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Communities




Resolved: The United States ought to provide a Universal Basic Income.

Debate Information

Position: For
Lets Debate the Linclin-Douglas (LD) NSDA topic for March - April! I will take AFF, so ill need a neg opponent. More experienced debaters are prefed, but I will Debate against anyone.  


lexmannorthsouthkoreajoecavalrycomey_testify



Debra AI Prediction

Tie
Predicted
50%
Likely
50%
Unlikely

Details +


For:

50% (34 Points)


Against:

50% (34 Points)



Votes: 4


Debate Type: Traditional Debate



Voting Format: Casual Voting

Opponent: agsr

Rounds: 1

Time Per Round: 24 Hours Per Round


Voting Period: 24 Hours


Round 1

Voting



Post Argument Now Debate Details +



    Arguments


  • Affirmative Constructive | Position: For
    GorbinGorbin 51 Pts   -  

    I affirm the resolved…Resolved: The United States ought to provide a universal basic income

    -Framework-

    V- Social Harmony. Social Harmony is peace between people in a structured, layered society. To achieve the most harmonious society, a universal basic income is the best way to solve.

    S-Maximizing Eudemonism

    Eudemonism (or Eudemonism or Eudaimonia) is a moral philosophy that defines right action as that which leads to the "well-being" of the individual, thus holding "well-being" as having essential value. It makes up part of the system of Ethics propounded by the ancient Greek philosophers, in which a lifetime of practicing the virtues ("arête") in one's everyday activities, subject to the exercise of practical wisdom ("phronesis") to resolve any conflicts or dilemmas which might arise, will allow the individual to flourish and live the good life ("eudaimonia").

    The term "eudaimonia" is a classical Greek word, commonly translated as "happiness", but perhaps better described as "well-being" or "human flourishing" or "good life". More literally it means "having a good guardian spirit". Eudaimonia as the ultimate goal is an objective, not a subjective, state, and it characterizes the well-lived life, irrespective of the emotional state of the person experiencing it.

    In more general terms, Eudemonism can be thought of as any theory that puts personal happiness and the complete life of the individual at the center of ethical concern. It can therefore be associated with ethical Individualism and Egoism.

    Thus, the best means of achieving social harmony are by upholding eudemonism. The aff will prove that a Universal Basic Income achieves the upmost of social harmony better than any advocacy of the negation.

    Observation 1

    The Aff does not support the implementation of a “plan” to implement a universal basic income program. Nowhere in the resolution does it say that the U.S should implement a universal basic income, just why one is morally acceptable. The aff simply must prove why a Universal Basic Income is a good thing.

    -Contention 1- UBI Improves Wellbeing

    A. UBI would improve relationships among individuals, the workplace, and the state.

    Griffin 17, Vanesaa. “Universal Basic Income: A Psychological Impact Assessment.”

    The UBI would change current relationships between people, employers and the state (Wright, 2004). The logic goes that when people are no longer forced to work out of necessity but can choose to work if a job is sufficiently rewarding either financially or personally, this brings about fundamental changes in the system. Employers need to devote more energy to making jobs appear worthwhile, safe and appealing Watkins, 2010). Labor would be a scarcer commodity, so (jobs that were not attractive to workers, for example those involving night shifts, would need to be better paid and have better conditions. In other words, UBI would lead to a reduction in the number of poorly paid, stressful or insecure jobs since people would no longer be forced to accept them because of fear of unemployment (Watkins, 2010

    B. UBI Improves Mental Health

    Griffin 17, Vanesaa. “Universal Basic Income: A Psychological Impact Assessment.”

     

    ). These jobs are of poor psychosocial quality: for example, they often involve low levels of control or high levels of insecurity and can be more damaging to people’s mental health (see eg Butterworth et al, 2011). A reduction in their number consequent on UBI would therefore be a potentially significant public mental health intervention. More than this, it has been argued that UBI deconstructs the idea that employment and jobs are the only way out of poverty and inequality. Instead, UBI distributes wealth independently of people’s ability to produce value for employers,

    Universal basic income (UBI) — a system in which a population is given a set amount of money, unconditionally — is rapidly becoming a topic of increased interest across the world. Proponents expect such a system to reduce poverty and improve the economy, and now, according to some re-examined data, there may be a link between increased physical and mental health and the financial security that results from a UBI system.

    For four years, in the small Canadian town of Dauphin, residents making less than $13,800 annually were given $4,800 per year to supplement their income. During this time, the population saw a decline in the number of mental health-related visits to the doctor and fewer hospital admissions due to “accident and injury,” as well as few mental health diagnoses in general. These findings were also corroborated by a similar program implemented nearly two decades later on Cherokee land in the United States

    -Contention 2-UBI Helps to Free Individuals from Capitalist Oppression

    A. UBI is a guarantee of base needs and thus a recognition of the struggle of lower economic classes.

    Mulligan, Roisin. "Universal Basic Income And Recognition Theory." Basic Income Studies.

    December 19, 2017. Web. February 09, 2018.

    <http://www.basicincome.org/bien/pdf/munich2012/mulligan.pdf>.

    More importantly for my purposes, Fraser understands the call for material distribution primarily as an economic struggle, not as a demand for recognition. Superficially, UBI represents a redistributive measure and a guarantee of subsistence needs. However, I view the core of this policy, and the feature that distinguishes it from other proposals, as a call for recognition of the fundamental worth and autonomy of human beings. Where Fraser, then, analyses UBI from the perspective of redistribution, seeing it as a ‘nonreformist reform’ that leaves ‘intact the deep structure of capitalist property rights’ (2003b, 78), she misses the extent to which UBI addresses distortions in how the achievement principle is interpreted, and concentrates on the status inequalities of gender. Of course, distortions in recognition principles do impede parity of participation, but it is clear that Fraser’s concept of recognition is not sufficiently expansive to capture all the feelings of misrecognition that UBI has the potential to address. In other words, concentrating on Fraser’s participatory parity risks revisiting old justifications for UBI rather than offering a new perspective based on the alternative normative base of recognition

     

    B. UBI enables people to exit from the exploitation and domination of capitalist labor markets.

    Calnitsky, David. "Debating Basic Income." Catalyst, vol. 1, issue 3. (Summer 2018). Web.

    February 10, 2018. <https://catalyst-journal.com/vol1/no3/debating-basic-income>.

    The main reason UBI ought to be a part of a left normative vision is because it facilitates exit from relations of exploitation and domination — the power of exit has ameliorative as well as emancipatory significance, as I will show. The foundational Marxist objection to the structure of capitalist labor markets is that they are superficially free but substantively unfree. Dispossessed of the means of production, and therefore of subsistence, workers can happily choose between capitalists, but are ultimately forced to choose one. This is what Marx termed “double freedom”: our freedom to be exploited by the employer of our choosing is coupled with the freedom to remain hungry should we choose none. For those who object to the compulsory nature of the capitalist labor market, basic income is appealing because it ensures that people not only have the abstract right to freedom, but the material resources to make freedom a lived reality. It gives people the power to say noto abusive employers, unpleasant work, or patriarchal domination in the home.

     

    C. UBI is a step towards self-realization in an anti-cap world.

    Mulligan, Roisin. "Universal Basic Income And Recognition Theory ." Basic Income Studies.

    December 19, 2017. Web. February 09, 2018.

    <http://www.basicincome.org/bien/pdf/munich2012/mulligan.pdf>.

    UBI is also predisposed towards this ideal, by legitimating a variety of forms of work that simply do not sit well in a capitalist division of labor. By creating a space within the capitalist system in which domestic and voluntary work can take place, a society that provides a UBI to its members could potentially create the kind of radical democratic civil society that Honneth envisages. It is clear from Honneth’s appropriation of Dewey that he sees collective conscience and solidarity as emerging from a growing sense of individual connectedness (Honneth, 1995, 178-9). The experience of being valued as part of a community, and partaking in cooperative activities for common goals, is clearly essential to achieving reciprocal recognition. UBI takes the first step in achieving this in post-modern conditions, by removing the financial barriers to self-realization. In addition to creating the foundations upon which a more symmetrical division of labor might be built, it opens the debate over the distorted emphasis on paid work. By undermining the strongest and most emotive reasons for prioritizing remunerated forms of work, UBI necessitates an overhaul in the way recognition principles are interpreted.

    -Contention 3- UBI helps challenge structural violence

     

    A.   UBI is a recognition of injustices to communities who have been harmed.

    Mulligan, Roisin. "Universal Basic Income And Recognition Theory ." Basic Income Studies.

    December 19, 2017. Web. February 08, 2018.

    <http://www.basicincome.org/bien/pdf/munich2012/mulligan.pdf>.

    It is also important to outline another aspect of UBI that may have a significant effect on recognition relations. One of the primary differences between UBI and the majority of current welfare arrangements is that UBI is allocated on an individual, as opposed to a household basis. This may have a considerable impact in households forms of totalising dependency comparable to those outlined above exist, particularly because these relationships are considered ‘private’ and are therefore difficult to regulate. In other words, on a micro level, UBI reduces extreme forms of dependency within families and households where reciprocal recognition is impossible under current relations of recognition, even in the absence of a more fundamental transformation in recognition relations. Interestingly, this development may also have a positive effect on relations of love and care, by encouraging housing arrangements based on genuine affection rather than economic necessity.

    Thus, when UBI is introduced, it can repair broken communities that survive nearly exclusively off welfare.

    B.   UBI restructures the existing welfare scheme eliminating racist structures

    Warren, Dorian. "Basic Income In A Just Society." Boston Review . May 15, 2017. Web. February 08, 2018. <http://bostonreview.net/forum/basic-income-just-society/dorian-t-warrenreparations-and-basic-income>.

    Third, a basic income would be an improvement on portions of today’s current safety net. Some benefits, such as food stamps, are replete with paternalistic restrictions that rest on racist tropes about recipients and their consumption habits. Others, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), are significantly tied to work, which is problematic when structural racism continues to create so many barriers to black employment. A basic income lacks these flaws.

    someone234
  • Cross Examination - Affirmative | Position: For
    agsragsr 881 Pts   -   edited March 2018
    I accept this debate and look forward to it.  Thank you aarong for adjusting time per round.

    I accept the framework and the definition of social harmony.

    Please see my cross exam on your contentions below.
    My biggest issue with this argument is that it fails to address financial implications of UBI and fails to confront the fact that funding UBI would result in massive costs to the tax payers and the working class.

    Contention 1:

    A. 

    UBI would improve relationships among individuals, the workplace, and the state.


    The referenced study presents many assumptions based on communist/socialist principles.
    It goes against the grain of supply and demand for capitalist society.  While it may improve relationships, our country is based on principles of competition and striving for excellence.  The  workplace is not primarily designed for friendships, but a place for competitive business.  If we create an uncompetitive workplace environment then these enterprises won't fair well in global competition and will suffer in cost structure and potentially quality.

    B. 

    B. UBI Improves Mental Health


    Referenced study was done at a very small scale in Canada, and doesn't represent a good sample for US.  While it may improve mental health of "steady Joes", it will likely drive overachievers crazy. 

    -Contention 2-UBI Helps to Free Individuals from Capitalist Oppression

    A. UBI is a guarantee of base needs and thus a recognition of the struggle of lower economic classes.


    While the safety net is great, the study doesn't mention the offsetting impact of potentially larger and lazier lower class that has no reason to work.  The study doesn't mention pursuit of American Dream and cost to American tax payers.


    B. UBI enables people to exit from the exploitation and domination of capitalist labor markets.
    I agree that it would exit capitalist market domination, but is that the goal and a good thing?  
    We would like to see evidence that communist countries do better than Capitalist society. We already witnessed collapse of multiple Communist-Socialist regimes like USSR.

    C. UBI is a step towards self-realization in an anti-cap world.

    Okay, so should everyone go to academics or devote their lives to study bible?  We are removing incentive for ambition amd risk taking, the entrepreneurial drive that US is based on.

    -Contention 3- UBI helps challenge structural violence

     

    A.   UBI is a recognition of injustices to communities who have been harmed.


    I question this assumption.  The risk of introducing UBI is a widespread of communities that are floating just above minimum required financial levels of surviving and lack of ambition to seek employment.  That may result in increased crime.

    B.   UBI restructures the existing welfare scheme eliminating racist structures

    This contention in itself is actually an example of racism.  We should be encouraging minorities to seek better education and employment instead of giving them an excuse to stay unemployed and barely survive.

    Live Long and Prosper
  • Negative Constructive | Position: For
    agsragsr 881 Pts   -   edited March 2018
    I will base my position on 3 key points against Universal Basic Income in the United states.

    1) Universal Basic Income (UBI) takes money from the poor and gives it to everyone, increasing poverty and depriving the poor of needed targeted support. 
    A key point is that UBI isn't a supplement to current social programs, but really a replacement. Welfare programs today provide holistic benefits, not just cash.  

    2) UBI removes the incentive to work, adversely affecting the economy and leading to a labor and skills shortage.
    Welcome USSR. We already have seen socialist constructs that just kill productivity and decrease economic growth.

    3) UBI is too expensive
    Paying for Universal Basic Income will pit tremendous pressure on our already hgh taxes and/or national debt.

    source: https://www.procon.org/headline.php?headlineID=005363
    Live Long and Prosper
  • Cross Examination - Negative | Position: For
    GorbinGorbin 51 Pts   -  
    Thank you to my opponent for the last speech. I will start with defending the AC, then attacking the NC.

    To start off with my opponents response to m sub-point B of my second contention-

    He states if an exit with capitalism is what we really want and it absolutely is.

    (just in case it wasn't clear in my constructive, only read the bold text under the pieces of evidence. This is called card cutting. It highlights the key parts in each direct piece of evidence. It basically paraphrasing without having to rewrite everything.)
    Firstly,

    The unchecked spread of neoliberal capitalism necessitates extermination in the name of profit – ensures poverty and environmental and cultural destruction, culminating in eventual extinction.

    Cole 11 [Dr. Mike Cole is Emeritus Research Professor in Education and Equality at Bishop  Grosseteste University College Lincoln, Lincoln, UK. His most recent book is Racism  and Education in the U.K. and the U.S.: towards a socialist alternative (New York  and London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011 RACISM AND EDUCATION IN THE U.K. AND THE U.S.  Palgrave Macmillan (June 7, 2011), pgs. 180-182]

    Neo-liberal capitalism, in being primarily about expanding opportunities for large multinational companies, has undermined the power of nation¬states and exacerbated the negative effects of globalization on such services as healthcare, education, water and transport (Martinez and Garcia, 2000). However, the current hegemonic role of business in schooling is para¬mount in convincing workers and future workers that socialism is off the agenda. Marxist educators and other Left radicals should expose this myth. Students have a right to discuss different economic and political systems such as twenty-first-century democratic socialism. This is particularly press¬ing given the current economic recession. It is easier in general for discussion in schools to embrace issues of gender, “race,” disability, sexual orientation, and social class when social class relates just to attainment than to address social class in the context of overthrowing capitalism, and replacing it with world democratic socialism, where participatory democracy is central. The latter may thus be seen as the last taboo, and, of course, understandably so. It is time to move forward and bring such discussions into schools, colleges, and universities, Marxist and other Left educators can make the case that such considerations are a perfectly reasonable democratic demand. Global capitalism is out of control, and the very survival of our planet is dependent on dialogical education that considers the socialist alternative, an alternative distanced from the distortions of Marx by Stalinism. No longer can socialism be divorced from environmental and ecologi¬cal issues. McLaren and Houston (2005, p, 167) have argued that “escalat¬ing environmental problems at all geographical scales from local to global have become a pressing reality that critical educators can no longer afford to ignore.” They go on to cite “the complicity between global profiteering, resource colonization, and the wholesale ecological devastation that has become a matter of everyday life for most species on the planet.” Following Kahn (2003), they state the need for “a critical dialogue between social and eco-justice” (McLaren and Houston 2005, p. 168). They call for a dialec¬tics of ecological and environmental justice to reveal the malign interaction between capitalism, imperialism, and ecology that has created widespread environmental degradation that has dramatically accelerated with the onset of neo-liberalism. World capitalism’s environmentally racist (Bullard et al., 2007) effects in both the “developing” and “developed” world should be discussed openly and freely in the educational institutions. As far as the “developing world” is concerned, there are, for example, such issues as the environmentally dev-astating method of extraction of natural resources utilized by multinational corporations in numerous “developing” countries that have devastated eco-systems and destroyed cultures and livelihoods (World Council of Churches, 1994, cited in Robinson, 2000), with toxic waste polluting groundwater, soil and the atmosphere (e.g., Robinson, 2000). In addition, there is trans¬boundary dumping of hazardous waste by developed countries to develop¬ing nations, usually in sub-Sahara Africa (e.g., Ibitayo et al., 2008; see also Blanco, 2010 on Latin America). As far as the “developed” world is concerned, in the U.S., for example, people of color are concentrated around hazardous waste facilities-more than half of the nine million people living within two miles of such facilities are minorities (Bullard et al., 2007). Finally, there is the ubiquitous issue of climate change, itself linked to the totally destructive impact of capitalism. Joel Kovel (2010) has described cli-mate change as “a menace without parallel in the whole history of humanity.” However, on a positive note, he argues that “[it]s spectacular and dramatic character can generate narratives capable of arousing general concern and thus provide a stimulus to build movements of resistance.” Climate change is linked to loss to the planet of living things—also a rallying point for young people. For Marxist educators, this provides a good inroad for linking environment, global capitalism, and arguments for the socialist alternative. As Kovel (2010) puts it, only within the framework of a revolutionary ecoso- cialist society can we deal with the twinned crises of climate change and species loss—and others as well—within a coherent program centered around the flourishing of life.” Capitalism and the destruction of the environment are inextricably linked, to the extent that it is becoming increasingly apparent that saving the environment is dependent on the destruction of capitalism. Debate should therefore include a consideration of the connections between global capital¬ism and environmental destruction, as well as a discussion of the socialist alternative. The need for environmental issues to be allied to socialism is paramount. As Nick Beams (2009) notes, all the “green” opponents of Marxism view “the overthrow of the capitalist system by means of the socialist revolution as the key to resolving the problems of global warming” as either “unrealis¬tic,” “not immediate enough,” or believe that socialism is hostile to nature. Beams (ibid.) argues that, in reality, “the system of market relations is based on the separation of the producers from the means of production, and it is this separation—-the metabolic rift between [human beings] and nature— that is the source of the crisis.” In other words, instead of the real producers of wealth (the working class) having control over what they produce and rationally assigning this to human need, goods are irrationally produced for profit. Beams (ibid.) quotes Marx (1894 [1966] p. 959) as follows: Freedom. ..can consist only in this, that socialised man, the associated pro¬ducers, govern the human metabolism with nature in a rational way, bringing it under their collective control instead of being dominated by it as a blind power; accomplishing it with the least expenditure of energy and in conditions most worthy and appropriate for their human nature. As Beams (2009) concludes, “[f]ar from Marx being outdated, the world has, so to speak, caught up with Marx.”

    Capitalism results in incalculable atrocities - this structural violence outweighs.

    Herod 7 (James, Columbia U graduate and political activist, “Getting Free” Pg. 22-23 JF)

    We must never forget that we are at war, however, and that we have been for five hundred years. We are involved in class warfare. This defines our situation historically and sets limits to what we can do. It would be nice to think of peace, for example, but this is out of the question. It is excluded as an option by historical conditions. Peace can be achieved only by destroying capitalism. The casualties from this war, on our side, long ago reached astronomical sums. It is estimated that thirty million people perished during the first century of the capitalist invasion of the Americas, including millions of Africans who were worked to death as slaves. Thousands of peasants died in the great revolts in France and Germany in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. During the enclosures movement in England and the first wave of industrialization, hundreds of thousands of people died needlessly. African slaves died by the millions (an estimated fifteen million) during the Atlantic crossing. Hundreds of poor people were hanged in London in the early nineteenth century to enforce the new property laws. During the Paris uprising of 1871, thirty thousand communards were slaughtered. Twenty million were lost in Joseph Stalin’s gulag, and millions more perished during the 1930s when the Soviet state expropriated the land and forced the collectivization of agriculture an event historically comparable to the enclosures in England (and thus the Bolsheviks destroyed one of the greatest peasant revolutions of all time). Thousands of militants were murdered by the German police during the near revolution in Germany and Austria in 1919. Thousands of workers and peasants were killed during the Spanish Civil War. Adolf Hitler killed ten million people in concentration camps (including six million Jews in the gas chambers). An estimated two hundred thousand labor leaders, activists, and citizens have been murdered in Guatemala since the coup engineered by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 1954. Thousands were lost in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Half a million communists were massacred in Indonesia in 1975. Millions of Vietnamese were killed by French and U.S. capitalists during decades of colonialism and war. And how many were killed during British capital’s subjugation of India, and during capitalist Europe’s colonization of Asia and Africa? A major weapon of capitalists has always been to simply murder those who are threatening their rule. Thousands were killed by the contras and death squads in Nicaragua and El Salvador. Thousands were murdered in Chile by Augusto Pinochet during his counterrevolution, after the assassination of Salvador Allende. Speaking of assassinations, there is a long list: Patrice Lumumba, Rosa Luxemburg, Antonio Gramsci (died in prison), Ricardo Flores Magon (died in prison), Che Guevara, Gustav Landauer, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Fred Hampton, George Jackson, the Haymarket anarchists, Amilcar Cabral, Steve Biko, Karl Liebnicht, Nat Turner, and thousands more. Thousands are being murdered every year now in Colombia. Thousands die every year in the workplace in the United States alone. Eighty thousand die needlessly in hospitals annually in the United States due to malpractice and negligence. Fifty thousand die each year in automobile accidents in the United States, deaths directly due to intentional capitalist decisions to scuttle mass transit in favor of an economy based on oil, roads, and cars (and unsafe cars to boot).  Thousands have died in mines since capitalism began. Millions of people are dying right now, every year, from famines directly attributable to capitalists and from diseases easily prevented but for capitalists. Nearly all poverty-related deaths are because of capitalists. We cannot begin to estimate the stunted, wasted, and shortened lives caused by capitalists, not to mention the millions who have died fighting their little world wars and equally colonial wars. (This enumeration is very far from complete.) Capitalists (generically speaking) are not merely thieves; they are murderers. Their theft and murder is on a scale never seen before in history a scale so vast it boggles the mind. Capitalists make Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Genghis Khan, and Attila the Hun look like boy scouts. This is a terrible enemy we face.ve

     Macmillan, 2011 RACISM AND EDUCATION IN THE U.K. AND THE U.S.  Palgrave Macmillan (June 7, 2011), pgs. 180-182]

    Neo-liberal capitalism, in being primarily about expanding opportunities for large multinational companies, has undermined the power of nation¬states and exacerbated the negative effects of globalization on such services as healthcare, education, water and transport (Martinez and Garcia, 2000). However, the current hegemonic role of business in schooling is para¬mount in convincing workers and future workers that socialism is off the agenda. Marxist educators and other Left radicals should expose this myth. Students have a right to discuss different economic and political systems such as twenty-first-century democratic socialism. This is particularly press¬ing given the current economic recession. It is easier in general for discussion in schools to embrace issues of gender, “race,” disability, sexual orientation, and social class when social class relates just to attainment than to address social class in the context of overthrowing capitalism, and replacing it with world democratic socialism, where participatory democracy is central. The latter may thus be seen as the last taboo, and, of course, understandably so. It is time to move forward and bring such discussions into schools, colleges, and universities, Marxist and other Left educators can make the case that such considerations are a perfectly reasonable democratic demand. Global capitalism is out of control, and the very survival of our planet is dependent on dialogical education that considers the socialist alternative, an alternative distanced from the distortions of Marx by Stalinism. No longer can socialism be divorced from environmental and ecologi¬cal issues. McLaren and Houston (2005, p, 167) have argued that “escalat¬ing environmental problems at all geographical scales from local to global have become a pressing reality that critical educators can no longer afford to ignore.” They go on to cite “the complicity between global profiteering, resource colonization, and the wholesale ecological devastation that has become a matter of everyday life for most species on the planet.” Following Kahn (2003), they state the need for “a critical dialogue between social and eco-justice” (McLaren and Houston 2005, p. 168). They call for a dialec¬tics of ecological and environmental justice to reveal the malign interaction between capitalism, imperialism, and ecology that has created widespread environmental degradation that has dramatically accelerated with the onset of neo-liberalism. World capitalism’s environmentally racist (Bullard et al., 2007) effects in both the “developing” and “developed” world should be discussed openly and freely in the educational institutions. As far as the “developing world” is concerned, there are, for example, such issues as the environmentally dev-astating method of extraction of natural resources utilized by multinational corporations in numerous “developing” countries that have devastated eco-systems and destroyed cultures and livelihoods (World Council of Churches, 1994, cited in Robinson, 2000), with toxic waste polluting groundwater, soil and the atmosphere (e.g., Robinson, 2000). In addition, there is trans¬boundary dumping of hazardous waste by developed countries to develop¬ing nations, usually in sub-Sahara Africa (e.g., Ibitayo et al., 2008; see also Blanco, 2010 on Latin America). As far as the “developed” world is concerned, in the U.S., for example, people of color are concentrated around hazardous waste facilities-more than half of the nine million people living within two miles of such facilities are minorities (Bullard et al., 2007). Finally, there is the ubiquitous issue of climate change, itself linked to the totally destructive impact of capitalism. Joel Kovel (2010) has described cli-mate change as “a menace without parallel in the whole history of humanity.” However, on a positive note, he argues that “[it]s spectacular and dramatic character can generate narratives capable of arousing general concern and thus provide a stimulus to build movements of resistance.” Climate change is linked to loss to the planet of living things—also a rallying point for young people. For Marxist educators, this provides a good inroad for linking environment, global capitalism, and arguments for the socialist alternative. As Kovel (2010) puts it, only within the framework of a revolutionary ecoso- cialist society can we deal with the twinned crises of climate change and species loss—and others as well—within a coherent program centered around the flourishing of life.” Capitalism and the destruction of the environment are inextricably linked, to the extent that it is becoming increasingly apparent that saving the environment is dependent on the destruction of capitalism. Debate should therefore include a consideration of the connections between global capital¬ism and environmental destruction, as well as a discussion of the socialist alternative. The need for environmental issues to be allied to socialism is paramount. As Nick Beams (2009) notes, all the “green” opponents of Marxism view “the overthrow of the capitalist system by means of the socialist revolution as the key to resolving the problems of global warming” as either “unrealis¬tic,” “not immediate enough,” or believe that socialism is hostile to nature. Beams (ibid.) argues that, in reality, “the system of market relations is based on the separation of the producers from the means of production, and it is this separation—-the metabolic rift between [human beings] and nature— that is the source of the crisis.” In other words, instead of the real producers of wealth (the working class) having control over what they produce and rationally assigning this to human need, goods are irrationally produced for profit. Beams (ibid.) quotes Marx (1894 [1966] p. 959) as follows: Freedom. ..can consist only in this, that socialised man, the associated pro¬ducers, govern the human metabolism with nature in a rational way, bringing it under their collective control instead of being dominated by it as a blind power; accomplishing it with the least expenditure of energy and in conditions most worthy and appropriate for their human nature. As Beams (2009) concludes, “[f]ar from Marx being outdated, the world has, so to speak, caught up with Marx.”

    These 4 cards clearly show the awful impacts of capitalism in the status quo. People die because of capitalism. Capitalism links directly into causing extinction. My impacts clearly outweigh my opponents impacts for these reasons. This is already one reason to vote Affirmative.


    Now, go to his response to my 1st contention.

    He states that it was going against the grain of a capitalist society...AND THIS EXACTLY WHAT WE WANT!

    As I have proven thus far, a break with capitalism is essential to solve for violence, and is essential to ensure the survival of the human race, in the Cole 11 card, which also states that to preserve the environment worldwide, we must break from capitalism, since capitalism places commodity over the life of the planet that enables us to live in the first place. 

    These arguments completely revive my 1st contention, sub-point A.

    And now to sub point b, 1st contention... His only response to this that the sample size is to small to accommodate for the U.S. But, he fails to present any stat or study that says this, or that it would drive overachievers crazy. He needed to present some sort of stat for the rebuttal to be relevant, but he doesn't, so it null. Don't value that at all. I provide a stat, and he doesn't. Simple as that.

    Now onto Contention 3 as a whole...

    He says he questions the assumptions of my 1st sub-point, but there is no assumption here.

    People are very tied into the welfare program. since welfare requires certain financial qualifications to get into the program, people will not work hard enough to get promotions. These promotions may give them more money, but once they earn a certain amount of money, they are taken off of welfare. However, the new amount of money is not enough to cover for the same benefits and insurance, etc... that the welfare did. So, the sq incentives workers to not get promoted, since they cannot afford any benefits like insurance and etc. that welfare could. Thus, this arg still stands strong.


    Now, onto the Framework debate....

    My opponent states that he accepts my framework for the round. What this means is that to decide who wins, you must weigh who upholds this framework the best, and it is an undisputed decision for the affirmative this round.

    My impacts clearly outweigh his, as listed in the earlier arguments, and extensions on why breaking with capitalism is fundamentally the right thing to do.

    I have upheld the framework of valuing Social Harmony, and upheld the means of achieving that action, in Eudeamonism, because the arguments I present clearly achieve a more peaceful society than in the sq, and I uphold eudeamonism, because I achieve my value by acting in a way in which the well being of others is held at the upmost value which my opponent does not.

    Next, on to my opponents case....



    I have already rebutted to his first point, through the defense and extensions of offense in my rebuttal, which concerns job loss and poverty and such.

    He then says says in his 2nd point that ubi removes incentive to work, BUT I HAVE CLEARLY SHOWN IN MY REBUTTAL THAT UBI ACTUALLY DOES THE OPPOSITE! AND I HAVE ALSO SHOWN THAT THE STATUS QUO IS ACTUALLY DOING EXACTLY WHAT HE SAYS UBI WOULD DO, IN THAT IT ENCOURAGES WORKERS TO BE LAZY.

    And, UBI solves for the issue of this to. Since it is giving the people money straight into their pockets, they are free to do what they want with it, and it wont get taken away just because an individual is doing good at their jobs. This is a CRUCIAL point in the round, and THIS TURNS NEED TO BE TAKEN INTO HEAVY CONSIDERATION! 


    He then says that UBI is to expensive. However here is a crucial piece of evidence the clearly turns this statement.

    Matthews, Dylan. “Study: a Universal Basic Income Would Grow the Economy.” Vox, Vox, 30 Aug. 2017, www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/8/30/16220134/universal-basic-income-roosevelt-institute-economic-growth.

     

    Basic income, a proposal in which every American would be given a basic stipend from the government no strings attached, is often brought up as a potential solution to widespread automation reducing demand for labor in the future. But in the meantime, its critics typically allege that it is far too expensive to be practical, or else that it would spur millions of Americans to drop out of the labor force, wrecking the economy and depriving the government of a tax base for funding the plan.

    The Roosevelt study, written by Roosevelt research director Marshall Steinbaum, Michalis Nikiforos at Bard College's Levy Institute, and Gennaro Zezza at the University of Cassino and Southern Lazio in Italy, comes to a dramatically different conclusion. And it does so using some notably rosy assumptions about the effects of large-scale increases to government spending, taxes, and deficits, assumptions that other analysts would dispute vociferously.

    Their paper analyzes two different models for a universal basic income:

     

    1. A full universal basic income, in which every adult gets $1,000 a month ($12,000 a year)
    2. A partial basic income, in which every adult gets $500 a month ($6,000 a year)

    They find that enacting any of these policies by growing the federal debt — that is, without raising taxes to pay for it — would substantially grow the economy. The effect fades away within eight years, but GDP is left permanently higher. The big, $12,000 per year per adult policy, they find, would permanently grow the economy by 12.56 to 13.10 percent — or about $2.5 trillion come 2025. It would also, they find, increase the percentage of Americans with jobs by about 2 percent, and expand the labor force to the tune of 4.5 to 4.7 million people.

    This is clear turn on his case, because this evidence disproves his point.

    Now, I am winning this debate for clear reasons.
    1. I'm winning on framework. I clearly uphold my framework better than he upholds my framework.
    2. I'm winning on contentions. I provide clear, concise reasons and extensions on all of my arguements, and have turned every argument that he has made, and all the arguements against my own case.

    And for the reasons, you vote in the affirmative this round. Thank you.






  • First Affirmative Rebuttal | Position: For
    GorbinGorbin 51 Pts   -  
    My previous round contains what i meant to post for this one. I will just copy and paste it into this space, so my opponent my respond.





    Thank you to my opponent for the last speech. I will start with defending the AC, then attacking the NC.

    To start off with my opponents response to m sub-point B of my second contention-

    He states if an exit with capitalism is what we really want... and it absolutely is!

    (just in case it wasn't clear in my constructive, only read the bold text under the pieces of evidence. This is called card cutting. It highlights the key parts in each direct piece of evidence. It basically paraphrasing without having to rewrite everything.)
    Firstly,

    The unchecked spread of neoliberal capitalism necessitates extermination in the name of profit – ensures poverty and environmental and cultural destruction, culminating in eventual extinction.

    Cole 11 [Dr. Mike Cole is Emeritus Research Professor in Education and Equality at Bishop  Grosseteste University College Lincoln, Lincoln, UK. His most recent book is Racism  and Education in the U.K. and the U.S.: towards a socialist alternative (New York  and London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011 RACISM AND EDUCATION IN THE U.K. AND THE U.S.  Palgrave Macmillan (June 7, 2011), pgs. 180-182]

    Neo-liberal capitalism, in being primarily about expanding opportunities for large multinational companies, has undermined the power of nation¬states and exacerbated the negative effects of globalization on such services as healthcare, education, water and transport(Martinez and Garcia, 2000). However, the current hegemonic role of business in schooling is para¬mount in convincing workers and future workers that socialism is off the agenda. Marxist educators and other Left radicals should expose this myth. Students have a right to discuss different economic and political systems such as twenty-first-century democratic socialism. This is particularly press¬ing given the current economic recession. It is easier in general for discussion in schools to embrace issues of gender, “race,” disability, sexual orientation, and social class when social class relates just to attainment than to address social class in the context of overthrowing capitalism, and replacing it with world democratic socialism, where participatory democracy is central. The latter may thus be seen as the last taboo, and, of course, understandably so. It is time to move forward and bring such discussions into schools, colleges, and universities, Marxist and other Left educators can make the case that such considerations are a perfectly reasonable democratic demand. Global capitalism is out of control, and the very survival of our planet is dependent on dialogical education that considers the socialist alternative, an alternative distanced from the distortions of Marx by Stalinism. No longer can socialism be divorced from environmental and ecologi¬cal issues. McLaren and Houston (2005, p, 167) have argued that “escalat¬ing environmental problems at all geographical scales from local to global have become a pressing reality that critical educators can no longer afford to ignore.” They go on to cite “the complicity between global profiteering, resource colonization, and the wholesale ecological devastation that has become a matter of everyday life for most species on the planet.” Following Kahn (2003), they state the need for “a critical dialogue between social and eco-justice” (McLaren and Houston 2005, p. 168). They call for a dialec¬tics of ecological and environmental justice to reveal the malign interaction between capitalism, imperialism, and ecology that has created widespread environmental degradation that has dramatically accelerated with the onset of neo-liberalism. World capitalism’s environmentally racist (Bullard et al., 2007) effects in both the “developing” and “developed” world should be discussed openly and freely in the educational institutions. As far as the “developing world” is concerned, there are, for example, such issues as the environmentally dev-astating method of extraction of natural resources utilized by multinational corporations in numerous “developing” countries that have devastated eco-systems and destroyed cultures and livelihoods (World Council of Churches, 1994, cited in Robinson, 2000), with toxic waste polluting groundwater, soil and the atmosphere (e.g., Robinson, 2000). In addition, there is trans¬boundary dumping of hazardous waste by developed countries to develop¬ing nations, usually in sub-Sahara Africa (e.g., Ibitayo et al., 2008; see also Blanco, 2010 on Latin America). As far as the “developed” world is concerned, in the U.S., for example, people of color are concentrated around hazardous waste facilities-more than half of the nine million people living within two miles of such facilities are minorities (Bullard et al., 2007). Finally, there is the ubiquitous issue of climate change, itself linked to the totally destructive impact of capitalism. Joel Kovel (2010) has described cli-mate change as “a menace without parallel in the whole history of humanity.” However, on a positive note, he argues that “[it]s spectacular and dramatic character can generate narratives capable of arousing general concern and thus provide a stimulus to build movements of resistance.” Climate change is linked to loss to the planet of living things—also a rallying point for young people. For Marxist educators, this provides a good inroad for linking environment, global capitalism, and arguments for the socialist alternative. As Kovel (2010) puts it, only within the framework of a revolutionary ecoso- cialist society can we deal with the twinned crises of climate change and species loss—and others as well—within a coherent program centered around the flourishing of life.”Capitalism and the destruction of the environment are inextricably linked, to the extent that it is becoming increasingly apparent thatsaving the environment is dependent on the destruction of capitalism. Debate should therefore include a consideration of the connections between global capital¬ism and environmental destruction, as well as a discussion of the socialist alternative. The need for environmental issues to be allied to socialism is paramount. As Nick Beams (2009) notes, all the “green” opponents of Marxism view “the overthrow of the capitalist system by means of the socialist revolution as the key to resolving the problems of global warming” as either “unrealis¬tic,” “not immediate enough,” or believe that socialism is hostile to nature. Beams (ibid.) argues that, in reality, “the system of market relations is based on the separation of the producers from the means of production, and it is this separation—-the metabolic rift between [human beings] and nature— that is the source of the crisis.” In other words, instead of the real producers of wealth (the working class) having control over what they produce and rationally assigning this to human need, goods are irrationally produced for profit. Beams (ibid.) quotes Marx (1894 [1966] p. 959) as follows: Freedom. ..can consist only in this, that socialised man, the associated pro¬ducers, govern the human metabolism with nature in a rational way, bringing it under their collective control instead of being dominated by it as a blind power; accomplishing it with the least expenditure of energy and in conditions most worthy and appropriate for their human nature. As Beams (2009) concludes, “[f]ar from Marx being outdated, the world has, so to speak, caught up with Marx.”

    Capitalism results in incalculable atrocities - this structural violence outweighs.

    Herod 7 (James, Columbia U graduate and political activist, “Getting Free” Pg. 22-23 JF)

    We must never forget that we are at war, however, and that we have been for five hundred years. We are involved in class warfare. This defines our situation historically and sets limits to what we can do. It would be nice to think of peace, for example, but this is out of the question. It is excluded as an option by historical conditions. Peace can be achieved only by destroying capitalism. The casualtiesfrom this war, on our side, long ago reached astronomical sums. It is estimated that thirty million people perished during the first century of the capitalist invasion of the Americas, including millions of Africans who were worked to death as slaves. Thousands of peasants died in the great revolts in France and Germany in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. During the enclosures movement in England and the first wave of industrialization, hundreds of thousands of people died needlessly. African slaves died by the millions (an estimated fifteen million) during the Atlantic crossing. Hundreds of poor people were hanged in London in the early nineteenth century to enforce the new property laws. During the Paris uprising of 1871, thirty thousand communards were slaughtered. Twenty million were lost in Joseph Stalin’s gulag, and millions more perished during the 1930s when the Soviet state expropriated the land and forced the collectivization of agriculture an event historically comparable to the enclosures in England (and thus the Bolsheviks destroyed one of the greatest peasant revolutions of all time). Thousands of militants were murdered by the German police during the near revolution in Germany and Austria in 1919. Thousands of workers and peasants were killed during the Spanish Civil War. Adolf Hitler killed ten million people in concentration camps (including six million Jews in the gas chambers). An estimated two hundred thousand labor leaders, activists, and citizens have been murdered in Guatemala since the coup engineered by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 1954. Thousands were lost in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Half a million communists were massacred in Indonesia in 1975. Millions of Vietnamese were killed by French and U.S. capitalists during decades of colonialism and war. And how many were killed during British capital’s subjugation of India, and during capitalist Europe’s colonization of Asia and Africa? A major weapon of capitalists has always been to simply murder those who are threatening their rule. Thousands were killed by the contras and death squads in Nicaragua and El Salvador. Thousands were murdered in Chile by Augusto Pinochet during his counterrevolution, after the assassination of Salvador Allende. Speaking of assassinations, there is a long list: Patrice Lumumba, Rosa Luxemburg, Antonio Gramsci (died in prison), Ricardo Flores Magon (died in prison), Che Guevara, Gustav Landauer, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Fred Hampton, George Jackson, the Haymarket anarchists, Amilcar Cabral, Steve Biko, Karl Liebnicht, Nat Turner, and thousands more. Thousands are being murdered every year now in Colombia. Thousands die every year in the workplace in the United States alone.Eighty thousand die needlessly in hospitals annually in the United States due to malpractice and negligence. Fifty thousand die each year in automobile accidents in the United States, deaths directly due to intentional capitalist decisions to scuttle mass transit in favor of an economy based on oil, roads, and cars (and unsafe cars to boot).  Thousands have died in mines since capitalism began. Millions of people are dying right now, every year, from famines directly attributable to capitalists and from diseases easily prevented but for capitalists. Nearly all poverty-related deaths are because of capitalists. We cannot begin to estimate the stunted, wasted, and shortened lives caused by capitalists, not to mention the millions who have died fighting their little world wars and equally colonial wars. (This enumeration is very far from complete.) Capitalists (generically speaking) are not merely thieves; they are murderers. Their theft and murder is on a scale never seen before in history a scale so vast it boggles the mind. Capitalists make Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Genghis Khan, and Attila the Hun look like boy scouts. This is a terrible enemy we face.ve

     Macmillan, 2011 RACISM AND EDUCATION IN THE U.K. AND THE U.S.  Palgrave Macmillan (June 7, 2011), pgs. 180-182]

    Neo-liberal capitalism, in being primarily about expanding opportunities for large multinational companies, has undermined the power of nation¬states and exacerbated the negative effects of globalization on such services as healthcare, education, water and transport(Martinez and Garcia, 2000). However, the current hegemonic role of business in schooling is para¬mount in convincing workers and future workers that socialism is off the agenda. Marxist educators and other Left radicals should expose this myth. Students have a right to discuss different economic and political systems such as twenty-first-century democratic socialism. This is particularly press¬ing given the current economic recession. It is easier in general for discussion in schools to embrace issues of gender, “race,” disability, sexual orientation, and social class when social class relates just to attainment than to address social class in the context of overthrowing capitalism, and replacing it with world democratic socialism, where participatory democracy is central. The latter may thus be seen as the last taboo, and, of course, understandably so. It is time to move forward and bring such discussions into schools, colleges, and universities, Marxist and other Left educators can make the case that such considerations are a perfectly reasonable democratic demand. Global capitalism is out of control, and the very survival of our planet is dependent on dialogical education that considers the socialist alternative, an alternative distanced from the distortions of Marx by Stalinism. No longer can socialism be divorced from environmental and ecologi¬cal issues. McLaren and Houston (2005, p, 167) have argued that “escalat¬ing environmental problems at all geographical scales from local to global have become a pressing reality that critical educators can no longer afford to ignore.” They go on to cite “the complicity between global profiteering, resource colonization, and the wholesale ecological devastation that has become a matter of everyday life for most species on the planet.” Following Kahn (2003), they state the need for “a critical dialogue between social and eco-justice” (McLaren and Houston 2005, p. 168). They call for a dialec¬tics of ecological and environmental justice to reveal the malign interaction between capitalism, imperialism, and ecology that has created widespread environmental degradation that has dramatically accelerated with the onset of neo-liberalism. World capitalism’s environmentally racist (Bullard et al., 2007) effects in both the “developing” and “developed” world should be discussed openly and freely in the educational institutions. As far as the “developing world” is concerned, there are, for example, such issues as the environmentally dev-astating method of extraction of natural resources utilized by multinational corporations in numerous “developing” countries that have devastated eco-systems and destroyed cultures and livelihoods (World Council of Churches, 1994, cited in Robinson, 2000), with toxic waste polluting groundwater, soil and the atmosphere (e.g., Robinson, 2000). In addition, there is trans¬boundary dumping of hazardous waste by developed countries to develop¬ing nations, usually in sub-Sahara Africa (e.g., Ibitayo et al., 2008; see also Blanco, 2010 on Latin America). As far as the “developed” world is concerned, in the U.S., for example, people of color are concentrated around hazardous waste facilities-more than half of the nine million people living within two miles of such facilities are minorities (Bullard et al., 2007). Finally, there is the ubiquitous issue of climate change, itself linked to the totally destructive impact of capitalism. Joel Kovel (2010) has described cli-mate change as “a menace without parallel in the whole history of humanity.” However, on a positive note, he argues that “[it]s spectacular and dramatic character can generate narratives capable of arousing general concern and thus provide a stimulus to build movements of resistance.” Climate change is linked to loss to the planet of living things—also a rallying point for young people. For Marxist educators, this provides a good inroad for linking environment, global capitalism, and arguments for the socialist alternative. As Kovel (2010) puts it, only within the framework of a revolutionary ecoso- cialist society can we deal with the twinned crises of climate change and species loss—and others as well—within a coherent program centered around the flourishing of life.”Capitalism and the destruction of the environment are inextricably linked, to the extent that it is becoming increasingly apparent thatsaving the environment is dependent on the destruction of capitalism. Debate should therefore include a consideration of the connections between global capital¬ism and environmental destruction, as well as a discussion of the socialist alternative. The need for environmental issues to be allied to socialism is paramount. As Nick Beams (2009) notes, all the “green” opponents of Marxism view “the overthrow of the capitalist system by means of the socialist revolution as the key to resolving the problems of global warming” as either “unrealis¬tic,” “not immediate enough,” or believe that socialism is hostile to nature. Beams (ibid.) argues that, in reality, “the system of market relations is based on the separation of the producers from the means of production, and it is this separation—-the metabolic rift between [human beings] and nature— that is the source of the crisis.” In other words, instead of the real producers of wealth (the working class) having control over what they produce and rationally assigning this to human need, goods are irrationally produced for profit. Beams (ibid.) quotes Marx (1894 [1966] p. 959) as follows: Freedom. ..can consist only in this, that socialised man, the associated pro¬ducers, govern the human metabolism with nature in a rational way, bringing it under their collective control instead of being dominated by it as a blind power; accomplishing it with the least expenditure of energy and in conditions most worthy and appropriate for their human nature. As Beams (2009) concludes, “[f]ar from Marx being outdated, the world has, so to speak, caught up with Marx.”

    These 4 cards clearly show the awful impacts of capitalism in the status quo. People die because of capitalism. Capitalism links directly into causing extinction. My impacts clearly outweigh my opponents impacts for these reasons. This is already one reason to vote Affirmative.


    Now, go to his response to my 1st contention.

    He states that it was going against the grain of a capitalist society...AND THIS EXACTLY WHAT WE WANT!

    As I have proven thus far, a break with capitalism is essential to solve for violence, and is essential to ensure the survival of the human race, in the Cole 11 card, which also states that to preserve the environment worldwide, we must break from capitalism, since capitalism places commodity over the life of the planet that enables us to live in the first place. 

    These arguments completely revive my 1st contention, sub-point A.

    And now to sub point b, 1st contention... His only response to this that the sample size is to small to accommodate for the U.S. But, he fails to present any stat or study that says this, or that it would drive overachievers crazy. He needed to present some sort of stat for the rebuttal to be relevant, but he doesn't, so it null. Don't value that at all. I provide a stat, and he doesn't. Simple as that.

    Now onto Contention 3 as a whole...

    He says he questions the assumptions of my 1st sub-point, but there is no assumption here.

    People are very tied into the welfare program. since welfare requires certain financial qualifications to get into the program, people will not work hard enough to get promotions. These promotions may give them more money, but once they earn a certain amount of money, they are taken off of welfare. However, the new amount of money is not enough to cover for the same benefits and insurance, etc... that the welfare did. So, the sq incentives workers to not get promoted, since they cannot afford any benefits like insurance and etc. that welfare could. Thus, this arg still stands strong.


    Now, onto the Framework debate....

    My opponent states that he accepts my framework for the round. What this means is that to decide who wins, you must weigh who upholds this framework the best, and it is an undisputed decision for the affirmative this round.

    My impacts clearly outweigh his, as listed in the earlier arguments, and extensions on why breaking with capitalism is fundamentally the right thing to do.

    I have upheld the framework of valuing Social Harmony, and upheld the means of achieving that action, in Eudeamonism, because the arguments I present clearly achieve a more peaceful society than in the sq, and I uphold eudeamonism, because I achieve my value by acting in a way in which the well being of others is held at the upmost value which my opponent does not.

    Next, on to my opponents case....



    I have already rebutted to his first point, through the defense and extensions of offense in my rebuttal, which concerns job loss and poverty and such.

    He then says says in his 2nd point that ubi removes incentive to work, BUT I HAVE CLEARLY SHOWN IN MY REBUTTAL THAT UBI ACTUALLY DOES THE OPPOSITE! AND I HAVE ALSO SHOWN THAT THE STATUS QUO IS ACTUALLY DOING EXACTLY WHAT HE SAYS UBI WOULD DO, IN THAT IT ENCOURAGES WORKERS TO BE LAZY.

    And, UBI solves for the issue of this to. Since it is giving the people money straight into their pockets, they are free to do what they want with it, and it wont get taken away just because an individual is doing good at their jobs. This is a CRUCIAL point in the round, and THIS TURNS NEED TO BE TAKEN INTO HEAVY CONSIDERATION! 


    He then says that UBI is to expensive. However here is a crucial piece of evidence the clearly turns this statement.

    Matthews, Dylan. “Study: a Universal Basic Income Would Grow the Economy.” Vox, Vox, 30 Aug. 2017, www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/8/30/16220134/universal-basic-income-roosevelt-institute-economic-growth.

     

    Basic income, a proposal in which every American would be given a basic stipend from the government no strings attached, is often brought up as a potential solution to widespread automation reducing demand for labor in the future. But in the meantime, its critics typically allege that it is far too expensive to be practical, or else that it would spur millions of Americans to drop out of the labor force, wrecking the economy and depriving the government of a tax base for funding the plan.

    The Roosevelt study, written by Roosevelt research director Marshall Steinbaum, Michalis Nikiforos at Bard College's Levy Institute, and Gennaro Zezza at the University of Cassino and Southern Lazio in Italy, comes to a dramatically different conclusion. And it does so using some notably rosy assumptions about the effects of large-scale increases to government spending, taxes, and deficits, assumptions that other analysts would dispute vociferously.

    Their paper analyzes two different models for a universal basic income:

     

    1. A full universal basic income, in which every adult gets $1,000 a month ($12,000 a year)
    2. A partial basic income, in which every adult gets $500 a month ($6,000 a year)

    They find that enacting any of these policies by growing the federal debt — that is, without raising taxes to pay for it — would substantially grow the economy. The effect fades away within eight years, but GDP is left permanently higher. The big, $12,000 per year per adult policy, they find, would permanently grow the economy by 12.56 to 13.10 percent — or about $2.5 trillion come 2025. It would also, they find, increase the percentage of Americans with jobs by about 2 percent, and expand the labor force to the tune of 4.5 to 4.7 million people.

    This is clear turn on his case, because this evidence disproves his point.

    Now, I am winning this debate for clear reasons.
    1. I'm winning on framework. I clearly uphold my framework better than he upholds my framework.
    2. I'm winning on contentions. I provide clear, concise reasons and extensions on all of my arguements, and have turned every argument that he has made, and all the arguements against my own case.

    And for the reasons, you vote in the affirmative this round. Thank you.


  • The Negative Rebuttal | Position: Against
    agsragsr 881 Pts   -  
    Thank you for posting this round.

    I will address my opponent's arguments.

    1) My opponent essentially turned this debate into why Socialism would be better for the United States than Capitalism.

    He went to great length to point out various reasons and used that as key counter arguments to my multiple contentions.  

    I choose not to engage in a detailed debate on Capitalism vs Socialism, but 
    I will just say that if US turns into a socialist country then I will want to look for a new place to live.  We already heard that song with the promise of a better life in the USSR, upto it's collapse in the 1990.

    With socialism we can forget about the type of innovation we've seen from Google, Apple, etc. in the agr of accelerated technology advancement, losing competitive edge that US has today would have a long term devastating affect.

    Sources:
    2) 
    My opponent continues to argue that a small study in Canada demonstrates improvement in mental health.

    My counter was that the Referenced study was done at a very small scale in Canada, and doesn't represent a good sample for US.  While it may improve mental health of "steady Joes", it will likely drive overachievers crazy. 
    My opponent requested that I should specify what a sample size should be and clarify how overachievers will be impacted.
    A sample size should be a random representative sample.  A small city in Canada certainly doesn't represent a representative sample for the US.  A sample size would have to include a good representation from large metropolitan US cities such as NY, Washington DC, Atlanta, as as well as smaller cities from the South, Midwest, etc.
    Overachievers would be frustrated to know that their tax payer dollars are funding those who don't feel like working.  We would be discouraging culture of overachievers as incentive to work will be diminished.

    3) My opponent argues that UBI will not be too expensive and will be worth our tax payer dollars.
    His source is a vox article
    new study by the left-leaning Roosevelt Institute. Even in the article it says "These are extremely contentious estimates, borne of controversial assumptions about the way the economy works and the effects that a basic income would have on it. Many, if not most, economic modelers would come to very different conclusions: that a basic income discourages work, that raising taxes to pay for it could have profound negative economic impacts, and that not paying for it and exploding the deficit is a recipe for fiscal and economic ruin."

    There are many studies that explain how UBI is too expensive for our tax payers.
    Below are some examples:

    Live Long and Prosper
  • The Second Affirmative Rebuttal | Position: For
    GorbinGorbin 51 Pts   -  
    As this is the 2AR, I cannot present new arguments, I will crystallize the round and present the key voting issues in the round, which my opponent failed to do. Because of this, you must weight the round under what I present as the voter issues.

    There are a couple of key things to vote on in this round...

    1. Framework- I'm clearly winning framework. My opponents only response to my second contention arguments and the extensions I present in the 1AR are that he doesn't want to engage in a Socialism vs Capitalism debate. Nowhere in any of my posts have I explicitly said that a revert to socialism is what i am advocating for. I am making the argument that we must break from capitalism to uphold the value and standard the my opponent agreed upon; that we must value social harmony, and uphold that by maximizing eudeamonism. Nowhere in my opponents posts has he said why has upheld framework better, so you can't wait any of the impacts he presents, since he hasn't even presented any reasons why his advocacy upholds framework better than mine. 
    2. Contentions
    Next, he doesn't provide any extensions of his offense into the NR, and this is key. He goes on to my entire second contention, and this is the main argument that was contested during the round. However, my sub-point A of contention 1 still stands. His only response to this was in the NC, but does not extend any argument against this in the NR, so therefore the argument still stands, and this key. This card talks that jobs that are psychologically damaging would be much improved at the introduction of a UBI, since employers would be forced to improve the conditions of such workplace, since the introduction of a UBI enables people to have the freedom to choose to have a non-oppressive job.
    He then goes to attack the the sample size of the study. This is not nearly as key as he makes it seem however. The sample size has nothing to do with psychological damage that these people were freed of at the intro of a UBI.
    Next, he attacks the arg he made about my defense on his arg that it would be to expensive. However, he completely drops all of his offense on my Contention 3, so the contention still stands, as it was completely dropped in the NR. Every arg in there still stands, and that's why you'll vote on it, since i extend it, and he doesn't.

    For these reasons, you have to vote AFF in today's debate. 
    Thank you.
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