CDL Core Files 2014/2015
Index
Capitalism Critique
NEG
Capitalism Critique Negative
281Capitalism Critique Negative
282Capitalism 1NC [1/3]
283Capitalism 1NC [2/3]
284Capitalism 1NC [3/3]
2852NC / 1NR Extensions: A/T #1 No Link [1/1]
2862NC / 1NR Extensions: A/T #2 Capitalism Good [1/1]
2872NC / 1NR Extensions: A/T #3 Permutation [1/1]
2882NC / 1NR Extensions: A/T #4 Key to the Environment [1/1]
2892NC / 1NR Extensions: A/T #5 Alternative Fails [1/2]
2902NC / 1NR Extensions: A/T #5 Alternative Fails [2/2]
291Plan-Specific Link: Aquaculture [1/1]
292Plan-Specific Link: Offshore Wind [1/1]
293Plan-Specific Link: Oil Drilling [1/1]
294Plan-Specific Link: Coral Reef Exploration [1/1]
Answers follow in the same file.
Capitalism 1NC [1/3]
A. Link ocean exploration and development are part and parcel of
capitalisms project of exploitation.
Clark and Claussen 2005[Brett Clark and Rebecca Clausen.
Professors of Sociology at North Carolina State-Raleigh and Fort
Lewis, respectively. The Metabolic Rift and Marine Ecology: An
Analysis of the Ocean Crisis within Capitalist Production 2005.
http://courses.arch.vt.edu/courses/wdunaway/gia5524/clausen.pdf]
We have reached a point where the cumulative and ongoing human
effect on the oceanic environment is threatening the biological
integrity of marine ecosystems. In turn, the ability of marine
environments to provide livelihoods for those who depend on the sea
is placed at risk. The body of scientific knowledge about oceanic
systems presents a sobering lesson on the coevolution of human
society and the marine environment during the capitalist industrial
era. The June 2003 Pew Oceans Commission report to the nation
highlights this concern: Marine life and vital coastal habitats are
straining under the increasing pressure of our use. We have reached
a crossroads where the cumulative effect of what we take from, and
put into, the ocean substantially reduces the ability of marine
ecosystems to produce the economic and ecological goods and
services that we desire and need. What we once considered
inexhaustible and resilient is, in fact, finite and fragile. (p. v)
Both land and sea are confronting serious environmental stresses
that threaten their ability to regenerate. The particular problems
experienced in each biological realm cannot be viewed as isolated
issues or aberrations, only to be corrected with further
technological development. Rather, these ecological conditions must
be understood as they relate to the systematic exploitation of
nature for profit. The negative human health and ecological
consequences of capitalist fish production must be analyzed in
relation to an economic system based on the accumulation of
capital. The capacity of humans to transform nature in ways
detrimental to societies has long been known. Only recently,
however, have social interactions with nature, as well as
ecological limits, become major subjects for sociological inquiry
(Buttel, 1987; Dunlap, 1997; Foster. 1994). As the scale of
environmental problems escalates, the ecological sustainability of
human societies is being called into question (Buell, 2003;
Commoner, 1971 ; Ehrlich & Holdren, 1971 ; Foster, 2002;
Vitousek, Mooney, Lubchenko, & Melilo, 1997). The oceans serve
as a critical realm where society interacts with nature. A
historical materialist approach illuminates how the human
relationship with the ocean has changed over time as specific
social and economic conditions evolved. Although social science has
been slow to examine issues related to oceans, the range of social
issues (sustenance, employment, transportation, pollution, etc.)
related to the seas demands more attention.
Capitalism 1NC [2/3]
B. Impact capitalist pillage of the ocean risks extinction as a
result of ecological destruction and ruthless competition
Clark and Claussen 2008[Brett Prof Sociology at the University
of Utah. And Rebecca Prof Sociology at Fort Lewis. The Oceanic
Crisis: Capitalism and the Degradation of Marine Ecosystem The
Monthly Review, 2008.
http://monthlyreview.org/2008/07/01/the-oceanic-crisis-capitalism-and-the-degradation-of-marine-ecosystem/]
Oceans that were teeming with abundance are being decimated by
the continual intrusion of exploitive economic operations. At the
same time that scientists are documenting the complexity and
interdependency of marine species, we are witnessing an oceanic
crisis as natural conditions, ecological processes, and nutrient
cycles are being undermined through overfishing and transformed due
to global warming. The expansion of the accumulation system, along
with tech- nological advances in fishing, have intensified the
exploitation of the world ocean; facilitated the enormous capture
of fishes (both target and bycatch); extended the spatial reach of
fishing operations; broadened the species deemed valuable on the
market; and disrupted metabolic and reproductive processes of the
ocean. The quick-fix solution of aquaculture enhances capitals
control over production without re- solving ecological
contradictions. It is wise to recognize, as Paul Burkett has
stated, that short of human extinction, there is no sense in which
capitalism can be relied upon to permanently break down under the
weight of its depletion and degradation of natural wealth. Capital
is driven by the competition for the accumulation of wealth, and
short-term profits provide the immediate pulse of capitalism. It
cannot operate under conditions that require reinvestment in the
reproduction of nature, which may entail time scales of a hundred
or more years. Such requirements stand op posed to the immediate
interests of profit. The qualitative relation between humans and
nature is subsumed under the drive to accumulate capital on an
ever-larger scale. Marx lamented that to capital, Time is
everything, man is nothing; he is at the most, times carcase.
Quality no longer matters. Quantity alone decides
everything.Productive relations are concerned with production time,
labor costs, and the circulation of capitalnot the diminish- ing
conditions of existence. Capital subjects natural cycles and
processes (via controlled feeding and the use of growth hormones)
to its economic cycle. The maintenance of natural conditions is not
a concern. The bounty of nature is taken for granted and
appropriated as a free gift. As a result, the system is inherently
caught in a fundamental crisis arising from the transformation and
destruction of nature. Istvn Mszros elaborates this point, stating:
For today it is impossible to think of anything at all concerning
the ele-mentary conditions of social metabolic reproduction which
is not lethally threatened by the way in which capital relates to
themthe only way in which it can. This is true not only of
humanitys energy requirements, or of the management of the planets
mineral resources and chemical potentials, but of every facet of
the global agriculture, including the devastation caused by large
scale de-forestation, and even the most irresponsible way of
dealing with the element without which no human being can survive:
water itself....In the absence of miraculous solutions, capitals
arbitrarily self-asserting attitude to the objective determinations
of causality and time in the end inevitably brings a bitter
harvest, at the expense of humanity [and nature itself].
Capitalism 1NC [3/3]
C. Alternative vote negative to reject their endorsement of
capitalism. Imagining an economic movement away from capitalism
achieves real, concrete change.
White and Williams 2012[Richard White Senior Lecturer of
Economic Geography at Sheffield Hallam University. And Cohn
Williams Professor of Public Policy in the Management School at
University of Sheffield. Capitalist Hegemony: Rereading Western
Economics in the Accumulation of Freedom, 2012. Pg 131-32]
The American anarchist Howard Ehrlich argued, "We must act as if
the future is today." What we have hoped to demonstrate here is
that noncapitalist spaces are present and evident in contemporary
societies. We do not need to imagine and create from scratch new
economic alternatives that will successfully confront the
capitalist hegemony thesis, or more properly the capitalist
hegemony myth. Rather than capitalism being the all powerful, all
conquering, economic juggernaut, the greater truth is that the
"other" noncapitalist spaces have grown in proportion relative in
size to the capitalism realm. This should give many of us great
comfort and hope in moving forward purposefully for, as Chomsky
observed: "[a]lternatives have to be constructed within the
existing economy, and within the minds of working people and
communities."' In this regard, the roots of the heterodox economic
futures that we desire do exist in the present. Far from shutting
down future economic possibilities, a more accurate reading of "the
economic" (which decenters capitalism), coupled with the global
crisis that capitalism finds itself in, should give us additional
courage and resolve to unleash our economic imaginations, embrace
the challenge of creating "fully engaged" economies. These must
also take greater account of the disastrous social and
environmental costs of capitalism and its inherent ethic of
competition. As Kropotkin wrote: Don't compete!competition is
always injurious to the species, and you have plenty of resources
to avoid it! Therefore combinepractice mutual aid! That is the
surest means for giving to each and all to the greatest safety, the
best guarantee of existence and progress, bodily, intellectual, and
moral .... That is what Nature teaches us; and that is what all
those animals which have attained the highest position in the
respective classes have done. That is also what man [skithe most
primitive manhas been doing; and that is why man has reached the
position upon which we stand now." A more detailed and considered
discussion of the futures of work, however, is beyond the scope of
this chapter. What we have hoped to demonstrate is that in
reimagining the economic, and recognizing and valuing the
noncapitalist economic practices that are already here, we might
spark renewed enthusiasm, optimism, insight, and critical
discussion within and among anarchist communities. The ambition
here is similar to that of GibsonGraham, in arguing that: The
objective is not to produce a finished and coherent template that
maps the economy "as it really is" and presents... a ready made
"alternative economy." Rather, our hope is to disarm and dislocate
the naturalized dominance of the capitalist economy and make a
space for new economic beeomingsones that we will need to work to
produce. If we can recognize a diverse economy, we can begin to
imagine and create diverse organizations and practices as powerful
constituents of an enlivened non capitalist policies of place.
2NC / 1NR Extensions: A/T #1 No Link [1/1]
1. The affirmative is aligned with capitalist interests. Ocean
exploration and development are not neutral projects, but instead
serve to facilitate exploitation for the expansion of the market.
Our 1NC Clark and Claussen evidence says despite the finite nature
of ocean resources, capital interests provide never-ending
justifications for exploitation.
2. [INSERT PLAN-SPECIFIC LINK]
2NC / 1NR Extensions: A/T #2 Capitalism Good [1/1]
1. Capitalism risks extinction. A profit motive exists for
unsustainable exploitation of Earths oceans, which ensures runaway
overfishing and habitat destruction. Our 1NC Clark and Claussen
evidence says even though capitalists purport to protect the
oceans, when push comes to shove they will always prioritize
economic benefits, which is an unsustainable model.
2. Capitalism is fundamentally unsustainable and risks
extinction.
Wise et al 2010[Raul. Professor of Development Studies at the
Universidad Autonoma de Zacatecas (Mexico). Reframing the Debate on
Migration, Development and Human Rights: Fundamental Elements
October 2010. www.migracionydesarrollo.org]
At the end of the first decade of the 21st century, a general
crisis centered in the United States affected the global capitalist
system on several levels (Mrquez, 2009 and 2010). The consequences
have been varied: Financial. The overflowing of financial capital
leads to speculative bubbles that affect the socioeconomic
framework and result in global economic depressions. Speculative
bubbles involve the bidding up of market prices of such commodities
as real estate or electronic innovations far beyond their real
value, leading inevitable to a subsequent slump (Foster and Magdof,
2009; Bello, 2006). Overproduction. Overproduction crises emerge
when the surplus capital in the global economy is not channeled
into production processes due to a fall in profit margins and a
slump in effective demand, the latter mainly a consequence of wage
containment across all sectors of the population (Bello, 2006).
Environmental. Environmental degradation, climate change and a
predatory approach to natural resources contribute to the
destruction of the latter, along with a fundamental undermining of
the material bases for production and human reproduction (Fola-
dori and Pierri, 2005; Hinkelammert and Mora, 2008). Social.
Growing social inequalities, the dismantling of the welfare state
and dwindling means of subsistence accentuate problems such as
poverty, unemployment, violence, insecurity and labor
precariousness, increasing the pressure to emigrate (Harvey, 2007;
Schierup, Hansen and Castles, 2006). The crisis raises questions
about the prevailing model of globalization and, in a deeper sense,
the systemic global order, which currently undermines our main
sources of wealthlabor and natureand overexploits them to the
extent that civilization itself is at risk. The responses to the
crisis by the governments of developed countries and international
agencies promoting globalization have been short-sighted and
exclusivist. Instead of addressing the root causes of the crisis,
they have implemented limited strategies that seek to rescue
financial and manufacturing corporations facing bankruptcy. In
addition, government policies of labor flexibilization and fiscal
adjustment have affected the living and working conditions of most
of the population. These measures are desperate attempts to prolong
the privileges of ruling elites at the risk of imminent and
increasingly severe crises. In these conditions, migrants have been
made into scapegoats, leading to repressive anti- immigrant
legislation and policies (Massey and Snchez, 2006). A significant
number of jobs have been lost while the conditions of remaining
jobs deteriorate and deportations increase. Migrants living
standards have drastically deteriorated but, contrary to
expectations, there have been neither massive return flows nor a
collapse in remittances, though there is evidence that migrant
worker flows have indeed diminished.
2NC / 1NR Extensions: A/T #3 Permutation [1/1]
1. The permutation still links to our capitalism impacts. Ocean
exploration and development is inseparable from capitalism because
financial interests always override the oceans well-being. If we
win our link arguments, you should reject the permutation theres no
benefit to preferring it over the alternative alone.
2. The permutation is capitalism in disguise. Total rejection is
necessary.
Kovel 2002[Joel. Professor of Social Science at Bard College.
The Enemy of Nature, 2002. Pg 142-43]
The value-term that subsumes everything into the spell of
capital sets going a kind of wheel of accumulation, from production
to consumption and back, spinning ever more rapidly as the inertial
mass of capital grows, and generating its force field as a spinning
magnet generates an electrical field. This phenomenon has important
implications for the reformability of the system. Because capital
is so spectral, and succeeds so well in ideologically mystifying
its real nature, attention is constantly deflected from the actual
source of eco-destabilization to the instruments by which that
source acts. The real problem, however, is the whole mass of
globally accumulated capital, along with the speed of its
circulation and the class structures sustaining this. That is what
generates the force field, in proportion to its own scale; and it
is this force field, acting across the numberless points of
insertion that constitute the ecosphere, that creates ever larger
agglomerations of capital, sets the ecological crisis going, and
keeps it from being resolved. For one fact may be taken as certain
that to resolve the ecological crisis as a whole, as against
tidying up one corner or another, is radically incompatible with
the existence of gigantic pools of capital, the force field these
induce, the criminal underworld with which they connect, and, by
extension, the elites who comprise the transnational bourgeoisie.
And by not resolving the crisis as a whole, we open ourselves to
the spectre of another mythical creature, the many-headed hydra,
that regenerated itself the more its individual tentacles were
chopped away. To realize this is to recognize that there is no
compromising with capital, no schema of reformism that will clean
up its act by making it act more greenly or efficiently We shall
explore the practical implications of this thesis in Part III, and
here need simply to restate the conclusion in blunt terms: green
capital, or non-polluting capital, is preferable to the immediately
ecodestructive breed on its immediate terms. But this is the lesser
point, and diminishes with its very success. For green capital (or
socially/ecologically responsible investing) exists, by its very
capital-nature, essentially to create more value, and this leaches
away from the concretely green location to join the great pool, and
follows its force field into zones of greater concentration,
expanded profitability and greater ecodestruction.
2NC / 1NR Extensions: A/T #4 Key to the Environment [1/1]
1. Capitalism isnt key to the environment it destroys the
environment. The motives that underlie the plan are driven by the
competition for wealth and short-term gain. Capitalism and
environmental sustainability are mutually exclusive because
capitalism cannot operate under conditions that require protecting
nature. Thats our 1NC Clark and Claussen evidence. 2. Capitalism
destroys the environment
Smith 2007
[Richard. Post-Doctoral Fellow at the East-West Center and
Rutgers University. The Eco-suicidal Economics of Adam Smith
Capitalism Nature Socialism, Vol 18 N2. 2007. Available via
Proquest]Despite the difficulty such a massive challenge poses, it
does not mean that people have to starve. On the contrary, if we do
not make these cuts and restructure the global economy, not only
will millions soon die from starvation, floods, drought and other
catastrophes, but the capitalist engine of ecodestruction will
drive humanity to the brink of collapse, if not extinction. The
problem is, given the requirements of capitalist reproduction,
particularly the need to meet shareholder demands for growing
profits, no corporation can cut production and stay in business.
Furthermore, any broad effort to slow production and consumption
would only bring on market collapse and economic depression. So, as
long as Blair, Stern, Al Gore, and the rest of the corporate and
political elite are committed to maintaining and perpetuating
global capitalism as their first and foremost priority, they have
no choice but to subordinate the environment to growth and
consumption, override their own environmental targets, turn
themselves into hypocrites, and doom the future of humanity. To
imagine, as they do, that technical innovations, carbon taxes,
"green shopping" and the like will allow production and consumption
to spiral endlessly upward and consume evermore resources while
pollution and emissions spiral downward is to live in a delusional
dreamworld of faith-based economics that has no empirical basis.11
Through most of human history up to around the 17th century,
humanity suffered from class structures that put brakes on
productivity growth, institutionalized underproduction as a regular
feature of economic life, and so brought on periodic famines and
demographic collapse. But since the advent of the capitalist mode
of production, humanity has both benefitedbut also increasingly
sufferedfrom the opposite problem: crises and consequences of
overproduction, which have typically taken the form of economic
crashes and depression. Today, this engine of relentless
technological revolution and productivity growth has built an
economy of such power, capacity and scale that it is systematically
destroying the very ecological basis of human life.
2NC / 1NR Extensions: A/T #5 Alternative Fails [1/2]
1. The alternative solves rejecting capitalism allows status quo
movements against it to achieve success. Our 1NC White and Williams
evidence says rejecting capitalism allows us to move toward real
alternatives within the existing economy.
2. The alternative solves best. Collections of people against
capitalism are gathering in the status quo a clear vision against
capitalism is key to their effective resistance.
Wise 2009[Raul. Professor of Development Studies at the
Universidad Autonoma de Zacatecas, in Mexico. Forced Migration and
US Imperialism: the Dialectic of Migration and Development Crit
Sociol, 2009. Available via Proquest.]
The profound need for change in the structural dynamics and
strategic practices at work in the current schemes of regional
integration and neoliberal national development have given way to
two types of social agents, which can be separated into two groups:
those from above and those from below. The current economic project
has clearly been implemented from above by the agents of US
imperialism in tandem with Mexican allies. They work within a
political coalition that seeks to maintain the privileges of
neoliberal integration and push them to its very limits. In short,
this is an actual class project that promotes economic asymmetries,
social inequalities and phenomena such as poverty, unemployment,
labor precarization and migration. In contrast, those below
particularly in Mexico are mostly unhappy and disenchanted,
although they sometimes engage in open acts of opposition,
resistance, and rebellion. It is true that there is currently no
collective agent that can articulate a project that counters the
one being implemented by neoliberal elites. However, we should
point out that a number of dispersed social alternative movements
have willingly, even optimistically, sprung up. The Mexican
agricultural sector, one of the quarters that has been hardest hit
by the implementation of NAFTA and is suffering in the productive,
commercial, population and environmental areas, has given rise to
movements like El Barzn (The Plow), El Campo No Aguanta Ms (The
Countryside Cant Take Anymore; see Bartra, 2003) and the campaign
Sin Maz no hay Pas (No Corn, no Country). Other denouncers of the
neoliberal system include the Ejrcito Zapatista de Liberacin
Nacional (Zapatista Army of National Liberation, EZLN) and its Otra
Campaa (Other Campaign), as well as some sectors of the social and
electoral left who have converged into the Coalicin por el Bien de
Todos (Coalition for the Good of All) and the Convencin Nacional
Democrtica (National Democratic Convention). There are also other
more or less important national sociopolitical movements, but what
is worth noticing is that the widespread popular discontent (which
could even extend to the majority of Mexicans) is not expressed in
an organized manner and has not produced yet an alternative
development project. On a binational level, the actions of
opposition forces have been even more scattered. Initially, the Red
Mexicana de Accin frente al Libre Comercio (Mexican Action Network
in Opposition of Free Trade) communicated with likeminded
organizations in the USA and Canada that opposed the signing of
NAFTA, but since then its actions (which involve agreements between
unions and social organizations on both sides of the border) have
been few and far between (Brooks and Fox, 2004). The idea that
migrants are agents of development has been promoted for over a
decade. This proposal, which is in no way sustainable when applied
to large-scale social processes, suggests that migrants should be
held responsible for promoting development in their countries of
origin. And yet, as Fox (2005) has pointed out, migrant society has
produced social actors who operate on three levels: integration
into US society (e.g. unions, the media, and religious
organizations); networki ng and promoti on of devel opment i n pl
aces of ori gi n (i . e. nati ve organizations), and binational
relationships that combine the previous two (i.e. pan-ethnic
organizations). For example, Mexican migrant organizations fund
public works and social projects in their communities of origin
with the aid of the program Tres por Uno.
2NC / 1NR Extensions: A/T #5 Alternative Fails [2/2]
Wise continues, no text deleted
And during the spring of 2006 USA-residing immigrants
participated in massive marches in favor of their working,
political, social, and civil rights. As for the latter, Petras
(2006) points out that between March 25 and May 1, 2006 close to
five million migrant workers and their supporters marched through
nearly 100 cities of the US. This, he notes, is the biggest and
most sustained workers demonstration in the history of the USA. In
its 50-year history, the US trade union confederation, the AFL-CIO,
has never been capable of mobilizing even a fraction of the workers
convoked by the migrant workers movement. The rise and growth of
the movement is rooted in the historical experience of the migrant
workers (overwhelmingly from Mexico, Central America and the
Caribbean), the exploitative and racist experience they confront
today in the USA and the future in which they face imprisonment,
expulsion and dispossession. Generally speaking, migrants and their
organizations affect the political, social, economic, and cultural
aspects of sending and receiving countries to varying degrees.
However, it would be a theoretical mistake to present migrants
themselves as a collective agent of transformation. If we intend to
portray them as agents of development, then we had better examine
the strategic projects and structural dynamics present on the
differ- ent planes and levels, as well as the interests that prompt
participation from above and from below. This will allow us to
understand the role played by migrants. Stating that they cannot be
considered agents of development does not entail a pessimistic
message advocating immobility. Quite the opposite: this can help us
disentangle possible forms of articulation between migrant
organizations and social sectors that seek a new type of
development agenda, one that can be applied on the global,
regional, national, and local levels. Only then will we be able to
discuss the configuration of an agent of social trans- formation
that includes migrant participation. In any case, as Petras (2006)
has pointed out, [t]he emergence of the mass migrant workers
movement opens a new chapter in the working class struggle both in
North America, and Central America. First and foremost it
represents the first major upsurge of independent working class
struggle in the USA after over 50 years of decline, stagna- tion
and retreat by the established trade union confederation.
Plan-Specific Link: Aquaculture [1/1]
( ) Aquaculture is fundamentally aligned with capitalism it is
designed achieve capital accumulation
Phyne 1997
[John. Capitalist Aquaculture and the Quest for Marine Tenure in
Scotland and Ireland Studies in Political Economy, 1997. Available
via Ebscohost.]
During the enclosure of English agriculture, commoners became
subject to poaching violations for continuing to exercise customary
rights which dated from "time immemorial. The law converted common
lands into the private property necessary for capital accumulation.
Yet, in England and elsewhere, the marine environment remained
subject to public, private and customary rights. Currently, the
introduction of industrial aquaculture into a multipurpose marine
environment presents conflicts analogous to the struggle for
enclosure. Industrial aquaculturalists, like capitalist farmers,
want legal and en- forceable property rights to ensure their
interests in capital accumulation." Within the context of late
twentieth century capitalism, however, this is contingent upon the
legal frame- work used by the state in coastal areas.
Plan-Specific Link: Offshore Wind [1/1]
( ) The plan is fundamentally capitalist. Their green revolution
simply re-distributes exploitation.
White 2002[Damian. PhD and Research Fellow in the School of
Cultural Studies at the University of East London. A Green
Industrial Revolution? Sustainable Technological Innovation in a
Global Age Environmental Politics, Vol 11, N2. 2002. Available via
JSTOR]
The first point is essentially negative. Notably, it draws
attention to the fact that even if all the obstacles to a green
industrial revolution posed by the structuring of the current
political economy are addressed - ifthere are notforces to make
things differently - the type of eco-technological and
ecoindustrial reorganisation that triumphs could simply serve and
reinforce the patterns of interest of dominant groups. A
neo-liberal version of the 'green industrial revolution' could
simply give rise to eco-technologies and forms of industrial
reorganisation that arc perfectly compatible with extending social
control, military power, worker surveillance and the broader
repressive capacities of dominant groups and institutions. It might
even be that a corporate dominated green industrial revolution
would simply ensure that employers have 'smart' buildings which not
only give energy back to the national grid but allow for new 'solar
powered' employee surveillance technologies. What of a sustainable
military-industrial complex that uses green warfare technologies
that kill human beings without destroying ecosystems? To what
extent might a 'nonhero' dominated green industrial revolution
simply ensure that the South receives ecotechnologies that
primarily express Northern interests (for example, embedding
relations of dependency rather than of self management and
autonomy?). In short then, a green industrial revolution could
simply give rise to new forms of 'green governmentality' [Dorier et
aI., 1999].
Plan-Specific Link: Oil Drilling [1/1]
( ) Oil exploration and development is capitalist exploitation,
which risks environmental calamity.
Klaas 2014[Staff Writer. Capitalism, Peak Oil, and Endless
Crisis. 1/17/14
http://anti-imperialism.com/2014/01/17/capitalism-peak-oil-and-endless-crisis]
Because of the abundance of oil in certain areas of the world,
accompanied by a peculiar profitability of capital, the world oil
sector presents a very high level of geographical centralization
and concentration of capital, with approximately 100 fields
producing 50% of the global supply, 25 producing 25% of it and a
single field, the Ghawar field of Saudi Arabia, producing around
7%. Most of these fields are old and well past their peak, with the
others likely to enter decline within the next decade. Miller
argued that conditions are such that, despite volatility, prices
can never return to pre-2004 levels, saying it is highly likely
that when the US pays more than 4% of its GDP for oil, or more than
10% of GDP for primary energy, the economy declines as money is
sucked into buying fuel instead of other goods and service. What
can a Marxist conclude from this open admission of capitalist
contradiction and desperation? This is the most important
realization: capitalist crisis is now necessarily endless. There is
a crossroad in front of humanity as a whole and its interest in
survival: either end the capitalist mode of production, or accept
the inevitability of a Malthusian nightmare of more hunger, more
wars over resources, increasingly social Darwinist methods of
population control, and whatever will be needed to maintain the
rule of capital at the expense of everyone else. Without a steady
and cheap supply of oil, there is no capitalism; oil is its blood.
Capital accumulation requires an energy sources which tendentially
increases its potential supply; no such energy source exists, and
even if one was found, every part of the technological
infrastructure of capitalist society, running on oil, would take a
long time to be retooled or dismantled to give way to new
infrastructure running on this new energy source. This kind of
transition would never be feasible in a world where the rule is
exploitation of man by man, and of nation by nation. There can be
no painless solution to an ecological crisis that jeopardizes the
future of humanity while world politics revolves around defending
the profits of monopoly capital, and not the general interests of
human survival. The whole point of capitalist production,
production for the most immediate profit, stands in contradiction
to the well being of humanity and the production of the conditions
required by human life. On top of its own internal limit of
capitalism, capital itself and its over-accumulative tendencies,
capitalist production in the era of imperialism has entered into a
conflict with an external limit, something never before seen for a
mode of production on this scale: capitalism is exhausting
non-reproducible resources. It is now necessary for every
individual to take up the struggle to put production and
distribution under social control.
Plan-Specific Link: Coral Reef Exploration [1/1]
( ) Conservation and protection efforts obscure capitalisms role
in oceanic destruction this makes continued exploitation
inevitable.
Brockington and Duffy 2010
[Dan Brockington is a professor in Conservation and Devlopment
at the University of Manchester and has conducted research in South
Africa, India, Tanzania, New Zealand, and Australia. Rosaleen Duffy
is a professor at the University of London, "Capitalism and
conservation: the production and reproduction of biodiversity
conservation." Antipode 42.3 2010]
One of the central themes of this collection is that
conservation is proving instrumental to capitalisms growth and
reproduction. It provides an environmental fix (as Harvey might put
it). As Igoe and colleagues observe (this issue), where Green
Marxists have predicted environmental impediments that would
threaten capitalisms prosperity (OConnor 1988), in fact these very
impediments are the source of new forms of accumulation. Consumers
thrive on scarcity, anxiety, fear (all help create demand), so
perhaps the flourishing of capitalism in conservation, which deals
in similar currency, should not be such a surprise. It is still
important, however, to understand how this union is being achieved.
Tackling that question is one of the main achievements of the essay
by Igoe and colleagues. Following Sklair and others they propose
the existence of hegemonic mainstream conservation interests
composed of an alliance of corporate, philanthropic and NGO
interests (Sklair 2001). Mainstream conservation (one part of
Sklairs sustainable development historic bloc) proposes resolutions
to environmental problems that hinge on heightened commodity
production and consumption, particularly of newly commodified
ecosystem services. Their views are promulgated through a mutually
reinforcing collection of spectacularmedia productions circulated
in advertisements and on the web. The power of these productions
lies not in their robustness, logic or rigour, but rather because
they are presented and consumed within societies dominated by
spectacle (Debord 1995 [1967]). That is, these are societies where
representations of, and connection to, places, people and causes
have long been mediated through commodified images. In consuming
these images people are given the romantic illusion that they are
adventurously saving the world (p 502) while the deleterious
ecological impacts of these very purchases, and the lifestyles they
require, are neatly erased. By focusing consumers attention on
distant and exotic locales, the spectacular productions . . .
conceal the complex and proximate connections of peoples daily
lives to environmental problems, while suggesting that the
solutions to environmental problems lay in the consumption of the
kinds of commodities that helped produce them in the first place (p
504).]
Capitalism Critique Affirmative 295Capitalism Critique
Affirmative
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1. No link the plan is not part and parcel of capitalism. The
ocean has been exploited and polluted as a result of the flawed
environmental policies of the past. The plan moves to resolve these
problems.
2. Capitalism is good it prevents extinction
Rockwell 2002[Lew. President of the Mises Institute. Why They
Attack Capitalism 2002
http://mises.org/freemarket_detail.aspx?control=418 2002]
If you think about it, this hysteria is astonishing, even
terrifying. The market economy has created unfathomable prosperity
and, decade by decade, for centuries and centuries, miraculous
feats of innovation, production, distribution, and social
coordination. To the free market, we owe all material prosperity,
all our leisure time, our health and longevity, our huge and
growing population, nearly everything we call life itself.
Capitalism and capitalism alone has rescued the human race from
degrading poverty, rampant sickness, and early death. In the
absence of the capitalist economy, and all its underlying
institutions, the worlds population would, over time, shrink to a
fraction of its current size, in a holocaust of unimaginable scale,
and whatever remained of the human race would be systematically
reduced to subsistence, eating only what can be hunted or gathered.
And this is only to mention its economic benefits. Capitalism is
also an expression of freedom. It is not so much a social system
but the de facto result in a society where individual rights are
respected, where businesses, families, and every form of
association are permitted to flourish in the absence of coercion,
theft, war, and aggression. Capitalism protects the weak against
the strong, granting choice and opportunity to the masses who once
had no choice but to live in a state of dependency on the
politically connected and their enforcers. The high value placed on
women, children, the disabled, and the aged unknown in the ancient
worldowes so much to capitalisms productivity and distribution of
power. Must we compare the record of capitalism with that of the
state, which, looking at the sweep of this past century alone, has
killed hundreds of millions of people in wars, famines, camps, and
deliberate starvation campaigns? And the record of central planning
of the type now being urged on American enterprise is perfectly
abysmal.
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3. Permutation: do both capitalism is inevitable, but the plan
reforms it in ways that make it sustainable.
Wilson 2001[John. Progressive Author, Founder of the Institute
for College Freedom. How the Left Can Win Arguments and Influence
People: A Tactical Manual for Pragmatic Progressives, 2001.
GoogleBooks, Pg 121-3]
Capitalism is far too ingrained in American life to eliminate.
If you go into the most impoverished areas of America, you will
find that the people who live there are not seeking government
control over factories or even more social welfare programs;
they're hoping, usually in vain, for a fair chance to share in the
capitalist wealth. The poor do not pray for socialism-they strive
to be a part of the capitalist system. They want jobs, they want to
start businesses, and they want to make money and be successful.
What's wrong with America is not capitalism as a system but
capitalism as a religion. We worship the accumulation of wealth and
treat the horrible inequality between rich and poor as if it were
an act of God. Worst of all, we allow the government to exacerbate
the financial divide by favoring the wealthy: go anywhere in
America, and compare a rich suburb with a poor town-the city
services, schools, parks, and practically everything else will be
better financed in the place populated by rich people. The aim is
not to overthrow capitalism but to overhaul it. Give it a
social-justice tune-up, make it more efficient, get the economic
engine to hit on all cylinders for everybody, and stop putting out
so many environmentally hazardous substances. To some people, this
goal means selling out leftist ideals for the sake of capitalism.
But the right thrives on having an ineffective opposition. The
Revolutionary Communist Party helps stabilize the "free market"
capitalist system by making it seem as if the only alternative to
free-market capitalism is a return to Stalinism. Prospective
activists for change are instead channeled into pointless
discussions about the revolutionary potential of the proletariat.
Instead of working to persuade people to accept progressive ideas,
the far left talks to itself (which may be a blessing, given the
way it communicates) and tries to sell copies of the Socialist
Worker to an uninterested public.
2AC Frontline: Capitalism Critique [3/5]
4. Capitalism is necessary to sustainable solutions to
environmental degradation
Barry 2007[John. Professor of Politics at the University of
Belfast. Towards a Model of Green Political Economy: from
Ecological Modernization to Economic Security The International
Journal of Green Economics, Vol 1 N4. 2007. Available via
Ebscohost]
Economic analysis has been one of the weakest and least
developed areas of broadly green/sustainable development thinking.
For example, whatever analysis there is within the green political
canon is largely utopian usually based on an argument for the
complete transformation of modern society and economy as the only
way to deal with ecological catastrophe, an often linked to a
critique of the socioeconomic failings of capitalism that echoed a
broadly radical Marxist/socialist or anarchist analysis; or
underdeveloped due, in part, to the need to outline and develop
other aspects of green political theory. However, this gap within
green thinking has recently been filled by a number of scholars,
activists, think tanks, and environmental NGOs who have outlined
various models of green political economy to underpin sustainable
development political aims, principles and objectives. The aim of
this article is to offer a draft of a realistic, but critical,
version of green political economy to underpin the economic
dimensions of radical views about sustainable development. It is
written explicitly with a view to encouraging others to think
through this aspect of sustainable development in a collaborative
manner. Combined realism and radicalism marks this article, which
starts with the point that we cannot build or seek to create a
sustainable economy ab nihlo, but must begin from where we are,
with the structures, institutions, modes of production, laws and
regulations that we already have. Of course, this does not mean
simply accepting these as immutable or set in stone; after all,
some of the current institutions, principles and structures
underpinning the dominant economic model are the very causes of
unsustainable development. We do need to recognise, however, that
we must work with (and through in the terms of the original German
Green Partys slogan of marching through the institutions) these
existing structures, as well as change and reform and in some
cases, abandon them as either unnecessary or positively harmful to
the creation and maintenance of a sustainable economy and society.
Equally, this article also recognises that an alternative economy
and society must be based in the reality that most people (in the
West) will not democratically vote for a completely different type
of society and economy. That reality must also accept that a green
economy is one that is recognisable to most people and that indeed
safeguards and guarantees not just their basic needs but also
aspirations (within limits). The realistic character of the
thinking behind this article accepts that consumption and
materialistic lifestyles are here to stay (so long as they do not
transgress any of the critical thresholds of the triple bottom
line) and indeed there is little to be gained by proposing
alternative economic systems, which start from a complete rejection
of consumption and materialism. The appeal to realism is in part an
attempt to correct the common misperception (and self-perception)
of green politics and economics requiring an excessive degree of
self-denial and a puritanical asceticism (Goodin, 1992, p.18;
Allison, 1991, p.170178). While rejecting the claim that green
political theory calls for the complete disavowal of materialistic
lifestyles, it is true that green politics does require the
collective reassessment of such lifestyles, and does require a
degree of shared sacrifice. It does not mean, however, that we
necessarily require the complete and across-the-board rejection of
materialistic lifestyles. There must be room and tolerance in a
green economy for people to live ungreen lives so long as they do
not harm others, threaten long-term ecological sustainability or
create unjust levels of socioeconomic inequalities. Thus, realism
in this context is in part another name for the acceptance of a
broadly liberal or post-liberal (but certainly not anti-liberal)
green perspective.1
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5. The alternative fails simply rejecting capitalism results in
greater oppression
Hanhnel 2007[Robin. Prof Economics at American. Eco-Localism: A
Constructive Critique Capitalism Nature Socialism, Vol 18 N2. 2007.
Ebsco//GBS-JV]
Some anti-capitalists advocate denouncing capitalism as the root
source of many of today's problems. But when asked what kind of
economy should replace capitalism, they answer in deliberately
vague and general terms: ''a just and democratic economy'' or ''an
economy that is not wasteful and destructive of the environment.''
There are understandable reasons to be concerned about the pitfalls
of visionary thinking. But rejecting discussion and debate over how
we can better organize our economic activities to achieve economic
justice, economic democracy, and environmental sustainability is
self-defeatingno more so than today, when the destruction wrought
by capitalism to the natural world and the human community is
becoming increasingly apparent and impossible to ignore. Some
hesitate to spell out how a post-capitalist economy should be run
for fear of putting people off. They worry that saying we are
anti-capitalist risks alienating people we work with in reform
movements, since most people working in reform movements assume the
capitalist system is sound and only flawed in its application.
However, it makes little sense to risk putting people off by saying
we reject the capitalist system itself without trying to explain in
concrete terms what we want instead. Others eschew debates about
economic vision for fear it will lead to sectarianism that divides
us unnecessarily and distracts us from focusing on more urgent
tasks. Given the history of sectarianism on the Left, there is
every reason to fear this dynamic. But we must guard against
sectarianism on many issues, and the advice to table economic
vision would only be sensible if it were true that deliberations on
this issue were unnecessary. Still others claim that specifying how
societies or communities can create economic systems that
incorporate social justice, environmental health, and other
democratic values is totalitarian, because it robs those who will
live in post-capitalist economies of their democratic right to
manage their economy as they see fit when the time comes. This
argument is nonsense. Since when did discussing difficult and
momentous issues in advance impede deliberative democracy rather
than advance it? I can't see that this would be a problem unless
those debating such matters attempt to impose their formulae on
future generations. And nobody I know who discusses democratic
post-capitalist possibilities has any such pretensions. Of course
there is a time and place for everything. There are venues where
pontificating on the inherent evils of the capitalist system is
inappropriate and counterproductive. Similarly, there are venues
where discussing arrangements for how those in worker councils
could manage themselves or how different groups of workers and
consumers might coordinate their interrelated activities fairly and
efficiently is out of place. The question is not whether every
commentary, speech, conference document, article, or book must
explain how a problem today is linked to capitalism, or how it
could be solved in an alternative economy. Rather, it is whether
theorizing about economic vision and testing our convictions in the
flesh, where possible, plays an important role in the movement to
replace the economics of competition and greed with the economics
of equitable cooperation. The simplest argument for the value of
visionary thinking lies in the question: How can we know what steps
to take unless we know where we want to go? For those of us who
believe we are attempting to build a bridge from the economics of
competition and greed to the economics of equitable cooperation, we
must have some idea of where we want the bridge to end as well as
where it must begin. But the strongest reason for embracing the
issue of what we would do when capitalism falters is our track
record of failure. This is not the first time people have been
entreated to jettison capitalism for a better alternative. While
communist economies were not failures for the reasons widely
believed, they were colossal failures nonetheless. And they were
certainly not the desirable alternative to capitalism that was
promised. So people have every reason to be skeptical of those who
claim there is a desirable alternative to capitalism. They also
have every right to demand more than platitudes and generalities.
Reasonable peoplenot only doubting Thomaseswant to know how our
alternative to capitalism would differ from the last one and how it
would work in concrete terms. Literally billions of people were
misled by our anti-capitalist predecessors, with terrible
consequences. We should not deceive ourselves that many today are
willing to accept our assurances on faith that we have it right
this time. We avoid contentious issues about the alternative to
capitalism only at our own peril. 2AC Frontline: Capitalism
Critique [5/5]
Hanhnel continues, no text deleted
It may be that God has given 21st-century capitalism the rainbow
sign, but salvation from doomsday will be no faith-based
initiative. We must show an overwhelming majority of the victims of
capitalism how a better system can work. We must provide convincing
answers to hard questions about why our procedures will not break
down, get hijacked by new elites, or prove incapable of protecting
our natural environment. If we cannot do these things, the
economics of equitable cooperation will remain little more than a
prayer on the lips of the victims of competition and greed. The
time has passed for excuses and intellectual laziness. Critics of
capitalism must think through and explain to others how we propose
to do things differently and why outcomes will be significantly
betterespecially since the sacrifices people must make on the road
to replacing capitalism will often be great. Therefore, there must
be good reasons for people to believe the benefits will be great as
wellif not for themselves, then at least for their children. This
does not mean we must agree right now on what the best alternative
to capitalism looks likewhich is fortunate, because at this point
there is no agreement on whether the best alternative is some form
of market socialism, community-based economics, or democratic
planning. The debate about alternatives to capitalism in the wake
of the collapse of communism is still in its infancy. Nevertheless,
the quality of the debate over economic vision must inspire
confidence that the movement for equitable cooperation is busy
tackling this crucial task effectively. How best to organize a
system of equitable cooperation is not a trivial intellectual
problem, and [end page 64] the answers will not be obvious without
a great deal of deliberation, which must take place before the
answers are needed.