Exordium
I wish pro well and hope he is able to return to this debate in good health and mind. I will extend the arguments from the first round so he has a chance to respond to them. I wish to also give him the opportunity to defend some more common criticisms of the free market. Some commonly brought up, and some less common, all of which can be corrected by social democratic societies.
Planned obsolescence
"Planned obsolescence is when companies intentionally design products with a limited lifespan to encourage consumers to buy new ones" [1]
There are many examples of companies engaging in planned obsolescence to increase profits.
1. Smartphones and laptops have been created with intentionally difficult batteries to replace.[2]
2. Iphone has admitted to updates causing the phones to slow down so people are forced to buy a new one.[3]
3. Printer companies have intentionally made software updates to make old printers obsolete.[4]
4. Companies have used worse materials than necessary so items break down faster.[5]
These people are profit driven which causes all these old devices to be wasted long before it is necessary to do so.
Unnecessary products created by the free market
UFO insurance is just one example of useless products wasting people's personal resources, but other examples exist. [6] capitalists will sell anything and create fictional campaigns to make useless stuff useful.
Take diamonds for example. A useless rock that can cost as high as millions of dollars to go on a ring so a woman can feel special and a man can feel unworthy if he doesn't have the ability to obtain it.
A marketing campaign is what made people think of it as a useful item, not tradition or anything like that.
"So, how do they get more people to buy big diamonds in a bad economy? They needed to figure out a way to link diamonds with something emotional. And because diamonds weren't worth much inherently, they also had to keep people from ever reselling them. What was emotional, socially valuable, and eternal? Love and marriage. Bingo." [7]
These useless campaigns have been created for other things. Making people aware of cellulite so even skinny women can feel fat and buy up diamond products. No ody gave a shit about febreeze waging chemical warfare on their nose and lungs until a marketing campaign said a room doesn't feel clean until it's been febreeze.
Which brings me to my next point.
Ad space
Ad space is a valuable resource, too often wasted. It can be used to discourage kids from smoking crack or let drug addicts know where they can find helpful resources to kick their habit.
They can be used to boost public morale so people don't see their neighbors as enemies just because they prefer the shitty political candidate over the more sensible one we would choose.
T.v. time during commercials for shows like law and Order SVU could actually have well placed ads available for showing rape victims where they can seek help both to get justice and to start repairing the mental damage done by victimization. That is free market interference that can't happen with a Laissez Faire system.
Healthcare
Corporations are motivated by money and shareholder interwat not public interest. It's why healthcare costs are out of control and why doctors try to push useless surgeries like breast enlargement. We don't need doctors running ads that make people feel physically inferior and having them resort to unnecessary procedures.
By doing something like universal healthcare, we would cut out the middle man profiteer who is looking to have premiums as high as possible while the coverage does as little as possible, and instead put some public control over these things so less money is wasted on useless insurance middleman.
Conclusion
Capitalism creates waste. Laissez-Faire capitalism is the most ineffecient form of capitalism because it removes the people's ability to make up for any inefficiencies it creates. Social democrats take advantage of all of the positive things related to a market economy, without mindlessly handing over all control of the birthday cake to the fat kids who like bullying.
Sources
1. Chat GPT3 4-2-23
2. https://9to5mac.com/2021/03/01/apple-lawsuit-portugal-planned-obsolescence/
3. https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamsarhan/2017/12/22/planned-obsolescence-apple-is-not-the-only-culprit/
4. https://www.christopherroosen.com/blog/2022/7/4/printer-toner-planned-obsolescence
5. https://www.reliance-foundry.com/blog/planned-obsolescence-sustainability
6. https://www.usatoday.com/money/blueprint/insurance/what-is-alien-abduction-insurance/
7. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/diamond-de-beers-marketing-campaign
Ok thanks. This debate was about efficiency and I was intentionally laying some traps because I usually like to control my opponent's arguments as well.
I know if I was arguing outside of the parameters of this debate for socialism, I would struggle to make an argument about wealth inequality, given that I believe it to be a terrible argument against capitalism. I did try to formulate a good argument for why wealth inequality was bad outside of debate in general, just to challenge myself but the best reasons I found were still pretty poor reasons.
It's not that it isn't brought up in socialist circles, just that marginal utility with regard to wealth inequality tends to be the central point in these types of debates. Not writing off your approach though, since it would all depend on how Lxam responds.
I thought tragedy of the commons was one of the more common arguments against Laissez Faire capitalism. How was it unexpected?
Yeah, definitely not the argument I would expect, especially as a central point.
It is too bad. I really was curious about how his rebuttals would look
Can't believe you used the tragedy of the commons as your lynchpin. Too bad he forfeited.
Well this is an auto-loss for him, wonder why he forfeited
Just glad I could make you happy
Hahaha, I don't know why your comment cracked me up
I can criticize capitalism all day boys. Heil Stalin
Yep, hopefully he won't do this the next round of the tourney. If he does, his opponents will get easy wins, though.
1 forfeit = not loss, not win.
2 forfeits = loss
I wonder where Lxam went
Thank you
Strong first round from con.
It's easier than googling stuff. You do have to verify the accuracy before you hit publish though
Citing Chat-GPT is a pretty chad move. I should try that.
I probably know more about Laissez-Faire capitalism but I am weak on social democracy. Though currently researching this topic from what the advocates of social democracy state, it is very similar to what we already have in the United States, and I have learned the founders of it consider it a form of government they want to put in place to transition into communism
There’s good arguments to be made for both sides and while it’s more likely PREZ-HILTON will win this because he’s probably more knowledgeable on this subject than Lxam, the setup definitely favors Pro.
These comments show the difference of political thought on the issue, I love it.
It does favor me. I thought Lancelot was confused about which side was pro
I actually think the definition favours Con. I will leave the statement at that.
Maybe but it's literally what the word means and is the most common one
This definition gives Pro too much of an advantage.