The topic for this debate is "In theory, communism is a superior ideology than capitalism.”

"wormwood13" will be arguing the "Pro" position and begin the debate.
"americandingbat" will be arguing the "Con" position.


Each debater will have one opening statement each. This will be followed by 3 alternating replies each. There will then be one closing statement each and no rebuttal.

There is a 10,000 character limit per post.

Any character count in excess of 10,000 will be deleted prior to the judging process.

Editing is strictly forbidden. For reasons of time, mod edits should not be expected except in critical situations.

Opening and closing statements must not contain any images and must have no more than 3 references. Video and audio files are NOT allowed.

Excluding both the opening and closing statements, only two images and no more than 5 references can be included for each post. Each individual post may contain up to 10 sentences of external source material, totaled from all external sources. Be cognizant of what you quote as excess sentences will be removed prior to judging.

Links to multiple pages within a single domain count as 1 reference but there is a maximum of 3 individual links per reference, then further links from that domain count as a new reference. Excess quotes and excess links will be removed before judging.

The Socratic Debate Rule is in effect. Each debater may ask up to 5 questions in each post, except for in closing statements- no questions are permitted in closing statements. These questions should be clearly labeled as "Question 1, Question 2, etc.

When asked a question, a debater must give a straight forward answer in his next post. Explanations and qualifications to an answer are acceptable, but must be preceded by a direct answer.

This Is The Time Limit Policy:

Each debate must post within 24 hours of the timestamp on the last post. If your opponent is late, you may post immediately without waiting for an announcement of turn forfeiture. If you are late, you may post late, unless your opponent has already posted.

Each debater is entitled to one extension of 24 hours. The request should be posted in this thread and is automatically granted- the 24 hour extension begins at the expiration of the previous deadline, not at the time of the extension request.

In the unlikely event that tardiness results in simultaneous posting by both debaters, the late post will be deleted unless it appears in its proper order in the thread.

Judging will be done by a panel of anonymous judges. After each debate is completed it will be locked and the judges will begin making their decision. One of the debate forum moderators will then make a final post announcing the winner.

In the Tournament, winners will be awarded 2 points for each debate they win.

All AboveTopSecret.com Terms and Conditions Apply at all times in all debate formats.

My apologies, but I will have to uncork this fine bottle of 2009 24 hour extensions.

Thank you to Chissler and the rest of the Debate Forum mods for organizing this tournament; thanks to the judges and readers for your time and attention. And especially, thanks to wormwood13 for taking on this challenge with me. Our topic is In theory, Communism is a superior ideology than Capitalism, and I shall be arguing the con side: Communism is not a better ideology in theory than Capitalism.

I must confess that my initial reaction on reading this topic was concern that it would be difficult for me to argue the con side while remaining honest to my own beliefs. On the generally accepted left-right paradigm of U.S. politics, I tend to inhabit the far left; certainly in my time at ATS I have been more likely to post in support of "communism" than in support of "capitalism". But, as I usually do when I first encounter a debate topic here, I began by setting aside my gut reaction and stopped to ponder the topic itself rather than the host of assumptions that often accompany an initial reading of such a statement.

Very often, discussions about communism and capitalism take on the following form: a communist apologist will make a pointed criticism of the socio-economic reality of early twenty-first century "capitalist" America. Defenders of America will then step in and say something along the lines of "well in theory communism sounds all well and good, but in reality it leads to Stalinism/Maoism/totalitarianism." To which the communist (or just left-leaning liberal like myself) will reply, "People always say that, but there has never in history been a large-scale truly communist society; such nations as the former U.S.S.R., former East Germany, China, or Cuba are all just totalitarian regimes masquerading as communism."

In short, these discussions generally flow between the theoretical level and the historical level fluidly, with each side choosing to make part of their argument in the realm of ideals and part in the realm of how those ideals have been realized in actual historical contexts.

Frankly, I'm not sure that there is any way to avoid this tendency, but I believe that the phrasing of our topic, "In theory, Communism is a superior ideology than Capitalism," at least makes it incumbent upon us to be aware of the complexity of relations between ideology and reality.

Certainly, it demands that we first ask, "what could make one ideology superior to another?"

Having only just started to ponder this question, I'm not sure that I can give a hard-and-fast answer myself. I have come up with a few criteria that I think are crucial, however.

First, I think a good ideology must be logically consistent. It should involve a few basic principles from which flow a number of more general implications for social, political, and economic relations.

Second, it must be psychologically valid. This may be hard to determine, because it is the nature of ideology to be psychologically formative in itself. By that I mean that we as individuals often have difficulty figuring out our own motivations, and especially determining whether those motivations are absolutely innate or have been learned. Since such learning invariably occurs within the context of whatever ideology is prevalent in our immediate environment, this demands that we try to step outside of our own context.

Finally, it must be of practical value. By this I don't mean that its practical value necessarily has to have been already realized in a historical setting, but that it should be consistent with geopolitical realities.

In the course of this debate, I will be analyzing both communist and capitalist ideologies on these criteria. Each will have strengths and weaknesses, but I think we will find that it absolutely cannot be said that communist ideology is superior to capitalist ideology.

In his opening, my opponent has made the following rather biased statement: "Communism stems from community, while capitalism stems from the almighty dollar, also known as the root of all evil." What we see here is the conflation of theory and reality that I spoke of earlier. He chooses to reduce capitalist ideology to just one element of how it has been realized in the modern world (competition for an abstract symbol of value/power), then ties that to a common but unsupported moral judgement. In contrast, he insists on defining communism only in terms of the most generalized concept -- community.

I urge readers throughout this debate to be aware of the interplay involved, and to resist falling into the moralistic quagmire he is attempting to lure us into.

I will close this opening statement with one Socratic Question for wormwood13:

Question 1: In your opinion, what makes for a superior ideology?

Happy New Year! That being said allow me to move on to the subject at hand.

The reason I was saying that capitalism may be a modification of feudalism is as follows. 4-500 years ago there was no capitalism, instead feudalism dominated. In these societies all wealth was held by a select few who in turn ruled over the poor peasant majority. Most people had to work hard to make a living for themselves and their families. They were given small sections of land in which to make this living however the land was owned by a feudal lord who also took a cut of all things produced and made by the peasants. This source of semi-free labour where people are not slaves but are close is referred to as serfdom. It is never a good ideology if it promotes such divisions amongst it's people. Now as people get smarter and more educated such blatantly unfair treatment comes into question so in order for the wealthy to remain on top they come up with the new capitalist ideology that says everyone is equal and everyone can rise to the top. Although the vast majority won't. Liberty! and don't forget the ruthless over-complicated economics meant specifically to cater to the rich, millionaire capitalist.

The people who remained in control simpily secured all the things used to produce the things we need. In order for the workers to pay the landlord, which for some odd reason still exists, and to buy the things they need he must work for a capitalist for usually a small wage. Same devil, different color jackets.

Now the world that we are born into already has capitalist in control of everything. The average person can hope, if he/she's lucky, to work the majority of their waking hours for one of these capitalist to barely scrape by. The industry was bought years ago. All this because of an ideology built on the greed of the few in an effort to pass off their power with a degree of legitimacy and convince the masses that they to can achieve it.

Communism is a simple concept, everyone is equal, everyone has a say, or votes on everything, and all property is public. It is a level playing field so to speak. It is an ancient system, and ideology built on acual relations between communities in an honest effort to keep it fair. It was not built upon maintaining a slave class to exploit it was not for the "elite" lords to hold on to their wealth.

Capitalist ideology is by nature faulty as it will never lead to any kind of stasis. It pits it's own citizens against one another with their very means of surviveing and prospering on the line. This is not just true of the U.S. but all societies in which capitalism is the dominant ideology. Capitalism is absolutely not in the best interest of the majority. It's all about the money$.

At it's simpilist form capitalism is lending money, at interest to people who for the most part can't afford to borrow. False hopes anyone?

This capitalist ideology inevidebly leads to single or corporate owners of all the large industrial enterprises, where most must work but the profits all go to the owner/s divideing capital from labour. It could be said that the only true capitalists are the few property owners. As more and more time ticks by they get more accumulated property, or capital, while the worker falls farther into debt.

Capitalism outlines no ideology that puts people before profit. In fact it's emphasis on profit can be compared to mercantilism. It is downright sad to have most people become nothing more than wage slaves but this is what this ideology will lead to.

No, I'm sorry as an ideology it is unsound and has more to do with materialism and maintaining power than it has to do with basic human needs.

To you americandingbat I turn over the pen........Looking Forward
wormwood13

Happy New Year everyone!

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to give this debate the time it deserves. I will have to keep this post short and hope to tie some loose ends together in my closing post tomorrow.

First I will address a couple of remarks made by my opponent in his most recent post:

He wrote, "Capitalist ideology is by nature faulty as it will never lead to any kind of stasis." I would suggest that stasis is hardly a desirable goal for a society. Wormwood seems to believe that stasis is the only alternative to oppression, but does nothing to support this idea. If anything, stasis is the ally of oppression. In a dynamic, growing society, opportunity for change is everywhere. An oppressive class depends on stasis to maintain their control of resources and people.

He continued, "At its simplest form capitalism is lending money at interest to people who for the most part can't afford to borrow." But this is far from the truth. While it is true that lending and borrowing money is a key component of a capitalist economy, according to a pure capitalist ideology this would not be the case. There is no profit in loaning money to people who will not be able to return it (as has happened in the U.S. credit industry recently). It is rather a perversion of capitalism which has driven this process. The corporations responsible for advancing bad loans have been protected from their actions, through market manipulation of loan insurance packages, and finally through massive government bailouts.

Finally, my opponent continues to assert without evidence or argument that the ideas of capitalism will inevitably lead to just such situations. But he has given us no reason to believe this.

I would like to bring just one new perspective to the issue in this post. Throughout this debate I have looked to determine what makes an ideology a good one. Today I would like to suggest that one such characteristic is flexibility: the ability to suggest directions for a society to move, and to adjust to the world situation. In this regard capitalism is far superior to communism. Where communism answers every problem with enforced equality (or even sameness), capitalism encourages the development of new solutions. Communism indeed seeks stasis -- its aim of total equality is simply not compatible with the social dynamism needed for a society to grow and progress.

I apologize to our readers and fellow debaters for the delays in my contributions here; this holiday season has demanded rather more of my time and attention than I had expected.

Back to you, Wormwood.

Well, we made it through the holidays and to the closing statement of our little debate.

Closing Statement

Let me clarify what I meant by reaching stasis. When it comes to issues of fairness and the way people are treated there should be a standard. It should'nt be different for children who happen to be born to capitalists instead of the ones born to the people who work for said capitalists. Nepitism should not decide who is in charge, experience should. When I speak of an ideology that strives to achieve stasis, I mean a level playing field.

So what do we have here? Communism as an ideology is essential. There are some people who are too old or sick to work, should they be allowed to starve? Only when there are alot of people and some are already in control is a capitalist ideology adopted, and it is pushed on the people by the very capitalist who stand to benefit the most by keeping the majority of the people in a lower class.

My opponent has spent alot of time defineing the parameters of this debate, however not as much time telling us why a capitalistic ideology would be superior.

In conclusion good people, communism as an ideology is sound, and can be used to start a society of people that don't divide themselves into classes, and don't seek to profit of the misfortune of others. It does not, as with capitalism, include a group of elites who have secured their positions long ago. With the focus away from how much can I make, and how can I afford my bills far more time is free to do things that truly benefit the people, and with that type of mentallity we can come closer to doing things that help this whole world instead of a capitalistic mentallity which only serves to help yourself.

Thank you to all those who took time away from their holidays to read this little diddy, it warms my heart to know you crazy cats are out there. A secondary thank you to chissler for putting up with all the delays in this lovely round two, and last but certainly not least to americandingbat, who I had been hoping to get into it with, however next time we go 12 rounds I hope we both have more time to dedicate to it. Either way its been real, and even fun. Give the people bread and circuses!

Your friendly traveling executioner, and miscreant of QualCom/BashCap

Wormwood13

To my respected opponent Wormwood: it has been fun. I too wish that we could have clashed at a time when we were both less distracted.

To our readers and judges: thank you for your time and attention.

---

My opponent has called me to task for spending “not as much time telling us why a capitalist ideology would be superior.” Strictly speaking, the debate topic does not require me to do so, only to argue that communist ideology is not superior. But I would like to go that extra step and demonstrate some of the ways I believe that capitalist ideology is, in theory, superior to communist ideology. I hope that this closing post will convince of that.

As I said in the beginning of the debate, I am politically very liberal, and I have a lot of problems with the power structure in the United States, with the sway that giant corporations have over the political realm, with the media and entertainment industries that seem to aim at distracting our attention from the realities of power and influence in our society. Because the amoral and even immoral actions of the powerful here so often seem to stem from the drive for economic (and therefore political) power, I too often fall into the trap of confusing what I see as a no-holds-barred struggle for capital gain with capitalist ideology.

But this is not really capitalism at all. As the source my opponent cited in his second reply said, this is really corporatism and cronyism.

In his closing Wormwood said, “communism as an ideology is sound, and can be used to start a society of people that don’t divide themselves into classes …”

As a thought experiment, I would like to imagine such a thing. Imagine that there is a group of people – enough people to start a society – along with a given amount of resources – enough to provide for that society.

Following a communist ideology, presumably a society could be developed in which all resources are held in common and all decisions made in common, and I will even grant that for a small group of similar individuals such a setup might work for a while. But how large would a society have to grow before disparities in interest set in? Different people have different needs, and there would have to be some way to determine those and distribute goods equitably. It is not practical in a large-scale society to have all the people vote on every decision – it is difficult enough to get enough people to educate themselves about two candidates for president every four years, imagine if everyone had to make themselves an expert in every area of resource management in order to participate responsibly in a vote on every decision that affected the society.

In contrast to his thought-experiment communist possibilities, my opponent continues to discuss capitalism only as it has evolved in the western world. It is true, and in my opinion lamentable, that the vast majority of our resources are controlled by a very small minority group. But this is a historical accident: our society is not the result of applying an ideology to a clean slate, but rather is an evolution from a profoundly unequal society, as Wormwood pointed out, that preceded the growth of capitalism.

Our theorized society of equals starting afresh could choose capitalist ideology over communist ideology, and begin by distributing its pool of resources equally among its members. From there, a market could evolve through cooperative trade according to a pure capitalist ideology – you have something I want, I have something you want, let’s work together. It would not require a state framework to act as middleman (I’m making some stuff, you’re making some stuff, let’s both give it to this third guy who can divide it equally among all three of us). Because everyone would be starting out with the same resources, the very real unfairnesses of our current system would not be in play. Differences would be encouraged, as well as invention and cooperation.

---

In my opening post I listed three characteristics that I thought would be required for a superior ideology. I wish I had had the time to expand on those thoughts more, but a brief rundown will have to suffice.

The first was logical consistency and expandibility. Both communism and capitalism demonstrate logical consistency – each begins with a principle and an assumption about how people behave in society and develops an entire system of political and economic theory out of these basics. The driving ideal of communism is equality, and it assumes that people will produce enough to continue to satisfy their needs so long as their needs are met. From these principles follow the abolition of private property and the role of the state (or “community”) as collector and divvyer of goods. The driving ideal of capitalism is individual freedom, and it assumes cooperative exchange behaviors among people in a society. From this follows the value of private property as the means for social behavior – if we have the same things there is no need for us to cooperate, or even to communicate with each other as individuals. It is our differences in ability, interest, and desire that provide the vehicle for our social interactions.

It is often argued that capitalism is all about competition – about taking advantage of other people or trying to “beat” them in some strange abstract game. But really capitalism is about trade, about reaching out to the other in order that both may benefit.

The second criteria on my list was psychological compatibility, that an ideology must accurately reflect and satisfy human drives and needs. As I stated in my opening, this is hard to judge and we really haven’t had the opportunity to give it the attention it deserves. Critics of communism often complain that it demands an unrealistic level of altruism from people; that people are naturally competitors and struggle is inevitable. I am not convinced of this. What I am convinced of is that it is the differences among people that are the motivating factor in human progress – that it is in communicating with people who are different than us that our social nature is most fully realized and through which we as individuals can grow spiritually. Capitalism, placing free trade between individuals at the center of its ideology, is ideal for this.

My third criteria was real-world practicality, and it is here that capitalism truly shines as an ideology. This is where its flexibility is crucial. For one thing, capitalist ideology is much more capable of interacting with the world outside its society because it is founded on mutually beneficial trade. Communism, ideologically, demands sharing – but what if other societies would rather trade than share? Second, capitalist ideology allows for experimentation in a way that communist ideology does not. It is fundamental to capitalist ideology that if one solution to a problem is unsuccessful, new solutions are sought. There is no one-size-fits-all demand for equality and control of resources at the highest level of society. There is built-in recognition that what works for one person or group may not work for others: indeed, capitalism relies on these differences.

Perhaps a truly superior ideology would combine elements of communism and capitalism – would place a higher emphasis on equality of access than capitalism does, for instance. But of the two, capitalism is the ideology that best nurtures our freedom of thought and interaction as humans, demands cooperation among the component groups of a society that they may trade and grow through exchange, and provides a diverse and rich environment for us as individuals.

We're off to the judges.

Wormwood wins this Debate because he displayed a better grasp of Communism than Americandingbat did of Communism.

Throughout it appeared that WW used his own words and understanding in defense of Communism while ADB required Wikipedia & Co. to make sense of Capitalism. Her self-admitted issues with Capitalism shone through.
While reading I myself had a dozen ideas of what one COULD have argued in favor of Capitalism but these actually rather common talking points were left out.

Wormwoods lines of reasoning, on the other hand, seemed to be easily drawn and layed out for every reader to understand.

Knowing ADB as a good Debater I say "better luck next time!" and congratulate wormwood on the win.

That was the hardest debate I have ever judged. I actually read through it three times because I was having a hard time deciding on which was the better argument.

At the end I had to pick AmericanDingbat. I had always leaned towards Communism as my flavor of preferred choice, but now I have a lot more to think about on this issue.

"In theory, communism is a superior ideology than capitalism.”

This was a great debate. Both fighters started off strong in their openings with good solid foundations as to their direction. I always enjoy a good opening as it sets the tone and these two did not disappoint.

Wormwood13 sure started off well in his first post or two, but it started to show that he was depending on Marx perhaps too much.

Americandingbat was able to hold off Wormwood13 very nicely, keeping things even until the closing.

At the closing a clear leader emerged and I must say it was one of the better closing arguments I have had the enjoyment to read.

Americandingbat absolutely “killed” in that closing, wrapping up the debate and managing to refute Wormwood13’s debate all in one package.

Winner americandingbat

americandingbat is the victor and moves to the next round.

---

---

This thread is now open to comments from other fighters.

I'll be rooting for you ding, make them suffer.

Also a giant thank you to the judges!

Originally posted by wormwood13
I'll be rooting for you ding, make them suffer.

Thanks Worm, I'll do my best. That was a fun debate -- maybe we'll get to fight again sometime when there's less to do outside ATS

And thanks to the judges

FIGHT CLUB PUB FOREVER!!!!!!

Originally posted by wormwood13
FIGHT CLUB PUB FOREVER!!!!!!