Economic Justice
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Spanish and World Religions course materials for Darren Witwer's classes Fall 2004
all material copyright Darren Witwer, 2000-2009 unless noted.
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The class of Spring 2005 democratically chose to argue the issue of economic justice, or "Socialism Vs Capitalism"

So, to help get you informed, here are some on-line resources.
What is Socialism? @ Wikipedia

Capitalism.org, and the Cato Institute represent pure American Capitalism in its more libertarian form (undistorted by religious conservatism)

The Federalist Society and Americans for Tax Reform (Grover Norquist) and The Heritage Foundation represent the more religiously motivated capitalist movement.

Specific topics should be researched via library databases like Opposing Viewpoints, and Congressional Quarterly Researcher.  Useful search "buzzwords" include:  "universal healthcare", "single payer healthcare", "nationalization", "deregulation", "privatization", "ownership society", "market-based solutions"

Notice that socialism is alive alive and well in America, even though large groups of people might not be aware.  For example, even among conservatives, there is little controversy in using federal and state taxes to pay for police, military and paved highways.  A few might suggest that roads would be best turned over to private enterprise, but few would argue for privatized military and police.  (Some on the left would argue that our military and police are already in the service of corporate interests).  Also, even on the right we can find plenty of examples of "corporate welfare", or tax dollars that go to the assistance of corporations like Halliburton. 

Some important facts: ~1% of your taxes go to fund traditional welfare (to help the poor)  add food stamps to that and you're talking about 2.8% of the national budget.  Roughly twice that amount goes to corporate welfare which is often used as subsidies to make American businesses more competitive abroad, undercutting producers in other countries.   ~22% goes to fund Social Security, the largest government program (which is why this is such a big deal for conservatives now).~19% goes to the military.  ~15% goes to interest on our national debt, which is increasing dramatically under conservative leadership.  The remainder is eaten up by health care, education and other programs. The US ranks at the bottom of nations for foreign aid spending--less than 1% of the budget--and the vast majority of the foreign aid that we do spend goes to Israel and Egypt--not Mexico.  Not Guatemala.  Not Thailand.  Not Sierra Leon.