Error in Debate Formatting, Cleared Up
The debate being had is the following:
Pro advocates that Norway is a genuinely Socialist nation, that it has a system closest to Democratic Socialism out of all variants.
Con will be advocating that Norway is, in fact, closest to Social Democracy and that the differences between what Norway is and Socialism are significant enough to conclude that at most it is '
compassionate capitalism'.
==
Debunking Baseless Assertions by Pro
Pro puts forth a series of baseless assertions.
To clear things up, I will bullet point what exactly Pro asserted and go into why each one is incorrect, logically fallacious and/or irrelevant to the resolution.
- Pro states their entire case's conclusion (that Norway is a real world example of Democratic Socialism) as their sole contention. Your entire case cannot be based on the contention that the case itself is true. This is flawed debating structure and terminology.
- Pro says that there is 'a lot' of state-owned industry. Not only does this not clear up whether or not Socialism is supposed to be anarchic and government shouldn't be taking from the people but even if we assume that state-owned industry is quintessentially Socialist, the lack of 'a lot' having actual quantity is enough to disregard it on its own. On top of that, if 'a lot of state-owned industry' is outweighed by 'even more private industry' then it means very little. Also, 'state-owned industry' is not entirely clear. There is state-owned industry in the sense of an entirely owned means of production that the government literally runs, while alternatively it can subsidise and impose contracts upon otherwise private industries, to make them accessible to the poor and having to meet stringent standards of safety and environmental-friendliness. Nothing at all is covered in this point by Pro, nor is it explained what Socialism is or why this makes Norway Socialist.
- The idea that one in three Norweigans works for the state is so utterly ridiculous considering that children who are too young to work, the elderly and the disabled are completely glossed over to begin with. Even if that mattered, where on Earth is this statistic from? Even in official reports on Norweigan employment rates, demographics etc. I struggle to find this statistic anywhere at all. https://tradingeconomics.com/norway/employed-persons
What that would prove, at most, is that there is a very large public sector and government, by extension. That would be present in any/all beaureacratic political systems, not just Socialism. Pro has to even slightly define and link this to Socialism-qualifying-criteria to then say this leads us to conclude that Norway is Socialist. - The oil profits wealth fund is some kind of utter conspiracy theory. I do not know where Pro got that from, nor how that makes a country Socialist if it's true. The authority in Norway that decides how liscencing of oil production and such go, is the King/Queen. The unelected, non-democratically established power of Royalty has entire authority in Oil Industry Liscencing since 1963:
In May 1963, the Norwegian Government proclaimed sovereignty over the Norwegian continental shelf. A new act was adopted establishing that any natural resources on the shelf belong to the Norwegian state, and that only the King (in practice the Government) has the authority to award licences for exploration and production.
So, is it a Monarchic Democratic Socialist regime, all at once? I don't even think that's possible but if that's what Pro says it is, Pro really has to prove it.
==
Agreeing with Pro, finding middle ground and turning the tables in my favour.
Norway is left-wing leaning Centrism, I am going to just go ahead and agree to it being left-wing-sided. There's fairness on the poor, a realistic dream for the Progressives of today as they can say 'look at Scandinavia and see many practical applications of caring for the poor without a country's economy falling apart and such. This is because Norway is a fantastic practiser of Social Democracy. The mixed economy of Social Democracy is more centrist than Democratic Socialism.
To begin with, there's many rigid elements to Socialism, whether Democratic or not, that are absent in Norway (which practises a fluid form of mixing Capitalism's fundamentals with Socialist ideals, the end result is known as Social Democracy). To begin with, there is no minimum wage in Norway, yet the poor do not suffer. It's also one of the best places in the world to start a business, yet the rich do not prey on the poor of any line of work there. How is this achieved? Not by Socialism, but by Social Democracy.
There are about
2.8 million total employed workers in Norway. Just 10 percent of the employed workforce work in these
state-owned enterprises. The public sector in general employs about
30 percent of the workforce, the highest proportion in the capitalist world. While this is surely a lot in comparison to other capitalist
democracies, the Norwegian state still leaves the significant majority
of workers working in capitalist firms for their survival. This is even
more so the case in the other social democracies.
Democratic socialism, on the other hand, should involve public ownership over the
vast majority of the productive assets of society, the elimination of the fact that
workers are forced into the labor market to work for those who privately
own those productive assets, and stronger democratic institutions not
just within the state but within
workplaces and communities as well. Our characterization of democratic socialism
represents a profound
deepening of democracy in the economy.
Feel free to click the 'blue text' in what was pasted for very reliable links that the author of the Magazine Article references. Do not discount this for being a Magazine, it had reliable research put into it.
The Scandinavians embrace a brand of free-market capitalism that
exists in conjunction with a large welfare state, known as the “Nordic
Model,” which includes many policies that democratic socialists would
likely abhor.
For example, democratic socialists are generally opponents of global
capitalism and free trade, but the Scandinavian countries have fully
embraced these things.
The Economist magazine describes the Scandinavian countries as “stout free-traders
who resist the temptation to intervene even to protect iconic
companies.” Perhaps this is why Denmark,
Norway, and Sweden rank
among the most globalized countries in the entire world. These countries all also rank in the
top 10 easiest countries to do business in.
==
What exactly is Socialism?
a set of political and economic theories based on the belief that everyone has an equal right to a share of a country’s wealth and that the government should own and control the main industries
At a first glance, it does seem that many websites even that go more into what Socialism is, could end up planting Norway on the Socialist part of the spectrum but I stand firm in the notion that they're incorrect. Norway's government does control 60% of its GDP but it only 'owns' 10% of the overall industry. This is extremely important to understand because in the world we live in today (2019) we are so Capitalist, on the spectrum as a world, that we don't realise that a nation like Norway is overall Left-Leaning but still nearer to the Centre than the 'true left wing'. You can own your own money there, run your own private business and decide your own wages, working conditions etc for your people but yes it is controlled with left-wing ethos in mind, by the government. The crucial part of understanding why it's not Socialism, lies in the concept that it essentially is a compassionate form of Capitalism. It cares for its poor, understands the imbalance that Capitalism (which is embraces) can create and then uses Socialist-esque ideals to guide its policy-making and enforcement. The State refuses to become truly Socialist and justifies this by the fairness to the poor and vulnerable that exists in spite of it being Capitalist, economically.
Industries in Norway compete for profit, get to keep that profit with a corporate tax rate that's
significantly lowering in recent years (as it's solved how to make Capitalism fair by other means). It's lucrative to do business in, fantastic to work in whether you're poor or rich and that secret is down to balance; Social Democracy.
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>Reported Vote:PressF4Respect// Mod action: [Removed]
>Points Awarded: 5 points to con for arguments and conduct.
>Reason for Decision:Effs
Reason for Mod Action>The conduct point is sufficient.
However, arguments cannot be awarded solely on the grounds of forfeits unless the debate is a full forfeit (ie: no arguments offered after the opening round).
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Please, in Round 1, make crystal clear if we are debating pro vs con on socialism or on whether Norway is socialist or not.
I am willing to take Con on both, that is why I accepted preemptively.