World History II Name: ________________________________Capitalism vs. Communism Debate Date: ________________________________

DEBATE PROMPT:

Which is a better economic system: capitalism or communism?

Capitalism: Industries controlled by profit-driven private owners without government interference

Communism: All property is publicly owned, the government decides how the economy runs, and power/wealth is redistributed from the rich to workers and the community

DEBATE FORMAT:The class will be divided into two teams: capitalism and communism. Each team will present and respond to arguments based on the evidence contained on the following pages. The roles and structure of the debate include:

Team Speech Time Max Number of People

Capitalism Opening statement 2 min. 1 speaker, 1 researcher

Communism Opening statement 2 min. 1 speaker, 1 researcher

Cap/Com Capitalism questions Communism 2 min. 2 per team

Com/Cap Communism questions Capitalism 2 min. 2 per team

Capitalism Attacker 2 min. 1 speaker, 1 researcher

Communism Attacker 2 min. 1 speaker, 1 researcher

Capitalism Defender 2 min. 1 speaker, 1 researcher

Communism Defender 2 min. 1 speaker, 1 researcher

Capitalism Closing statement 2 min. 1 speaker

Communism Closing statement 2 min. 1 speaker

After the debate, the judge will decide the winner and explain their decision.

EXPECTATIONS All students will participate in the debate and preparation, either as speakers or researchers. After the

debate, all students will turn in their debate prep organizer. During the debate, students will both speak and listen respectfully to each other. Disagree in a courteous,

thoughtful manner. Always attack the argument, not the person who presented it. All speakers will refer to the texts to support their arguments as often as possible. Non-speaking researchers will “flow” the debate by noting important arguments made by each speaker.

CAPITALISM EVIDENCE

Alexis de Tocqueville, Memoir on Pauperism (1835)

Man, like all socially organized beings, has a natural passion for idleness. There are, however, two incentives to

work: the need to live and the desire to improve the conditions of life. Experience has proven that the majority

of men can be sufficiently motivated to work only by the first of these incentives. The second is only effective

with a small minority. Well, a charitable institution indiscriminately open to all those in need, or a law which

gives all the poor a right to public aid, whatever the origin of their poverty, weakens or destroys the first

stimulant and leaves only the second intact.

The Working Man’s Companion (1831)

You are surrounded… with an infinite number of comforts and conveniences which had no existence two or

three centuries ago, and those comforts are not used only by a few, but are within the reach of almost all men.

Every day is adding something to your comforts. Your houses are better built, your clothes are cheaper, you

have an infinite number of domestic utensils. You can travel cheaply from place to place, and not only travel at

less expense, but travel ten times quicker than two hundred years ago.

Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations (1776) #1

Every individual is continually exerting himself to find out the most advantageous employment for whatever

capital he can command. It is his own advantage, indeed, and not that of the society, which he has in view. But

the study of his own advantage, naturally, or rather necessarily, leads him to prefer that employment which is

most advantageous to the society…

The statesman who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals,

would not only load himself with a most unnecessary attention, but assume an authority which could safely be

trusted, not only to no single person, but to no council or senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so

dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it…

Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations (1776) #2

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their

regard to their own interest.

CAPITALISM EVIDENCE

Industrial Revolution Graphs by The Economist (2013)

The Objectivist Newsletter (1962)

The least understood and most widely misrepresented aspect of the history of capitalism is child labor. One

cannot evaluate the phenomenon of child labor in England during the Industrial Revolution of the late

eighteenth and early nineteenth century, unless one realizes that the introduction of the factory system offered a

livelihood, a means of survival, to tens of thousands of children who would not have lived to be youths in the

pre-capitalistic eras. The factory system led to a rise in the general standard of living, to rapidly falling urban

death rates, and decreasing infant mortality – and produced an unprecedented population explosion.

CAPITALISM EVIDENCE

Image of steam engine train leaving station

Andrew Carnegie, Gospel of Wealth (1889)

The contrast between the palace of the millionaire and the cottage of the laborer with us to-day measures the

change which has come with civilization. This change, however, is not to be deplored, but welcomed as highly

beneficial. It is well, nay, essential, for the progress of the race that the houses of some should be homes for all

that is highest and best in literature and the arts, and for all the refinements of civilization, rather than that none

should be so. Much better this great irregularity than universal squalor… The "good old times" were not good

old times. Neither master nor servant was as well situated then as to-day. A relapse to old conditions would be

disastrous to both — not the least so to him who serves — and would sweep away civilization with it.

Image of a farmer’s market in England

COMMUNISM EVIDENCE

Friedrich Engels, The Conditions of the Working Class in England (1844) #1

Every great town has one or more slum areas where the workers struggle through life as best they can out of

sight of the more fortunate classes of society. The slums… are generally unplanned wildernesses of one- or two-

storied houses… The streets are usually unpaved, full of holes, filthy, and strewn with refuse. Since they have

neither gutters nor drains, the refuse accumulates in stagnant, stinking puddles. The view of Manchester is quite

typical… In front of the doors, filth and garbage abounded.

Image of crowded houses on a dirty London street

Image of child factory workers

COMMUNISM EVIDENCE

Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto (1848)

The first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to

win the battle of democracy. The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from

the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state, i. e., of the proletariat

organized as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible…

Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable.

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.

2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax

3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.

4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels

5. Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an

exclusive monopoly.

6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state.

7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of

waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.

8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.

9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction

between town and country by a more equal distribution of the populace over the country.

10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labor in its present form.

Combination of education with industrial production, etc.

Image of factory pollution

COMMUNISM EVIDENCE

Friedrich Engels, The Conditions of the Working Class in England (1844) #2

Manchester lies at the foot of the southern slope of a range of hills. Manchester proper lies on the left bank of

the Irwell, between that stream and the two smaller ones, the Irk and the Medlock, which here empty into the

Irwell. The whole of Manchester contains about four hundred thousand inhabitants, rather more than less. The

town itself is peculiarly built, so that a person may live in it for years, and go in and out daily without coming

into contact with a working-people's quarter or even with workers. This arises chiefly from the fact, that by

unconscious tacit agreement, as well as with outspoken conscious determination, the working people's quarters

are sharply separated from the sections of the city reserved for the middle-class and wealthy inhabitants…

Such is the old town of Manchester, and on re-reading my description, I am forced to admit that instead of being

exaggerated, it is far from black enough to convey a true impression of the filth, ruin, and uninhabitableness, the

defiance of all considerations of cleanliness, ventilation, and health. If any one wishes to see in how little space

a human being can move, how little air – and such air! – he can breathe, how little of civilization he may share

and yet live, it is only necessary to travel hither. Everything which here arouses horror and indignation is of

recent origin, belongs to the industrial epoch.

Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844

“The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people.”

Drawing of dangerous factory conditions