*This debate is co-sponsored by Libertas, an organization dedicated to the promotion of free markets, libertarian philosophy, and open debate.
For the affirmative:
Ben Burgis is a philosophy instructor at Georgia State University Perimeter College, a Jacobin columnist, and the host of the Give Them An Argument podcast. His forthcoming book The Blueprint (2022), co-written with Jacobin editor Bhaskar Sunkara and economist Mike Beggs, presents a possible model of Full Democratic Socialism designed to avoid both the calculation problems that afflict Soviet-style central planning and the workplace authoritarianism and brutal economic inequality generated by capitalism.
For the negative:
Gene Epstein is the former Economics and Books Editor of Barron’s. He worked as a senior economist for the New York Stock Exchange. He’s appeared on podcasts that include Russ Roberts’ “EconTalk,” “The Tom Woods Show,” Dave Smith’s “Part of the Problem,” and the Reason podcast. He is the Executive Director of the Soho Forum and has defended the negative at six Soho Forum debates. His November 2019 debate on socialism with Prof. Richard Wolff has more than two million views on Youtube.