistakes.  -Pro

While Con acknowledges my arguments from the First Round, they are still uncontested so will remain for now. Extend. -Pro