Capitalism Kritik TSDC 2014 1NC Shell A. Link - Oceanic development has lead to ecological degradation, a product of global capitalism, and aff plans to solve will only exacerbate the impacts. Clark and Clausen ’08 [Brett Clark teaches sociology at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. Rebecca Clausen teaches sociology at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado. “The Oceanic Crisis: Capitalism and the Degradation of Marine Ecosystem.” The Monthly Review. 2008, Volume 60, Issue 03 (July-August). Date Accessed: June 27, 14. O’B] The world is at a crossroads in regard to the ecological crisis. Ecological degradation under global capitalism extends to the entire biosphere. 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 technological advances in fishing, has 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 capital’s control over production without resolving ecological contradictions. B. Impact - Capitalism is the root of ocean destruction – the world can no longer support human development and the deadly trio assures probability of extinction if nothing is done. Butler ’13 [Simon Butler, Frequent contributor to Climate & Capitalism, and co-author of Too Many People? Population, Immigration, and the Environmental Crisis. Climate & Capitalism. October 14, 2013. “Oceans on the brink of ecological collapse.” (http://climateandcapitalism.com/2013/10/14/oceans-brink-ecological-collapse/) Date Accessed: July 1, 14. O’B] Earth’s climate is warming faster than at any point in the past 65 million years and that human activity is the cause. It was disappointing, though not surprising, that news reports dried up after only a few days.¶ But another major scientific study, released a week later and including In late September, many mainstream media outlets gave substantial coverage to the UN’s new report on the climate change crisis, which said the even graver warnings of a global environmental catastrophe, was mostly ignored altogether. The marine scientists that released the State of the Ocean 2013 report on October 3 We are entering an unknown territory of marine ecosystem change, and exposing organisms to intolerable evolutionary pressure. The next mass extinction event may have already begun. Developed, industrialised human society is living above the carrying capacity of the Earth, and the implications for the ocean, and thus for all humans, are huge.”¶ gave the starkest of possible warnings about the impact of carbon pollution on the oceans:¶ “ Report co-author, Professor Alex Rogers of SomervilleCollege, Oxford, said on October 3:¶ “The health of the ocean is spiralling downwards far more rapidly than we had thought. We are seeing greater change, happening faster, and the effects are more imminent than previously anticipated. The situation should be of the gravest concern to everyone will be affected by changes in the ability of the ocean to support life on Earth.”¶ The ocean is by far the Earth’s largest carbon sink and has absorbed most of the excess carbon pollution put into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels. The State of the Ocean 2013 report warned that this is making decisive changes to the ocean itself, causing a “deadly trio of impacts” – acidification, ocean warming and deoxygenation (a fall in ocean oxygen levels).¶ The report said:¶ “Most, if not all, of the Earth’s five past mass extinction events have involved at least one of these three main symptoms of global carbon perturbations [or disruptions], all of which are present in the ocean today.”¶ Fossil records indicate five mass extinction events have taken place in the Earth’s history. The everyone since biggest of these – the end Permian mass extinction – wiped out as much as 95% of marine life about 250 million years ago. Another, far better known mass extinction event wiped out the dinosaurs about 66 million years ago and is thought to have been caused by a huge meteor strike.¶ A further big species extinction took place 55 million years ago. Known as the Paleocene/Eocene thermal maximum (PETM), it was a period of rapid global warming associated with a huge release of greenhouse gases. “Today’s rate of Ocean acidification is a sign that the increase in CO2 is surpassing the ocean’s capacity to absorb it. The more acid the ocean becomes, the bigger threat it poses to marine life – especially sea creatures that form their skeletons or shells from carbon release,” said the State of the Ocean 2013, “is at least 10 times faster than that which preceded the [PETM].”[1]¶ calcium carbonate such as crustaceans, molluscs, corals and plankton.¶ The report predicts “extremely serious consequences for ocean life” if the release of CO2 does not fall, including “the extinction of some species and decline in biodiversity overall.”¶ Acidification is taking place fastest at higher latitudes, but overall the report says “ geological records indicate that the current acidification is unparalleled in at least the last 300 million years”.¶ Ocean warming is the second element in the deadly trio. Average ocean temperatures have risen by 0.6°C in the past 100 years. As the ocean gets warmer still, it will help trigger critical climate tipping points that will warm the entire planet even faster, hurtling it far beyond the climate in which today’s life has evolved. Ocean warming will accelerate the death spiral of polar sea ice and risks the “increased venting of the greenhouse gas methane from the Arctic seabed”, the report says.¶ Ongoing ocean warming will also wreak havoc on marine life. The report projects the “loss of 60% of present biodiversity of exploited marine life and invertebrates, including numerous local extinctions.” Each decade, fish are expected to migrate between 30 kilometres to 130 kilometres towards the poles, and live 3.5 metres deeper underwater, leading to a 40% fall in fish catch these changes will have massive economic and food security consequences, not least for the fishing industry and those who depend on it.”¶ The combined effects of acidification and ocean warming will also seal the fate of the world’s coral reefs, leading to their “terminal and rapid decline” by 2050. Australia’s Great Barrier Reef and Caribbean Sea reefs will likely “shift from coral domination to algal domination.” The report says potential in tropical regions.¶ The report says: “All the global target to limit the average temperature rise to 2°C, which was adopted at the Copenhagen UN climate conference in 2009, “is not sufficient for coral reefs to survive. Lower targets should be urgently pursued.”¶ Deoxygenation – the third component of the deadly trio – is related to ocean warming and to high levels of nutrient run-off into the ocean from sewerage and agriculture. The report says overall ocean oxygen levels, which have declined consistently for the past five decades, could fall by 1% to 7% by 2100. But this figure does not indicate the big rise in the number of low oxygen “dead zones,” which has doubled every decade since the 1960s.¶ Whereas acidification most impacts the combined impact of this deadly trio will “have cascading consequences for marine biology, including altered food webs dynamics and the expansion of pathogens [causing disease].” It also warns that it adds to other big problems affecting the ocean, such as chemical pollution and overfishing (up to 70% of the world’s fish stock is overfished).¶ “We may already have entered into an extinction period and not yet realised it. What is certain is that the current carbon perturbations will have huge implications for humans, and may well be the most important challenge faced since the hominids evolved. The urgent need to reduce the pressure of all ocean stressors, upon smaller marine life, deoxygenation hits larger animals, such as Marlin and Tuna, hardest.¶ The report cautions that especially CO2 emissions, is well signposted.” And, Capitalism creates a “metabolic rift” between nature and humankind – ocean development and exploration will lead to resource scarcity and eventually the end of life. Bachtell ’11 [John Bachtell, writer for Political Affairs Magazine. “Three Irresolvable Crises of Capitalism.” Political Affairs Magazine, August 9, 2011. (http://www.politicalaffairs.net/three-irresolvable-crises-of-capitalism/) Date Accessed: July 1, 14. O’B] Historically, capitalism came on the scene as the most environmentally destructive economic system. The process of capital accumulation gouged the Earth, deforested continents, spoiled the oceans, over fished them, polluted rivers and waterways, fouled the air and exhausted the soil.¶ As environmental problems arose and resources became scarcer, the solutions necessitated by expanding production meant ever greater environmental destruction.¶ Today’s mountain top removal, fracking and degradation resulting from the extraction of oil from the Canadian tar sands are some of the most vivid examples.¶ Today, the ecological crisis is accelerating and the Earth is reaching or has surpassed key tipping points in planetary systems that will alter life for thousands of years. If the present rate of accumulation of greenhouse gases is not reversed, the Earth will become uninhabitable for humans and all living species.¶ This “metabolic rift”constitutes a basic contradiction between the relentless and destructive expansion of capitalist production and the finite resources of the world and the planetary systems that sustain life.¶ Scientists have identified planetary boundaries that must not be surpassed in order to sustain life on the planet. Nine have been identified: climate change, ocean acidification, stratospheric ozone depletion, nitrogen and phosphorus cycles, global freshwater use, change in land use, biodiversity loss, atmospheric aerosol loading and chemical pollution.¶ In three cases boundaries or “tipping points” have already been surpassed – climate change, the nitrogen cycle and biological diversity.¶ Climate change is causing extreme weather conditions – excessive heat, droughts and flooding. It is estimated 70 percent of the Earth’s land surface will experience drought conditions. It is projected agricultural production will be reduced by 30 percent in the US and globally.¶ Global climate change will force hundreds of millions of people to relocate from low lying and coastal areas. There is and will be growing competition over energy, water, food and other scarce resources leading to the possibility of conflict.¶ These are urgent issues facing the US working class and people and the world as a whole. The resolution of these crises, the redirection of policy and resources, can’t wait until “socialism” and must be part of today’s struggles.¶ Mass struggles can and must force necessary reforms and regulations on capitalist development, to regulate it’s destructive capacity and force the redistribution of wealth and redirection of resources toward the needs of the people.¶ But capitalism is inherently limited and it is increasingly apparent more fundamental reforms are necessary. To solve the urgent problems requires the massive reallocation of social resources, global cooperation on an unprecedented scale, and a reorganization of production to meet human needs not profits.¶ The struggle to redistribute the wealth to create millions of living wage jobs through expanding education, universal health care, mass transit and affordable housing, modernizing the infrastructure, and building a sustainable, demilitarized, democratic economy that begins to heal the Earth can unite a majority of Americans and is the path to democratic socialism. C. Alternative - The alternative is to vote neg as an abandonment of belief in capitalism Johnston 04 [Adrian Johnston, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Philosophy, University of New Mexico, 2004, Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society, Volume 9 // Issue 3] Perhaps the absence of a detailed practical roadmap in Žižek’s political writings isn’t a major shortcoming. most important task is simply the negativity of the critical struggle, the effort to cure an intellectual constipation resulting from capitalist ideology and thereby truly to open up the space for imagining authentic alternatives to the prevailing state of the situation. Another definition of materialism offered by Žižek is that it amounts to accepting the internal inherence of what fantasmatically appears as an external deadlock or hindrance 127 (with fantasy itself being defined as the false externalization of something within the subject, namely, the illusory projection of an inner obstacle 128). From this perspective, seeing through ideological fantasies by learning how to think again outside the confines of current restrictions has, in and of itself, the potential to operate as a form of real revolutionary practice (rather than remaining just an instance of negative/critical intellectual reflection). Why is this the case? Recalling the earlier analysis of commodity fetishism, the social efficacy of money as the universal medium of exchange (and the entire political economy grounded upon it) ultimately relies upon nothing 93 more than a kind of “magic,” that is, the belief in money’s social efficacy by those using it in the processes of exchange. Since the value of currency is, at bottom, reducible to the belief that it has the value attributed to it (and that everyone believes that everyone else believes this as well), derailing capitalism by destroying its essential financial substance is , in a certain respect, as easy as dissolving the mere belief in this substance’s powers. The “external” obstacle of the capitalist system exists exclusively on the condition that subjects, whether consciously or unconsciously, “internally” believe in it—capitalism’s life-blood, money, is simply a fetishistic crystallization of a Maybe, at least for the time being, the belief in others’ belief in the socioperformative force emanating from this same material. 2NC EXT: Links Oceanic exploration and development only serves to exploit nature for capitalistic gain and aims to solve these issues without first identifying them as products of capitalism will only worsen the cause. Clark and Clausen ’08 [Brett Clark teaches sociology at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. Rebecca Clausen teaches sociology at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado. “The Oceanic Crisis: Capitalism and the Degradation of Marine Ecosystem.” The Monthly Review. 2008, Volume 60, Issue 03 (July-August). Date Accessed: June 27, 14. O’B] Scientific analysis of oceanic systems presents a sobering picture of the coevolution of human society and the marine environment during the capitalist industrial era. The particular environmental problems related to the ocean cannot be viewed as isolated issues or aberrations of human ingenuity, only to be corrected through further technological development. Rather these ecological conditions must be understood as they relate to the systematic expansion of capital and the exploitation of nature for profit. Capital has a particular social metabolic order—the material interchange between society and nature—that subsumes the world to the logic of accumulation. It is a system of self-expanding value, which must reproduce itself on an ever-larger scale.4 Here we examine the social metabolic order of capital and its relationship with the oceans to (a) examine the anthropogenic causes of fish stock depletion, (b) detail the ecological consequences of ongoing capitalist production in relation to the ocean environment, and (c) highlight the ecological contradictions of capitalist aquaculture.5 The world’s oceans are integral to the capitalist system and plans to develop or explore will only lead to increasing its efficiency. Steinberg ’98 [Philip E. Steinberg, Professor in Dept. of Geography at Florida State University. “The maritime mystique: sustainable development, capital mobility, and nostalgia in the world ocean.” October 28, 1998. Date Accessed: June 27, 14. O’B] These different regulatory strategies are centrally related to the intensification of a single tension within the spatial organization of society, the tension between capital's contradictory needs for fixity in discrete locations and for mobility across space. This tension has been discussed extensively with regard to land space, most notably by Harvey (1982), but I seek to extend the analysis to the world ocean. Key to this argument is that ocean space, like land space, is an integral component of society, transformed amidst the dynamics of the world economy (Steinberg, 1998; 1999). The social processes that shape the ocean arc linked to those that operate on land, but the actual constructions that have emerged from these contradictions in ocean space have been specific owing to the sea's unique physical properties, most significantly its unsuitability for the placement of spatially fixed investments. In recent decades, new opportunities have emerged for utilizing the sea, and the old order of the oceans has proven insufficient for serving the needs of various ocean users. Thus, it is argued below that the world ocean is presently undergoing a crisis of regulation. Ocean uses associated with capital fixity and those associated with capital mobility are both intensifying and spreading out across ocean space, to the point that the two groups of uses increasingly overlap. Regulatory regimes and institutions that support one set of uses are fundamentally incompatible with those that support the other set of uses. The ocean has emerged as a site of conflict, as is reflected in the multiple images of marine space outlined above. Ocean development is a capitalist tool– empirics prove it directly aids in the destruction of the ocean. Earth First ’11 [Earth First! Sunday, September 4th, 2011. “Can a fight for South Florida reefs help block the expansion global capitalism?” (http://earthfirstjournal.org/newswire/2011/09/04/can-a-fight-for-south-florida-reefs-help-block-the-expansionglobal-capitalism/) Date Accessed: July 1, 14. O’B] Miami—This fight for the wild ocean maybe be a critical part of defending all life on Earth from the clutches of the industrial economy. Yesterday’s New York Times reported that as Miami prepares to dredge its port to accommodate supersize freighters, environmentalists are making a lastditch effort to protect threatened coral reefs and sea grass that would be destroyed by the expansion. Sounds like the locals might be in need of some direct action reinforcements.¶ The state’s Department of Environmental Protection is on the verge of granting a final permit to the Army Corps of Engineers, which will be free to conduct 600 days of blasting to widen and deepen the channel for the port of Miami, across from the southern part of Miami Beach.¶ About seven acres of coral, some of which is part of a state preserve, is expected to be directly affected by the blasts, including Elkhorn and staghorn coral, which are categorized as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Nearly eight acres of sea grass will be damaged during the expansion. All for the purpose of receiving superfreighters that will sail through the Panama Canal in 2014 once it has been widened.¶ Florida has seen steep declines in coral in the last 25 years, and last year’s cold snap devastated the reefs closest to shore. Some of those lost 70 percent to 75 percent of their coral, according to Diego Lirman, a University of Miami scientist who was part of a team that conducted a survey of the coral last year and published its findings in August.¶ Another study by biologists found that bacteria from human fecal waste had played a major role in choking elkhorn coral. For years, human waste from the Florida Keys seeped, or in some cases poured, into the ocean via septic tanks and pipes.¶ “There were a couple of acres of this coral, and now there is enough to cover your desk,” said Ken Nedimyer, president of the nonprofit Coral Restoration Foundation in the Florida Keys, which grows and restores coral through an underwater nursery.¶ “Biscayne Bay is actually a crystal-clear bay. It’s that way because we have acres and acres of sea grass beds filtering silt and sand out. It’s part of the beauty. It’s a shallow tropical lagoon that was never contemplated as a deep-dredge port.” That’s what Blanca Mesa, volunteer for the Sierra Club Miami, had to say.¶ Capitalists exploit the ocean through development and exploration at the cost of the rest of the Earth – extinction is unavoidable unless political action is taken. Farrell ’13 [Paul B. Farrell, currently a writer for Market Watch behavioral economics, an investment banker with Morgan Stanley; executive vice president of the Financial News Network; executive vice president of Mercury Entertainment Corp; and associate editor of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. “10 ways capitalists get rich destroying our oceans Commentary: Focus on profits turns back evolutionary clock a billion years.” Market Watch, December 4, 2013. (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/10-ways-capitalists-get-rich-destroying-our-oceans-2013-12-04) Date Accessed: July 1, 14. O’B] SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (MarketWatch) — Yes, many capitalists are getting rich off the high seas, a vast reservoir of wealth holding 95% of the planet’s water, spanning 70% of the Earth’s surface. Often called the last frontier, a return to America’s 18th century Wild West. it’s virtually unregulated, a new free market where capitalists roam like pirates, plundering wealth and treating our oceans as a freebie gold mine and trash dump.¶ Bad news for seven billion people living on the planet. And by 2050 we’ll be adding three billion more people. We already know we can’t feed 10 billion. Now we’re polluting their water. Won’t be enough clean water for all to drink, triggering wars.¶ Yes, bad news getting worse: As Alan Sielen of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography warns in the Foreign Affairs journal: “Over the last several decades, human activities have so altered the basic chemistry of the seas that they are now experiencing evolution in reverse: a return to the barren primeval waters of hundreds of millions of years ago.”¶ Capitalism is turning back the evolutionary clock a billion years¶ Evolution in reverse? Yes, planet Earth is regressing eons to an earlier primitive era. Unregulated free-market competition on the high seas is turning back the evolutionary clock. That doesn’t bother today’s short-term-thinking capitalists. But it should. Because, ironically, shifting evolution into reverse will also self-destruct the very global economy that capitalism needs for future growth.¶ Today’s capitalists see another three billion people as the new customers needed to expand free markets globally. But in the process they are also cutting their own throats, unaware they’re pushing a hidden self-destruct button lodged in their brains.¶ Nature designed all systems with these built-in termination buttons. Deny it all you want, but humans have our entrances and exits, as Shakespeare said. We all do. Same with economic systems: Yale’s Immanuel Wallerstein sees capitalism at the end of its 500-year cycle. Solar systems last for billions of years. Someday, as our sun cools, Earth could go the way of Mars. And the sun will eventually exit in a blazing supernova.¶ Grabbing short-term profits, leaving long-term losses to the public¶ Capitalists deny their role in their endgame, dismiss the long economic cycle. That’s natural. Capitalist brains are designed to focus on the short term, profits, high frequencies, microseconds, day-end closing prices, quarterly earnings, annual bonuses. Rarely longer. Myopia is the built-in self-destruct trigger for capitalists, their society, the human race, our planet’s water. Can’t blame them, the capitalist’s brain isn’t designed to think longterm.¶ Why? Capitalists see a new world like the Wild West. No lawmen, just free-market competitors, free to do whatever they want, whenever, unregulated, uncontrolled, no restraints, skimming, mining, plundering the wealth of the high seas, free to use, misuse and abuse vast oceans of water at no real cost.¶ Here are 10 ways capitalists are pocketing their short-term profits, leaving long-term losses for the public to pay:¶ 1. Pollution creating new oceanic garbage dump¶ Sielen’s imagery is powerful: “The oceans’ problems start with pollution, the most visible forms of which are the catastrophic spills from offshore oil and gas drilling or from tanker accidents.” But that “pollution pales in comparison to the much less spectacular waste that finds its way to the seas through rivers, pipes, runoff, and the air ... trash, plastic bags, bottles, cans” washing into “coastal waters or discarded by ships ... drifts out to sea ... forms epic gyres of floating waste” covering “hundreds of miles.”¶ 2. Destruction of marine life costs jobs and more¶ “The prospect of vanishing whales, polar bears, bluefin tuna, sea turtles, and wild coasts should be worrying enough on its own,” warns Sielen. “But the disruption of entire ecosystems threatens our very survival, since it is the healthy functioning of these diverse systems that sustains life on earth.” Destruction on this level” has massive consequences, and costs “humans dearly in terms of food, jobs, health, and quality of life.”¶ 3. Toxic chemicals polluting our waters¶ It gets far worse: “The most dangerous pollutants are chemicals” poisoning the oceans with toxins, says Sielen. They “travel great distances, accumulate in marine life, and move up the food chain.” Mercury from burning coal “rains down on the oceans, rivers, and lakes.” Each year hundreds of new untested industrial chemicals “build up slowly in the tissues of fish and shellfish,” get passed to larger creatures and humans “causing death, disease, and abnormalities,” adversely affecting “development of the brain, the neurologic system, and the reproductive system in humans.”¶ 4. Deadly fertilizers are polluting oceans¶ Add to this disaster scenario fertilizers, which are now rising at excessive levels causing “havoc on the natural environment,” an explosive growth of algae, decomposition, a loss of “oxygen needed to support complex marine life.” This trend is creating “dead zones devoid of the ocean life” that “have more than quadrupled” in a decade.¶ 5. Humans are eating too many fish¶ World population was less than 3 billion in 1950, 6 billion in 2000. Projected at 10 billion in 2050. Sielen warns: “Humans are simply killing and eating too many fish,” with fish supplies falling “dramatically.” Tuna, swordfish, halibut, flounder populations dropped 90% since 1950. “Human appetite has nearly wiped those populations out.”¶ 6. Fish supplies disappear, demand is increasing¶ And demand keeps growing as supplies “are rapidly dwindling.” Exploding prices add to the demand: This year, a 489-pound bluefin tuna sold for $1.7 million making it “profitable to employ airplanes and helicopters to scan the ocean for the fish that remain; against such technologies, marine animals don’t stand a chance.” Small fish like sardines, anchovy, herring, are also disappearing, meaning less food for bigger fish up the food chain.¶ 7. Destructive, wasteful fishing methods¶ Unfortunately, “modern industrial fishing fleets drag lines with thousands of hooks miles behind a vessel,” with “nets thousands of feet below the sea’s surface.” Untargeted seals, turtles, dolphins, whales, albatross get entangled, killing millions of tons each year. “Some of the most destructive fisheries discard 80% to 90%.” In the Gulf of Mexico, “for every pound of shrimp ... over three pounds of marine life is thrown away.”¶ 8. Destroying marine habitats kills future growth¶ Another factor destroying our oceans: “The destruction of the habitats that have allowed spectacular marine life to thrive for millennia,” says Sielen. And yet capitalism continues the “wholesale destruction of deep-ocean habitats ... submerged mountain chains called seamounts,” some higher than Mt Rainier. They are “homes to a rich variety of marine life.” Yet, industrial trawlers bulldoze their way” destroying “deep cold-water corals, some older than the California redwoods.”¶ 9. Acid buildup in oceans weakens marine life¶ “The buildup of acid in ocean waters,” warns Sielen “reduces the availability of calcium carbonate, a key building block for the skeletons and shells of corals, plankton, shellfish, and many other marine organisms” that need it “to grow and also to guard against predators.”¶ 10. Our planet Earth is in hot water¶ Echoing findings by 2,000 scientists in the recent Fifth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Sielen says scientists predict “climate change will drive the planet’s temperature up by between 4 and 7 degrees Fahrenheit over the course of this century” causing “hotter oceans ... rising sea levels ... stronger storms” as the “life cycles of plants and animals are upended, changing migration patterns, causing other serious disruptions ... surface waters mixing less with cooler, deeper waters,” reducing phytoplankton population, “the foundation of the ocean’s food chain.”¶ The recent Warsaw Agreement on Climate Change, like earlier United Nations accords in how capitalist power-players control governmental decision-makers, prompting Sielen’s final warning: “So long as pollution, overfishing, and ocean acidification remain concerns only for scientists ... little will change ... Diplomats and national security experts, who understand the potential for conflict in an overheated world, should realize that climate change might soon become a matter of war and peace ... Business leaders should understand better than Kyoto and Copenhagen, exposes most the direct links between healthy seas and healthy economies ... And government officials, who are entrusted with the public’s well-being, must surely see the importance of clean air, land, and water.”¶ “The world faces a choice,” warns Sielen: “We we “summon the political will and moral courage to restore the seas to health before it is too late?” The consequences are catastrophic ... the risks enormous ... odds very long ... fuse short ... yet the denial may be too overwhelming. do not have to return to an oceanic Stone Age.” But can Link – Environment Environmental reform within capitalism will be ineffectively shallow to maintain profit levels DeFusco, Past Director of Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, 8 — (David is Communications Director at Highstead, James Gustave Speth [cited in the card] is the dean of the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies and is Co-founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council and the World Resources Institute and former White House advisor. (“Book Examines Clash of Capitalism and the Environment”—4/1/2008 http://livinglies.wordpress.com/2008/04/19/capitalism-and-environmental-policy-ultimate-reality-show/) New Haven, Conn. — The environment will continue to deteriorate so long as capitalism continues to be the modern world’s economic engine , argues Gus Speth, dean of the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, in his new book, The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability. Seeing an “emerging environmental tragedy of unprecedented proportions,” Speth says the book’s aim is to describe a non-socialist alternative to capitalism. That alternative includes moving to a post-growth society and environmentally honest prices, curbing consumerism with a new ethic of sufficiency, rolling back growing corporate control of American political life, and addressing the enormous economic insecurity of the average person. “My point of departure is the momentous environmental challenge we face,” Speth says. “But today’s environmental reality is linked powerfully with other realities, including growing social inequality and neglect and the erosion of democratic governance and popular control.” Speth examines how these seemingly separate areas of public concern are intertwined and calls upon citizens to mobilize spiritual and political resources for transformative change on all three fronts. Donald Kennedy, editor-in-chief of Science, calls Speth’s book, “A powerful and ambitious attempt to characterize the changed strategies that environmental organizations need to adopt to become more effective. This book challenges many things that would seem to have political immunity of a sort—among others, corporate capitalism, the environmental movement itself and the forces of globalization.” Co-founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council and the World Resources Institute and former White House advisor, Speth has been called “the ultimate insider” by TIME magazine. But now, faced with evidence of galloping degradation of the planet, Speth has concluded that “all in all, today’s environmentalism has not been succeeding.” He calls on environmentalists to “step outside the system and develop a deeper critique of what is going on.” Speth argues that aggregate economic growth is no longer improving the lives of most Americans and suggests that in some ways it is making individuals worse off—environmentally, socially and psychologically. “It is said that growth is good—so good that it is worth all the costs, that somehow we’ll be better off,” says Speth, “We are substituting economic growth and more consumption for dealing with the real issues—for doing things that would truly make us better off.” The book calls for measures that provide for universal health care and alleviate the devastating effects of mental illness; guarantee good, well-paying jobs and increase employee satisfaction, minimize layoffs and job insecurity and provide for adequate retirement incomes; introduce more family-friendly policies at work, including flextime and easy access to quality child care; and provide individuals with more leisure time for connecting with their families, communities and nature. “My hope is that all Americans who care about the environment will come to embrace these measures—these hallmarks of a caring community and a good society— as necessary to moving us beyond money to sustainability and community,” he says. “Sustaining people, sustaining nature—they are just one cause, inseparable.” Speth writes that Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the dollar value of all goods and services produced by the economy, is a poor gauge of human well-being or welfare. The book cites studies showing that throughout the entire period following World War II, as incomes skyrocketed in the United States and other advanced economies, reported life satisfaction and happiness levels stagnated or even declined slightly. Speth says that these studies suggest the need for a radical rethinking and reordering of society’s priorities. Obsession with growth has now causes more harm—to the environment, social fabric and world security—than good. It took all of history, Speth notes, to build the $7 trillion world economy of 1950; today, economic activity consumption and GDP grows by that amount every decade. At current rates of growth, the world economy will double in size in less than two decades. “Society is facing the possibility of an enormous increase in environmental deterioration, just when we need to move strongly in the opposite direction.” The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability is published by Yale University Press (yalebooks.com). See the Bridge at the Edge of the World website for more information. Promoting both economic growth and preventing destruction of nature is impossible, profits take priority Sullivan, phD in Anthropology, 9 Sian--Senior Lecturer in Environment and Development 2008 Fellow of the Higher Education Academy 1998 PhD Anthropology (University College London) and is in the Department of Geography, Environment and Development Studies at Birkbeck, University of London. (“Green capitalism, and the cultural poverty of constructing nature as service provider”—Sian Sullivan 2009 http://siansullivan.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/sian-article.pdf) In recent years, two phenomena have conspired to push these concerns and concepts together to generate a utopian win-win scenario of both mitigating environmental degradation and facilitating economic growth through pricing the ecological services provided by nature. The first is the 2005 publication of the influential United Nations Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA), which highlights humangenerated change of the biosphere and overwhelmingly uses the language of ecosystem services in speaking of the non-human world. These are further categorised into provisioning services (food, water, timber, fibre, etc.), regulating services (floods, droughts, land degradation and disease), supporting services (such as soil formation and nutrient cycling), and non-material cultural services (recreational, spiritual, religious, etc.).19 Through combining the quantification skills of ecological science and economics, the MEA proposes that breaking nature down into these increasingly scarce services,20 quantifying their functionality, and assigning a price to them, will assist conservation by asserting their financial value; at the same time as fostering economic growth by creating new tradeable assets.21 The second is the creation of a multi-billion dollar market in a new commodity – carbon – intended to mitigate (i.e. minimise) climate change by providing the possibility of profitably exchanging one of the gases contributing to anthropogenic global warming. As noted above, this is generating a market-based context for approaching the broader environmental concerns of the MEA. Like Adam Smith’s putative economic ‘invisible hand’,22 the assumption is that both good environmental governance and the equitable distribution of environmental services will derive from the correct pricing of quantified environmental goods and services, combined with the self-regulating market behaviour that will emerge from their market exchange. In this case, the financial price attributed to carbon is allocated to, and therefore captured by, heavy industry emitters. It is they who gain tradeable carbon credits (i.e. the currency representing carbon), for example, under the European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme.23 Some (currently minimal) scarcity is built into the market by allocating credits at a level below what major installations require to cover their emitting levels, so as to meet the emissions reducing targets set by the Kyoto Protocol of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Once these credits enter the international financial system their future value can be speculated on (as with any other currency or commodity, including derivatives) and significant profits can ensue. In the wake of this, a veritable ecosystem of economists, stockbrokers and financial advisors has emerged to service trade in this new commodity, as epitomised by the Europe Climate Exchange in the City of London. This is “the leading marketplace for trading carbon dioxide (CO2 ) emissions in Europe and internationally”,24 and basically a stock exchange for the 20 Radical Anthropology currency of tradeable carbon credits. Interestingly, the website of the Europe Climate Exchange provides very little information connecting this exchange with environmental impacts through the reduction of atmospheric CO2 . Such presentation seems to emphasise that this is a product with a great deal to do with trade, finance and profit, operating at a rather large remove from the materiality of global climate and ecosystems. The shallow ‘green capitalism’ of the aff is used to help profits, not the environment Smith, Rutgers University professor, 11 Richard Smith has taught history at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, and has written on the social and environmental impact of the transition to capitalism in China for the New Left Review, the Ecologist, and other publications. (“Green capitalism: the god that failed” –2011 http://paecon.net/PAEReview/issue56/Smith56.pdf) In rejecting the antigrowth approach of the first wave of environmentalists in the 1970s, pro-growth “green capitalism” theorists of the 1980s-90s like Paul Hawken, Lester Brown, and Francis Cairncross argued that green technology, green taxes, eco-conscious shopping and the like could “align” profit-seeking with environmental goals, even “invert many fundamentals” of business practice such that “restoring the environment and making money become one and the same process.” This strategy has clearly failed. I claim first, that the project of sustainable capitalism was misconceived and doomed from the start because maximizing profit and saving the planet are inherently in conflict and cannot be systematically aligned even if, here and there, they might coincide for a moment. That’s because under capitalism, CEOs and corporate boards are not responsible to society, they’re responsible to private shareholders. CEOs can embrace environmentalism so long as this increases profits. But saving the world requires that the pursuit of profits be systematically subordinated to ecological concerns: For example, the science says that to save the humans, we have to drastically cut fossil fuel consumption, even close down industries like coal. But no corporate board can sacrifice earnings to save the humans because to do so would be to risk shareholder flight or worse. I claim that profit-maximization is an iron rule of capitalism, a rule that trumps all else, and this sets the limits to ecological reform -- and not the other way around as green capitalism theorists supposed. Secondly, I claim that contrary to green capitalism proponents, across the spectrum from resource extraction to manufacturing, the practical possibilities for “greening” and “dematerializing” production are severely limited. This means, I contend, that the only way to prevent overshoot and collapse is to enforce a massive economic contraction in the industrialized economies, retrenching production across a broad range of unnecessary, resource-hogging, wasteful and polluting industries, even virtually shutting down the worst. Yet this option is foreclosed under capitalism because this is not socialism: no one is promising new jobs to unemployed coal miners, oil-drillers, automakers, airline pilots, chemists, plastic junk makers, and others whose jobs would be lost because their industries would have to be retrenched -- and unemployed workers don’t pay taxes. So CEOs, workers, and governments find that they all “need” to maximize growth, overconsumption, even pollution, to destroy their childrens’ tomorrows to hang onto their jobs today because, if they don’t, the system falls into crisis, or worse. So we’re all onboard the TGV of ravenous and ever-growing plunder and pollution. And as our locomotive races toward the cliff of ecological collapse, the only thoughts on the minds of our CEOS, capitalist economists, politicians and labor leaders is how to stoke the locomotive to get us there faster. Corporations aren’t necessarily evil. They just can’t help themselves. They’re doing what they’re supposed to do for the benefit of their owners. But this means that, as the global economy is based on capitalist private/corporate property and competitive we’re doomed to collective social suicide and production so long for market, no amount of tinkering with the market can brake the drive to global ecological collapse . We can’t shop our way to sustainability because the problems we face cannot be solved by individual choices in the marketplace. They require collective democratic control over the economy to prioritize the needs of society and the environment. And they require national and international economic planning to re-organize the economy and redeploy labor and resources to these ends. I conclude, therefore, that if humanity is to save itself, we have no choice but to overthrow capitalism and replace it with a democratically-planned socialist economy. Modern environmentalism was created to legitimize capitalism Barker, alternative journalist, 10 Michael James has been writing for alternative media outlets since 2006, and at present is a regular contributor to Swans Commentary. His work has been published by the following media organizations: Ceasefire Magazine, Corporate Watch (UK), Countercurrents, CounterPunch, Dissident Voice, Fifth Estate Online, Green Left Weekly, Jacobin, Media-ocracy, Monthly Review Zine, New Community Quarterly, New Left Project, One Struggle, PULSE Media, Spinwatch, Socialist Project, State of Nature, Upside Down World, Variant, and in the past I was a regular contributor to Znet. (“Co-opting the Green Movement”—8/1/2010 http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/article_comments/coopting_greens_the_environmental_foundations_of_capitalism) “American environmentalism emerged in the context of the most rapid economic expansion in history and matured in the technological culture that capitalism had spawned. To the extent that it has been a response to technology itself, American environmentalism has been shaped by it. And it has been shaped by capitalism as well.” Mark Dowie, 1995.1 Needless to say, the ‘green’ ideas spewing forth from the world’s leading capitalists are unlikely to bring about any sort of meaningful resolution to the environmental destruction wrought by capitalism. This has not, however, stopped representatives of the world’s most toxic corporations from using their wealth to create well-endowed grantmaking bodies to manage their environmental opposition; a manipulative process that was successfully institutionalized by America’s leading robber barons in the early 20th century through the creation of not-for-profit corporations, otherwise known as philanthropic foundations. Thankfully, prominent environmental historian Mark Dowie has traced the insidious influence of such so-called liberal foundations on popular struggles against the powers that be in two excellent books. The first, Losing Ground: American Environmentalism at the Close of the Twentieth Century (MIT Press, 1996), dealt specifically with the environmental movement, while the second, American Foundations: An Investigative History (MIT Press, 2001), provided an overview of the manipulative nature of elite philanthropoids. While in recent years a number of other writers have scrutinized the problematic relationship between liberal foundations and environmentalism, for example Daniel Faber and Robert Brulle, this article draws upon only Dowie’s work in an attempt to provide a brief introduction to this vitally important but oftneglected subject. For over a century foundation executives have adopted grantmaking practices that ensure they “fund research projects that document social pathologies… perhaps even ameliorate them, all the while protecting corporate capitalism.” It is therefore unsurprising that, in their multitudinous forays into managing “America’s signature social movements - for women’s rights, peace, environment, environmental justice, students, gay liberation, and particularly labor”, one finds that “foundations have generally favored middle-class over lower-class social movements.”2 And rather than helping citizens to work through existing democratic channels, it appears that “ if there is a central motive behind social-movement philanthropy” it is to encourage “concerned citizens to struggle outside the government domain” within a g eneral “rights”-based framework for social change.3 This has the unfortunate effect of deflecting legitimate concerns away from the one democratic body that could arguably resolve these problems, the government. Concerned people are encouraged to seek justice (or simply democracy) in an indirect fashion by working through non-profit organizations that act as a moderating buffer between the citizenry and the government - a problem amplified by the fact that the most powerful and influential non-profits tend not to be run or organized around democratic principles. Yet even with the focus on activism outside of government channels, “most foundation trustees [still] see environmental groups as too adversarial, too confrontational to rank alongside family, neighborhood, church, and palliative charities as legitimate institutions of civil society.” In this way, thousands of grassroots environmental groups tend to be “ignored by most foundations” while a handful of national organizations, which the corporate “media identify as the major players and agenda setters of American environmentalism,” receive the noblesse oblige of the major foundations. As one might expect, most of these “national” groups, like the Sierra Club, the Wilderness Society, the Environmental Defense Fund, the National Wildlife Federation, and the Audubon Society, “carefully avoid challenging the power structures and relationships that have the most profound environmental impacts.”4 Link – Hegemony The modern Globalization is a reaffirmation of labor control techniques, Specifically the American hegemon is a construction of racial division and domination Quijano 2k, (Anibal Quijano, PhD and professor in sociology, “Coloniality of power and Eurocentrism in Latin America”, 7/5/13 SS, http://www.unc.edu/~aescobar/wan/wanquijano.pdf) What is termed globalization is the culmination of a process that began with the constitution of America and colonial/modern Eurocentered capitalism as a new global power. One of the¶ fundamental axes of this model of power is the social classification of the¶ world’s population around the idea of race, a mental construction that expresses the basic experience of colonial domination and pervades the more¶ important dimensions of global power, including its specific rationality:¶ Eurocentrism. The racial axis has a colonial origin and character, but it¶ has proven to be more durable and stable than the colonialism in whose¶ matrix it was established. Therefore, the model of power that is globally¶ hegemonic today presupposes an element of coloniality. In what follows,¶ my primary aim is to open up some of the theoretically necessary questions¶ about the implications of coloniality of power regarding the history of Latin¶ America. America was constituted as the first space/time of a new model of power¶ of global vocation, and both in this way and by it became the first identity of modernity. Two historical processes associated in the production of¶ that space/time converged and established the two fundamental axes of the¶ new model of power. One was the codification of the differences between¶ conquerors and conquered in the idea of “race,” a supposedly different biological structure that placed some in a natural situation of inferiority to¶ the others. The conquistadors assumed this idea as the constitutive, founding element of the relations of domination that the conquest imposed. On this basis, the population of America, and later the world, was classified¶ within the new model of power. The other process was the constitution of a¶ new structure of control of labor and its resources and products. This new¶ structure was an articulation of all historically known previous structures¶ of control of labor, slavery, serfdom, small independent commodity production and reciprocity, together around and upon the basis of capital and¶ the world market. Link - Human Rights ‘Human rights’ subordinate everyone to the only people who count as human, a determination made by global capital. Moufawad-Paul, PhD in Philosophy,13, (Josh, 4/10/13, M-L-M Mayhem!: Marxist-Leninist-Maoist reflections, “Bourgeois Moralism,” http://moufawad-paul.blogspot.com/2013/04/bourgeois-moralism.html, [Accessed 7/4/13], JB). Of course, it is worth recognizing that Marx did tend to philosophically ground the necessity of socialism/communism upon the concept of a specific notion of human commonality. In the introduction to the Grundrisse, for example, he distinguishes his approach from bourgeois political economy by declaring solidarity with the concept of the social rather than individual animal. Elsewhere, both Marx and Engels were wont to speak of socialism as being a humanization (or more properly "rehumanization") of society. And yet, as much as this is important on an abstract theoretical level, it is clear that Marx understood this final "humanization" as something that was only possible outside of a bourgeois humanism that understands the bourgeois concept of "Man" (and here I am intentionally using the gendered concept because it really does speak to the ideology of bourgeois humanism and was not a concept, in my opinion, accidentally chosen by bourgeois utopians) as being universal. And it is precisely this understanding of humanity, which is one thoroughly compromised by a class society which can only speak of humanity according to bourgeois rights, that is behind our "common sense" morality. We are drawn to a vague humanitarian ethics because we glimpse the contradictions of bourgeois morality, because we see the rational kernel behind its platitudes, but we are still caught up in its ideology: we see "rights" violated and we are enraged, we must be equally enraged when "the sanctity of life" of reactionaries are mocked by the victims of said reactionaries. We do not think of the necessities that can sling-shot us past this bourgeois humanism of equal rights. We do not often grasp what it might mean to struggle for a deeper concept of humanization because we cannot recognize that the current ideology of "common humanity", where everyone must be murderously subordinated to the only people who count as human, is actually standing in the way of the re/humanization proclaimed by Marx and Engels. We are troubled by the notion that the expropriators must be expropriated in order for such a moment of commonality to actually exist; we want to believe that this commonality can already be understood and that, in order to be truly moral, we have to equivocate between the rights of the oppressed and the rights of the oppressors… But between equal rights, as Marx pointed out in the first volume of Capital, greater force decides. No risk of turn- the oppressed don’t need moral exhortation to convince them to rise up. Moufawad-Paul PhD in Philosophy,13, (Josh, 4/10/13, M-L-M Mayhem!: Marxist-Leninist-Maoist reflections, “Bourgeois Moralism,” http://moufawad-paul.blogspot.com/2013/04/bourgeois-moralism.html, [Accessed 7/4/13], JB). Obviously I am reaching the point of philosophical obscurantism, if I haven't reached it already, and I apologize if I've been too hasty or opaque. The best way to escape with this descent into conceptual interrogation––a descent, I think it is only fair to argue, into which this bourgeois humanism necessarily leads––is to simply point out something that should be terrifyingly obvious: those who concretely occupy the social positions of exploitation and/or oppression do not care about the shared humanity of their exploiters/oppressors. That is, the agent of revolution has never needed to be convinced of its agency because of some ethical assumption of a "shared humanity" or any of that sentimental moralism that has convinced some of us ("some of us" generally a cipher for economic/social privilege and petty-bourgeois academicism) to question bourgeois morality. If you have nothing left to lose but your chains, and are forced to recognize the class responsible for enforcing these chains, you are not drawn to revolution because of some moralistic argument but because you viscerally recognize the necessity … And this is the moment, if properly understood, where all moralistic arguments about violence––the ethics of revolutionary violence, the death of reactionaries, etc.––are annihilated. Does a revolutionary movement consisting of the most wretched of the earth spend much time contemplating the humanity of those whose Humanity is premised upon this very wretchedness? The question is rather rhetorical because it is extremely doubtful: Fanon, for instance, talks about how the oppressed/exploited masses' "permanent dream" is to tear the oppressor/exploiter from hir pedestal. And in the face of this permanent dream all of us who speak of revolution and socialism will be forced to reassess our politics. The unequal treatment of human rights is rooted in the capitalist model Rimlinger, professor of economics at rice, 83 [Gaston V, fall 1983, Daedalus, “capitalism and human rights” vol 112 No. 4, p. 51-52, accessed 7-5-13, CSO] This essay relates to the crisis of the welfare state to the extent that this crisis is a dramatic manifestation of one of the dilemmas of human rights inherent in capitalism under mass democracies. It is a dilemma that derives from a conflict in human rights which is deeply embedded in the history of capitalism and modern mass democracy, the conflict between private property rights and social rights. In spite of the conflict, both kinds of rights have contributed in major ways to the historic success of capitalism as an economic system and as a civilization. Private property rights protect the freedom of the individual to dispose of his property and his labor. Property rights are part of the civil rights that are essential to individual freedom, and in the form of the freedom of contract, they constitute the governing principle of a free market economy . Social rights, on the other hand, entitle the individual to some share of the social product based on membership in the community rather than on property or labor! To be a genuine social right, however, such an entitlement has to be effectively protected by custom or statute and be subject to due process. It cannot be a gift bestowed upon the individual by a benevolent or calculating dictatorial power that may cancel or alter the entitlement any time it suits its purpose. Social rights may be guaranteed by the strength of tradition, but in a modern setting, they normally presuppose mass democratic forces, though not necessarily democratic institutions. In a capitalist economy, social rights represent an inevitable curtailment of property rights and, by logical extension, of individual freedom. This has always been the message of classical liberalism. Classical economists since Adam Smith have argued that, in addition to reducing individual freedom, infringements of property rights tend to reduce economic effort, initiative, efficiency, willingness to take risks, and, ultimately, national prosperity. This is the central message of Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom; and of the other critics of the welfare state. The market in the status quo empirically exploits humans’ rights Flere, writer for the monthly review, 01 [sergej, January 2001, Issue 08 Volume 52, Monthly Review, “Human rights and the Ideology of Capitalist globalization,http://monthlyreview.org/2001/01/01/human-rights-and-theideology-of-capitalist-globalization, accessed 7-5-13, CSO] The concept of human rights, and the national and international legal instruments that protect them, are not without potential for the improvement of the human condition. But human rights as a legal instrument are implemented and realized within certain finite, social, economic, and cultural circumstances that determine the conditions of their meaning for human dignity. Absent successful struggle to change those conditions for the better, human rights talk is but cruel mockery. Public property may lead to one distortion in the realization of human rights, primarily if it leads to bureaucratization and its evils. On the other hand, huge disparities and inequalities of a social nature in private property represent a fundamental limitation in the achievement and use of human rights (not to speak of human dignity). It may even represent a denial of the existence and use of human rights. Therefore, the idea of individual and collective human rights is a limited one at best. On inspection, it proves no better than any other ideological instrument, in spite of the rich international and domestic legal protection mechanisms it extends. The existing domestic and international instruments of legal protection of human rights may have little to offer to those thrown to the wolves in the arena of market exploitation, where full employment is becoming ever more rare and welfare protection measures are being dismantled. It is necessary to draw attention to double standards in the application and enforcement of human rights and to the fact that these double standards are not accidental, but part and parcel of ideological discourse. Capitalism controls the direction of human rights Douszinas, Professor of Law and Director of the Birkbeck Institute, 13 [Costas, 5-23-13, Critical Legal Thinking, “seven theses on human rights: (3) Neoliberal Capitalism and Voluntary Imperialism”, http://criticallegalthinking.com/2013/05/23/seven-theses-on-human-rights-3neoliberal-capitalism-voluntary-imperialism/, accessed 7-5-13, CSO] Similarly, human rights and their dissemination are not simply the result of the liberal or charitable disposition of the West. The predominantly negative meaning of freedom as the absence of external constraints — a euphemism for keeping state regulation of the economy at a minimum – has dominated the Western conception of human rights and turned them into the perfect companion of neoliberalism. Global moral and civic rules are the necessary companion of the globalization of economic production and consumption, of the completion of world capitalism that follows neoliberal dogmas. Over the last 30 years, we have witnessed, without much comment, the creation of global legal rules regulating the world capitalist economy, including rules on investment, trade, aid, and intellectual property. Robert Cooper has called it the voluntary imperialism of the global economy. “It is operated by an international consortium of financial Institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank … These institutions … make demands, which increasingly emphasise good governance. If states wish to benefit, they must open themselves up to the interference of international organisations and foreign states.” Cooper concludes that “what is needed then is a new kind of imperialism, one acceptable to a world of human rights and cosmopolitan values.”2 The (implicit) promise to the developing world is that the violent or voluntary adoption of the marketled, neoliberal model of good governance and limited rights will inexorably lead to Western economic standards. This is fraudulent. Historically, the Western ability to turn the protection of formal rights into a limited guarantee of material, economic, and social rights was partly based on huge transfers from the colonies to the metropolis. While universal morality militates in favour of reverse flows, Western policies on development aid and Third World debt indicate that this is not politically feasible. Indeed, the successive crises and re-arrangements of neoliberal capitalism lead to dispossession and displacement of family farming by agribusiness, to forced migration and urbanization. These processes expand the number of people without skills, status, or the basics for existence. They become human debris, the waste-life, the bottom billions. This neo-colonial attitude has now been extended from the periphery to the European core. Greece, Portugal, Ireland, and Spain have been subjected to the rigours of the neoliberal “Washington Consensus” of austerity and destruction of the welfare state, despite its failure in the developing world. More than half the young people of Spain and Greece are permanently unemployed and a whole generation is being destroyed. But this gene-cide, to coin a term, has not generated a human rights campaign. Link - Natives The governments protect and guard capitalism – military and police domination are utilized in every way possible to put down nonviolent challenges to the capitalist system Martin 01 (Brian, professor at the University of Wollongong, 2001, “Nonviolence versus capitalism”, http://www.bmartin.cc/pubs/01nvc/nvc03.html) From the point of view of nonviolence, a crucial feature of capitalism is its links with systems of violence, notably the military and police. For some capitalist countries, which are run as repressive states, this connection is obvious. But for capitalist countries with representative governments, the connections between the military, police and capitalist social relations are less overt. For most of the time, overt state violence is not required to defend capitalism, since most people go along with the way things are. If the challenge to capitalism is violent, such as by a revolutionary party that uses bombings or assaults, then police and military forces are used to crush the challengers. But sometimes there are serious nonviolent challenges, especially when workers organise. Troops are typically called out when workers in a key sector (such as electricity or transport) go on strike, when workers take over running of a factory or business, or when there is a general strike. Spy agencies monitor and disrupt groups and movements that might be a threat to business or government. Police target groups that challenge property relations, such as workers and environmentalists taking direct action. At the core of capitalism is private property.[11] Military and police power is needed to maintain and extend the system of ownership, but this is hidden behind the routine operation of the legal and regulatory system, which is seldom perceived as founded on violence. If a person or corporation believes that their money or property has been taken illegally -- for example through insider trading or patent violation -- they can go to court to seek redress. The court decision, if not obeyed voluntarily, can be enforced by police, for example confiscation of goods or even imprisonment. For most of the time, property rights, as interpreted by the courts and various other government agencies, are accepted by everyone concerned. That goes for billion-dollar share transactions as well as everyday purchases of goods. Petty theft, bigtime swindles and organised crime are not major challenges to the property system, since they accept the legitimacy of property and are simply attempts to change ownership in an illegal manner. Criminals are seldom happy for anyone to steal from them. Principled challenges to property, such as squatting and workers' control, are far more threatening. Many people, especially in the United States, believe that government and corporations are antagonistic, with opposite goals. When governments set up regulations to control product quality or pollution, some corporate leaders complain loudly about government interference. But beyond the superficial frictions, at a deeper level the state operates to provide the conditions for capitalism. The state has its own interests, to be sure, especially in maintaining state authority and a monopoly on what it considers legitimate violence, but it depends on capitalist enterprises for its own survival, notably through taxation. In capitalist societies, states and market economies depend on and mutually reinforce each other.[12] In recent decades there has been an enormous expansion of private policing. In the US, for example, there are now more security guards, private detectives and others privately paid to carry out policing duties than there are government-funded police. In the military arena, there are now private mercenary capitalism is built on relationships between people, production and distribution ultimately protected by armed force. As capitalism is increasingly globalised, international policing and military intervention become more important to protect and expand markets and market relationships. For example, economic blockades, backed by armed force, can be imposed on countries such as Cuba. Usually, though, the lure of the market for elites in weaker countries is more effective than military coercion.[13] Investment has done more to promote capitalism in Vietnam than decades of anticommunist warfare. Simply constructing a laundry list of atrocities, or morally condemning US policies misses the point— the universal “we should” assumes we actually have a voice in the formation of policy, and misidentifies the enemy. Herod 2001 (James, “A Stake, Not a Mistake: On Not Seeing the Enemy”, October, http://www.jamesherod.info/index.php?sec=paper&id=9&print=y&PHPSESSID=4387a9147ad42723ea101944dd538914) The widespread belief that the US government has good intentions, a belief held onto tenaciously in spite of decades of overwhelming empirical evidence refuting it, has got to be one of the greatest phenomena of mass delusion in history . It would take a twenty-first century Freud to unravel this one. Here is a government that has already bombed two other countries to smithereens just in the past ten years, first Iraq and then Yugoslavia (not to mention endless interventions abroad since its inception [7]). Now it is bombing Afghanistan to smithereens -- hospitals, fuel supplies, food depots, electrical systems, water systems, radio stations, telephone exchanges, remote villages, mosques, old folks homes, UN offices, Red Cross warehouses, clinics, schools, neighborhoods, roads, dams, airports -- and a victim of the assault escapes to plead for help from the very people who are attacking him. To have created such an illusion as this is surely one of the greatest feats of propaganda ever seen.[8] So although it is important to try to shatter this illusion, it is ultimately not enough, and of very limited effectiveness, simply to list all the atrocities committed by our rulers, carefully expose all their double standards, accuse them of being the real terrorists, morally condemn what they are doing, or call for peace . All these arguments are useful of course in the battle for the hearts and minds of average people, if average people ever heard them , which they do not, for the most part. And if they do hear them, it's like they (most of them) are tuning in to madness, they're so brainwashed. It takes a lot more than mere arguments to break through the mind set of a thoroughly indoctrinated people. Of all the dozens of comments that I read on the government's response to the attacks of September Eleven, precious few raised the key question: How do we stop them (the government, from attacking Afghanistan)? For the most part, progressive commentators don't even raise questions of strategy.[9] They are too busy analyzing ruling class ideology, in order to highlight its hypocrisies. Proving that the ruling class is hypocritical doesn't get us very far. It's useful of course. Doing this work is an important task. Noam Chomsky, for example, devotes himself almost exclusively to this task, and we should be thankful that we have his research. He usually does mention also, somewhere in almost every speech, article, or interview, that 'it doesn't have to be this way', that this situation we are in is not inevitable, and that we can change it. But when asked "How?", he replies, "Organize, agitate, educate." Well, sure. But the Christian Coalition organizes, agitates, and educates. So did the Nazis and the Klu Klux Klan. The Taliban organizes, agitates, and educates. So does the ruling class, and it does so in a massive and highly successful way, which results in overwhelming hegemony for its point of view. In spite of more than three decades of blistering exposés of US foreign policy, and in spite of the fact that he is an anarchist, and is thus supposedly against all government, at least in the long run, Chomsky still regularly uses the 'universal we'. Much of the time Chomsky says "The US government does this, or does that," but some of the time he says "We do this, or we do that," thus including himself, and us, as agents in the formation and execution of US foreign policy. This is an instance of what I call the 'universal we'. It presumes a democracy that does not exist. The average American has no say whatsoever in the formation and execution of US foreign policy. Nor do we even have any influence in picking the people who are making it, since we have no say over who gets to run for office or what they do after they are elected. So to say something like "we shouldn't be bombing Afghanistan" , as so many progressives do, is highly misleading, and expresses a misperception and misdiagnosis of the situation we are in. In the question period following Chomsky's major address on "The New War Against Terror" (delivered at MIT on October 18) [10], Chomsky was challenged by a man in the audience who accused Chomsky of blaming America for the tragedy of September 11. Chomsky correctly said that the term America is an abstraction and cannot do anything. But then he said that he blamed himself, and his questioner, and others present, for this event (implying that 'we' are responsible for what 'our' government does). This is a half-truth at best. The blame for September Eleven rests squarely on those who did it. Next, to the extent that a connection can be proved between their actions and US foreign policy, the US government is to blame, and the ruling class that controls the government. Average Americans are to blame for what the US government does only in the sense that they have not managed to change or block its policies, either because they haven't tried or because they have tried but have failed. Of course, the category of Average American is an abstraction as well. Many average Americans vigorously support US foreign policy. Others oppose it, but have failed to change it. Those of us who want a real democracy, and want to put an end to Empire, have so far failed to do so, and only in this sense are we in anyway responsible for September Eleven. But even this failure must be judged in light of the relative strengths that the parties bring to the fight. We cannot fault ourselves for being defeated by an opponent with overwhelmingly superior forces, as long as we fought as bravely and as hard as we could. Our task is to find ways to enhance our strengths and weaken theirs. To fail to make a distinction between the ruling class and the rest of us hinders this task, causes us to presume a democracy that does not exist, to misunderstand exactly what we are up against, and to misidentify the enemy. It thus prevents us from devising a successful strategy for defeating this enemy. Even if it is not directly identified with it, the state acts as the key catalyst to capitalism – it manages, consolidates, and protects it with any means necessary Harman 06 (Chris, editor of International Socialism Journal and, before that, of Socialist Worker, and a leading figure in the Socialist Workers Party, September 26th, 2006, “The state and capitalism today”, http://www.isj.org.uk/?id=234) The state may be a structure that developed historically to provide the political prerequisites for capitalist production—to protect capitalist property, to police the dealings of different members of the ruling class with each other, to provide certain services which are essential for the reproduction of the system, and to carry through such reforms as are necessary to make other sections of society accept capitalist rule—but it is not to be identified with the system itself. This view of the state claims to be based on the Communist Manifesto: ‘The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.’ But its origins do not lie in Marx himself so much as in the classical economists who preceded him: in the Communist Manifesto Marx simply takes their insistence on the need for a minimalist, ‘nightwatchman’ state and draws out its class character. Nevertheless it is the view that is to be found in most modern academic Marxism. So, for instance, it was to be found on both sides of the debate which took place in New Left Review between Ralph Miliband and Nicos Poulantzas.2 Miliband argued what has been called the ‘instrumental’ view of the state: it was tied to the capitalist class because its leading personnel came from the same milieu as the owners of private capital.3 Poulantzas argued that this was to see a merely contingent relationship between the state and capitalism, to see the state’s character as depending simply on who manned its top structures. He argued what has been called the ‘functional’ view: the state has to fulfil the needs of the society of which it is part; since this is a capitalist society it is necessarily a capitalist state. The state is, as Poulantzas puts it, ‘a condensate of class forces’, and the forces it ‘condenses’ are capitalist forces. Link - Natural Resources Capitalism leads to economic degradation and the exploitation of natural resources MacLeod, Legal and Social Theorist at the University of Oxford, no date (Jason, JDM, “Marx, Capitalism, Globalization, and Climate Change: Revolutionary Ideas For Climate Mitigation”, Changehttp://www.jasondmacle od.com/marx-capitalism-globalization-climate-change-revolutionary-ideasclimate-change-mitigation/, 7/2/2013) GM. The Industrial Revolution, the introduction of neoliberal economic ideology, and the capitalist notion of maximizing efficiency and production, have subjugated the environment to the limitless growth potential of capitalism. The arrival of free or near-free market resources, in tandem with globalization and cheap labor, produced a cycle of exploitation, thereby allowing industry to abandon the resource exploited sites to move on to other more efficient and exploitable sites without regarding long-term environmental effects. Professor Kütting from the State University of New York concluded, “this liberalization and its supporting institutional framework have led to a new form of ecological imperialism that subjugates resource extraction and production to market ideology.”[1] Capitalism’s infinite potential for growth is incompatible with the finite natural resources available. The current ideology degrades environmental health as corporations fail to internalize the cost of environmental protection. A recent study commissioned by the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment, concluded that in 2008, “the top 3,000 companies had an environmental impact of $2.2 trillion dollars…the estimated annual environmental costs from global human activity equat[es] to 11% of global GDP or $6.6 trillion.”[2] They projected the cost to be $28 trillion by 2050 (excluding the costs of invaluable ecosystem services, pollution and waste).[3] In the report, “impact” is a euphemism for environmental degradation. This process is accumulation by dispossession, the exploitation of a resource without appropriate reimbursement. The ultimate outcome of market growth and environmental exploitation is climate change. Global society’s recreation of this relationship is essential to safeguard natural resources for future generations. The nature of capitalism and its agents is that they operate(s) in a short time horizon – profits cannot be guaranteed in the future and capitalists want to receive their profit in the moment. This profit maximization, in the moment, will lead to faster and faster depletion of non-renewable energy and resources. Marx noted how this short time horizon exhausts resources –¶ Anticipation of the future—real anticipation—occurs in the production of wealth in relation to the worker and to the land. The future can indeed be anticipated and ruined in both cases by premature overexertion and exhaustion, and by the disturbance of the balance between expenditure and income. In capitalist production this happens to both the worker and the land…What is shortened here exists as power and the life span of this power is shortened as a result of accelerated expenditure.[4]¶ ¶ The unprecedented growth of advanced capitalist nations, post industrial revolution, and the current growth rate of developing countries expends vast natural capital, much of it non-renewable. A Few Centuries of Capitalist Development causes the exploitation of natural resources, especially water Liodakis, Professor of Political Economy at the Technical University of Crete, 10 (George, 8/18/10, Greece, “Political Economy, Capitalism, and Sustainable Development”, Sustainability, 7/3/13) GM. Coming now to a more detailed explanation of this increasing ecological rift, we might stress that, under capitalism, an increase in labour productivity is essentially tantamount to a reduction in the amount of abstract socially necessary labour required for the production of any particular commodity (including labour power itself), which is a condition for an increased extraction and appropriation of surplus value [19]. This, as I have noted, is the dominant goal of capitalism, and hence all increases in the productivity of labour should serve this goal. Under this context, an increasing productivity of labour does not imply a process economizing on labour or any other productive resources. On the contrary, insofar as capital can proceed with a free appropriation of nature “as a gift to capital”, there will be a permanent bias towards developing a labour-saving technology, but this technology is conducive to a maximum throughput of natural resources and energy, which further implies a rapidly increasing depletion of natural resources and an increasing pollution contributing to a systemic environmental degradation. A labour-saving technology, therefore, and a rising productivity of labour do not necessarily imply an increasing social and ecological efficiency, but rather an increasing potential for material and energy throughput, with an enhanced ecologically damaging impact. What is more, even a resource-saving technological innovation cannot have, under capitalism, an environmentally protective impact insofar as it will, most likely, imply lower commodity prices and hence an increasing market demand, which will result in an increased (rather than decreased) extraction of the natural resource concerned. This implication is clearly related with the so-called Jevon‟s Paradox [10,14,18]. Economic efficiency, at a societal level, is not simply a technical issue (a matter of input/output relation) and should not be understood, in general, as market (capitalist) efficiency. In fact it is largely determined, not only by the dominant goals of production, but also by the prevailing social relations and the scale of production, as well as relations of distribution and property regimes. Apart from other reasons, it should be noted that, insofar as negative externalities (cost shifting) are not taken into account and positive externalities a maximum social efficiency goal cannot be achieved under capitalism, and this has clear and significant ecological implications [14,16,18,23]. This would also largely apply within a context of “market socialism”, but on this issue we will return below. It should further be stressed that the expropriation and privatization of common property under contemporary capitalism has increased class tensions, economic inequality and environmental degradation, while maldistribution and inequality undermine economic efficiency and the sustainability of production [16,17,30-32]. On the other hand, a large number of studies have recently questioned the assumed efficiency of private property and pointed out a remarkably efficient allocation and utilization of resources in some traditional or alternative property regimes, such as common property or open access regimes, which partly explains the long run sustainability of these regimes [18,3134]. Despite this evidence, the rapid privatization and commodification of natural resources within the context of the current neoliberal and rapidly globalizing capitalism, along with the commodification of scientific research and technological innovation, tend to a detrimental and multifaceted ecological impact [35]. Among other forms of this ecological degradation, one might stress the are insufficiently utilized due to the fragmented and (individually) antagonistic character of capitalist production, rapid loss of biological diversity and the recent dramatic climate changes, as having far-reaching both ecological and economic While this ecological degradation may imply an upward push of the regulating cost of production without immediately putting absolute barrier to the reproduction of capital, this process cannot continue without ultimately causing crucial and perhaps insurmountable economic and environmental problems. Here, of course, we need to take into account the possibility of extending nature, of producing a “second nature” or alternative natures, which may have important implications for the sustainability of capitalism. There is an extensive research concerning this implications. production of a “second nature” or alternative natures and their socioeconomic and ecological implications [29,36-38]. As E. Swyngedouw points out: “While one sort of sustainability seems to be predicated upon feverishly developing new natures ... forcing nature to act in a way we deem sustainable or socially necessary, the other type is predicated upon limiting or redressing our intervention in nature, returning it to a presumably more benign condition so that human and non-human sustainability in the medium and long term can be assured. Despite the apparent contradictions of these two ways of „becoming sustainable‟ (one predicated upon preserving nature‟s status quo, the other predicated upon producing new natures), they share the same basic vision that technonatural and sociometabolic interactions are urgently needed if we wish to secure the survival of the planet and much of what it contains” [39]. Although the possibility of producing new nature may extent the potential terrain of capitalist accumulation, and this may have important implication for an epoch characterized by a tendency towards a universal subsumption of nature under capital, it must be stressed that it does not imply that capitalism could ever escape all natural constraints. It is a Neo-Malthusian approaches to the environmental problem, by assuming a finite availability of natural resources, have tended to overstress natural limits, presenting them usually in a naturalistic and absolute manner, while blaming overpopulation as the main source of environmental degradation and crisis [4,6]. On the other hand, Marx and contemporary Marxists, without ignoring natural and biological rather limited and consequential potential [40]. Distinct from this potential of producing new nature, limits, conceive that social (organizational) or technological factors may, occasionally, relax or defer such limits. Reflecting on Marx‟s view, P. Burkett points out that, “with its exploitative scientific development of productive forces, its intendency to reproduce itself upon a constantly increasing scale, and the attendant extension of production’s natural limits to the global, biospheric level, capitalism is the first society capable of a(n) truly planetary environmental catastrophe, one that could ultimately threaten even capital‟s own material requirements” [23]. As I have argued, referring to a particular example, “The increasing water scarcity, the declining quality of water, and the inequitable pattern of its use across countries and in each particular country, along with a green-house warming that increasingly dries up mother earth, are not of course the result of some natural evolution, nor mainly the result of overpopulation, but rather an outcome of a few centuries of capitalist development and a particularly rapid economic growth built during the last half of the twentieth century” [14]. In this case, as also in the case of energy, neo-Malthusian approaches are misleading insofar as they naturalize external limits (emphasizing natural scarcity), while largely ignoring the potentially important impact of drastic technological and organizational changes on both the supply and the demand side. On the latter side, quantitative and qualitative developments in social needs may be more the result of changes in technology and social organization, than the result of any population growth. But more importantly, neo-Malthusian approaches are misleading because they erroneously divorce the allocation of resources from the scale of production and, taking at face value the presumable allocative efficiency of the market mechanism, end up stressing a fixed scale of production and hence a steady-state model as a necessary condition for the sustainability of capitalism [41]. As R. Smith has plausibly argued, however, economic growth (and growthmania) is an inherent tendency of the market system and capitalism, and therefore a sustainability of capitalism through a steady- state adjustment is impossible [42]. It becomes rather clear from the preceding analysis and an increasing number of studies that capitalism, as a specific mode of production, tends to undermine the most basic conditions of ecological sustainability, jeopardizing thus the survival of human beings and of the capitalist system itself [14,15,43,44]. It would be rather misleading, however, to consider ecological sustainability separately from the conditions of economic and social sustainability of capitalism. Although this is not the place to expand on the deeper causes of the currently evolving and aggravated economic crisis, which tends to directly and indirectly undermine the conditions of economic and take into account the fundamental role of the law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall [28], lying behind the overaccumulation crisis of the early 1970s which continues, with some fluctuations, until the currently aggravated worldwide recession. This crisis, through a variety of processes and mechanisms, has fuelled the exacerbation of ecological crisis in various forms. Among these processes, we might consider the intensification of capitalist competition, the increasing externalities (cost-shifting), and the over-exhaustive exploitation of both labour power and natural resources. At the same time, there is an equally important dialectical feedback of the exacerbated ecological crisis on social sustainability of capitalism, we should briefly the further aggravation of economic and social crisis. At this point it may be pertinent to briefly address the “dematerialization” hypothesis as it might possibly have significant implications for both ecological crisis (reduction of materials and energy use) and the economic crisis caused by a rising organic composition of capital, namely the relation between constant to variable capital (C/V), and falling profits rates (as noted above). According to this hypothesis, the increasing information and knowledge content of production in modern capitalism, along with a relative expansion of the sector of services and a more energy-efficient technology imply a significant reduction in the material requirements of production. There are good reasons however, to argue that this “dematerialization” has not any significant real dimensions [45,46]. More importantly, I would further argue that this presumable “dematerialization” trend cannot have a significant impact on the material requirements of production, negating the tendency towards a rising composition of capital. The capitalist imperatives behind this rising organic composition of capital relate to three any process of production in capitalism encompasses a use-value production and a valorization process, and labour has necessarily to be materialized through the use and transformation of energy and natural resources. Secondly, competition implies the need of an incessant mechanization and automation drive aiming at an increased labour productivity. Thirdly, the capitalist need to discipline and exploit labour in production can again be met by interrelated processes. In the first place, an increasing mechanization. This increasing mechanization requires increased energy and resource use and implies further a potentially maximum throughput of material resources with a minimum labour power. It follows, therefore, that these necessities cannot be significantly changed by any “dematerialization” trend, and hence it cannot have any significant ameliorating impact of economic and ecological crisis. Capital, of course, deploys all sorts of strategies and methods to stave off or ameliorate crisis, and popular pressure may also have some effect in limiting the implications of economic and ecological crisis. Despite this pressure and all attempts or policies aiming at an ecological adjustment, however, it is rather impossible to adequately tackle the ecological problem within the context of the currently prevailing capitalist relations of production [10,14,18,21]. Corporate America continues to consume natural resources- Lead to more environmental problems Heimonen, Computer Software and a think tank blogger, 04, (Mark, 7/25/2004, Group Think, “Capitalism, Exploitation, and OverConsumption”,http://markheimonen.blogspot.com/2004/07/capitalismexploitation-and-over.html/ 7/4/13) GM. There are no more needs in our society, yet corporations have convinced Americans to continually desire and upgrade the newest, greatest fads, while disposing of perfectly good products that are no longer in style. We produce more food, housing, and other goods than we need, yet we continue to feel pressure to work hard to keep our jobs, all in the name of profitability. We have turned into a disposable nation, where it is cheaper to buy a new printer or monitor, than it is to have it repaired. One only needs to watch the recent documentary, Super Size Me, to recognize that we have become an over-indulgent nation. We continue to consume vast quantities of our natural resources, with literal regard for environmental concerns. Here is but a small sample of the issues we face: Ozone Layer Depletion, Greenhouse Effect, Deforestation, Over-harvesting of fish, Overflowing landfill sites, Toxic waste dumping, nuclear waste sites, Over-consumption of non-renewable resources. ¶ In the capitalist system, there are no checks in place to ensure that corporations function in an environmentally responsible manner. Each individual and company is motivated to keep up with the mechanisms of the giant profit-driven corporate machine. The United States is currently waging war, all in the name of keeping prices of gas and oil as low as possible (Even as they refuse to publicly say so) The fact is, the Bush campaign has lied through their teeth, and have failed to come up with a single plausible explanation for the war. One multinational company, Halliburton, is going to profit more from the Iraqi war than any other. This company, formerly headed by vice president Dick Cheney, was awarded hundreds of millions of dollars in no-bid contracts by the United States government. In 1999-2000, Halliburton gave $709,320 in political contributions, of which 95% went to the Republicans. At the same time, Halliburton’s Subsidiary, kellog Brown and Root (KBR), is under now under scrutiny for illegally operating in Iran, and wasting tremendous amounts of money. Corporate America is in bed with the United government, and for these reasons, the government cannot be relied upon to hold these companies accountable. States Nature is limited- Must save resources for future resources Kikkawa, 11, (Khan, 4/2011, Wesleyan University, “Sustainable Capitalism Under Lockean Ethics”, http://wesscholar.wesleyan.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1 771&context=etd_hon_theses&seiredir=1&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Furl%3Fsa%3Dt%26rct%3Dj%26q%3Dcapit alism%2520and%2520over%2520consumption%2520and%2520resources%26source%3Dweb%26cd%3D9%26ved%3D0CHAQFjAI%2 6url%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwesscholar.wesleyan.edu%252Fcgi%252Fviewcontent.cgi%253Farticle%253D1771%2526context%2 53Detd_hon_theses%26ei%3DtZncUYLcKH8iwKr1oCgCw%26usg%3DAFQjCNE_B4ViKgaxot9BCCD0wgSYhm5gDA%26sig2%3DIGdDml ByU5nRVK20mVIkaA%26bvm%3Dbv.48705608%2Cd.cGE#search=%22capitalism%20over%20consumption%20resources%22, . 7/9/13) GM Humanity has struggled to remedy the conflict between environmental sustainability and capitalism since the privatization of resources and overconsumption of resources creating a shortage of natural resources. Due to improper market pricing, capitalism undervalues natural resources which discourages entrepreneurs from investing in technology to improve the yield of natural resources or to limit their consumption of natural resources. The positive externalities of natural resources are unaccounted for in modern capitalism, creating a shortage in natural resources. Since the production of natural resources is limited by Nature’s capacity to reproduce, the current capitalist framework promotes a permanent shortage of natural resources where the demand for natural goods is always in excess to the supply of goods obtainable.¶ Unlike other producers, Nature is a limited producer in that its ability to reproduce goods available in the commons for all individuals to access is dependent on the natural resources that remain in the common. Natural goods are both the final product as well as the initial input where a certain quantity of the resources needs to remain in Nature untouched by mankind so those resources can reproduce to increase the quantity of that resource for future populations. Given that humanity’s goal is to exist in the long run, it is in the best interest for humanity to regulate their consumption levels and to appropriate resources to meet their own needs while maintaining a base level of supply in Nature so that future generations can enjoy the same resources as our current generation. ¶ Unfortunately, modern environmental philosophy is divided on how to define “sustainability,” let alone the method with which society can hope to achieve a sustainable society. Modern environmental philosophy is currently debating between basic definitions given the feasibility on how sustainability can be assessed. Modern definitions are torn between “weak” sustainability and “strong” sustainability, the difference between definitions contingent on the substitutability of resources and the mechanisms available to society to value those resources in question. Economists strongly defend weak sustainability, arguing that resources can be substituted with other resources and that weak sustainability is the only feasible definition society can adopt to maintain a capitalist society that encourages innovation and entrepreneurship to promote growth while being “sustainable.” Environmentalists advocate strong sustainability however, arguing that natural resources possess various functions that cannot be substituted by manufactured goods that only possess single functions. Due to differences in the value of natural resources as well as the practicality of measuring sustainability, advocates for both are divided by definitions of sustainability. Capitalism exploits natural and human resources- Root cause of environmental problems MIM, Movement Group, 96, (Maoist Internationalist Movement, 3/1996, Prison Censorship, “On Capitalism and the Environment”, http://www.prisoncensorshi p.info/archive/etext/mt/mt12capenv.html, 7/4/13) GM. The root cause of environmental problems is capitalism, the private ownership of the means of production by a relative handful of people. This essence of capitalism is one reason why capitalism creates environmental problems: while the majority of the world's people have a material interest in maintaining a healthy planet, the small capitalist ruling class is not accountable to this majority, except in the indirect sense that the ruling class seeks to co-opt the demands of the majority in order to maintain the capitalist system. A second reason why capitalism creates environmental problems is that although the world's resources are controlled by a relative handful of people, planning is not centralized under capitalism. Instead, production is anarchic; it is centered around making profits, not around meeting basic human needs in the short or long runs. Much of what is produced by the capitalist system is unnecessary and wasteful, and the system is not fundamentally capable of incorporating long-term human survival as a need. Finally, the capitalist system does not distribute resources equitably. many people do not have adequate resources for survival. Many environmental problems stem from this root problem. Furthermore, capitalism is not static. It has changed since Marx's day. Today, it has developed to its highest stage: imperialism.(1) Under imperialism, the capitalists carve and recarve the world. The unequal distribution of resources takes on a distinctly national flavor, with a division of the world into imperialist countries on the one hand and colonies and neocolonies on the other hand. Imperialism exploits both the natural and the human resources of its colonies and neocolonies. Under capitalism, Link - Oil Oil policies and attempts to secure oil have historically been about control and propping up American capitalism. North 2003 (David, the national chairman of the Socialist Equality Party in the United States (SEP), “The crisis of American capitalism and the war against Iraq”, March 21st 2003, http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/03/19/iraq-m19.html, accessed 7/11/13, JK) 3. That the United States is the instigator of this war is beyond question. The principal objective of the war is to seize control of Iraq’s oil resources. All efforts to deny the central role of oil in the American drive to conquer Iraq reek of dishonesty and cynicism. No other natural resources have played such a central role in the political and economic calculations of American imperialism over the last century as oil and natural gas. Involved in this central preoccupation is not only the profits of Americanowned oil conglomerates—though this is by no means an insignificant concern. American industry, the stability of America’s financial-monetary structure and its dominant world position are all dependent upon unimpeded access to, and control of, the vast oil resources of the Persian Gulf and, more recently, the Caspian Basin.¶ The history of American foreign policy and military strategy over the last three decades can be studied, from a purely economic standpoint, as a response to the “oil shock” of 1973, when the oil embargo declared by leading Arab oil producers in response to the Arab-Israeli War of that year led to a quadrupling of petroleum prices—a development that staggered the American and world capitalist economy. The second oil shock in the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution in 1979 led to the proclamation of the Carter Doctrine, which declared unimpeded access to the Persian Gulf to be a major strategic concern of the United States. This set the stage for the massive buildup of US military forces that has proceeded without interruption for the last 23 years.¶ The world position of the United States as the principal imperialist power depends not only on preserving its own unimpeded access to oil, but also on its ability to determine how much of this diminishing natural resource is available to other countries—especially to present-day or potential rivals. The approach the United States has taken to this international geo-political aspect of oil as a critical resource has been profoundly affected by the most significant political event of the last quarter of the twentieth century—the dissolution of the USSR.¶ The collapse of the Soviet Union was interpreted by the American ruling elite as an opportunity to implement a sweeping imperialist agenda that had been impossible in the aftermath of World War II and during nearly a half-century of Cold War. Proclaiming the arrival of a “unipolar moment,” the United States set out to prevent, as a principal strategic objective, the emergence of another power—whether a newly-unified Europe, Japan, or, potentially, China—that might challenge its dominant international position. Aware of the significant decline in the position of the United States in the world economy, the strategists of American imperialism came to see its overwhelming military power as the principal means by which the United States could effect a fundamental reordering of the world in its own interests. Within this context, the use of military power to establish effective control of oil producing regions and the worldwide distribution of this essential resource was transformed from a strategic idea into a concrete plan of action.¶ EXT: Impacts Capitalism poses a grave threat to future of life on Earth and the only solution is active social transformation through social reform at every level of discourse. Bachtell ’11 [John Bachtell, writer for Political Affairs Magazine. “Three Irresolvable Crises of Capitalism.” Political Affairs Magazine, August 9, 2011. (http://www.politicalaffairs.net/three-irresolvable-crises-of-capitalism/) Date Accessed: July 1, 14. O’B] Among the serious crises facing civilization are three major ones created by modern capitalism that the system is inherently incapable of resolving – the growing wealth gap, the technological displacement of workers and looming environmental catastrophe.¶ A fourth crisis could be termed, the crisis of democracy. The growing wealth gap and the concentration of economic power in fewer hands continuously undermines democracy and democratic institutions. This is best illustrated by the flooding of corporate money into the electoral and legislative process and corruption of the US Supreme Court with the Citizen’s United case.¶ Capitalism is a system of inherent crisis based on the exploitation of labor by capital. It has lurched from one economic crisis to the next throughout its history due to the anarchy of overproduction. Today we are experiencing a different kind of global financial and economic crisis begun in 2007, on the scale of the crises of the Great Depression of the 1930s and the Panic of 1873.¶ But the crises being brought on by the wealth gap (which is also a major factor in the current economic and financial crisis), technological revolution and environmental crisis, are of a different overall magnitude, have reached a new quantitative and qualitative character, pose far reaching disruptive threats to society, and in the case of the environmental crisis, to the very existence of life on planet Earth.¶ These crises are beyond the capacity of capitalism to effectively resolve and reflect the system’s growing instability and its ultimate unsustainability. They represent a crisis for the system itself.¶ The havoc and suffering being wreaked on human kind and the planet by modern capitalism underscore the growing necessity for active social transformation to a sustainable, demilitarized, equitable and democratic economy and society. Such a transformation is necessary for human survival.¶ Transforming society requires a highly mobilized and conscious working class and people, majority movements led by organized labor and it’s allies at every level for democratic reform and socialism, that will “by degrees wrest control” of the direction of social development from the capitalist class.¶ But the most reactionary ruling class sectors of finance, energy and military industrial complex and those they influence politically especially the extremists dominating the Republican Party – represent the immediate danger and generally oppose even minimum reform at every step.¶ For example, the highly monopolized oil and energy industry is the creator and biggest funder of global warming deniers and drive reactionary, warlike tendencies in foreign policy.¶ Without a decisive defeat of reaction and the Tea Party extremists, the path to more fundamental democratic reforms and revolutionary change is not conceivable. ¶ Capitalism has created a destructive “metabolic rift” that will destroy nature, along with mankind. This is where the grassroots movement needs to start. Bachtell ’11 [John Bachtell, writer for Political Affairs Magazine. “Three Irresolvable Crises of Capitalism.” Political Affairs Magazine, August 9, 2011. (http://www.politicalaffairs.net/three-irresolvable-crises-of-capitalism/) Date Accessed: July 1, 14. O’B] Marxism views the contradiction between labor and capital as the main social contradiction; labor is the source of wealth creation which is privately appropriated by capital.¶ But as a growing trend of Marxists are rediscovering, Marx also viewed nature as the source of wealth, having said, “If labor is the father of wealth, nature is the mother.” ¶ This illustrated Marx’s view of the dialectical relationship between Nature and society.¶ “Many lives from nature, i.e. nature is his body and he must maintain a continuing dialogue with it if he is not to die. To say that man’s physical and mental life is linked to nature simply means that nature is linked to itself, for man is a part of nature,” wrote Marx in the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844.¶ Humans interact with nature for their existence and the reproduction of society. Marx referred to this interaction as a “metabolism,” much like any self-regulated, metabolic process in the human body or nature.¶ But he noted there is an inherent destabilizing, destructive antagonism between the capitalist system of production and nature, which has led to a “metabolic rift.” An early expression of this was the revolution in capitalist agriculture and the destructive tendency toward soil exhaustion.¶ I got to thinking further about these contradictions after learning how the city of Chicago is preparing for the consequences of long term climate change through implementation of a far reaching Climate Action Plan.¶ Even if greenhouse gas emissions are curtailed or reversed in the near future, the city’s climate will be like Baton Rouge, Louisiana according to climate experts. It will be wetter in the spring and fall and dryer in the summer. Extreme weather events will increasingly overwhelm the present day infrastructure. The number of 90 degree weather days will skyrocket and heat emergencies will endanger thousands of lives. These things are happening now.¶ Climate change requires many adjustments including planting different tree species, laying permeable paving to absorb the increased runoff, reducing the heat island effect and air conditioning all public buildings including schools. Everything, according to the Climate Action Plan, except shutting down the coal burning generating plants that are spewing greenhouse emissions!¶ Most climatologists recognize these changes are inevitable even if greenhouse gas emission is curbed today. The damage is done and even if we begin to reverse it, it will take many generations to heal the Earth.¶ Globally, the most severe damage and risk to life will be in the ocean coastal areas due to sea level rise and river flood plains in the developing, poorest nations of the world.¶ It will likely require the relocation of large numbers of people from areas that will be underwater, including perhaps parts of Manhattan.¶ Society has to begin implementing plans to anticipate these changes now on a grand scale while fighting to radically curb greenhouse gas emissions Total global costs to adapt to the new conditions and ultimately heal the Earth will be staggering and mean the reallocation of immense national and global resources, much that is either in the coffers of the rich or wasted on such things as military production.¶ Is there a natural limit to the capitalist reproductive forces of society and are we reaching those limits? Can capitalism deal with such problems? Certainly it’s a system constantly revolutionizing the means of production, highly inventive, fluid, flexible, adaptable and resilient. It could continue on for years in crisis and stagnation, especially given the current austerity policies being imposed in an effort to further redistribute wealth upward.¶ And it’s not that the capitalist class isn’t aware of these problems and doesn’t have some answers. Substantial sections are aware, especially of the environmental crisis. Al Gore even speaks of a “sustainable capitalism” and urges immediate action. Some do so on the basis of self interest, seeing their own fortunes at stake. Some even seek to profit off its solution, including through “cap and trade” schemes.¶ But the system as a whole is inherently incapable of reorganizing in a way that will be able to solve theses crises long term. The rivalries and conflicts of interest within the ruling circles make unity on a direction difficult if not impossible, and especially on the scale of action needed.¶ Some sections of the ruling class, gripped by the fever of immediate and maximum profits (especially in the energy industry) are compelled to pursue a death march, blind to the consequences.¶ Propelled by the profit motive, the system must constantly expand in all directions. The tendency is to intensify these contradictions and crises.¶ As the crisis of everyday life deepens, more people are being drawn into struggle to meet their needs and those of their families and communities. Each struggle heightens awareness and unity and helps people to gain a deeper understanding of the “nature of the system.” But it will take mass grassroots democratic movements on a much greater scale than present to win basic social reforms, and to take our country on a different path. Capitalism is the root of social and racial inequality - it perpetuates the wealth gap through poverty and will be the end of society. Bachtell ’11 [John Bachtell, writer for Political Affairs Magazine. “Three Irresolvable Crises of Capitalism.” Political Affairs Magazine, August 9, 2011. (http://www.politicalaffairs.net/three-irresolvable-crises-of-capitalism/) Date Accessed: July 1, 14. O’B] The drive for accumulation of wealth and maximization of profits is an iron clad law of capitalist development, relentlessly compelling the system toward monopolization. ¶ The system has developed from monopolization of the home markets to monopolization of global markets. This has developed to such a degree that most global production and financial sectors are now controlled by 6-8 behemoth transnational corporations.¶ “The share of foreign assets, sales, and employment represented by General Electric’s (GE’s) foreign affiliates rose from 36 percent, 38 percent, and 46 percent, respectively, in 2000, to 50 percent, 53 percent, and 53 percent in 2008—making GE primarily a global, as opposed to U.S., producer."¶ A similar trend developed with Ford, whose sales and employment of foreign affiliates now constitutes 58% and foreign assets 46% of its operation, note John Bellamy Foster, Robert McChesney and Jamil Jonah write in article entitled, The Internationalization of Monopoly Capital.¶ As far back as 1999, the Wall Street Journal noted:¶ In industry after industry the march toward consolidation has seemed inexorable….The world automobile industry is coalescing into six or eight companies. Two U.S. car makers, two Japanese and a few European firms are among the likely survivors.¶ The world’s top semiconductor makers number barely a dozen. Four companies essentially supply all of the worlds recorded music. Ten companies dominate the world’s pharmaceutical industry, and that number is expected to decline through mergers as even these giants fear they are too small to compete across the globe.¶ In the global soft drink business, just three companies matter, and the smallest, Cadbury Schweppes PLC, in January sold part of its international business to Coca-Cola Co., the leader. Just two names run the world market for commercial aviation: Boeing Co. and Airbus Industrie.¶ This development has also led to an increase in global labor solidarity including the beginnings of global trade unions for example in the steel industry.¶ As a consequence of this monopolization, the top one percent of wealthiest US families own half the nation’s wealth. In 2009 they had a net worth 225 times that of the median family net worth, the largest gap in history. In 1960 that gap was 125 times.¶ Since the 1970s wages have stagnated while productivity has soared. This extra surplus value created by this productivity has gone into the pockets of the rich.¶ Meanwhile, 43 million are living in poverty by official estimates, or 14.3 percent of the population. This is one in seven Americans, the highest rate since 1959.¶ Hundreds of billionaires and 10s of millions in poverty go hand in hand. The existence of one depends on the other.¶ The drive for maximization of profit engenders further economic and social inequality based on race and gender. While 9.4 percent of whites are in poverty, 25.3 percent of Latinos and 25.8 percent of African Americans are poor. Communities of color face worse housing, schools, health care, infrastructure, environmental conditions, and access to fresh foods.¶ The growing wealth gap means today's youth will have a bleaker future – a lower standard of living, higher rates of permanent joblessness, part time and temporary work and a lifetime of debt associated with university education. Unemployment rates among African American teens are 90% in some urban areas. There are over 5 million African American youth between 18-24 who are out of school and out of work, which contributes to the "pipeline from school to prison."¶ At one time the US capitalist class needed a large highly educated and trained domestic workforce and a first rate infrastructure. Now with the globalization of production, it’s no longer an essential.¶ “The commitment of major sections of the transnational elite to a people-friendly public sector, a vibrant national economy and a modern society has waned in recent decades,” wrote Sam Webb in a recent article in the People’s World. “In fact, this elite is turning the state into its personal ATM machine and a military juggernaut to enforce its will at home and abroad. It's not an exaggeration to say that this social grouping has become a parasite sucking the life out of our government, economy and society, while living in bubbles of luxury, racial exclusion and class privilege and exploiting labor globally.” ¶ The American Society of Civil Engineers has estimated it will take $2 trillion to modernize and bring up to code the US infrastructure. There is no outcry by large sections of US ruling circles to pour money into domestic development and bolster public education.¶ But austerity is in. Austerity measures are being imposed by global capital to radically cut labor costs, dismantle, diminish, privatize and eliminate government and rob social wealth.¶ This is a stark reality in Greece, Spain and Portugal and in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana and New Jersey. And the Republican right and Tea Party extremists will aggressively carry out such a policy for the entire nation if they win in 2012.¶ Wall Street has recovered from the “Great Recession” and is earning record profits. But this is being called a jobless recovery for workers, with a double dip crisis looming without substantial governmental economic stimulus.¶ Big business economists and mouthpieces of corporate “think tanks” speak of the “new normal”: eight percent unemployment, lower standard of living, less public services and less democracy.¶ The National Jobs for All Coalition estimates the current number of unemployed or underemployed in the US at 28.6 million or 18 percent off the population. In the African American and other communities of color, the unemployment rate is 20 percent. And among African American youth, 90 percent.¶ Without a policy of massive rebuilding of the country funded by a redistribution of wealth, these conditions will persist and worsen. Impact – Ethics The State has a distorting effect on social relations- actively creating and sustaining hierarchical social structures – these inequalities manifest in wage labor, economic disparity and unequal distribution of wealth – This system of capital necessitates such horrific, senseless violence that you’re ethically obligated to reject it. Daly ‘4 (Glyn Daly, senior lecturer in politics in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at University College Northampton, Conversations With Zizek, 2004, pp. 14-16) BSH our ethico-political responsibility is to confront the constitutive violence of today’s global capitalism and its obscene naturalization / anonymization of the millions who are subjugated by it throughout the world. Against the standardized positions of postmodern culture – with all its pieties concerning ‘multiculturalist’ etiquette – Zizek is arguing for a politics that might be called ‘radically incorrect’ in the sense that it break with these types of positions 7 and focuses instead on the very organizing principles of today’s social reality: the principles of global liberal capitalism. This requires some care and subtlety. For far too long, Marxism has For Zizek it is imperative that we cut through this Gordian knot of postmodern protocol and recognize that been bedeviled by an almost fetishistic economism that has tended towards political morbidity. With the likes of Hilferding and Gramsci, and more recently Laclau and Mouffee, crucial theoretical advances have been made that enable the transcendence of all forms of economism. In this new context, however, Zizek argues that the problem that now presents itself is almost that of the opposite fetish. That is to say, the prohibitive anxieties surrounding the taboo of economism can function as a way of not engaging with economic reality and as a way of implicitly accepting the latter as a basic horizon of existence. In an ironic Freudian-Lacanian twist, the fear of economism can end up reinforcing a de facto economic necessity in respect of contemporary capitalism (i.e. the initial prohibition conjures up the very thing it fears). This is not to endorse any kind of retrograde return to economism. Zizek’s point is rather that in rejecting economism we should not lose sight of the systemic power of capital in shaping the lives and destinies of humanity in order to create a universal global system the forces of capitalism seek to conceal the politico-discursive violence of its construction through a kind of gentrification of that system. What is persistently denied by neo-liberals such as Rorty (1989) and Fukuyama (1992) is that the gentrification of global liberal capitalism is one whose ‘universalism’ fundamentally reproduces and depends upon a disavowed violence that excludes vast sectors of the world’s populations. In this way, neo-liberal ideology attempts to naturalize capitalism by presenting its outcomes of winning and losing as if they were simply a matter of chance and sound judgment in a neutral market place. Capitalism does indeed create a space for a certain diversity, at least for the central capitalist regions, but it is neither neutral nor ideal and its price in terms of social exclusion is exorbitant. That is to say, the human cost in terms of inherent global poverty and degraded ‘life-chances’ cannot be calculated within the existing economic rationale and, in consequence, social exclusion remains mystified and nameless (viz. the patronizing reference to the ‘developing world’). And Zizek’s point is that this mystification is magnified through capitalism’s profound capacity to ingest its own excesses and negativity: to redirect (or misdirect) social antagonisms and to absorb them within a culture of differential affirmation. Instead of Bolshevism, the tendency today is towards a kind of political boutiquism that is readily sustained by postmodern forms of consumerism and lifestyle. Against this Zizek argues for a new universalism whose primary ethical directive is to confront the fact that our forms of social existence are founded on exclusion on a global scale. While it is perfectly true that universalism can never become Universal (it will always require a hegemonic-particular embodiment in order to have any meaning), what is novel about Zizek’s universalism is that it would not attempt to conceal this fact or reduce the status of the abject Other to that of a ‘glitch’ in an otherwise sound matrix. and our very sense of the possible. In particular we should not overlook Marx’s central insight that Impact – Environment It’s reverse causal – we must destroy capitalism before we can fight environmental exploitation and degradation Altvater Former Prof. of Political Science at University of Berlin 2007 (Elmar, “The Social and Natural Environment of Fossil Capitalism,” http://www.globallabour.info/en/Altvater-FossilismSR-2007%20(rev.).doc, NMS) The reason for capitalism’s high economic impact on the environment is to be found in its double character. It has a value dimension (the monetary value of the gross national product, of world trade, of FDI, of financial flows, etc.) but is also a system of material and energy flows in production and consumption, transportation and distribution. ¶ Economic decisions concerning production first consider values and prices, profit margins and monetary returns, on capital invested. In this sphere the ruling principle is only the economic rationality of profitmaximizing decision-makers. But the decisions they take have important impacts on nature, due to the material and energy dimension of economic processes. ¶ Under capitalist conditions the environment is more and more transformed into a contested object of human greed. The exploitation of natural resources, and their degradation by a growing quantity of pollutants, results in a man-made scarcity, leading to conflicts over access to them. Access to nature (to resources and sinks) is uneven and unequal and the societal relation of man to nature therefore is conflict-prone. The “ecological footprints” of people in different countries and regions of the world are of very different sizes , reflecting severe inequalities of incomes and wealth. Ecological injustices therefore can only usefully be discussed if social class contradictions and the production of inequality in the course of capital accumulation are taken into account. Capitalism exploits the environment in order to continue expanding and making profits Foster, Professor of Sociology at University of Oregon, 2009(John Bellamy. The Monthly Review “A Failed System: The World Crisis of Capitalism and its Impact on China” http://monthlyreview.org/2009/03/01/a-failed-system-the-world-crisis-of-capitalistglobalization-and-its-impact-on-china NMS) As the foregoing indicates, the world is currently facing the threat of a new world deflationdepression, worse than anything seen since the 1930s. The ecological problem has reached a level that the entire planet as we know it is now threatened. Neoliberal capitalism appears to be at an end, along with what some have called “neoliberalism ‘with Chinese characteristics.’”54 Declining U.S. hegemony, coupled with current U.S. attempts militarily to restore its global hegemony through the so-called War on Terror, threaten wider wars and nuclear holocausts. The one common denominator accounting for all of these crises is the current phase of global monopoly-finance capital. The fault lines are most obvious in terms of the peril to the planet. As Evo Morales, president of Bolivia, has recently stated: “Under capitalism we are not human beings but consumers. Under capitalism mother earth does not exist, instead there are raw materials.” In reality, “the earth is much more important than [the] stock exchanges of Wall Street and the world. [Yet,] while the United States and the European Union allocate 4,100 billion dollars to save the bankers from a financial crisis that they themselves have caused, programs on climate change get 313 times less, that is to say, only 13 billion dollars.”¶ Capitalism’s need to dominate and exploit the environment, just like the working class, will only lead to our destruction International Perspective 2009 (Internationalist Perspective “Capitalism, Technology and the Environment” http://internationalist-perspective.org/IP/ip-archive/ip_50_environment.html NMS) Fundamental to my whole approach to capitalism’s relationship to nature is that it is, in the end, essentially the same as capital’s relationship to wage labour. Capital dominates both, living labour and nature, in order to exploit them both. In both cases, capital uses technology as a mediating factor in order to realize, enforce and reproduce at a higher level these relations of domination and exploitation. In both cases, the relationships and the processes involved are linked and analogous. Capital is antagonistic toward the natural environment just as it is antagonistic to wage labour. Capital’s domination and exploitation of nature, given the latter’s finite limits and specificities, leads to destruction, degradation and despoliation of that nature, just as its domination and exploitation of wage labour, given the physical limits and specificities of human beings, leads to destruction, degradation and exhaustion of the working class. Capital utilizes technological means in order to facilitate its maximum exploitation of both living labour and ‘natural resources’. Further still, just as the working class fights back against capital’s depredations, so too does nature in ways we are all too familiar with today, such as irreversible climate change, widespread industrial diseases such as cancer, ‘natural disasters’ of all sorts, etc. But in reality, it is not nature taking revenge on humanity. That would be to personify or subjectify nature, to ascribe to it intentionality. In fact, all of these environmental catastrophes, which constitute an expanding environmental crisis, result from capital’s technological transformation (and mutation (thus: trans-mutation?)) of natural ecosystems and processes into monstrously destructive forces for humankind which previously, naturally, they were not. Highly developed capitalist domination of humanity and nature has intervened in and transformed the myriad intricate and inter-related natural processes of the planet to such an extent that the current ‘natural environment’ we live within cannot be truly said to be natural; it has been adulterated, contaminated, poisoned and destroyed to such an extent that it is more accurately described as the capitalistically modified ‘natural’ environment. Capitalist drive for profit exploits the environment and threatens life itself One Struggle 2011 (Kasama Project, “Earth Day to May Day: Targeting Exploitation and Ecocide” http://kasamaproject.org/environment/3186-18earth-day-to-may-day-targetingexploitation-and-ecocide NMS) Capitalism is the economic system that dominates the planet. It runs on the exploitation of human labor to turn the living world into dead commodities, for the profit of a few . The small, powerful minority who own the means of production enforce their dominance through their control over political and cultural institutions, and their monopoly on force. They create a situation of dependency—forcing us to work for them to obtain basic needs like food and shelter. They annihilate those who resist or refuse to assimilate.¶ This system values profit over life itself. It has been built on land theft and destruction, genocide, slavery, deforestation and imperialist wars . It commits numberless atrocities as a matter of routine daily functioning. It kills nearly 10 million children worldwide under age 5 each year, because it’s not profitable to save them.* It kills 100,000 people annually in the US by denying decent health care. More than 54% of the US discretionary budget is spent on imperialist aggression. Recent casualties include more than a million civilians in Iraq, and more than 46,000 American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. The economic and psychological violence wrought upon the world’s inhabitants is so extensive and comprehensive that it’s effectively all-encompassing.¶ The system is killing the entire planet, the basis for all life. It’s converted 98% of old growth forests into lumber. 80% of rivers worldwide no longer support life. 94% of the large fish in the oceans are gone. Phytoplankton, the tiny plants that produce half of the oxygen we breathe, have declined by 40% since 1950. 120 species per day become extinct.¶ Industries produce 400 million tons of hazardous waste every year. Recently, the water in 89% of US cities tested has been found to contain the carcinogen hexavalent chromium. To feed capitalism’s insatiable need for economic expansion, increasingly dangerous methods of energy extraction are being perpetrated: deep sea drilling, oil extraction from tar sands, mountaintop removal, fracking. No matter the consequences, no matter what the majority of people may want, those in power insist on (and enforce) their non-negotiable right to poison the land, water and air in pursuit of maximum profit.¶ The threat to our common existence on Earth is accelerating and intensifying. This is a situation of extreme urgency.¶ Clearly, a global economic system based on perpetual expansion is unsustainable. A system characterized by oppression and coercion is pure misery for the majority. The obvious conclusion is that we need to get rid of it, and change to a way of life that doesn’t involve exploitation and ecocide. But first we must face one hard fact: this system won’t stop unless it’s stopped. It can not be escaped, reformed, redeemed, cajoled, abandoned, or rejected. The system must be fought, defeated and dismantled.¶ Capitalist drive for profit disregards environmental concerns Magdoff and Magdoff, Editor of Monthly Review and worked for the United States Department of Commerce, Professor of Plant and Soil Science at University of Vermont and a director of the Monthly Review Foundation, 2005 (Harry and Fred. July 1st 2005. Monthly Review. “Approaching Socialism” http://monthlyreview.org/2005/07/01/approaching-socialism NMS) Ecological degradation occurred in numerous precapitalist societies. But with capitalism there is a new dimension to the problem, even as we have better understood the ecological harm that human activity can create. The drive for profits and capital accumulation as the overriding objective of economic activity, the control that economic interests exert over political life, and the many technologies developed in capitalist societies that allow humans rapidly to change their environment—near and wide, intentionally or not—mean that adverse effects on the environment are inevitable. Pollution of water, air, and soil are natural byproducts of production systems organized for the single goal of making profits.¶ Under the logic of capitalist production and exchange there is no inherent mechanism to encourage or force industry to find methods that have minimal impact on the environment. For example, new chemicals that are found useful to produce manufactured goods are routinely introduced into the environment—without the adequate assessment of whether or not they cause harm to humans or other species. The mercury given off into the air by coal-burning power plants pollutes lakes hundreds of miles away as well as the ocean. The routine misuse of antibiotics, added to feeds of animals that are being maintained in the overcrowded and unhealthy conditions of factory farms, has caused the development of antibiotic resistant strains of disease organisms. It is a technique that is inconsistent with any sound ecological approach to raising animals, but it is important to capital because profits are enhanced. In addition, the development of an automobile-centered society in the United States has had huge environmental consequences. Vast areas of suburbs, sometimes merging into a “megatropolis,” partially erase the boundaries between communities. The waste of fuel by commuting to work by car is only part of the story of suburbanization, as some people work in the city while others work in different suburbs. Shopping in malls reachable only by cars and taking children to school and play require transportation over significant distances.¶ Climate change resulting from global warming, not completely predictable, but with mostly negative consequences, is another repercussion of unfettered capitalist exploitation of resources. As fossil fuels are burned in large quantities by factories, electrical generation plants, and automobiles and trucks, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have increased. There is some concern that the gradual warming could actually lead to a fairly rapid change, with such factors as the melting of polar ice, changes in precipitation and river flow, and a cessation of the thermohaline conveyor (of which the Gulf Stream is a part) that brings warm water to the north Atlantic and helps keep North America and Europe warm (see “The Pentagon and Climate Change,” Monthly Review, May 2004). Impact – Genocide The economic exploitation and expansion spurred by Capitalism leads to genocide Sethness 13- author of Imperiled Life: Revolution against Climate Catastrophe (Javier, “The Structural Genocide That Is Capitalism”, Truthout 2013, http://truthout.org/opinion/item/16887-the-structural-genocide-that-is-capitalism, MB) In this book, Leech guides his readers through theoretical examinations of the concept of genocide, showing why the term should in fact be applied to the capitalist mode of production. He then illustrates capitalism's genocidal proclivities by exploring four case studies: the ongoing legacy of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in Mexico; the relationship between trade liberalization and genetically-modified seeds on the one hand and masssuicide on the part of Indian agriculturalists on the other; material deprivation and generalized premature death throughout much of the African continent and the global South, as results from hunger, starvation, and preventable disease; and the ever-worsening climatic and environmental crises. Leech then closes by considering the relevance of Antonio Gramsci's conceptions of cultural hegemony in attempting to explain the puzzling consent granted to this system by large swathes of the world's relatively privileged people - specifically, those residing in the imperial core of Europe and the United States - and then recommending the socialist alternative as a . concrete means of abolishing genocide, while looking to the Cuban and Venezuelan regimes as imperfect, but inspirational experiments in these terms In sum, while I take issue with some of his analysis and aspects of his conceptualization of anticapitalist alternatives, his work should certainly be well-received, read and discussed by large multitudes.¶ the theoretical case for considering capitalism to be genocidal, Leech takes a few examples from the contemporary world to illuminate his argument. In Mexico, the passing of NAFTA in 1994 has led to the dispossession of campesinos (peasants) on a grand scale, as the country's stipulated importation of heavily subsidized maize and other crops from the United States effectively led millions Following this opening discussion of particularly devastating to abandon agriculture and migrate to Mexican and US cities in search of employment in the manufacturing sector, in accordance with neoclassical theories of "comparative this forcible displacement has resulted in the explosion of precarity within the informal sector of the economy in Mexico, as many ex-campesinos fail to find traditional proletarian jobs, and it has also driven the horrifying feminicides of maquiladora workers in the Mexican border regions, migration en masse to the United States (and advantage" - and very much mirroring the means by which capitalism emerged historically through the destruction of the commons in England. For Leech, attendant mass death in the Sonoran desert), as well as the horrid drug war launched in 2006 by then-president Felipe Calderón. Leech sees similar processes in Colombia, which hosts the second-largest number of internally displaced persons in the world (4 million), with many of these people having been removed from their lands due to military and in India, Leech reports that more than 216,000 farmers committed suicide between 1997 and 2009, largely out of desperation over crushing debts they accumulated following the introduction of genetically-modified seed crops, as demanded paramilitary operations undertaken to make way for megaprojects directed by foreign corporations.¶ Alarmingly, by the transnational Agreement on Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS, 1994) and the general shift from subsistence to export-oriented agriculture. In many cases, the genetically engineered seed varieties failed to expand yields to the levels promised by Monsanto, Cargill, and co., leading farmers then to take on further debt merely to cover the shortfalls as well as to pay for the next iteration of crops - which by conscious design were modified at the molecular level so as not to be able to reproduce naturally, thus ensuring biotech firms sustained profitability (a "captured market," as it were). That such a dynamic should end in a downward spiral of death and destruction should be capitalism's structurally genocidal nature in a chapter examining Africa south of the Sahel. It is this world region that has been "most severely impacted" by capital's genocidal imperatives, claims Leech, and it is difficult to argue with this claim: Merely consider the millions who succumb to AIDS on the unsurprising, for all its horror.¶ Leech further illustrates his case regarding continent each year or the other millions who perish in the region annually due to lack of medical treatment for complications within pregnancy or conditions such as diarrhea and malaria, themselves catalyzed by pre-existing background malnutrition. All this deprivation is exacerbated, argues Leech, by food-aid regimes overseen by wealthier societies - which in the US case demands that food be purchased from and shipped by US companies, thus effectively removing a full half of the total resources intended for the hungry - and the infamous land-grabs being perpetrated on the continent in recent years by investors from such countries as Saudi Arabia and South Korea. Fundamentally, the conflict is one based on the guiding principles of capital: Because Africans in general do not possess the requisite income to "demand" food commodities within international capitalism, they themselves do not constitute a "viable market" and so are rendered invisible nonpersons, or "unpeople." though, The imperial empires supported by capitalism perpetuate genocide Ahmed 11- Writer for The Guardian and director of the Institute for Policy Research and Development (IPRD) (Nafeez Mosaddeq, “Colonial Dynamics of Genocide Imperialism, Identity and Mass Violence*”, Cesran International 2011, http://cesran.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1231%3Acolonial- dynamics-of-genocide-imperialism-identity-and-mass-violence&catid=58%3Amakale-veraporlar&Itemid=99&lang=en, MB) Modern empires have invariably been associated with violence. Historical cases such as the European conquest of the Americas or the British colonization of Australasia are viewed by some scholars as constituting or at least containing genocidal episodes. Yet this conclusion is problematized by the sheer variegation in the experiences of colonized peoples in different regions, who died in large numbers for many reasons, not all of them obvious, and many of them inextricably intertwined – for instance due to the impact of European diseases, massacres, onerous labour conditions, alcohol abuse, and even depression (and suicide) due to socio-cultural dislocation. The question of whether such cases of European imperial violence were genocidal, cannot be resolved without re-examining the conceptual evolution of genocide against the background of European imperial mass violence.¶ These examples underscore the need to interrogate the relationship between imperialism, mass violence and genocide. Is genocide intrinsic to imperialist practices? If not, why does imperialism frequently involve diverse forms of mass violence against civilian populations? And if the concept of genocide excludes the aforesaid examples of imperial mass violence despite their prevalence, does this suggest that the concept itself needs re-evaluation? Of course, how scholars answer such questions depends ultimately on their preferred definitions of genocide.[iv] These range from minimalist exclusivist conceptualizations restricting its theoretical scope to a highly specified type of mass killing,[v] to maximalist inclusivist conceptualizations encompassing a wide variety of forms of group violence.[vi] ¶ These prevalent approaches are also in tension with the original sociological conceptualization of genocide elaborated by Polish Jewish jurist Raphael Lemkin (1900-1959), for whom genocidal perpetrators could be states as well as decentralized and dispersed groups such as settler-colonists. Critically, Lemkin’s insight into the inherently colonial form of genocide reveals the inner dynamics of its ideological radicalization process in the context of socio-political contestations, that can fuel the construction of new bifurcated “inside” and “outside” group identities and justify mass violence against the ‘Other’. This paper thus excavates Lemkin’s sociological definition of genocide to develop a working theoretical framework by which to understand the social causes of contemporary mass violence. It explores the implications of this framework by briefly exploring the examples of Rwanda, Yugoslavia and Indonesia, and how a Lemkininian approach might require if not a re-interpretation, a re-contextualisation of these genocidal episodes in a global context. The paper thus demonstrates that a Lemkininian model, arming us with a better understanding of the socio-political and transnational relations of ideological radicalization, could lead to more robust early warning systems, as well as a more refined understanding of how to respond preventively by transforming the specific process that can lead to the radicalised construction of exclusionary group identities that can culminate in genocide. Imperialistic expansion inevitably leads to genocide—Rwanda proves International Communist Current 04- (“Genocide in Rwanda: The crimes of French imperialism”, ICC 2004, http://en.internationalism.org/wr/274_france_rwanda.htm, MB) We are currently celebrating a sad anniversary: ten years ago, French imperialism, under the banner of humanitarianism, re-entered Rwanda in force, armed to the teeth with assault cars at the front. It was to preside over one of the worst cases of genocide in history. According to the official figures between 500,000 and a million people were killed in 100 days, almost unnoticed by the world at large. The French army had waited cynically at the frontiers of Rwanda for the ethnic slaughter to reach its climax before intervening. Meanwhile inside Rwanda our country’s troops, under orders, had trained the killers who carried out the genocide against the Tutsi. We armed them, encouraged them and, when the day came, provided cover for them. I discovered this story in the Rwandan hills. It was hot, it was summer time. It was wonderful weather, it was magnificent. It was the time of the genocide (Patrick de Saint Exupery, journalist from Figaro and author of the book L’inavouable: la France au Rwanda; see Le Monde Diplomatique March 2004). It was indeed France which, for a number of years, had been training and arming the local gendarmerie, the Hutu militia, and the Rwandan Armed Forces. It was France which had fully supported the regime of president Habyarimana. From the early 90s Rwanda had become a prize in the geostrategic game between French imperialism and American imperialism. Rwanda had an obvious importance in this inter-imperialist conflict because it is at the frontier of the zone under French control and the one under US control.¶ Meanwhile 300,000 orphans were wandering the country. Cholera and famine were on the rise and rapidly carried off more than 40,000 Hutu refugees, while combat helicopters, Mirages and Jaguars belonging to the French army waited for another opportunity to intervene. The power mainly responsible for this vast death-toll was without doubt French imperialism, which used the ethnic conflict to strike at its US rival. It’s the same French imperialism which today hides behind the ideology of pacifism. The humanitarian alibi: a weapon of war¶ The humanitarian alibi was used to cover the barbaric policy of France ten years ago. It was used again in 1999 to justify the bombing of Serbia and the military occupation of Kosovo. Today in Kosovo there is a renewal of ethnic conflict, and the French army, as it did in Rwanda, is using the opportunity to increase its presence on the ground. Meanwhile, Tony Blair points to the lack of humanitarian intervention in Rwanda to argue in favour of the Iraq war, telling us that the only hope for countries subjected to ethnic slaughter or mass murder by undemocratic states is the benign intervention of the civilised powers. Rwanda, like the Balkans, like Iraq, provides us with proof that there can be nothing benign in the intervention of an imperialist state. On the country, its only result can be to take the local barbarism onto a higher level . Unless the world capitalist system is overthrown, the Rwandan genocide is a foretaste of humanity’s future. The capitalist system creates disparities that perpetuate mass genocide Corrigan, Department of Psychology @ University of Portsmouth, 11 [Stephen, January 2011, “The Role of Capitalism in Constructing and Maintaining Mass Hate and Genocide,” p. 1-2, accessed 7/8/13, YGS] Marxism focuses on the State creating polarised socio-classes; the proletariat (work¶ force) and the bourgeoisie (ruling class), making inequality inevitable (Quinney, 1975,¶ pl92). Social Disorganisation highlights inner-city areas consisting highly of ethnic minority populations as they are largely ascribed to the proletariat socio-class (cited by¶ Rock, 2007, pl9). This sociopolarisation limits ethnic minorities from achieving¶ transgression up the socio-economic ladder as their working opportunities are¶ restricted, and they are depicted socially inferior to the ruling bourgeoisie (Quinney,¶ 1975, pl93). This allows blame for unattainable economic progression to be mobilised¶ against the minority faction making them appear harmful to society (Hall, Critcher,¶ Jefferson, Clarke & Roberts, 1978, p387). The role of Capitalism is therefore centred on¶ its differentiation between socio-classes, enabling discrimination to ensue by allowing¶ the powerful to form prejudices against the powerless. Capitalism can extend masshate¶ beyond initial borders, with economic progression being an overriding principle.¶ Marxism argues Colonialism extends Capitalism, promoting social inequality elsewhere¶ to profit the metropole (Head State) at the expense of the indigenous people (Stoler &¶ Cooper, 1997, p3). This can result in social inequality being manufactured against the¶ indigenous majority, making Capitalism instrumental in constructing mass-hate and¶ genocide. Capitalist regimes promote 'individualistic concerns,' but can individual¶ prejudice flourish under collective powers? Capital is intrinsically linked to the Western power identity that promotes silent genocide Nelson, PhD in the Department of PolSci @ Carleton University, 12 [Matthew, 2012, “Book Review: The Politics of Genocide,” http://www.alternateroutes.ca/index.php/ar/article/viewFile/15879/15778, p. 300-303, accessed 7/8/13, YGS] While genocide commonly refers to the killing or attempted killing ¶ of an entire ethnic group or people, its definition is highly controversial ¶ and the subject of extensive debate. The term is often used to describe ¶ diverse forms of direct or indirect killing, which has resulted in its “frequency of use and recklessness of application” over the past several ¶ decades (103). In The Politics of Genocide, Herman and Peterson argue ¶ that while members of the Western establishment and news media ¶ have rushed to denounce bloodbaths in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Rwanda, ¶ Kosovo, and Darfur, they have largely remained silent over war crimes ¶ and mass atrocities committed by allied regimes in Southeast Asia, ¶ Central America, the Middle East, and Sub-Saharan Africa. As Noam ¶ Chomsky suggests in the foreword to the book, since the end of the Cold ¶ War, we have witnessed the emergence of an era of virtual “Holocaust ¶ denial” or “genocide denial with a vengeance” (7-9).¶ In substantiating their argument, Herman and Peterson draw on ¶ years of meticulous research, careful documentation and indepth, ¶ empirical analysis of atrocities and bloodbaths around the world. The ¶ authors have done an excellent job at exposing the double standards of ¶ the US news media and its hypocritical system of propaganda. In this ¶ sense, The Politics of Genocide offers a needed corrective to those who ¶ manipulate and abuse the genocide label for the purposes of promoting ¶ the expansion of imperial power interests around the globe. Similar ¶ to Herman’s past work, however, the book offers less in the way of a ¶ theoretical addition to debates surrounding the nature of genocide ¶ and imperialism, instead providing a series of well-documented case ¶ studies. Like the five ‘filters’ in Herman and Chomsky’s Manufacturing ¶ Consent, the phenomenon of genocide is simply classified through four ¶ categories—in this case, of bloodbaths. Moreover, while Herman and Peterson, like Chomsky, do perceive imperialism fundamentally in race ¶ and class terms, their use of terms such as ‘elite’ and Western ‘establishment’ rather than class or ruling class tends to obscure the real material ¶ links between genocide, capitalism and Western imperialism.¶ For Herman and Peterson, “a remarkable degree of continuity stretches ¶ across the many decades of bribes and threats, economic sanctions, subversion, terrorism, aggression, and occupation ordered-up by the policymaking elite of the United States” (13). After the US emerged from the ¶ Second World War in a dominant economic, political and military position, ¶ it had to confront numerous nationalist upheavals in former colonial areas ¶ by peoples seeking “independence, self-determination and better lives” ¶ (14). To counter these increasingly popular demands for improvement in ¶ living standards, the US supported a series of dictatorships in countries ¶ like Indonesia, South Vietnam and Chile. Although these “national security” states were “torture-prone” and “deeply undemocratic,” they helped ¶ improve the overall climate of capitalist investment by keeping their majorities fearful and atomized (14). When local dictators failed, direct US military ¶ intervention often followed, as illustrated in the cases of Vietnam, and more ¶ recently, in Iraq and Afghanistan. ¶ The authors draw on the framework for analyzing mass killings provided by Chomsky, and Herman himself in their Counter-Revolutionary ¶ Violence: Bloodbaths in Fact and Propaganda (CRV), first published in 1973. ¶ In this work, Herman and Chomsky conclude that it is obvious and ¶ demonstrable that US officials, with the help of the established media, ¶ would engage in “atrocities management,” by producing incessant propaganda to deflect attention away from US-approved violence, and onto ¶ its enemies. In its framework of analysis, CRV provided four categories ¶ of bloodbaths: “Constructive,” “Benign,” “Nefarious,” and “Mythical” ¶ (a sub-category under Nefarious). As Herman and Peterson explain, ¶ “[t]hose bloodbaths carried out by the United States itself or that serve ¶ immediate and major US interests are Constructive; those carried out ¶ by allies or clients are Benign; and those carried out by US target states ¶ are Nefarious and (sometimes) Mythical” (16). In essence, instances of ¶ mass violence are evaluated differently by the US political establishment ¶ and media depending on who is responsible for carrying them out. The ¶ authors apply this analytical framework in their current work by subsuming more recent bloodbaths under the four categories, which they ¶ argue are “eerily applicable to the present”, and “apply now with the ¶ same political bias and rigor” (17-19). Using empirical measures such ¶ as the coverage of key events in the media, what the authors offer the reader is more or less a classificatory schema or conceptual model for ¶ understanding bloodbaths rather than a specific interjection into theoretical debates surrounding critical accounts of genocide, imperialism ¶ and international law. ¶ Today’s leading ‘experts’ on genocide and mass are often ¶ careful to exclude from consideration the Vietnam War, the 1965-1966 ¶ Indonesian massacres, and the invasion and occupation of East Timor ¶ by Indonesia in 1975, the latter of which resulted in the deaths of somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 civilians (although this is a hugely ¶ debatable claim) (18). The Vietnam War, and the massive “sanctions ¶ of mass destruction” directed at Iraq during the 1990s, are examples ¶ of Constructive atrocities, where the victims of war crimes are deemed ¶ unworthy of our attention. However, when the perpetrators of genocide ¶ are considered enemies of the West, the atrocities are Nefarious and their ¶ victims are seen to be worthy of our focus and sympathy. Examples of ¶ Nefarious atrocities include: Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, Iraq ¶ under Saddam Hussein, Halabja, Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo and Darfur. ¶ When systematic violence is carried out by US clients—such as Indonesia in East Timor from 1975-1999, Israel in the Gaza Strip and West ¶ Bank from 1967 to the present, or Rwanda and Uganda in Congo—they ¶ are viewed by the US political establishment as Benign and not worthy of ¶ condemnation. The final category, Mythical, results from the inflation of ¶ numbers or invention of incidents by the US government, media sources ¶ and NGOs to implement pre-planned interventions such as sanctions, ¶ embargoes and the funding of various ‘color revolutions. The Politics of Genocide has done much to atrocities, including ¶ many journalists, academics, legal scholars and policymakers, emphasize the biases and ¶ contradictions of US foreign policy, but it should be read in conjunction ¶ to themes related to genocide, imperialism and international law. First, while Herman and Peterson with other theoretical contributions recognize that the history of ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity ¶ demonstrates “the centrality of racism to the imperial project” (22), there ¶ is little discussion of why advanced capitalist powers and oppressed ¶ nations are, in the first place, not equal partners in shaping the world. ¶ Due in part to their use of terms such as ‘elite’ and Western ‘establishment’ rather than class, their analysis should be complimented by recent ¶ work that is more explicit in highlighting the centrality of racism to ¶ issues of class, capitalism and imperialism in the international system. ¶ While not directly touching on the topic of genocide, Marxist theorists writing on current modes of imperialism such as Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin (Global Capitalism and American Empire, 2004) and David ¶ Harvey (The New Imperialism, 2003) emphasize the extent to which current modes of imperialism continue to exacerbate racial as well as global ¶ class inequalities. Identifying the class basis of the new imperialism ¶ would help identify some of the underlying reasons for why media ¶ coverage of genocides in the West is often silent with respect to crimes ¶ committed by the various client regimes of advanced capitalist states. ¶ Second, Herman and Peterson are highly critical of the “selective investigation” and “selective impunity” of the International Criminal Court ¶ (ICC) in prosecuting alleged perpetrators of genocide, especially, in the ¶ contemporary age of ‘responsibility to protect,’ the exclusion from its ¶ jurisdiction of the international crime of aggression, judged at Nuremburg to be the “supreme international crime” (21). Western interventionism and capitalist domination has led to the poverty and genocide of Latin America Mallon, Julieta Kirkwood Professor of History Department Chair @ the University of Wisconsin-Madison, 85 [Florencia E., January 1985, “The Poverty of Progress: Latin America in the Nineteenth Century by E. Bradford Burns Review by Florencia E. Mallon,” The Americas, Volume: 41, p. 118-119, YGS] The main theme of the book is that Latin American elites, in their enthusiasm ¶ to copy European-style modernization and economic growth, came into conflict with and ultimately destroyed a much more autochthonous and viable "folk" culture that Latin Americans had built up, through the judicious blending of African, ¶ Indian, and Iberian influences, during three hundred years of colonial rule. But the ¶ "folk" did not give up their culture without a major struggle. Indeed, Burns argues ¶ that the seemingly random and recurrent violence of the nineteenth century can ¶ best be explained as the ongoing confrontation between Europeanized elites and ¶ the "folk" over the definition of Latin American culture and society. At bottom, ¶ Burns sees this as a cultural rather than a class conflict, since the lower classes ¶ allied with the more traditional sectors of the elite (the "patriarchs" or feudal ¶ landowners) and with populist caudillos in their efforts to preserve folk culture. ¶ With few exceptions, however-some of which are highlighted in the book-the ¶ alliance of traditional patriarchs, populist caudillos, and lower class "folk" did ¶ not succeed in taking over the state and fashioning society in their own image. ¶ Quite the contrary. Throughout Latin America it was statesmen from the Europeanized elite who, by the turn of the century, had consolidated political power ¶ and placed their new nations firmly in the orbit of Western Europe and the United ¶ States. Rather than bringing their countries development, however, these leaders ¶ instituted a limited amount of economic growth that generated increasing dependency on the world market and on foreign capital, conspicuous consumption for ¶ the few, and increasing misery for the majority. The "folk" were forced to abandon ¶ a communally oriented culture that provided everyone with the basic necessities of ¶ life, getting in return an ever more commoditized existence in which no aspect of ¶ subsistence was guaranteed. More than anything else, Burns concludes, it was this ¶ triumph of "progress" over "folk" that set the conditions for enduring poverty ¶ and conflict in twentiethcentury Latin America. The aff’s elevation of the law of value is the basis upon which racism and genocide become possible—the Other becomes the atomized “thing” toward which capitalist, hegemonic hatred is directed Internationalist Perspective, Marxist political organization, 2k [Spring 2000, “Capitalism and Genocide,” Internationalist Perspective, Volume: 36, YGS] One way in which this ideological hegemony of capital is established over broad strata of the population, including sectors of the working class, is by channeling the dissatisfaction [sic] and discontent of the mass of the population with the monstrous impact of capitalism upon their lives (subjection to the machine, reduction to the status of a "thing", at the point of production, insecurity and poverty as features of daily life, the overall social process of atomization and massification, etc.), away from any struggle to establish a human Gemeinwesen, communism. Capitalist hegemony entails the ability to divert that very disatisfaction [sic] into the quest for a "pure community", based on hatred and rage directed not at capital, but at the Other, at alterity itself, at those marginal social groups which are designated a danger to the life of the nation, and its population. ¶ One of the most dramatic effects of the inexorable penetration of the law of value into every pore of social life, and geographically across the face of the whole planet, has been the destruction of all primitive, organic, and pre-capitalist communities. Capitalism, as Marx and Engels pointed out in the Communist Manifesto, shatters the bonds of immemorial custom and tradition, replacing them with its exchange mechanism and contract. While Marx and Engels stressed the positive features of this development in the Manifesto, we cannot ignore its negative side, particularly in light of the fact that the path to a human Gemeinwesen has so far been successfully blocked by capital, with disastrous consequences for the human species. The negative side of that development includes the relentless process of atomization, leaving in its wake an ever growing mass of rootless individuals, for whom the only human contact is by way of the cash nexus. Those who have been uprooted geographically, economically, politically, and culturally, are frequently left with a powerful longing for their lost communities (even where those communities were hierarchically organized and based on inequality), for the certainties and "truths" of the past, which are idealized the more frustrating, unsatisfying, and insecure, the world of capital becomes. Such longings are most powerfully felt within what Ernst Bloch has termed non-synchronous strata and classes. These are stata and classes whose material or mental conditions of life are linked to a past mode of production, who exist economically or culturally in the past, even as they chronologically dwell in the present. In contrast to the two historic classes in the capitalist mode of production, the bourgeoisie and proletariat, which are synchronous, the products of the capitalist present, these non-synchronous strata include the peasantry, the petty bourgeoisie, and -- by virtue of their mental or cultural state -- youth and white-collar workers. In my view, Bloch's understanding of non-synchronicity needs to be extended to segments of the working class, in particular those strata of the blue-collar proletariat which are no longer materially synchronous with the high-tech production process upon which late capitalism rests, and the mass of workers ejected from the production process by the rising organic composition of capital and its comcomitant down-sizing. In addition, the even greater mass of peasants streaming into the shanty towns around the great commercial and industrial metropolitan centers of the world, are also characterized by their non-synchronicity, their inability to be incorporated into the hyper-modern cycle of capital accumulation. Moreover, all of these strata too are subject to a growing nostalgia for the past , a longing for community, including the blue-collar communities and their institutional networks which were one of the features of the social landscape of capitalism earlier in the twentieth century. ¶ However, no matter how powerful this nostalgia for past community becomes, it cannot be satisfied. The organic communities of the past cannot be recreated; their destruction by capital is irreversible. At the same time, the path to a future Gemeinwesen, to which the cultural material and longings embodied in the non-synchronous classes and strata can make a signal contribution, according to Bloch, remains obstructed by the power of capital. So long as this is the case, the genuine longing for community of masses of people, and especially the nostalgia for past communities especially felt by the non-synchronous strata and classes, including the newly non-synchronous elements which I have just argued must be added to them, leaves them exposed to the lure of a "pure community" ideologically constructed by capital itself. In place of real organic and communal bonds, in such an ideologically constructed pure community, a racial, ethnic, or religious identification is merely superimposed on the existing condition of atomization in which the mass of the population finds itself. In addition to providing some gratification for the longing for community animating broad strata of the population, such a pure community can also provide an ideological bond which ties the bulk of the population to the capitalist state on the basis of a race, ethnicity, or religion which it shares with the ruling class. This latter is extremely important to capital, because the atomization which it has brought about not only leaves the mass of humanity bereft, but also leaves the ruling class itself vulnerable because it lacks any basis upon which it can mobilize the population, physically or ideologically. ¶ The basis upon which such a pure community is constituted, race, nationality, religion, even a categorization by "class" in the Stalinist world, necessarily means the exclusion of those categories of the population which do not conform to the criteria for inclusion, the embodiments of alterity, even while they inhabit the same geographical space as the members of the pure community. Those excluded, the "races" on the other side of the biological continuum, to use Foucauldian terminology, the Other, become alien elements within an otherwise homogeneous world of the pure community. As a threat to its very existence, the role of this Other is to become the scapegoat for the inability of the pure community to provide authentic communal bonds between people, for its abject failure to overcome the alienation that is a hallmark of a reified world. The Jew in Nazi Germany, the Kulak in Stalinist Russia, the Tutsi in Rwanda, Muslims in Bosnia, blacks in the US, the Albanian or the Serb in Kosovo, the Arab in France, the Turk in contemporary Germany, the Bahai in Iran, for example, become the embodiment of alterity, and the target against which the hatred of the members of the pure community is directed. The more crisis ridden a society becomes, the greater the need to find an appropriate scapegoat; the more urgent the need for mass mobilization behind the integral state, the more imperious the need to focus rage against the Other. In an extreme situation of social crisis and political turmoil, the demonization and victimization of the Other can lead to his (mass) murder. In the absence of a working class conscious of its historic task and possibilities, this hatred of alterity which permits capital to mobilize the population in defense of the pure community, can become its own impetus to genocide. ¶ The immanent tendencies of the capitalist mode of production which propel it towards a catastrophic economic crisis, also drive it towards mass murder and genocide. In that sense, the death-world, and the prospect of an Endzeit cannot be separated from the continued existence of humanity's subordination to the law of value. Reification, the overmanned world, bio-politics, state racism, the constitution of a pure community directed against alterity, each of them features of the economic and ideological topography of the real domination of capital, create the possibility and the need for genocide. We should have no doubt that the survival of capitalism into this new millenium will entail more and more frequent recourse to mass murder. Impact – Hunger Capitalism leads to hunger – GMOs Ikerd, Professor Emeritus of Agricultural & Applied Economics University of Missouri Columbia, 2006 (John Ikerd, Professor Emeritus of Agricultural & Applied Economics University of Missouri Columbia, 2006, University of Missouri, “The Economics of Hunger: Challenges and Opportunities for Future Food Systems” , http://web.missouri.edu/ikerdj/papers/Eastern%20Oregon-%20Econ%20Hunger.htm, accessed 7-9-13, JF) Biotechnology, on the other hand, is simply the latest tool for agricultural industrialization. The magnitude of risks that genetically engineered foods pose to human health and the natural environment may not be fully known for decades. But at the very least, genetic modification represents the greatest experiment to which humanity has ever been subjected with so little justification. Genetic modification does nothing to increase crop yields; it simply makes farming easier to carry out on larger operations. It does nothing to enhance food quality that cannot be accomplished more effectively through the conscientious selection of natural foods.¶ ¶ Perhaps most relevant to hunger, widespread acceptance of genetic modification of foods would grant control of the world’s food supply to a handful of global agribusiness corporations, under current plant and animal patenting laws. These food corporations are not charitable organizations. They will sell their products to whatever people, wherever in the world, they can generate the greatest economic return for their stockholders. Their markets most certainly will not be the hungry people of the poor countries of the world or the poor people of the wealthy countries of the world. The goal of industrial agriculture in a capitalistic economy is to sell food for profit, not to provide food for everyone. An industrial agriculture will not feed the hungry. Cap leads to hunger – it leaves the poor behind Ikerd, Professor Emeritus of Agricultural & Applied Economics University of Missouri Columbia, 2006 (John Ikerd, Professor Emeritus of Agricultural & Applied Economics University of Missouri Columbia, 2006, University of Missouri, “The Economics of Hunger: Challenges and Opportunities for Future Food Systems” , http://web.missouri.edu/ikerdj/papers/Eastern%20Oregon-%20Econ%20Hunger.htm, accessed 7-9-13, JF) But industrialization never made its way around the world and significant pockets of hunger have persisted even in the wealthiest industrial nations of the world. Somehow, the people of the world lost their way on the road to utopia. Far too many people have been left behind – poor and hungry – to feel any sense of victory over poverty and starvation. In terms of total productivity and wealth, industrialization far exceeded the expectations of even the most optimistic. The people of the late 1700s could not possibly have imagined all of the material wealth in the world today. But neither could they have imagined that so few people would claim so much of the world’s wealth and so many others would be left with so little. The dreams of the American industrial revolution were not just dreams of a world of wealth but also of a world of equity and justice, a world in which all people would share in the wealth.¶ ¶ The fundamental flaw was not in the productivity of industrialism but instead in the economics of industrialism, in the means by which resources were allocated among the competing needs of people. For most of two centuries, capitalism and communism struggled for economic supremacy among the industrial nations of the world. With the fall of the former Soviet Union, however, political leaders around the world declared global victory for capitalism. Free market capitalism quickly spread around the world. Even the Peoples Republic of China, while still clinging to political socialism, turned to free markets to guide its economic boom. Admittedly, capitalism has resulted in impressive economic growth and prosperity. But as we enter the twenty-first century, serious questions are emerging concerning the sustainability of capitalism. Capitalism causes hunger – it destroys social connections that are necessary to address hunger Ikerd, Professor Emeritus of Agricultural & Applied Economics University of Missouri Columbia, 2006 (John Ikerd, Professor Emeritus of Agricultural & Applied Economics University of Missouri Columbia, 2006, University of Missouri, “The Economics of Hunger: Challenges and Opportunities for Future Food Systems” , http://web.missouri.edu/ikerdj/papers/Eastern%20Oregon-%20Econ%20Hunger.htm, accessed 7-9-13, JF) But what does entropy have to do with hunger? Capitalism not only uses up physical energy, it also uses up human energy. The law of entropy applies to social energy as well as physical energy. All human resources – labor, management, innovation, creativity – are products of social relationships. No person can be born or reach healthy maturity without the help of other people who care about them personally, including their families, friends, neighbors, and communities. People must be educated, trained, civilized, and socialized before they can become productive members of complex societies. All organizations – including businesses organizations and economies – also depend upon the ability of people to work together for a common purpose, which in turn depend upon the sociability and civility of the society in which they were raised. ¶ ¶ Capitalism inevitably dissipates, disperses, and disorganizes social energy because it weakens personal relationships. Social capital is the value embodied in the willingness and ability of people to form and maintain positive personal relationships. However, maximum economic efficiency requires that people relate to each other impartially, which means impersonally. People must compete rather than cooperate, if market economies are to work efficiently. When people spend more time and energy working – being “productive” – they have less time and energy to spend on personal relationships within families and communities, and social capital is depleted. When people buy things based on price rather than from people they know and trust, personal relationships within communities suffer from neglect, and social capital is dissipated. Neoclassical capitalism devalues personal relationships and disconnects people and thus dissipates, disperses, and disorganizes social energy.¶ ¶ Capitalistic economies are so efficient because they use people to do work but do nothing to restore the social capital needed to sustain positive personal relationships within society. It makes no economic sense for corporations to invest in building relationships within families, communities, or society for the benefit of future generations. It’s always more economically efficient to find new people and new communities to exploit. Capitalistic economies don’t waste energy by investing in society, and they resist all attempts of people, through government, to tax private enterprises to promote societal wellbeing. That’s why capitalism is so efficient. But, neoclassical capitalism inevitably tends toward social entropy; that’s did not eliminate hunger because, in devaluing personal relationships, it diminished our ability to care and destroyed our willingness to share. Hunger is a symptom of a society that is lacking in social capital. People who care and are willing to share; they don’t allow others to go hungry when they have plenty for themselves. As social capital is depleted, the gap in wealth between the haves and have-nots continues to grow, as those who have increase their power to exploit those who have not. As social capital is depleted, the haves are numbed to the reality that many of the have-nots have no food; they feel no need to share.¶ ¶ It’s not economically efficient to share with the poor and hungry. Economic efficiency why it is not sustainable.¶ ¶ Industrialization demands that people be rewarded according to their productivity, not according to their need. Income redistribution and feeding the hungry penalizes those who produce and rewards those who do not; such actions promote inefficiency. The invisible hand of free markets is fair and just, we are told. Let the free markets work. If people get hungry, they will find work. The rising tide of prosperity raises all boats. If we become wealthy, others will surely have enough to eat. But, the invisible hand of Adam Smith’s capitalism has been mangled in the machinery of industrialism. Today’s capitalism is not fair and just. The rising tide of prosperity simply blinds us to growing poverty. Growing poverty and hunger are the inevitable consequences of social entropy. Cap causes hunger – unsustainability Ikerd, Professor Emeritus of Agricultural & Applied Economics University of Missouri Columbia, 2006 (John Ikerd, Professor Emeritus of Agricultural & Applied Economics University of Missouri Columbia, 2006, University of Missouri, “The Economics of Hunger: Challenges and Opportunities for Future Food Systems” , http://web.missouri.edu/ikerdj/papers/Eastern%20Oregon-%20Econ%20Hunger.htm, accessed 7-9-13, JF) Serious questioning of capitalism began in the 1960s, with the emergence of the environmental and civil rights movements. Growing environmental degradation and persistent social discrimination were linked directly to the industrialization of capitalistic economies. The energy crisis of the 1970s raised concerns about the extractive nature of capitalistic economies and the dependence of industrialization on finite supplies of non-renewable resources. The “trickle down economics” of the 1980s raised further questions of social equity, with large and growing gaps between the “haves and havenots.” The U.S. economy languished after the “economic bubble” of the 1990s burst at the turn of the century. Today’s “robust” economy is propped up by record-large federal budget and trade deficits. Corporate profits were restored only by exporting America’s middleclass jobs to lower-cost foreign labor markets, notably China and India. Many Americans are now questioning not only the ecological and social sustainability of capitalism, but also its economic sustainability.¶ ¶ Persistent hunger, in America and around the world, is not simply a reflection of social equity, although today’s hunger most certainly is inequitable. Hunger is an inevitable consequence of an economic system that lacks both ecological and social integrity. Persistent hunger is rooted in the economy – in the means by which we manage complex relationships with each other and with nature. The economy determines who gets to manage the resources needed to produce food, clothing, shelter, as well as the non-necessities of life. The economy determines who receives the benefits and who pays the costs – how the bounties of industrial production are shared. An economy cannot be sustained if it extracts wealth from nature and society but fails to distribute that wealth equitably, both within and among generations. Persistent hunger, in the U.S. and around the world, is a direct consequence of an unsustainable global economy. If we are serious about alleviating hunger, we must be willing to work for sustainability. Impact- Poverty The globalizing process of the 1AC increases the suppression of the lower classes and entrenches poverty, studies prove Robinson 04, (William Robinson, PhD and professor of sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, April 2004, “Global Crisis and Latin America“, Bulletin of Latin American Research, 7/8/13 SS, http://www.ncsu.edu/acontracorriente/winter_05/Robinson.pdf) The hegemony of transnational capital and new patterns of post-Fordist “flexible”¶ accumulation has involved a restructuring of the capital-labor relation in Latin America¶ and worldwide. In this new relation, capital has abandoned reciprocal obligations to labor¶ in the employment contract with the emergence of new post-Fordist “flexible” regimes of¶ accumulation, which require “flexible” and “just in time”—that is casualized and¶ contingent—labor. And states, with their transmutation from developmentalist to Neoliberal, have all but abandoned obligations to poor and working majorities.¶ Globalization, hence, has been associated with a dramatic sharpening of social¶ inequalities, increased polarization, and the persistence of widespread poverty in Latin¶ America (table 6) [Roberts, 2002; Portes and Hoffman, 2003; Green, 1995]. This reflects¶ the broader pattern of global social polarization (see next section). Between 1980 and¶ 1990 average per capital income dropped by an unprecedented 11 percent, so that by¶ 1990 most of the region's inhabitants found that their income had reverted to 1976 levels¶ (World Bank, 1997). The absolute number of the poor also increased throughout the¶ 1980s and 1990s. Between 1980 and 1992, some 60 million new people joined the ranks¶ of the poor. The number of people living in poverty went from 136 million in 1980, to¶ 196 million in 1992, and then to 230 million in 1995, an increase from 41 percent to 44¶ percent, and then to 48 percent, respectively, of the total population (CEPAL, various¶ years) The nature of Capitalism makes poverty and exploitation inevitable, it needs new forms of production to create a surplus of profit, specifically in Latin America. Kat 2001 (Claudio, an economist, is a professor and researcher at the University of Buenos Aires, “The Manifesto and Globalization”, November 6th 2001, http://www.sagepub.com/upmdata/2943_11lap01.pdf, accessed 7/8/13, JK) Since the 1980s, the new international rivalry on the production level has¶ caused a spectacular wave of mergers that have required reduction of costs¶ and an increase in productivity. It has also produced an increase in the centralization¶ of capital (in no important sector are there more than ten huge competitors¶ operating), the formation of complexes that integrate services to industry’s¶ requirements, and the proliferation of agreements between firms to ¶ ensure the distribution of the various goods. The substitution of the label¶ “Made in such-and-such a country” with “Made by such-and-such a company”¶ symbolizes this transformation. The “global factory” and the “global¶ product” are not yet the norm, but this is the central tendency of capitalism¶ today.¶ An important theoretical implication of this process is the potential transformation¶ in the determination of prices under the law of value. A significant ¶ portion of the production undertaken in the internal space of these internationalized¶ firms is based on the “transfer price” administered by managers¶ who are to some extent independent of market instability. Thus, a fracture¶ emerges in the classical process of the determination of average profit and the ¶ costs of production based on national prices and currency, contributing to a ¶ regional structuring of new monetary standards and policies regarding subsidies¶ and tariffs.¶ At the same time, the internationalization of production is responsible for¶ the dynamic acceleration of innovation in the field of information technologies.¶ It simultaneously constitutes a great stimulus to the ongoing technological revolution and is the determinant of its major contradictions (developed¶ in Katz, 1998). On this point, two major ideas in the Manifesto have special¶ relevance: the characterization of the bourgeoisie as a class that “cannot¶ exist without constantly revolutionizing the means of production” and the¶ appearance of an “epidemic of overproduction” as a consequence of this idiosyncrasy.¶ Both phenomena are evident today. Under capitalism, the multiplication¶ of new goods and forms of production is indissolubly linked to the production¶ of surpluses in relation to the purchasing capacity of the population.¶ It is for this reason that poverty, unemployment, and exploitation are increasing¶ alongside the internationalization of the productive process. Latin America¶ is one of the regions most affected by this transformation. Capitalism creates unemployment; technology and fluctuations in the market. Harriss-White 2006 (Barbara, Professor of Development Studies, Oxford University “Poverty and Capitalism, Economic and Political Weekly, April 7th 2006, http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/4418024.pdf?acceptTC=true, accessed 7/8/13, JK) Capitalism does not only search for cheap and even unwaged labour. Two mechanismsc two mechanisms create unemployment. First, technological change: capitalism permeates society through a dynamic process based on the logic of growth and profit in which the productivity of wage labour is continually enhanced by machines.10 By itself the elasticity of labour absorption with respect to growth declines - and indeed this is happening in agriculturally advanced regions of India now. 1 The second mechanism concerns the ways in which markets make adjustments to fluctuations. Under capitalism, all markets are related to each other in ways which are structured (at the very least through norms about future expectations).In practice supply, demand, property rights, prices and contracts are structured in densely instituted and specific ways. One of the elements of such a structure is the physical nature and cultural meaning of things transformed as commodities. For one instance, labour is a commodity with consciousness, which may reflect on and resist contracts in markets; labour is also not produced for sale. For another, money is not only a commodity but also a stock of wealth. As a result, its value vis-a-vis other commodities is, and must be, stickier. It will change more slowly than commodity prices do. As Patnaik (2005)has recently argued, it then follows that excess demand between money and commodities requires quantity adjustments in commodities and labour. So the dynamic of capitalism requires there to be idle capacity in machinery and plant, cash balances and unemployment regardless of the impact on labour of technological change. The result is the creation of pools of unemployed labour.12 Some people float in and out of work while others are seasonal migrants and a particularly stagnant pool is filled by those without work for long periods. These reserves of unemployed people are functionally useful to capital since their very existence disciplines and disempowers those in work, discouraging them politically from struggles over the distribution of wages and profits which might result in their being deprived of¶ livelihoods- and depressing the wages of¶ workers by their mere existence. In the¶ absence of state intervention, they reproduce¶ a system which is self-reinforcing. Impact – Power Wars Capitalism fosters an imperialist mindset that inevitably leads to war—empirics prove Packer 03- hold primary leadership roles at the International Socialist Group and the Fourth International (Dave, “Theory and history¶ Capitalism means War”, The International Socialist Group 2003, http://www.isg-fi.org.uk/spip.php?article10, MB) ¶ The twentieth century was the bloodiest century in human history, easily exceeding the previous record, held by the nineteenth century, which began most notably with the Napoleonic wars. During these two centuries, the capitalist world was marked by the rise of competing imperialisms , at first in Europe but soon joined by the USA and Japan. Between 1876 and 1914 European powers annexed approximately eleven million square miles of territory, mainly in Asia and Africa. By the twentieth century, inter-imperialist competition for colonies and markets was to drag nearly the entire world into two devastating world wars, with over one hundred and sixty additional wars since the end of World War Two.¶ ¶ The competition between capitals inherent within the capitalist system forced it to continually revolutionise and expand the means of production, which eventually led to a scramble across the world for colonies, markets and empires, like the British Empire, or its main competitor empires of France and latecomer Germany. Inter- imperialist competition eventually progressed beyond the numerous colonial wars of conquest, to armed conflict between the ‘great’ nations themselves. However, this now took the form of a struggle for world hegemony. Here lay the origins of the two World Wars of the twentieth century . Capitalism, at first by establishing direct colonial rule and later through economically dominated neo-colonies, was now transformed from a progressive to a reactionary imperialist force in the world. As Ernest Mandel writes in his book on the Second World War:¶ The imperialist conquest of the world is not only, or even mainly, a drive to occupy huge territories . . . The motor force of the Second World War was the need to dominate the economy of whole continents through capitalist investment, preferential trade agreements, currency regulations and political hegemony. The aim of the war was the subordination not only of the less developed world, but also of other industrial states, whether enemies or allies, to one hegemonic power’s priorities of capital accumulation. (1)¶ ¶ Capitalism means war because it is driven, in the last analysis, by economic forces, which require ever-expanding markets and opportunities for investments. It does this within the framework of competition between capitals which, after World War Two, resulted in the world hegemony of US imperialism. This hegemonic drive is in the nature of every imperialism: ‘There is not the slightest proof of any limitation on the war aims of Japan, Germany or the USA,’ writes Mandel of the Second World War. ‘Very early on the Tanaka memorandum established that for the Japanese army, the conquest of China was only a stepping stone to the conquest of world hegemony, which could be achieved after crushing US resistance.’ (2) Imperialistic policies of accumulating capital historically lead to war Judis 07- is a senior editor at The New Republic and a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (John, “Bush's Neo-Imperialist War”, The American Project 2007, http://prospect.org/article/bushs-neo-imperialist-war, MB) Our Iraqi occupation not only rejects American foreign policy since Wilson, it's a throwback to the great power imperialism that led to World War I.¶ Bush's foreign policy has been variously described as unilateralist, militarist, and hyper-nationalist. But the term that fits it best is imperialist. That's not because it is the most incendiary term, but because it is the most historically accurate. Bush's foreign policy was framed as an alternative to the liberal internationalist policies that Woodrow Wilson espoused and that presidents from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Bill Clinton tried to put into effect as an alternative to the imperialist strategies that helped cause two world wars and even the Cold War. Bush's foreign policy represents a return not to the simple unilateralism of 19th-century American foreign policy, but to the imperial strategy that the great powers of Europe -- and, for a brief period, America, too -- followed and that resulted in utter disaster.¶ There were two kinds of imperial rule: direct, where the colonial power assigned an administrator -- a viceroy or proconsul -- who ran the country directly; and indirect, where the colonial power used its financial and military power to prop up a native administration that did its bidding and to prevent the rise of governments that did not. The latter kind of imperial rule was developed by the United States in Cuba in 1901 after Roosevelt's Secretary of War Elihu Root realized that direct rule could bring war and rebellion, as it had done, to the the Philippines. The British later adopted this kind of imperial rule in Egypt and Iraq.¶ This growth of imperialism eventually created the conditions for its undoing. By encouraging not merely trade rivalry, but growing competition for national power -- epitomized in the pre– World War I naval arms race between Britain and Germany -- imperialism helped spawn wars McKinley administration's surprise, in among the great powers themselves. The rivalry between top dog England and challenger Germany, and between Germany and Austria, on the one hand, and France and Russia, on the other, contributed to the outbreak of World War I. The Second World War also represented, among other things, an attempt by the Axis powers, a subordinate group of capitalist nations, to redivide the world at the expense of the U.S., Great Britain, France, and the USSR. And the Cold War stemmed from the attempt by the Soviet Union, one of the most vocal critics of Western imperialism, to fulfill the imperial dreams of Czarist Russia by expanding westward and to the south Impact - Racism Racism was born out of capitalism to justify the suppression, exploitation of the working class and oppression of slaves Taylor, doctoral candidate in the department of African American Studies at Northwestern University, 2011 (Keeanga-Yamahtta. January 4th 2011. The Socialist Worker “Race, Class and Marxism” http://socialistworker.org/2011/01/04/race-class-and-marxism NMS) Marxists argue that capitalism is a system that is based on the exploitation of the many by the few. Because it is a system based on gross inequality, it requires various tools to divide the majority--racism and all oppressions under capitalism serve this purpose. Moreover, oppression is used to justify and "explain" unequal relationships in society that enrich the minority that live off the majority's labor. Thus, racism developed initially to explain and justify the enslavement of Africans--because they were less than human and undeserving of liberty and freedom.¶ Everyone accepts the idea that the oppression of slaves was rooted in the class relations of exploitation under that system. Fewer recognize that under capitalism, wage slavery is the pivot around which all other inequalities and oppressions turn. Capitalism used racism to justify plunder, conquest and slavery, but as Karl Marx pointed out, it also used racism to divide and rule--to pit one section of the working class against another and thereby blunt class consciousness.¶ To claim, as Marxists do, that racism is a product of capitalism is not to deny or diminish its importance or impact in American society. It is simply to explain its origins and the reasons for its perpetuation. Many on the left today talk about class as if it is one of many oppressions, often describing it as "classism." What people are really referring to as "classism" is elitism or snobbery, and not the fundamental organization of society under capitalism.¶ Moreover, it is popular today to talk about various oppressions, including class, as intersecting. While it is true that oppressions can reinforce and compound each other, they are born out of the material relations shaped by capitalism and the economic exploitation that is at the heart of capitalist society. In other words, it is the material and economic structure of society that gave rise to a range of ideas and ideologies to justify, explain and help perpetuate that order. In the United States, racism is the most important of those ideologies. The ideological explanations of racism is a tool of the capitalist system to divert attention from the socio-economic causes of racism in order to uphold the myth of market equality The Red Critique 2002(November/December 2002. The Red Critique “Race is Class” http://redcritique.org/NovDec02/raceisclass.htm NMS) The politics of racist segregation are, in other words, the direct product of U.S. capitalism. Recent statistics demonstrate the actual fact that while segregation might have been made "illegal" before the courts (a point which the Bush administration is trying to change), in practice segregationist policies are one of the main tools of capitalist bosses to divide the working class along racial lines while driving down wages, by eliminating necessary public services such as health care and education that affect all workers, for example. While the capitalist bosses enjoy the full benefits of their workers' labor and live a life without fear of not being able to afford basic necessities, 22% of African-American workers and 34% of Latino workers do not have access to health care and 27% of both African-American and Latino workers live below the poverty line. At the same time, the U.S. capitalist class is trying to extend the policing tactics it has used against the African-American members of the working class—for instance, while African-Americans constitute roughly 13% of the population in the United States, they represent almost half (48%) of all prison inmates and half of all death-row convictions in what has become a form of "legal lynching"—by criminalizing all people of color as part of their "war on terror". INS lock-ups, draconian immigration laws that are going to require all working people to carry ID cards, and Ashcroft's on-going policy of detainment without trial are all aimed at dividing the working class and ensuring that a segment of the population forever remains available as a "cheaper" source of labor (and a "scapegoat" when crisis emerges).¶ While Lott's comments have made all of this (momentarily) "visible" in the mainstream press, the unfolding cultural commentary has trivialized the issue by focusing on the personalities and speculating about whether the American people are ready to accept a racist message from their leaders. In other words, the corporate media does what it always does and turns what should be an occasion for investigating the social effects created by the powers that be, which should be the role of the press in a democracy, into a cultural debate about people's "values" that silently normalizes the rule of the powerful whose material interests in fact dictate what counts as public opinion because in actuality they own and control the culture industry and government.¶ The political economy of race, in short, is systematically suppressed by the ruling ideology. The common sense of "race" trivializes it as a cultural "stigma" that blocks the free play of market forces and produces unfair "discrimination" in the job market that, if left to itself, gives all an "equal opportunity". By turning racism from an economic to a cultural matter, the commonsense view of race diffuses the issue into a private matter of individuals—that is, there is racial discrimination because there are racist people; a circular logic that fails to explain what it claims to. This privatized view of race as discriminatory ideas, however, reflects the rule of a society that enshrines private property as the motor of economic life and normalizes the exploitation of the majority who are therefore forced to produce profit for the few just in order to survive. In other words, the common-sense of race in capitalism silently accepts and normalizes the unequal class relations that systematically contradict the ideal of "equal opportunity" and produce racism today: in an economy based on private control of the social means of production, competition is the rule and racism is a tool for increasing profits because it justifies unequal wages and undermines the unity of workers in the face of their exploiters. This class-consciousness of race is suppressed under the false consciousness that if left to itself the market frees the people from discriminatory ideas and gives everyone a chance to benefit equally: i.e., that the market is "colorblind". The common-sense that race is a matter of ideas that contradict the principles of the free market is a not so subtle ruse to deflect attention from the socio-economic causes of racism in capitalism onto its cultural effects and serves the interests of the few who alone actually benefit from racism in the world of wage-labor and capital. The cultural debate over the racism of the Republicans, the speculation of whether such and such politician is or is not racist, makes racism a matter of the ideas and beliefs of individuals so as to instill faith in the underlying class relations that systematically breed racism today Taylor, doctoral candidate in the department of African American Studies at Northwestern University, 2011 (Keeanga-Yamahtta. January 4th 2011. The Socialist Worker “Race, Class and Marxism” http://socialistworker.org/2011/01/04/race-class-and-marxism NMS) Today, the need for a revolutionary alternative to the failures of capitalism has never been greater. The election of Barack Obama came 40 years after the passage of the 1968 Civil Rights Act, the last piece of civil rights legislation from the civil rights era of the 1960s. Despite the enormous shift in racial attitudes symbolized by the election of a Black president in a country built in large part on the enslavement of Black people, the condition of the vast majority of African Americans today is perilous.¶ For almost two years, Black unemployment has fluctuated between 15 and 17 percent. Almost 20 percent of African Americans under the age of 65 are without health insurance compared to 15 percent for the rest of the population. According to the Center for Responsible Lending, a home owned by an African American or Latino family is 76 percent more likely to be foreclosed upon than a white-owned home.¶ The wipeout of home ownership among African Americans threatens to widen even more the gap in median family net worth. In 2007, the average white family had a net worth of more than $171,000 compared to less than $29,000 for African American and Latino families. More than 25 percent of Blacks and Latinos languish below the official poverty line, and more than a third of Black and Latino children live in poverty.¶ The distressing numbers that document the full impact of racism and discrimination in the United States have no end. But while conditions across Black America threaten to wipe out the economic gains made possible by the civil rights movement, millions of white workers are meeting their Black brothers and sisters on the way down. Tens of millions of white workers are stuck in long-term joblessness, without health insurance and waiting for their homes to be foreclosed upon.¶ Thus, the question of Black, Latino and white unity is not abstract or academic, but must be a concrete discussion about how to collectively go forward.¶ For most of the 20th century, legal racism both North and South created a tension-filled crossclass alliance in the African American community that was focused on freedom and equal treatment. The legislative fruition of that in the form of legal civil rights removed the barriers to advance for a small section of Black America. To be sure, the "Black middle class" is tenuous, fragile and, for many, a paycheck or two away from oblivion, but a more stable and ambitious Black elite most definitely exists, and their objectives and aspirations are anathema to the future of the mass of Black people.¶ No serious Marxist organization demands that Black and Latino workers put their struggles on the backburner while some mythical class struggle is waged beforehand. This impossible formulation rests on the ridiculous notion that the working class is white and male, and thus incapable of taking up issues of race, class and gender. In fact, the American working class is female, immigrant, Black and white. Immigrant issues, gender issues and anti-racism are working-class issues and to miss this is to be operating with a completely anachronistic idea of the working class.¶ Genuine Marxist organizations understand that the only way of achieving unity in the working class over time is to fight for unity today and every day. Workers will never unite to fight for state power if they cannot unite to fight for workplace demands today. If white workers are not won to anti-racism today, they will never unite with Black workers for a revolution tomorrow. If Black workers are not won to being against antiimmigrant racism today, they will never unite with Latino workers for a revolution tomorrow.¶ This is why Lenin said that a revolutionary party based on Marxism must be a "tribune of the oppressed," willing to fight against the oppression of any group of people, regardless of the class of those affected. And this is why, despite the anti-Marxist slurs from academics and even some who consider themselves part of the left, the idea that Marxism has been on the outside of the struggle against racism in the U.S. and around the world defies history and the legacy of Black revolutionaries who understood Marxism as a strategy for emancipation and liberation.¶ The challenge today is to make revolutionary Marxism, once again, a part of the discussion of how to end the social catastrophe that is unfolding in Black communities across the United States. Attempts to resolve racism that leave capitalism intact will fail Hall, leader and chairman of the CPUSA, 85—Gus, born Arvo Kustaa Halbergwas, was a leader and Chairman of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) was four-time U.S. presidential candidate [Courtesy Wikipedia].”(Fighting Racism: Selected Writings 1985 pgs. 266-267 http://www.questiaschool.com/read/22117083/fighting-racism-selected-writings [URL may be inaccessible]) One can not help but admire the groups which get together and go into the ghettos to "clean up a block." The clergy who inititate such actions do so with the best of intentions. But such efforts are not solutions. In fact they are misleading, since ghettos are not the result of people failing to clean up their neighborhoods. These well-meaning efforts are fruitless because they do not come to grips with the underlying causes of the problem . Any action that does not lead to a search for basic causes will not result in even temporary solutions . Mass actions must lead to inquiry that in turn can lead to even more meaningful mass struggles. Such is the path to victory. What line of inquiry do the corporate powers want to obstruct? The one that asks: What makes ghettos? Why should tens of millions of Americans be forced to live in rat infested, dilapidated, rundown tenements without elementary conveniences or facilities? Why is this the lot of Black Americans in the first place? If the answer is poverty, what then is the cause of poverty? Why is there such poverty in the midst of plenty? If the answer is unemployment, low wages, high prices, rents and taxes, what then is the reason for unemployment and low wages? And again, why is the percentage of Black Americans among the unemployed and low-paid so large? This line of inquiry leads to the very doorstep of the real culprit. It guides one to the real enemy -- the exploiting class -- and its accessories. For Marxists this is not a new discovery. But for the millions it is a necessary line of inquiry and an important and necessary discovery. This line of inquiry will lead from actions on the spontaneous level to a conscious line of struggle focused on the basic cause of the oppression. At the end of such a line of inquiry the people will find the culprit: the corporate system of capitalism, a system in which the few rob the many. It is this system that creates unemployment and low wages, jacks up prices, rents and taxes. This system , this capitalist structure , adapted from slavery the special system of oppressing the Afro- American people and fitted it to its system of exploiting workers. The express purpose of this system is to rob the poor. The entire corporate structure exists for the sole purpose of squeezing as much as possible from the people and giving as little as possible back to them. It thus makes the handful of rich richer and the millions of poor poorer. Exploitation is the economic basis of capitalism. The basic function of capitalist ideology is to justify and to facilitate exploitation of the workers by the capitalists. The basic politics of capitalism is the politics of exploitation. It is a politics that preserves and perpetuates this exploitative system. In short, the whole capitalist establishment is an instrument of exploitation. But why repeat such elementary truths? Only to point out the special responsibility of Communists, of Marxists. These truths are not known by the millions who are in struggle. This side of capitalism remains hidden to them. It is very carefully camouflaged. All "establishment" inquiries stop at this border. It is a safe bet that the presidential commission appointed to investigate the summer rebellions in the ghettos will not enter this arena of inquiry. T his crisis forces all Americans to re-examine their responsibilities. That white Americans have a special responsibility there can be no doubt. How this responsibility is placed is a very important question. Our purpose in placing it is to win white Americans to the goal of putting an end to the system of discrimination against their Black fellow Americans and thereby create a united people's force for overall progress. By and large, Afro-Americans are, to one degree or another, in this struggle. The challenge at this point is to win a larger section of white America. Black-white unity is one of the keys to victory over discrimination and segregation. Capitalism is the root cause of racism; racism masks exploitative capitalism Young, professor of English at the University of Alabama, 6—Dr. Robert M was a professor of English in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Alabama. He passed away in 2010. (“Putting Materialism back into Race Theory: Toward a Transformative Theory of Race” http://www.redcritique.org/WinterSpring2006/puttingmaterialismbackintoracetheory.htm) So, then, what is so new in the new social movements? It is certainly very "old" in the way it rehabilitates liberal notions of the autonomous subject. Its newness is a sign of the contemporary crisis-ridden conjuncture in capitalist social relations. This crisis of capital and the ensuing rupture in its ideological narrative provides the historical condition for articulating resistance along the axes of race, class, gender, ecology, etc. Even though resistance may take place in very specific domains, such as race, gender, ecological, or sexuality, among others, this does not mean that the crisis is local. It simply indexes how capitalist exploitation brings every social sphere under its totalizing logic. However, rather then point up the systematicity of the crisis, the theorists of the new social movements turn to the local, as if it is unrelated to questions of globality. With Gilroy and the new social movements, we are returned, once again, to the local and the experiential sets the limits of understanding. Gilroy asserts that people "unable to control the social relations in which they find themselves…have shrunk the world to the size of their communities and begun to act politically on that basis" (245). If this is true, then Gilroy, at the level of theory, mirrors this as he "shrinks" his theory to the dictates of crude empiricism. Rather than opening the possibility of collective control over social relations, which points in an emancipatory direction, Gilroy brackets the question of "social relation" and consequently, he limits politics to the cultural (re)negotiations of identity. If Gilroy deploys the post-colonial racialized agent for displacing class, then Homi Bhabha's postcolonial theory detaches race from political economy by reinscribing race within the problematics of signification. In The Location of Culture, Bhabha's last chapter, "Race', time and the revision of modernity", situates the question of race within the "ambivalent temporality of modernity" (239). In this way, Bhabha foregrounds the "time-lag" between "event" and "enunciation" and, for Bhabha, this produces space for postcolonial agency. Political agency revolves around deconstructing signs from totalities and thereby delaying the connection between signifier and signified and resistance is the effect of this ambivalence. Hence, for Bhabha, "the intervention of postcolonial or black critique is aimed at transforming the conditions of enunciation at the level of the sign" (247). This idealist reading of the social reduces politics to a struggle over the sign rather than the relations of production. Indeed, Bhabha re-understands the political not as an ideological practice aimed at social transformation—the project of transformative race theory. Instead, he theorizes "politics as a performativity" (15). But what is the social effect of this understanding of politics? Toward what end might this notion point us? It seems as if the political now calls for (cosmopolitan) witnesses to the always already permanent slippage of signification and this (formal) process of repetition and reinscription outlines a space for "other forms of enunciation" (254). But will these "other forms of enunciation" naturally articulate resistance to the dominant political and ideological interests? For Bhabha, of course, we "need to think beyond narratives of originary and initial subjectivities and to focus on those moments or processes that are produced in the articulation of cultural differences" (1). However, cultural differences, in themselves, do not necessarily mean opposition. Indeed, at the moment, cultural difference represents one of the latest zones for commodification and, in this regard, it ideologically legitimates capitalism. Bhabha homogenizes (cultural) difference and, consequently, he covers over ideological struggles within the space of cultural difference. In short, this other historical site is not the site for pure difference, which naturally resists the hegemonic; for it, too, is the site for political contestation. Bhabha's formalism makes it seem as if ambivalence essentially inheres in discourse. Ambivalence results from opposed political interests that inflect discourses and so the ambivalence registers social conflict. In Marxism and the Philosophy and Language, Vološinov offers this materialist understanding of the sign: Class does not coincide with the sign community, i.e. with the community which is the totality of users of the same set of signs for ideological communication. Thus various different classes will use one and the same language. As a result, differently oriented accents intersect in every ideological sign. Sign becomes an arena of class struggle. (22) The very concept—ideology—that could delineate the political character and therefore class interests involved in structuring the content of discourses, Bhabha excludes from his discourse. In the end, Bhabha's discourse advocates what amounts to discursive freedom and he substitutes this for material freedom. Like Gilroy, Bhabha's discursive freedom takes place within the existing system. In contrast to Bhabha, Marx theorizes the material presupposition of freedom. In the German Ideology, Marx argues that "people cannot be liberated as long as they are unable to obtain food and drink, housing and clothing in adequate quality and quantity" (61). Thus for Marx "[l]iberation" is an historical and not a mental act" (61). In suppressing the issue of need, Bhabha's text reveals his own class interests. The studied preoccupation with "ambivalence" reflects a class privilege, and it speaks to the crisis for (postcolonial) subjects torn between national affiliation and their privileged (and objective) class position within the international division of labor. The ambivalence is a symptom of social antagonism, but in Bhabha's hands, it becomes a transhistorical code for erasing the trace of class. Here, then, is one of the primary effects of the postmodern knowledge practices: class is deconstructed as a metaphysical dinosaur. In this regard, postmodernists collude with the humanists in legitimating the sanctity of the local. Both participate in narrowing cultural intelligibility to questions of (racial) discourse or the (black) subject and, in doing so, they provide ideological immunity for capitalism. It is now very difficult to even raise the issue of class, particularly if you raise the issue outside of the logic of supplementarity—today's ruling intellectual logic which provides a theoretical analog to contemporary neo-liberal political structures. In one of the few recent texts to explore the centrality of class, bell hooks' Where We Stand, we are, once again, still left with a reaffirmation of capitalism. For instance, hooks argues for changes within capitalism: "I identify with democratic socialism, with a vision of participatory economics within capitalism that aims to challenge and change class hierarchy" (156). Capitalism produces class hierarchy and, therefore, as long as capitalism remains, class hierarchy and antagonism will remain. Hence, the solution requires a transformation of class society. However, hooks mystifies capitalism as a transhistorical system and thus she can assert that the "poor may be with us always" (129). Under this view, politics becomes a matter of "bearing witness" to the crimes of capitalism, but rather than struggle for its replacement, hooks call for strategies of "self-actualization" and redistributing resources to the poor. She calls for the very same thing—collectivity—that capitalism cannot provide because social resources are privatized under capitalism. Consequently, Hooks' program for "self-esteem" is an attempt to put a human face on capitalism. Whether one considers the recent work by African-American humanists, or discourse theorists, or even left-liberal intellectuals, these various groups—despite their intellectual differences— form a ruling coalition and one thing is clear: capitalism set the limit for political change, as there is no alternative to the rule of capital. In contrast to much of contemporary race theory, a transformative theory of race highlights the political economy of race in the interests of an emancipatory political project. Wahneema Lubiano once wrote that "the idea of race and the operation of racism are the best friends that the economic and political elite have in the United States" (vii). Race mystifies the structure of exploitation and masks the severe inequalities within global capitalism. I am afraid that, at this point, many contemporary race theorists, in their systematic erasure of materialism, have become close (ideological) allies with the economic and political elites, who deny even the existence of classes. A transformative race theory pulls back into focus the struggle against exploitation and sets a new social priority "in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all" (Marx 31). Black alienation is rooted in capitalism; the aff’s refusal to accept so supports capitalism Young, professor of English at the University of Alabama, 6—Dr. Robert M was a professor of English in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Alabama. He passed away in 2010. (“Putting Materialism back into Race Theory: Toward a Transformative Theory of Race” http://www.redcritique.org/WinterSpring2006/puttingmaterialismbackintoracetheory.htm) Indeed, the discourse of the subject operates as an ideological strategy for fetishizing the black experience and, consequently, it positions black subjectivity beyond the reach of Marxism. For example, in The Afrocentric Idea, Asante dismisses Marxism because it is Eurocentric; but are the core concepts of Marxism, such as class and mode of production, relevant only for European social formations? Are African and African American social histories/relations unshaped by class structures? Asante assumes that class hierarchies do not structure African or the African American social experiences, and this reveals the class politics of Afrocentricity: It makes class invisible. Asante’s assumption, which erases materialism, enables Asante to offer the idealist formulation that the “word creates reality” (Afrocentric Idea 70). The political translation of such idealism is, not surprisingly, very conservative. Asante directs us away from critiquing capitalist institutions, in a manner similar to the ideological protocol of the Million Man March, and calls for vigilance against symbolic oppression. As Asante tellingly puts it, “symbol imperialism, rather than institutional racism, is the major social problem facing multicultural societies” In the realm of African American philosophy, Howard McGary Jr. also deploys the discourse of the (black) subject to mark the limits of Marxism. For instance, in a recent interview, McGary (Afrocentric Idea 56). offers this humanist rejection of Marxism: “I don’t think that the levels of alienation experienced by Black people are rooted primarily in economic relations” (Interview 90). For McGary, black alienation exceeds the logic of Marxist theory and thus McGary’s idealist assertion that “the sense of alienation experienced by Black people in the U.S. is also rooted in the whole idea of what it means to be a human being and how that has to be understood” (Interview 90). McGary confuses causes and effects and then misreads Marxism as a descriptive modality. Marxism is not as concerned with descriptive accounts, the effects, as it is with explanatory accounts; that is, it is concerned with the cause of social alienation because such an explanatory account acts as a guide for praxis. Social alienation is a historical effect, and its explanation and such and explanation emerges from the transpersonal space of concepts. In theorizing the specificity of black alienation, McGary reveals his contradictory ideological coordinates. First, he argues that black alienation results from cultural “beliefs.” Then, he suggests that these cultural “norms” and “practices” develop from slavery and Jim Crow, which are fundamentally economic relations for the historically specific exploitation of black people. If these cultural norms endogenously emerge from the economic systems of slavery and Jim Crow, as McGary correctly suggests, then and contrary to McGary’s expressed position, black alienation is very much rooted in economic relations. McGary’s desire to place black subjectivity beyond Marxism creates contradictions in his text. McGary asserts that the economic structures of slavery and Jim Crow shape cultural norms. Thus, in a postslavery, post-Jim Crow era, there would still be an economic structure maintaining contemporary oppressive norms—from McGary’s logic this must be the case. McGary remains silent, however, on the contemporary economic system structuring black alienation: capitalism. Apparently, it is legitimate to foreground and critique the historical connection between economics and alienation but any inquiry into the present-day connection between economics and alienation is off limits. This other economic structure— capitalism— remains the unsaid in McGary’s discourse, and consequently McGary provides ideological support for capitalism —the exploitative infrastructure that produces and maintains alienation for blacks as well as for all working people. Racism is a tool of capitalism that divides workers and prevents an overthrow of the system Reich, professor of political economy at UC Berkeley, 74 Michael is a Professor of Political Economy at U. C. Berkeley. (“The Economics of Racism”—1974 http://tomweston.net/ReichRacism.pdf) COMPETING EXPLANATIONS OF RACISM How is the historical persistence of racism in the United States to be explained? The most prominent analysis of discrimination among economists was formulated in 1957 by Gary Becker in his book, The Economics of -3- Discrimination. 6 Racism, according to Becker, is fundamentally a problem of tastes and attitudes. Whites are defined to have a "taste for discrimination" if they are willing to forfeit income in order to be associated with other whites instead of blacks. Since white employers and employees prefer not to associate with blacks, they require a monetary compensation for the psychic cost of such association. In Becker's principal model, white employers have a taste for discrimination; marginal productivity analysis is invoked to show that white employers lose while white workers gain (in monetary terms) from discrimination against blacks. Becker does not try to explain the source of white tastes for discrimination. For him, these attitudes are determined outside of the economic system. (Racism could presumably be ended simply by changing these attitudes, perhaps by appeal to whites on moral grounds.) According to Becker's analysis, employers would find the ending of racism to be in their economic self-interest, but white workers would not. The persistence of racism is thus implicitly laid at the door of white workers. Becker suggests that long-run market forces will lead to the end of discrimination anyway: less discriminatory employers, with no "psychic costs" to enter in their accounts, will be able to operate at lower costs by hiring equivalent black workers at lower wages, thus bidding up the black wage rate and/or driving the more discriminatory employers out of business. The approach to racism argued here is entirely different. Racism is viewed as rooted in the economic system and not in "exogenously determined" attitudes. Historically, the American Empire was founded on the racist extermination of American Indians, was financed in large part by profits from slavery, and was extended by a string of interventions, beginning with the Mexican War of the 1840s, which have been at least partly justified by white supremacist ideology. Today, by transferring white resentment toward blacks and away from capitalism, racism continues to serve the needs of the capitalist system. Although individual employers might gain by refusing to dis-criminate and hiring more blacks, thus raising the black wage rate, it is not true that the capitalist class as a whole would benefit if racism were eliminated and labor were more efficiently allocated without regard to skin color. We will show below that the divisiveness of racism weakens workers' strength when bargaining with employers ; the economic consequences of racism are not only lower incomes for blacks but also higher incomes for the capitalist class and lower incomes for white workers. Although capitalists may not have conspired consciously to create racism, and although capitalists may not be its principal perpetuators, never-the-less racism docs support the continued viability of the American capitalist system. We have, then, two alternative approaches to the analysis of racism. The first suggests that capitalists lose and white workers gain from racism. The second predicts the opposite—capitalists gain while workers lose. The first says that racist "tastes for discrimination" are formed independently of the economic system; the second argues that racism interacts symbiotically with capitalistic economic institutions. The very persistence of racism in the United States lends support to the second approach. So do repeated instances of employers using blacks as strikebreakers, as in the massive steel strike of 1919, and employerinstigated exacerbation of racial antagonisms during that strike and many others.7 However, the particular virulence of racism among many blue- and white-collar workers and their families seems to refute our approach and support Becker. Racism is used by capitalism to divide workers and prevent unity against industry Bohmer, professor at Evergreen State College, 98—Peter is a professor at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington and has a B.S., Economics and Mathematics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1965; Ph.D., Economics, University of Massachusetts, 1985. (“Marxist Theory of Racism and Racial Inequality”—12/20/1998 http://academic.evergreen.edu/b/bohmerp/marxracism.htm) Marxist models of racial discrimination have been developed to rectify this shortcoming, and to simultaneously critique the implications derived from Gary Becker and Milton Friedman’s conclusion that capitalism and racism are incompatible. These classbased models show the interests of employers as a class to pay lower wages to blacks than to whites coincide with the interests of the individual employer. They focus on one central aspect of racism, that capitalism uses racism to divide workers. an individual employer can make more profit from a racially divided working class than from a united one. In these models, the level of wages and the average production per worker depend on workers’ bargaining power as well as on the technology. More worker bargaining power means higher wages and lower profits, and less bargaining power means lower wages and higher profits. This provides a microeconomic foundation, Based on Marx’s analysis that production is a social as well as a technical process, these models show that consistent with profit maximizing behavior, of disparate on the job treatment of equally skilled black and white workers. It also explains why black workers will not replace white workers, even if the latter can be paid lower wages. These ideas are developed By hiring both white workers and black workers, but paying a lower wage to the black workers, employers as a class gain by racism and racial inequality, and each individual employer also maximizes profits. Paying unequal wages in a firm based on race divides workers, makes unity weaker than it would be if all workers received the same wage or if the workforce was racially homogeneous. The most thoroughly in Michael Reich’s, Racial Inequality. resulting disunity from racial division lowers average wages and increases profits. At a certain point, however, firms do not hire more lower paid black workers to replace white workers because this would lead to more black worker militancy possibly raising the overall level of wages. Alternatively, though with similar results, the disunity of workers caused by different wages paid to blacks and whites leads to increased profits. The reason in the latter case is the employers are able to get workers to work harder and faster and produce more than they would have otherwise. Doing careful econometric analysis, Michael Reich shows that the data on racial inequality is consistent with and provides support for this theory. Using data primarily from the 1970 census, he compares urban areas. He demonstrates that greater racial inequality causes lower average earnings of white workers and higher profit rates. He uses the ratio of black to white earnings as a measure of racial inequality and racism. In cities in the U.S. South, where the gaps between the wages of blacks and whites are greatest, wages of whites are lowest, and profit highest. Reich demonstrates empirically that not only do black workers lose from racism but so do all workers as their incomes are reduced. If the wages of blacks equaled whites, not only would the wages of blacks be higher but so would the wages of whites. When synthesized with the historical analysis of racism, these models provide insight into the reasons for the reproduction of black-white earnings inequality. They demonstrate that capitalists divide the working class, and that the correct strategy for the increase of racial and overall equality (between employees and employers) is an alliance of black and other workers of color with white workers against their common exploiter, capital. There are a number of problems however. This model downplays the role and importance of black people and black organizations in challenging racial inequality and exploitation. Also missing is a convincing explanation of why white workers often accept or support racial inequality and a racist ideology. Since in this framework, the incomes of white as well as black workers are lowered, claiming white workers have ‘false-consciousness’ is not a sufficient explanation of their racism. Although this class-based approach to racism provides insight into the reproduction of racial and overall inequality, it leads to class reductionism and excessive economic determinism. Class reductionism considers central only movements and issues directly related to class struggle between the working and capitalist class. Economic determinism means the economy determines the politics, culture, consciousness and struggles of a society; it minimizes the autonomous role of culture and race. In the class-based approaches to racism (and in the internal colonialism framework examined in the next chapter), there is little analysis of the role and situation of black and white women and how it has differed from that of black and white men. Gender is almost completely disregarded and there is little investigation of the relation between gender, race and class oppression. Recent developments in Marxist theory have led to a fuller analysis of racism. These include theorizing the importance of non-class-based groupings such as gender and ethnicity. Culture, ideology, consciousness and the State are examined as more than reflections of the economic base. They are important aspects of society that influence and are influenced by the entire social formation. Capitalism uses race as a means to separate workers and prevent action against conditions Reich, Gordon, & Edwards, professors at University of Boston, Harvard, and Harvard, 73—Michael, David M, and Richard C. are professors at Boston University, Harvard University, and Harvard University respectively. Michael was also a professor of economics at UC Berkeley, David M. founded the Institute for Labor Education and Research in 1975 and later the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis in New York City, and Richard C. is a partner in Casner & Edwards’ Nonprofit Organizations Law Practice and received a J.D. from Harvard Law School. (“Dual Labor Markets: A Theory of Labor Market Segmentation”—5/1/1973 http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1002&context=econfacpub&seiredir=1&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fscholar.google.com%2Fscholar_url%3Fhl%3Den%26q%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fdigitalcommons.unl.edu%2Fcgi%2Fviewcontent.cgi%253Farticle%25 3D1002%2526context%253Deconfacpub%26sa%3DX%26scisig%3DAAGBfm0gKF9qk3cSsk5OOTx7EewP6YvaUg%26oi%3Dscholarr#search=%22http%3A%2F%2Fdigitalcommons.u nl.edu%2Fcgi%2Fviewcontent.cgi%3Farticle%3D1002%26context%3Deconfacpub%22) At the same time that firms were segmenting their internal labor markets, similar efforts were under way with respect to the firm's external relations. Employers quite consciously exploited race, ethnic, and sex antagonisms in order to undercut unionism and break strikes. In numerous instances during the consolidation of monopoly capitalism, employers manipulated the mechanisms of labor supply in order to import blacks as strikebreakers, and racial hostility was stirred up to deflect class conflicts into race conflicts. For example, during the steel strike of 1919, one of the critical points in U.S. history, some 30,000 to 40,000 blacks were imported as strikebreakers in a matter of a few weeks. Employers also often trans formed jobs into "female jobs" in order to render those jobs less susceptible to unionization (Brecher, D. Brody, Com- mons). Employers also consciously manipulated ethnic antagonisms to achieve segmentation. Employers often hired groups from rival nationalities in the same plant or in different plants. During labor unrest the companies sent spies and rumor mongers to each camp, stirring up fears, hatred, and antagonisms of other groups. The strategy was most successful when many immigrant groups had little command of English (Brecher, Brody). Impact – Resource Wars Capitalism ensures resource wars in the inevitable drive for resources Wang, The University of Arizona Mathematics professor, 10 (Qiudong, 11/10/10, Arizona Mathematics homepage, “The Trend of Global Capitalism”, http://math.arizona.edu/~dwang/treaty3.pdf, pg. 8, accessed 7/2/13, JZ) Capitalism, as a framework for mankind to pursue collectively a happier life on¶ earth, has come a long way and has created marvels. However, it has not yet succeeded in escaping a shadow long projected by Malthus, that is, the ultimately disastrous consequence of the constraint of nature resources imposed on human activities.¶ Modern technology has based material productivity of human societies on increased¶ consumption of certain natural resources not reproducible on earth. Imperative need¶ for these resources, in particular the energy resources, has imposed an ever increasing tension on relationships of all sovereign members of the international community.¶ Existing energy resource is obviously not sufficient to sustain an equal material consumption for all, and hostile competition stimulated by the constraint on resources¶ is likely to bring forth the dark side of humanity. This explains why western powers¶ have behaved so reluctantly to share with under developed world the fruit of advancement of modern technology. They would rather keep these precious resources¶ for themselves. The logic behind the course of their actions is irrefutable if we admit¶ that self-serving is an intrinsic human nature. The real issue is that, even if western powers are completely successful in carrying¶ out their self-serving policy towards under developed world, they are only delaying¶ the explosion of a time bomb that is intrinsically built into the system. The base¶ of economic and social activities of the modern world has to be shifted from irreproducible onto reproducible energy source, though we do not know yet how and even¶ how long it will take us to figure a practical solution out. Without a clear solution,¶ resource constraint would eventually lead to hostile competition, resulting in a general declination of modern civilization. There is still time but the clock is ticking. On¶ the other hand, one could only imagine the world of wonders when mankind is finally¶ liberated from the pressure of a disastrous hostile competition caused by restraint of¶ nature resources. The drive for profit creates wars, whether from greed or scarcity grievances Le Billon, University of British Columbia associate professor, 3 (Phillippe, 2003, Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia, and a researcher at the Liu Institute for Global Issues, “The Political Ecology of War and Resource Exploitation”, Studies in Policy Economy, https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/spe/article/viewFile/12076/8950, pg. 61, accessed 7/8/13, JZ) Building on studies of the economic functions of violence and the economic agendas of "warlords," economists Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler identified primary commodity dependence as "the most powerful risk factor" of civil war in their search to devise which of "greed" or "grievances" was the chief motivation of rebellion.? They first interpreted this result as evidence that civil war resulted from greed over valuable and plentiful resources, rather than grievances over scarce resources. While Collier and Hoeffler recently revised their argument and placed natural resources as a contextual "opportunity" for rebellion rather than a primarily motivational factor, the "greed factor" is not the only one linking natural resources to violent forms of conflicts and appropriation. Despite a diversity of populations, cultures, and political systems, many resource-dependent countries share similar difficulties-induding poor economic growth, high inequalities, and political authoritarianism-all factors of grievances. In the light of the prominence of resource dependence as a characteristic of conflict-ridden countries, both greed and grievances need to be acknowledged; as does the influence of resource dependence on the vulnerability of institutional arrangements and the conflictuality of power politics. Capitalism’s drive for natural resources ensures wars over resource allocation Le Billon, University of British Columbia associate professor, 1 (Phillippe, 2001, Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia, and a researcher at the Liu Institute for Global Issues, “The political ecology of war: natural resources and armed conflicts”, pg. 562-563, http://www.cddc.vt.edu/ept/eprints/ecowar.pdf, accessed 7/9/13, JZ) Natural resources have played a conspicuous role in the history of armed conflicts. From competition over wild game to merchant capital and imperialist wars over precious minerals, natural resources have motivated or financed the violent activities of many different types of belligerents (Westing, 1986).1 With the sharp drop in foreign assistance to many governments and rebel groups resulting from the end of the Cold War, belligerents have become more dependent upon mobilising private sources of support to sustain their military and political activities; thereby defining a new political economy of war (Berdal & Keen, 1997; Le Billon, 2000a). Similarly, a fall in terms of international trade in primary commodities and structural adjustments have led to a readjustment of the strategies of accumulation of many Southern ruling elites towards‘shadow’state politics controlling informal economies and privatised companies (Reno, 1998). Although domestic and foreign state budgets continue to support armed conflict expenditures, other major sources of funding include criminal proceeds from kidnappings or protection rackets, diversion of relief aid, Diaspora remittances, and revenues from trading in commodities such as drugs, timber or minerals (Jean & Rufin, 1996).2 Arms dumping and the support of corrupt regimes during the Cold War, the liberalisation of international trade, as well as the redeployment of state security personnel and networks into private ventures have frequently participated in the growth of such parallel networks and the ‘routinisation’ of criminal practices within states institutions, most notably in Africa and the former Soviet Union (Bayart, Ellis, & Hibou, 1999; Duffield, 1998). There is growing concern that whereas resources were once a means of funding and waging armed conflict for states to a political end, armed conflict is increasingly becoming the means to individual commercial ends: gaining access to valuable resources (Keen, 1998; Berdal & Malone, 2000). This demise of ideology and politics informs, for example, the assumption of the UN Security Council that the control and exploitation of natural resources motivates and finances parties responsible for the continuation of conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo.3 Impact – Value to Life Capitalism creates mental conditions that decrease value to life James, Trained psychologist, 08 (Oliver, theguardian, “Selfish Capitalism is bad for our mental health”, 1/2/08, Add to this the astonishing fact that citizens of Selfish Capitalist, English-speaking nations (which tend to be one and the same) are twice as likely to suffer mental illness as those from mainland western Europe, which is largely Unselfish Capitalist in its political economy. An average 23% of Americans, Britons, Australians, New Zealanders and Canadians suffered in the last 12 months, but only 11.5% of Germans, Italians, French, Belgians, Spaniards and Dutch. The message could not be clearer. Selfish Capitalism, much more than genes, is extremely bad for your mental health. But why is it so toxic? Readers of this newspaper will need little reminding that Selfish Capitalism has massively increased the wealth of the wealthy, robbing the average earner to give to the rich. There was no "trickle-down effect" after all. The real wage of the average English-speaking person has remained the same - or, in the case of the US, decreased - since the 1970s. By more than halving the taxes of the richest and transferring the burden to the general population, Margaret Thatcher reinstated the rich's capital wealth after three postwar decades in which they had steadily become poorer. Although I risk you glazing over at these statistics, it's worth remembering that the top 1% of British earners have doubled their share of the national income since 1982, from 6.5% to 13%, FTSE 100 chief executives now earning 133 times more than the average wage (against 20 times in 1980); and under Brown's chancellorship the richest 0.3% nobbled over half of all liquid assets (cash, instantly accessible income), increasing their share by 79% during the last five years. In itself, this economic inequality does not cause mental illness. WHO studies show that some very inequitable developing nations, like Nigeria and China, also have the lowest prevalence of mental illness. Furthermore, inequity may be much greater in the English-speaking world today, but it is far less than it was at the end of the 19th century. While we have no way of knowing for sure, it is very possible that mental illness was nowhere near as widespread in, for instance, the US or Britain of that time. What does the damage is the combination of inequality with the widespread relative materialism of Affluenza - placing a high value on money, possessions, appearances and fame when you already have enough income to meet your fundamental psychological needs. Survival materialism is healthy. If you need money for medicine or to buy a house, becoming very concerned about getting them does not make you mentally ill. But Selfish Capitalism stokes up relative materialism: unrealistic aspirations and the expectation that they can be fulfilled. It does so to stimulate consumerism in order to increase profits and promote short-term economic growth. Indeed, I maintain that high levels of mental illness are essential to Selfish Capitalism, because needy, miserable people make greedy consumers and can be more easily suckered into perfectionist, competitive workaholism. With overstimulated aspirations and expectations, the entrepreneurial fantasy society fosters the delusion that anyone can be Alan Sugar or Bill Gates, never mind that the actual likelihood of this occurring has diminished since the 1970s. A Briton turning 20 in 1978 was more likely than one doing so in 1990 to achieve upward mobility through education. Nonetheless, in the Big Brother/ It Could Be You society, great swaths of the population believe they can become rich and famous, and that it is highly desirable. This is most damaging of all - the ideology that material affluence is the key to fulfilment and open to anyone willing to work hard enough. If you don't succeed, there is only one person to blame never mind that it couldn't be clearer that it's the system's fault, not yours. Depressed or anxious, you work ever harder. Or maybe you collapse and join the sickness benefit queue, leaving it to people shipped in to do the low-paid jobs that society has taught you are too demeaning - let alone the unpaid ones, like looking after children or elderly parents, which are beneath contempt in the Nouveau Labour liturgy. There is much tearing of hair across the media and advocacy of nose-pegging on these pages of the "grin and bear it" variety. In fact, there is an alternative. We desperately need - and before long, I predict we will get - a passionate, charismatic, probably female leader who advocates the Unselfish Capitalism of our neighbours. The pitch is simple. Not only would reduced consumerism and greater equality make us more ecologically sustainable, it would halve the prevalence of mental illness within a generation. Capitalism leads to laborer objectification AP, Works for Cyber Harvard Law, no date (AP, the Bridge, “Economic Analysis leads to Commodification”, no date, http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/bridge/LawEconomics/critique5.htm, 7/3/13, CF) [T]he hegemony of profit-maximizing buying and selling stifles the individual and social potential of human beings through its organization of production, distribution, and consumption, and through its concomitant creation and maintenance of the person as a selfaggrandizing profit- and preference-maximizer. . . .1. Alienability and Alienation: The Problem of Fetishism. -- For critics of the market society, commodification simultaneously expresses and creates alienation. The word "alienation" thus harbors an ironic double meaning. Freedom of alienation is the paramount characteristic of liberal property rights, yet Marx saw a necessary connection between this market alienability and human alienation. In his early writings, Marx analyzed the connection between alienation and commodity production in terms of estranged labor; later he introduced the notion of commodity fetishism. In his treatment of estranged labor, Marx portrayed workers' alienation from their own human self-activity as the result of producing objects that became market commodities. By objectifying the labor of the worker, commodities create object- bondage and alienate workers from the natural world in and with which they should constitute themselves by creative interaction. Ultimately, laboring to produce commodities turns the worker from a human being into a commodity, "indeed the most wretched of commodities." Marx continued: The worker becomes an ever cheaper commodity the more commodities he creates. With the increasing value of the world of things proceeds in direct proportion the devaluation of the world of men. Labour produces not only commodities; it produces itself and the worker as a commodity -- and does so in the proportion in which it produces commodities generally. Commodification brings about an inferior form of human life. As a result of this debasement, Marx concluded that people themselves, not just their institutions, must change in order to live without the market. To reach the post-capitalist stage, "the alteration of men on a mass scale is necessary." The fetishism of commodities represents a different kind of human subjection to commodities (or a different way of looking at human subjection to commodities). By fetishism Marx meant a kind of projection of power and action onto commodities. This projection reflects -- but disguises -- human social interactions. Relationships between people are disguised as relationships between commodities, which appear to be governed by abstract market forces. Capitalism causes dehumanization-people are seen as only materials for production AP, Works for Cyber Harvard Law, no date (AP, the Bridge, “Economic Analysis leads to Commodification”, no date, http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/bridge/LawEconomics/critique5.htm, 7/3/13, CF) I do not decide what objects to produce, rather "the market" does. Unless there is a demand for paperweights, they will have no market value, and I cannot produce them for sale. Moreover, I do not decide what price to sell them for, "the market" does. At market equilibrium, I cannot charge more nor less than my opportunity costs of production without going out of business. In disequilibrium, my price and profit are still set by "the market"; my price depends upon how many of us are supplying paperweights in relation to how many people want to buy them and what they are willing to pay for them. Thus, the market value of my commodity dictates my actions, or so it seems. As Marx put it, "[producers'] own social action takes the form of the action of objects, which rule the producers instead of being ruled by them." In an analysis that has profoundly influenced many contemporary anticommodifiers, Georg Lukacs, developing Marx's concept of commodity fetishism, found commodification to be "the central, structural problem of capitalist society in all its aspects." Lukacs linked the trend to commodify the worker with Weberian "rationalization" of the capitalist structure. The more efficient production becomes, the more fungible are the laborers. Moreover, fungibility becomes pervasive: [T]he principle of rational mechanisation and calculability [embraces] every aspect of life. Consumer articles no longer appear as the products of an organic process within a community (as for example in a village community). They now appear, on the one hand, as abstract members of a species identical by definition with its other members and, on the other hand, as isolated objects the possession or nonpossession of which depends on rational calculations. These falsely objectified commodities are said to be reified. According to Lukacs, reification penetrates every level of intellectual and social life. False objectification -- false separateness from us -- in the way we conceive of our social activities and environment reflects and creates dehumanization and powerlessness . The rhetoric, the discourse in which we conceive of our world, affects what we are and what our world is. For example, Lukacs thought that the universal commodification of fully developed capitalism underlies physicalist reductionism in science and the tendency to conceive of matter as external and real. He thought that universal commodification also underlies both our rigid division of the world into subjects versus objects ("the metaphysical dilemma of the relation between 'mind' and 'matter'"), and the "Kantian dilemma" that places objective reason, purportedly the foundation of metaphysics and ethics, in the noumenal realm forever beyond our reach. For Lukacs, thought and reality are inextricably linked. The capitalist system commodifies the working class as just means for profit Leys and Harriss-White, AP, 13 (Colin and Barbra, OpenDemocracy, “Commodification: The essence of our time”, 4/2/13, http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/colin-leysbarbara-harriss-white/commodification-essence-of-our-time, 7/3/13, CF) Under advanced capitalism, commodification expands into all corners of social and political life, with devastating consequences. Finding a limit to this process is more urgent than ever. The dominant process underlying the transformation of life in all societies, since at least the mid-nineteenth century, is the conversion of things and activities into commodities, or commodification. In advanced capitalist countries this process is now outstripping our political and social capacity to adjust to it. Any useful economic analysis needs to foreground this process. Mainstream economics does not do this. Commodities & commodification Not everything useful is a commodity. What makes anything a commodity is the possibility of trading it for profit. Apples grown in someone’s back yard are not commodities; apples become commodities only when they are grown for sale. Under capitalism, nothing is produced that can’t be sold for profit, so the production of commodities is capitalism’s raison d’etre. The Italian economist Piero Sraffa even defined capitalism as ‘the production of commodities by means of commodities’ – meaning, by means of production that are also traded: i.e. not only raw materials and machinery, but also labour which under capitalism is sold by workers and bought by employers. Slavery is justifies in capitalism, reducing people to nothing but the means for production and devaluating them as human beings Sakisaka, Writer for Marxist.org, 06 (Itsuko, Marxists.org, “Exploitation of labor”, 2006, http://www.marxists.org/subject/japan/sakisaka/exploitation.htm, 7/9/13, CF) Capitalism represents an historical era in which commodity production spans the entirety of society. Human labor-power is commodified. As a commodity, labor-power also has value. And a wage is received that is the price of this commodity. Because surplus-labor is exploited in the form of commodity production, surplus-labor takes the form of surplus-value. Capitalism is highly developed commodity production so the exploitation of surplus-labor likewise represents an extremely complex issue. In the case of the exploitation of slave labor, by contrast, things are exceedingly clear. Slaves, who exist as a sort of animal owned by another human being, have no freedom . Like a dog, a slave is unable to exercise any degree of physical or mental freedom. The products of a slave's labor belong in their entirety to the slave owner. All that is received in return is food. A peasant, meanwhile, is a sort of half-person. Firmly tied to the land, a peasant cannot choose what to grow or which land to grow it on, nor is he free to choose a profession. To the extent that peasants cultivate the plot of land they are provided, they are able to obtain food, clothing and lodging. But the fruit of their labor on the lord's fields entirely belong to this master. There is thus a clear, temporal division between the labor the peasants perform for themselves and that performed for the feudal lord. This makes it difficult to conceal the fact that labor is exploited. And when, as subsequently occurs, some of the products from the land the peasants themselves cultivate must be paid as a tribute to this lord, in addition to their labor to cultivate the lord's fields, this also clearly presents itself as exploitation because it takes an in-kind form. Even though the yearly rice tribute was referred to in Japanese as goko-gomin (50 percent for master, 50 percent for peasant), this did not change the fact that the master's share was also the product of the peasant's labor. Under capitalism, however, things are different. Labor-power is commodified and thus sold according to its value. The means of production are also purchased and owned by the capitalist class. Capitalists come into possession of the means of production and labor-power through the process of circulation, as well as the resulting products that likewise flow back to them via the circulation process to meet their needs. Even if everything is bought and sold at its value, capitalists are able to obtain the surplus-labor that forms surplus-value. What is the secret behind all of this? Impact - Warming Arguments that capitalism can solve warming are incorrect and unsubstantiated Liodakis and Vlachou 04 (George Liodakis and Andriana Vlachou, Professor at the Technical Institute of Crete, Associate Professor of Economics at the Athens University of Economics and Business, Winter 2004 Science & Society, Vol. 67, No. 4 pp.465 http://www.jstor.org.proxyremote.galib.uga.edu/stable/40404112) Here we have clear indications of an agnostic approach to the prospects for ecological and social crisis. But apart from this, Vlachou is certainly right that capitalism has a great potential to push back (postpone) crisis, and that there is not any immediate threat of ecological collapse. And this can be ensured either through institutional and state regulation, or through the operation of the market and the law of value. However, Vlachou is completely wrong, and it is greatly misleading, to implicitly assume that this potential of capitalism is unlimited, and that ultimately capitalism is ecologically sus- tainable. Indeed, it is the thrust of Vlachou' s analysis that the "greening" of capitalism could ensure its ecological sustainability: "'greening of capitalism' may well be the capitalist response to ecological problems. . . . When and if natural constraints do result in crises, the latter can help the rapid restructuring of the capitalist appropriation of nature so that 'doomsday' never comes" (192). It is argued, even more explicitly, that "increases in prices and rents and the resulting class conflicts may in turn help in shap- ing the 'greening' of capitalism, without it having to go through a full-fledged crisis in order to reorganize its interchange with nature" (194). But will eco- regulation (or internalizing externalities in the standard neoclassical approach) be sufficient in facing up to the problem of environmental degra- dation? While it is my view and assessment that it will not, it seems that Vlachou answers this question in the affirmative. And this appears to be the case, even without the need for state intervention and regulation, but merely through the market mechanism and the operation of the law of value. This overoptimistic implication, however, cannot be seriously substantiated, ei- ther theoretically or empirically Neoliberalism is fundamentally incapable of addressing environmental concerns Cooley 09 (Dennis Cooley, Associate Director of the Northern Plains Ethics Institute and Associate Professor of Philosophy and Ethics at North Dakota State University, Journal of Business Ethics, Oct 2009, “Understanding Social Welfare Capitalism, Private Property, and the Government’s Duty to Create a Sustainable Environment,” http://ehis.ebscohost.com.proxyremote.galib.uga.edu/ehost/detail?sid=1de6a503-259f-437a-a449c01a962475c9%40sessionmgr104&vid=3&hid=2&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=bth&A N=44645386) However, assuming that perfectly competitive free markets can adequately solve real world ethical situations is irrational. First, the cost-benefit/economic analysis underlying perfectly competitive free markets is incapable of determining moral values and duties . One of the major problems is the category mistake created when trying to use economics to determine the value of nature and other objects not existing entirely within the market system, much like using meters to measure liquids. At the very least, to view the natural environment solely in terms of profit maximization shows a lack of ‘‘proper humility, self-acceptance, gratitude and appreciation of the good of others’’ (Hill, 2002, p. 189). That is, there is a defect in the evaluator’s character because he negligently, at the very least, uses artificial and incomplete worth to make decisions affecting others. Another error is that cost/benefit economics ‘‘has not shown that economic value is objectively superior to other, more traditional values; it has merely ignored those values’’ (Hargrove, 1996, p. 210; Sagoff, 2004, 2006). Health’s value, among other features of a life worth living, cannot be understood through free market cost/benefit analysis (Shaw and Barry, 2007). In addition, it is clear that businesses will not internalize environmental costs unless outside powers ensure compliance. Based on cost-benefit economic analysis and the notion that the natural world is a free and unlimited good, each business pursues a selfi sh– not self-interested – goal of trying to maximize its net profit, thereby destroying the commons (Ibid.). This economic system’s results, then, are self-inflicted harm to individual characters caused by the myopic valuing process, and a great deal of damage to other worthy objects including but not limited to current and future generations’ potential to achieve flourishing lives and the environment (Birch and Cobb, 1990). Although individuals competing against each other has its place in a properly functioning society, markets incorporating it require more centralized guidance to achieve long-term social goals. Believing that an ‘‘invisible hand’’ will serve the same purpose might even be irrational given the actual actions of consumers who make decisions not in their best interests, such as overeating, smoking, not saving for retirement, going deeply into debt for luxuries, and other destructive behavior. In order to fulfill its promotion of sustainability and flourishing duties, the government needs to control business and the environment in a way proscribed by perfectly competitive free or similar markets (Sagoff, 2004). In fact, ‘‘we need to secure the link between environmental and economic policies at all levels of government and in all sections of the economy’’ (Reilly, 1994, p. 87).8 In other words, we are obligated to adopt a social welfare capitalism as many developed nations have already done in which the environment plays a central role. Capitalism ensures unsustainable consumption and prevents a meaningful and complete solution to global warming Kovel 07 Joel Kovel Professor, Saybrook Institute, San Francisco, CA, 2007 The Enemy of Nature: The End of Capitalism Or the End of the World? Pg 262, KB As Kyoto is discredited, the possibility of a socialist alternative emerges, and, with it, the second theme enters. The deciding matter is the question of sustainability. Capitalism is unsustainable as a total system, not simply because it overproduces, but because the whole world it makes is incompatible with ecological balance. As we have seen, capital generates a society of addiction, as an overweening ego reproduces itself along the fault lines of destabilized ecosystems. As a result, an immense degree of self-deception and denial is built into the debate on climate, which tends to minimize the degree of damage to come, along with the degree of change necessary to build a world that no longer spews intolerable amounts of carbon in the air. Hence the craving for the technological fix that will enable continuing lives of reckless consumerism with the cocoon provide by capital. Trusting blindly in its innovative powers, people defend themselves against the “really inconvenient truth,” that capitalism led us into this nightmare and does not have the least clue as to how to free us from it Corporations prevent action on climate change (Anup Shah, Writer, 5/5/12, http://www.globalissues.org/article/179/reactions-to-climate-changenegotiations-and-action) Largely due to US resistance and the need to get them on board for any meaningful action, various trade-offs were made to the text of the Kyoto Protocol. Critics argue that business interests have been a driving factor, while proponents argue that private innovation is needed and that some of these things have to be looked at because otherwise the costs to the US economy is so great, that emission reductions would not be carried out. As well as the United States, Japan, Australia, Canada, Russia and Norway formed part of a consensus known as the Umbrella Group that wanted things like the flexibility mechanisms to have no limits, unlimited use of carbon sinks, all technologies to be counted in Clean Development Mechanism projects (not just known clean energy projects), etc. Many of these positions are similar to industry lobby positions too. Business interests have historically played an important part and had a large influence in the climate negotiations. (This site’s section on flexibility mechanisms has additional information.) Particularly active during the Kyoto Protocol, the misleadingly named US-based Global Climate Coalition formed to actively oppose measures on climate change for fear of economic repercussions. As PR Watch (see previous link) noted, the coalition had been the most “outspoken and confrontational industry group in the United States battling reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.” This coalition contained many big oil, energy and automobile companies. The coalition was effective at the time, but also extreme. As PR Watch continues, “Prior to its disbanding in early 2002, it collaborated extensively with a network that included industry trade associations, ‘property rights’ groups affiliated with the antienvironmental Wise Use movement, and fringe groups such as Sovereignty International, which believes that global warming is a plot to enslave the world under a United Nations-led ‘world government.’” As evidence of climate change mounted, major corporations had to pull out of the Climate Change Coalition, as it was bad PR for them to be associated with the coalition, and some accepted the evidence and began to invest in cleaner technologies. But much damage had already been done, and the influence on the Bush Administration, for example, has resulted in continued anti-international cooperation on this, as is discussed further below. But some organizations may still be at it. At the beginning of 2007, the British Royal Society, and separately, the Union of Concerned Scientists reported on ExxonMobil waging a campaign of disinformation on global warming between 1998 and 2005, funding right wing think-tanks and journals such as the American Enterprise Institute, the George C. Marshall Institute, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute. And “with the help of right-wing media, such as the Wall Street Journal, … columnists deliberately spread disinformation about climate change.” As The Guardian reported (September 29, 2009), the largest American business federation, the US Chamber of Commerce, suffered a rash of high-profile walkouts as multinational companies became uncomfortable with the organzation’s hard-line opposition to measures tackling climate change. Big names include Nike and Johnson & Johnson amongst others. This old federation, a lobby group, also called for a public trial on both the US policy decision to regulate CO2 emissions and the science behind climate change concerns. As science and technology site Ars Technica argues, putting climate change on trial is a terrible idea because, “The sort of arguments that make for good courtroom statements tend to obscure the details of science, and the specific example proposed by the Chamber clearly indicates that they do nothing for the public’s understanding of science.” Corporate lobbies prevent legislation on global warming (Sharon Beder, Professor in the School of Social Sciences, Media and Communication at the University of Wollongong 'Casting Doubt and Undermining Action', Pacific Ecologist 1, March 200 2, pp. 42-49). When the US withdrew from the Kyoto agreement on climate change in March 2001, the world was shocked. Kyoto represented the only mechanism obliging developed nations to reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told the press that: "The president has been unequivocal … He does not support the Kyoto treaty. It is not in the United States' economic best interest." The announcement was not surprising considering the funding Bush’s campaign received from the fossil-fuel industry. For example, one Democratic Congressional representative estimated that during the 2000 election campaign the coal industry contributed $US3.8 million, nearly 90 percent going to the Republicans. The oil industry is estimated by the Center for Responsive Politics to have contributed $US14million with $10million going to Republicans. The Seattle Times noted: "Bush began his business career in the West Texas oil fields, and he has received substantial support from the industry since entering politics in 1994." The US withdrawal has been widely viewed as a disaster, but how much hope does the Kyoto Protocol really offer for preventing global warming, with or without US participation? The outcomes of the 1997 Third Session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), embodied in the text of the Kyoto Protocol, were disappointing but not surprising given the strength of industry opposition to an effective treaty. Although the European Union had been pushing for average reductions of 15 per cent below 1990 levels by 2012, the average reduction finally agreed upon turned out to be little more than 5 per cent, and three countries were, in fact, granted approval to increase their emissions, including Australia (by 8 per cent). Targets for developing nations remained voluntary. No enforcement measures were decided upon. Corporate information production prevents political action on global warming (Sharon Beder, Professor in the School of Social Sciences, Media and Communication at the University of Wollongong 'Casting Doubt and Undermining Action', Pacific Ecologist 1, March 200 2, pp. 42-49). SEPP is just one of the many conservative think tanks in various parts of the world that seek to undermine the case for global warming preventative measures. Think tanks are generally private, tax-exempt, research institutes that present themselves as providing impartial disinterested expertise. However think tanks generally tailor their studies to suit their clients or donors. Corporate-funded think tanks have played a key role in providing credible "experts" who dispute scientific claims of existing or impending environmental degradation and therefore provide enough doubts to ensure governments "lack motivation" to act. These dissident scientists, usually not atmospheric scientists, argue there is "widespread disagreement within the scientific community" about global warming (see below). Most conservative think tanks have argued that global warming is not happening and that any possible future warming will be slight and may have beneficial effects. The Heritage Foundation is one of the largest and wealthiest think tanks in the US. It gets massive media coverage in the US and is very influential in politics, particularly amongst the Republicans who dominate the US Congress. In October 1998 it published a backgrounder entitled. "The Road to Kyoto: How the Global Climate Treaty Fosters Economic Impoverishment and Endangers US Security." It began: Chicken Little is back and the sky is falling. Or so suggests the Clinton Administration . . . By championing the global warming treaty, the Administration seeks to pacify a vociferous lobby which frequently has made unsubstantiated predictions of environmental doom. In the 1999 edition of its Environmental Briefing Book for Congressional Candidates, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) argues that "the Kyoto Protocol is a costly, unworkable, and inappropriate policy to suppress energy use around the world" and that the US Senate should reject it. It argues that the "scientific case for an international climate treaty has collapsed" and anyway, "no one should worry about a modest warming, should it occur" as it is likely to result in beneficial impacts. One of CEI’s publications, The True State of the Planet, was partially funded by the Olin Foundation, created by Olin Chemical. In it Robert Balling claims that: (the) scientific evidence argues against the existence of a greenhouse crisis, against the notion that realistic policies could achieve any meaningful climatic impact, and against the claim that we must act now if we are to reduce the greenhouse threat. CEI is an active member of the Cooler Heads Coalition. The Cooler Heads coalition was founded by the corporate front group Consumer Alert and distributes a bi-weekly newsletter, published by CEI. Its object is clear: "The Cooler Heads Coalition focuses on the consumer impact of global warming policies that would drastically restrict energy use and raise costs for consumers." Think tanks in other parts of the world are also seeking to cast doubt upon global warming predictions. The Australian Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), which gets almost onethird of its budget from mining and manufacturing companies, has also produced articles and media statements challenging the greenhouse consensus. In IPA Review, has accused Australia’s public broadcaster, the ABC, of bias because "ABC reporters made the assumption that global warming is real, some even making assertions to that end." He complains that ABC reporting therefore "represents a pernicious mixture of science and environmentalism." However the ABC has given air time to IPA Senior Fellow, Brian Tucker, previously chief of the CSIRO division of atmospheric research. In 1996 in a talk on the ABC’s Ockham’s Razor he stated that "unchallenged climatic disaster hyperbole has induced something akin to a panic reaction from policy makers, both national and international." In the talk he ignored the scientific consensus represented by the IPCC 1995 statement and argued that global warming predictions are politically and emotionally generated:[T]here is little evidence to support the notion of net deleterious climate change despite recent Cassandra-like trepidation in the Australian Medical Association and exaggerations from Greenpeace. Why then has so much alarm been generated? The answer is complicated. In my opinion, it is due partly to the use and abuse of science to forment [sic] fear by those seeking to support ideological positions, and partly due to the negative and fearful perspective that seems to characterise some environmental prejudices. Tucker’s article, "The Greenhouse Panic," was reprinted in Engineering World, a magazine aimed at engineers. The article, introduced by the magazine editor as "a balanced assessment," argues that "alarmist prejudices of insecure people have been boosted by those who have something to gain from widespread public concern." This article, which would have been more easily dismissed as an IPA publication, has been quoted by Australian engineers at conferences as if it were an authoritative source. Think tanks have been so successful at clouding the scientific picture of greenhouse warming and providing an excuse for corporations and the politicians they support that they have, to date, managed to thwart effective greenhouse reduction strategies being implemented by governments in the English-speaking world. EXT: Alternative – Total Rejection Key Total rejection is key to getting rid of capitalism Flank 7 (Lenny, writer, Hegemony and Counter-Hegemony: Marxism, Capitalism, and Their Relation to Sexism, Racism, Nationalism, and Authoritarianism) A critical examination of the relationship between Marxism and other social justice movements, including feminism, anti-racism, gay liberation, environmentalism, anarchism and Native activism. The capitalist social order is like a Hydra, a manyheaded dragon. Try to cut off one head, and the others will kill you. The only way to kill the beast is to cut off all its heads at once. The social revolution must grow to encompass not merely the economic means of production, but the entire mode of social life, including its familial, sexual, racial, national, gender and authority roles. The tactics of the traditional Leninists are entirely unsuited for that task. Only a wider-ranging social movement can hope to defeat capitalist hegemony. The only lasting solution is to get rid of capitalism altogether League for the revolutionary party 12 (http://lrp-cofi.org/statements/mayday2012.html) As with the Republicans, the heart of the Democratic Party, along with its money and power, belongs to wealthy capitalists. Capitalism by its nature must try to divide and conquer the working class, in order to maximize profits at the workers’ expense. Under the conditions of deep economic crisis of the past few years, the drives of the system to scapegoat immigrants, people of color, youth and “greedy union workers” for the problems of unemployment, inadequate health care and education, and poverty caused by the profit-making system itself, go into high gear. Anti-immigrant chauvinism, racism and immiseration of the working class are features of capitalism at this time, not of any one given capitalist party or politician. Thus revolutionary socialists oppose voting for candidates of any capitalist party and champion instead an alternative strategy, based on the power of the working class to fight for its own interests. The working class can unite to beat back specific capitalist attacks. People of color, especially youth, will be key to developing a rising fight back. And revolutionary socialists will fight in every struggle to build as strong a movement as possible. We also believe that the only lasting solution is to get rid of capitalism altogether. Socialist revolution will put the working class in power and replace the current system based on production for private profit with a new society based on production to satisfy human needs. We must completely reject capitalism in our daily lives Herod 4 (James, University of Massachusetts Boston, http://site.www.umb.edu/faculty/salzman_g/Strate/GetFre/06.htm) Thus capitalist structures (corporations, governments, banks, schools, etc.) are not seized so much as simply abandoned. Capitalist relations are not fought so much as they are simply rejected. We stop participating in activities that support (finance, condone) the capitalist world and start participating in activities that build a new world while simultaneously undermining the old. We create a new pattern of social relations alongside capitalist relations and then we continually build and strengthen our new pattern while doing every thing we can to weaken capitalist relations. In this way our new democratic, non-hierarchical, non-commodified relations can eventually overwhelm the capitalist relations and force them out of existence. This is how it has to be done. This is a plausible, realistic strategy. To think that we could create a whole new world of decent social arrangements overnight, in the midst of a crisis, during a so-called revolution, or during the collapse of capitalism, is foolhardy. Our new social world must grow within the old, and in opposition to it, until it is strong enough to dismantle and abolish capitalist relations. Such a revolution will never happen automatically, blindly, determinably, because of the inexorable, materialist laws of history. It will happen, and only happen, because we want it to, and because we know what we’re doing and know how we want to live, and know what obstacles have to be overcome before we can live that way, and know how to distinguish between our social patterns and theirs. But we must not think that the capitalist world can simply be ignored, in a live and let live attitude, while we try to build new lives elsewhere. (There is no elsewhere.) There is at least one thing, wage-slavery, that we can’t simply stop participating in (but even here there are ways we can chip away at it). Capitalism must be explicitly refused and replaced by something else. This constitutes War, but it is not a war in the traditional sense of armies and tanks, but a war fought on a daily basis, on the level of everyday life, by millions of people. It is a war nevertheless because the accumulators of capital will use coercion, brutality, and murder, as they have always done in the past, to try to block any rejection of the system. They have always had to force compliance; they will not hesitate to continue doing so. Nevertheless, there are many concrete ways that individuals, groups, and neighborhoods can gut capitalism, which I will enumerate shortly. EXT: Alternative – Solvency The act of rejection a small break that makes room for the creation of more resistance Holloway 05 (John, 8-16, Ph.D Political Science-University of Edinburgh , “Can We Change The World Without Taking Power?”, http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/5616) On the question of fissures. We often feel helpless because capitalism weighs so heavily on us. But when we say No we start off with an appreciation of our own strength. When we rebel we are in fact tearing a little hole in capitalism. It is very contradictory. By rebelling we are already saying no to the command of capital. We are creating temporary spaces. Within that crack, that fissure, it is important that we fight for other social relations that don't point towards the state, but that they point towards the sort of society we want to create. At the core of these fissures is the drive to self-determination. And then it is a question of working out what does this mean, and how to be organised for selfdetermination. It means being against and beyond the society that exists. Of expanding the fissures, how to push these fissures forward structurally. The people who say we should take control of the state are also talking about cracks. There is no choice but to start with interstices. The question is how we think of them, because the state is not the whole world. There are 200 states. If you seize control of one, it is still only a crack in capitalism. It is a question of how we think about those cracks, those fissures. And if we start off from ourselves, why on earth should we adopt capitalist, bourgeois forms for developing our struggle? Why should we accept the template of the concept of the state? As an intellectual your rejection of capitalism has emancipatory resultsrelentless criticism allows capitalism to be challenged. Kovel 2 Professor of Social Studies at Bard (Joel, The Enemy of Nature, p224) Relentless criticism can delegitimate the system and release people into struggle. And as struggle develops, victories that are no more than incremental by their own terms- stopping a meeting stopping the IMF, the hopes stirred forth by a campaign such as Ralph Nader’s in 2000 – can have a symbolic effect far greater than their external result, and constitute points of rupture with capital. This rupture is not a set of facts added to our knowledge of the world, but a change in our relation to the world. Its effects are dynamic, not incremental, and like all genuine insights it changes the balance of forces and can propagate very swiftly. Thus the release from inertia can trigger a rapid cascade of changes, so that it could be said that the forces pressing towards radical change need not be linear and incremental, but can be exponential in character. In this way, conscientious and radical criticism of the given, even in advance of having blueprints for an alternative, can be a material force, because it can seize the mind of the masses of people. There is no greater responsibility for intellectuals Framework AT: Competitive Policy Option Demanding that we offer a “competitive policy option” entrenches capitalism and ensures serial policy failure—the problem isn’t that our policies are wrong, it’s that the whole system is wrong. Wolff 8 — Rick Wolff, Professor of Economics at University of Massachusetts at Amherst, 2008 (“Policies to "Avoid" Economic Crises,” MR Zine—a publication of The Monthly Review, November 6th, Available Online at http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/wolff061108.html, Accessed 11-19-2008) The whole idea of policy is bizarre. The "right policy" represents an absurd claim that this or that law or regulation can somehow undo the many different factors that cumulatively produced this crisis. Policies are "magic potions" offered to populations urgently demanding solutions to real problems. Whether cynically advocated for ulterior motives or actually believed by the politicians, promoters, and professors themselves, policy is the secular cousin of religion. These days, the conservative policy amounts, as usual, to "let the private economy solve the problems" and "minimize state intervention because it only makes matters worse." Conservatives protect the freedoms of private enterprise, market transactions, and the wealthy from state regulations and controls and from taxes. The liberals' policy, also as usual, wants the state to limit corporate behavior, control and shape market transactions, and tilt the tax system more toward benefiting middle and lower income groups. Both policies can no more overcome this economic crisis than they overcame past crises. Historically, both conservative and liberal policies fail at least as often as they succeed. Which outcome happens depends on all the factors shaping them and not on the policy a government pursues. Yet, both sides endlessly claim otherwise in desperate efforts at selfjustification. Each side trots out its basic philosophy – dressed up as "a policy to achieve solutions." Conservatives and liberals keep debating. Today's crisis simply provides an urgent sort of context for the old debate to continue. Each side hopes to win converts by suggesting that its approach will "solve the economic crisis" while the other's approach will make it worse. Thus the liberals displaced the conservatives in the depths of the Great Depression, the reverse happened in the recession of the 1970s, and the liberals may now regain dominance. In no instance were adopted policies successful in solving the crises in any enduring way. The unevenness and instability of capitalism as a system soon brought another crisis crashing down on our economy and society. The basic conservative message holds that the current economic crisis is NOT connected to the underlying economic system. The crisis does NOT emerge from the structure of the corporate system of production. It is NOT connected to the fact that corporate boards of directors, responsible to the minority that owns most of their shares, make all the key economic decisions while the enterprise's employees and the vast majority of the citizenry have to live with the consequences. The very undemocratic nature of the capitalist system of production is NOT related to crisis in the conservative view. The basic liberal message likewise disconnects today's crisis from the capitalist production system. Rather, each side insists that all crises would have been and would now be "avoidable" if only the right policy were in place. Conservatives and liberals share more than a careful avoidance of connecting the crisis to the underlying capitalist system. They are also complicit in blocking those who do argue for that connection from making their case in politics, the media, or the schools. While conservative and liberal policies do little to solve crises, the debate between them has largely succeeded in excluding anti-capitalist analyses of economic crises from public discussion. Perhaps that exclusion – rather than solving crises – is the function of those endlessly rehashed policy debates between liberals and conservatives. Framework - Role of the Ballot The role of the ballot is to choose between competing ideas—there is an alternative to capitalism. Lebowitz 5 — Michael A. Lebowitz, Emeritus Professor of Economics at Simon Fraser University (Canada), 2005 (“The Knowledge of a Better World,” Monthly Review: An Independent Socialist Magazine, Volume 57, Issue 3, July-August, Available Online to Subscribing Institutions via Academic Search Elite, p. 67) The most immediate obstacle, though, is the belief in TINA, i.e., that there is no alternative. Without the vision of a better world, every crisis of capitalism (such as the one upon us) can bring in the end only a painful restructuring—with the pain felt by those already exploited and excluded. The concept of an alternative, of a society based upon solidarity, is an essential weapon in defense of humanity. We need to recognize the possibility of a world in which the products of the social brain and the social hand are common property and the basis for our self-development—the possibility in Marx's words of "a society of free individuality, based on the universal development of individuals and on their subordination of their communal, social productivity as their social wealth" (Grundrisse [Penguin, 1973], 158). For this reason, the ideas is essential. battle of Framework - Epistemology The affirmative’s knowledge is not value-neutral, its production is contingent on a specific separation of labor that privileges a small scientific and military elite, and its employment actively sustains capital Dickens and Ormrod, 7 - *Peter, Affiliated Lecturer in the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Cambridge and Visiting Professor of Sociology, University of Essex and **James, Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Brighton (Cosmic Society: Towards a sociology of the universe, pg 31-32) It should be noted that, contrary to Lerner’s (1991) argument, Alfred SohnRethel (1975) and Frankel (2003) have argued that this more scientific mode of relating to the universe merely intensified rather than alleviated the alienation of the masses from the universe. Sohn-Rethel’s argument is that ‘abstract’, one might say ‘objective’, knowledge first arose as part of the exchange relationship in what he calls ‘societies of appropriation’ or capitalist societies based on a high division of labour. The person producing a commodity is, as Marx described, alienated from the exchange process, in which s/he comes to see his/her product in terms of an abstract exchange value, which operates independently of the needs and uses which the seller or buyer has in mind. This purely abstract system of thought represented in the form of money (‘a crude approximation of the underlying principle’) leads to abstract, scientific, thought. Postone (1996) has argued similarly that ‘abstraction’ in general is central to capitalist societies. The development of capital in two distinct epochs has led to corresponding developments in epistemology, according to Sohn-Rethel. First, the introduction of coinage in Ancient Greece led to Greek philosophy and mathematics. Second, the development of modern capitalism led to the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century scientific revolutions. He goes on to argue, and this forms a major focus of his and Lerner’s thesis, that the abstract form of scientific knowledge was instrumental in legitimizing the division of mental and manual labour in modern capitalism. The argument is that the existence of this abstract system justifies the existence of an elite of scientists capable of studying the system untainted by the practical knowledge of the worker. Davidson (1985) is also extremely critical of the development of objective scientific approaches to the universe that distance knowledge from people’s everyday experience of the universe. The latter, Davidson argues, remains Earth-centred (as in Tycho Brahe’s model). The result of de-centring Earth through science, for Davidson, is the creation of ‘a cold mechanical world’ (ibid.: 4). There are important differences between Sohn-Rethel’s account and Lerner’s. For Lerner, Galileo, like the empiricists Copernicus and Brahe before him, represents a break from the truly abstract philosophy of Plato. It is a break alleviating a lot of the problems of the division of labour by relying on artisan and serf knowledge available to all. However, Sohn-Rethel sees Galileo as representing a distinct break from his predecessors in instituting a new form of abstracted knowledge that severely heightens the mental/manual division of labour. He points to parallels between Galileo’s law of inertial motion and the abstraction of the commodity exchange. Lerner does not draw out a full criticism of the relationship between capital and cosmology that replaced it. Contrary to what Lerner implies during most of the book, colonial capitalism based initially on practical satellites, and possibly future capitalist exploitation of space resources) has not been an age of equality or celebration of the knowledge of the manual worker. This epoch has had its own cosmic elite of not only scientists but also engineers, and the military and the governments and corporations that control them. The scientific cosmological elite of today is still maintained by others’ labour. They are given ‘the freedom to abandon knowledge of navigation (now the constraints of the “ordinary” world’ (Ferguson 1990: 1). Debate is the critical site of contestation against capitalism Carroll 10 – *founding director of the Social Justice Studies Program at the University of Victoria (William, “Crisis, movements, counter-hegemony: in search of the new,” Interface 2:2, 168-198, dml) Mediatization and the struggle to democratize communication Many of the issues at stake in the politics surrounding the form and content of communications media comprise a special instance of the struggle to reclaim the commons. The world of the early 21st century is densely networked by virtue of an unprecedented apparatus of communications, which has opened new possibilities both for bourgeois hegemony and for oppositional politics. Media now comprise a vast field of cultural struggle. In a media-saturated world, capitalist organization of communication creates a multifaceted democratic deficit, evident for instance in the failure of mainstream media to create a democratic public sphere, the centralization of power in media corporations, inequality in media access, homogenization of media content, the undermining of communities through commodification, and the corporate enclosure of knowledge. ‘Media activism’ can be read as a critical response that takes different forms depending on location in the media field. Media democrats struggle to limit corporate power and commercial logic, to democratize media workplaces and labour processes, to develop alternative media, and to foster more literate and critical readers of media texts. When we look at media activism ‘on the ground’ we find many of the rudiments of counter-hegemonic politics. Activists see the struggle to democratize communication as a multi-frontal war of position that needs to be waged in conjunction with other movements. Communicative democracy comprises a social vision in which the voices of citizens and communities carry into a vibrant and diverse public sphere. In pursuing this social vision on several fronts including those of state, corporate media and lifeworld, media democrats build a new nexus among movements, a place where strategies might converge across issue areas and movement identities (Hackett and Carroll, 2006; Downing 2001 ). As a political emergent, media activism underlines the importance to counterhegemony of reclaiming or creating the means and forms of communication necessary for subaltern groups to find their voices and to organize, both locally and translocally. The formation of organic intellectuals is substantially caught up in this struggle to break the dominant class’s monopoly within the intellectual field (Thomas 2009: 418-19). Here, the new includes a mediatized politics of everyday life, as in proliferation of alternative media (often via the internet; Atton 2009) and the diffusion of culture jamming and other practices of media literacy, yet also a politics, focused upon state and capital, that presses for limits upon corporate power and for an opening of access to the means of communication (Hackett and Carroll 2006). The politics of media democratization is necessarily multi-frontal and intersectional. All progressive-democratic movements have an stake in these struggles; the extent to which movements take up democratic communication as a general interest is a measure their catharsis from fractured subalternities (with their characteristic foci upon single issues and narrow constituencies) to an ethicopolitical collective will. The question of autonomy Autonomy from old-left parties and unions, and from overweening regulatory states, was cited by NSM theorists of the 1970s and 1980s as a criterial attribute of the emergent movements of late modernity. In Jean Cohen’s (1985) classic, and rather Americanized treatment, these movements were viewed as practitioners of a ‘selflimiting’ identity politics that rejected large-scale projects. This stylization was never unproblematic as an empirical account, and several decades later, in the wake of neoliberalism’s global triumph and in the midst of its global crisis, the appeal of self-limiting politics is embarrassingly limited. Yet autonomy remains a lasting legacy of the so-called NSMs. Autonomy informs aspects of contemporary counter-hegemonic politics at the level of everyday life, as shown in Gwyn Williams’s (2008) ethnography of alterglobalization activism in the Larzac plateau of southern France. Famous since their dismantling of a McDonald’s restaurant in 1999 and for the slogan, ‘the world is not a commodity,’ these activists resist the hegemony of global market society ‘by cultivating themselves as “autonomous” political subjects and organizing a movement considered to be an “autonomous” counter-power’ (G. William 2008: 63). This has meant not only maintaining independence from political parties and functioning in a ‘bottom-up’ or ‘horizontal’ manner but cultivating in themselves and others an autonomy that partly frees them from neoliberal ideology and the power of consumer society. Here, prefiguration is grounded in a moral imperative to ‘become aware’ and to act ‘coherently’ (2008:72) by living the ideals to which one aspires.5 Becoming aware is both an ongoing aspect of autonomous self-development and a movement-building praxis instantiated in a range of pedagogical activities – forums, information evenings and media actions – designed to provoke public debate and to persuade people join the cause (G. Williams 2008:72-3). Although activists can never be fully autonomous from the forms of power to which they are subject, the struggle for autonomy is a crucial element in challenging hegemony and in bringing into existence what Gramsci (1971: 327) called a ‘new conception of the world … which manifests itself in action.’ 6 As a sensibility that holds both visionary and strategic implications, autonomy has roots not only in NSM theory, but in historical materialism. Harry Cleaver, who introduced the notion of autonomist Marxism into English-language academia in the 1970s (Cleaver 2001; Wright 2008:113), predicated it on an agencycentred analysis of the working class, defining autonomy as the ability of workers to define their own interests and to struggle for them – to go beyond mere reaction to exploitation, or to self defined ‘leadership’ and to take the offensive in ways that shape the class struggle and define the future key question is how autonomy and other emergent features of activism might figure in a counter-hegemonic historical bloc. Mark Purcell, drawing on Laclau and Mouffe (1985), suggests that (Cleaver 1993). The relations between elements of such a formation be conceptualized in terms of equivalence, ‘a concept that evokes relations of simultaneous interdependence and autonomy, obligation and freedom, unity and multiplicity, sameness and difference’ (2009: 301). The movements and interests that comprise the bloc do not dissolve completely into it, but they move together and lean into one another. AT: Permutation Perm’s co-opted—causes extinction—the alt alone is key to revolutionary agency Parr ’13 (Adrian Parr, Adrian philosopher and cultural critic. A specialist on Deleuze, ‘The Wrath of Capital’, 2013, p. 2-5) BSH The fable provides an intriguing perspective on freedom and autonomy. The golem has no freedom: it is the rabbi who brings it to life and sentences it to death. Yet by returning the creature to earth, the rabbi holds the golem accountable for the destruction it wrought despite not being free. This is the basic premise of this book. We are not free, yet we are autonomous. We are constrained by the historical circumstances into which we are born, along with the institutions and structures that contain us. Nonetheless, each and every one of us also participates in and thereby confirms the legitimacy of those selfsame institutions and structures that dominate us, along with the violence they sustain.3 In this way, we are both the rabbi creator and the creature creation. Insofar as we are socially constituted, we are constrained by the historical and institutional forces that construct us. As political agents, we realize our autonomy as we interrupt and contest the historical and institutional conditions that regulate and organize the frames of reference through which we think and act. This structure of rupture and continuity is the modern narrative par excellence. Fredric Jameson neatly summarizes the narrative condition of modernity as the dialectic between the modality of rupture that inaugurates a new period and the definition of that new period in turn by continuity.4 The ironical outcome, as I describe it in the pages that follow, is that despite the narrative category driving change in the modern world, everything continues to stay the same-perhaps because what this narrative produces is a virulent strain of amnesia. Every change or historical rupture contains within it the dialectical narrative structure of modernity such that the New and the period it launches into existence are mere ritual. What persists is the condition of violence embedded in neoliberal capitalism as it robs each and every one of us (other species and ecosystems included) of a future. The narrative of modernity and the optimistic feeling of newness it generates are merely a distraction. Distractions such as decarbonizing the free-market economy, buying carbon offsets, handing out contraceptives to poor women in developing countries, drinking tap water in place of bottled water, changing personal eating habits, installing green roofs on city hall, and expressing moral outrage at British Petroleum (BP) for the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, although well meaning, are merely symptomatic of the uselessness of free-market "solutions" to environmental change. Indeed, such widespread distraction leads to denial. With the proclamation of the twenty- first century to be the era of climate change, the Trojan horse of neoliberal restructuring entered the political arena of climate change talks and policy, and a more virulent strain of capital accumulation began. For this reason, delegates from the African nations, with the support of the Group of 77 (developing countries), walked out of the 2009 United Nations (UN) climate talks in Copenhagen, accusing rich countries of dragging their heels on reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and destroying the mechanism through which this reduction can be achieved-the Ky oto Protocol. In the absence of an internationally birfding agreement on emissions reductions, all individual actions taken to reduce emissions-a flat global carbon tax, recycling, hybrid cars, carbon offsets, a few solar panels here and there, and so on-are mere theatrics. In this book, I argue that underpinning the massive environmental changes happening around the world, of which climate change is an important factor, is an unchanging socioeconomic condition (neoliberal capitalism), and the magnitude of this situation is that of a political crisis. So, at the risk of extending my literary license too far, it is fair to say that the human race is currently in the middle of an earth-shattering historical moment. Glaciers in the Himalayas, Andes, Rockies, and Alps are receding. The social impact of environmental change is now acute, with the International Organization for Migration predicting there will be approximately two hundred million environmental refugees by 2050, with estimates expecting as many as up to one billion.5 We are poised between needing to radically transform how we live and becoming extinct. Modern (postindustrial) society inaugurated what geologists refer to as the ''Anthropocene age;' when human activities began to drive environmental change, replacing the Holocene, which for the previous ten thousand years was the era when the earth regulated the environment. 6 Since then people have been pumping GHGs into the atmosphere at a faster rate than the earth can reabsorb them. If we remain on our current course of global GHG emissions, the earth's average climate will rise 3°C by the end of the twenty-first century (with a 2 to 4.5° probable range of uncertainty) . The warmer the world gets, the less effectively the earth's biological systems can absorb carbon. The more the earth's climate heats up, the more carbon dioxide (C02) plants and soils will release; this feedback loop will further increase climate heating. When carbon feedback is factored into the climate equation, climate models predict that the rise in average climate temperature will be 6°C by 2100 (with a 4 to 8°C probable range of uncertainty) .7 For this reason, even if emissions were reduced from now on by approximately 3 percent annually, there is only a fifty-fifty chance that we can stay within the 2°C benchmark set by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2007. However, given that in 2010 the world's annual growth rate of atmospheric carbon was the largest in a decade, bringing the world's C02 concentrations to 389.6 parts per million (ppm) and pushing concentrations to 39 percent higher than what they were in 1750 at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution (approximately 278 ppm), and that there is no sign of growth slowing, then even the fifty-fifty window of opportunity not to exceed 2°C warming is quickly closing. If we continue at the current rate of GHG emissions growth, we will be on course for a devastating scenario.8 We need to change course now.9 Climate change poses several environmental problems, many of which now have a clear focus. The scientific problem: How can the high amounts of C02 in the atmosphere causing the earth's climate to change be lowered to 350 ppm? The economic problem: How can the economy be decarbonized while addressing global economic disparities? The social problem: How can human societies change their climate-altering behaviors and adapt to changes in climate?10 The cultural problem: How can commodity culture be reigned in? The problem policymakers face: What regulations can be introduced to inhibit environmental degradation, promote GHG reductions, and assist the people, species, and ecosystems most vulnerable to environmental change? The political problem is less clear, however, perhaps because of its philosophical implications. Political philosophy examines how these questions are dealt with and the assumptions upon which they are premised. It studies the myriad ways in which individuals, corporations, the world's leaders, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and communities respond to climate change and the larger issue of environmental change characteristic of the Anthropocene age. More important, political philosophy considers how these responses reinforce social and economic structures of power. In light of this consideration, how do we make the dramatic and necessary changes needed to adapt equitably to environmental change without the economically powerful claiming ownership over the collective impetus and goals that this historical juncture presents? By drawing attention to the political problem of equality in the context of environmental change, I need to stress that I am not a market Luddite; rather, I am critical of the neoliberal paradigm of economic activity that advances deregulation, competition, individualism, and privatization, all the while rolling back on social services and producing widespread inequities and uneven patterns of development and social prosperity. I am also not intending to make negotiable the "non-negotiable planetary preconditions that humanity needs to respect in order to avoid the risk of deleterious or even catastrophic environmental change at continental to global scales:'11 Indeed, my argument is that by focusing too much on free-market solutions to the detriment of the world's most vulnerable (the poor, other species, ecosystems, and future generations), we make these preconditions negotiable: the free market is left to negotiate our future for us. Turn the Perm - Alternatives to complete rejection will only result in human extinction. Operating under the capitalist mindset will only further society toward its end. Clark and Clausen ’08 [Brett Clark teaches sociology at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. Rebecca Clausen teaches sociology at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado. “The Oceanic Crisis: Capitalism and the Degradation of Marine Ecosystem.” The Monthly Review. 2008, Volume 60, Issue 03 (July-August). Date Accessed: June 27, 14. O’B] 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.”44 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 opposed 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, time’s carcase. Quality no longer matters. Quantity alone decides everything.”45 Productive relations are concerned with production time, labor costs, and the circulation of capital—not the diminishing 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. Perm fails – acting in a system where profit is the only goal makes getting outside of capitalism impossible. Fred Magdoff, professor emeritus of plant and soil science at the University of Vermont, 2011, What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know about Capitalism: A Citizen's Guide to Capitalism and the Environment. New York: Monthly Review, 2011. But there is one box from which it is impossible to escape without confronting it directly: the capitalist economic system. Many, if not most, influential environmental thinkers in the world’s rich countries still shy away from such a direct confrontation. Even the increasing numbers of green thinkers who criticize capitalism and its market failures, frequently set in the end for what they regard as practical solutions directed at creating a tightly controlled humane, green, and non-corporate capitalism, instead of actually getting outside the box of capitalism. Some call for reinventing “the purpose and design of business,” or using tax policy to better direct investment and consumption to green ends, or for trade policies that might promote the goods of more Sustainable economies.5 Others suggest eliminating the myriad government subsithe s to businesses and taking into account social and ecological consequences of production (“extemali ties”) so as to give rise to “honest prices” that reflect the real costs including those to the environment« The contradictions and complexities of actually implementing a new way to price Commodities, in a system in which the profit is the only goal, and power rests in the hands of people who have no interest in doing this, makes all of this an insurmountable task. As David Harvey has said: “If capitalism is forced to internalize” all of the social and environmental costs it generates “it will go out of business. This is the simple truth.’*7 Any reason they further capitalist goals is a reason the perm would fail. We have an ethical obligation to reject every instance of capitalism Jenson 7 Robert Jenson, Professor at the School of Journalism at the University of Texas, Austin, 4/30/07, “AntiCapitalism in 5 Minutes,” http://www.counterpunch.org/2007/04/30/anti-capitalism-in-five-minutes/, KB One of the common responses I hear when I critique capitalism is, "Well, that may all be true, but we have to be realistic and do what’s possible." By that logic, to be realistic is to accept a system that is inhuman, anti-democratic, and unsustainable. To be realistic we are told we must capitulate to a system that steals our souls, enslaves us to concentrated power, and will someday destroy the planet. But rejecting and resisting a predatory corporate capitalism is not crazy. It is an eminently sane position. Holding onto our humanity is not crazy. Defending democracy is not crazy. And struggling for a sustainable future is not crazy. What is truly crazy is falling for the con that an inhuman, anti-democratic, and unsustainable system — one that leaves half the world’s people in abject poverty — is all that there is, all that there ever can be, all that there ever will be. If that were true, then soon there will be nothing left, for anyone. I do not believe it is realistic to accept such a fate. If that’s being realistic, I’ll take crazy any day of the week, every Sunday of the month. AT: Capitalism Inevitable The argument that we cannot overcome capitalism saps the critical energy from revolution – the system is only strong because we think it is Zizek 95 (Slavoj, Professor of Sociology at the Institute for Sociology, Ljubljana University Ideology Between Fiction and Fantasy, Cardozo Law Review) BSH The problematic of "multiculturalism" that imposes itself today is therefore the form of appearance of its opposite, of the massive presence of Capitalism as universal world system: it bears witness to the unprecedented homogenization of today's world. It is effectively as if, since the horizon of social imagination no longer allows us to entertain the idea of an eventual demise of Capitalism - since, as we might put it, everybody seems to accept that Capitalism is here to stay - the critical energy found a substitute outlet in fighting for cultural differences which leave the basic homogeneity of the capitalist world-system intact. So we are fighting our PC battles for the right of ethnic minorities, of gays and lesbians, of different "life-styles," etc., while Capitalism pursues its triumphant march - and today's critical theory, in the guise of "cultural studies," is doing the ultimate service to the unrestrained development of Capitalism by actively contributing in the ideological effort to render its massive presence invisible: in a typical postmodern "cultural critique," the very mention of Capitalism as world system tends to give rise to the accusation of "essentialism," "fundamentalism," etc. Dozens of cultures show that capitalism isn’t inherent to the human condition – studies prove its a socially adopted system which can be abandoned Kohn 86 (Alfie, M.A. from U Chicago, “No Contest: A Case Against Competition,” New Age Journal Sept/Oct, p 18-20) BSH As with a range of other unsavory behaviors, we are fond of casually attributing competition to something called "human nature." Since this account is so popular, you might expect that there is considerable evidence to support it. In fact, it is difficult to find a single serious defense of the claim--let alone any hard data to back it up. It is not difficult at all, however, to come up with reasons to doubt that competition is inevitable. We in the United States often assume that our desperate quest to triumph over others is universal. But half a century ago Margaret Mead and her colleagues found that competition was virtually unknown to the Zuni and Iroquois in North America and to the Bathonga of South Africa. Since then, cross-cultural observers have confirmed that our society is the exception rather than the rule. From the Inuit of Canada to the Tangu of New Guinea, from kihbutzniks in lsrael to[and] farmers in Mexico, cooperation is prized and competition generally avoided. Working with seven to nine-year olds, psychologists Spencer Kagan and Millard Madsen found that Mexican children quickly figured out how to cooperate on an experimental game, while those from the United States could not. In fact, 78 percent of the Anglo-American children took another child’s toy away “for apparently no other reason than to prevent the other child from having it.” Mexican children did so only half as often. Such findings strongly suggest that competition is a matter of social training and culture rather than a built-in feature of our nature. Further evidence comes from classroom experiments in which children have been successfully taught to cooperate. Gerald Sagotsky and his colleagues at Adelphi University, for example, trained 118 pairs of first- through third grade students to work together instead of competing at a variety of tasks. Seven weeks later a new experimenter introduced a new game to these children and found that the lesson had stuck with them. Other researchers have shown that children taught to play cooperative games will continue to do so on their own time. And children and adults alike express a strong preference for the cooperative approach once they see firsthand what it is like to learn or work or play in an environment that doesn't require winners and losers. AT: Utopia Our alternative is not a utopian vision of perfection – it is rather a rejection of the existing social framework that supports the catastrophic totality of capital Mészáros, 12 (István Mészáros is a Hungarian Marxist philosopher, and Professor Emeritus at the University of Sussex. “Structural Crisis Needs Structural Change” http://monthlyreview.org/2012/03/01/structural-crisis-needs-structural-change) Henge When stressing the need for a radical structural change it must be made clear right from the beginning that this is not a call for an unrealizable utopia. On the contrary, the primary defining characteristic of modern utopian theories was precisely the projection that their intended improvement in the conditions of the workers’ lives could be achieved well within the existing structural framework of the criticized societies. Thus Robert Owen of New Lanark, for instance, who had an ultimately untenable business partnership with the utilitarian liberal philosopher Jeremy Bentham, attempted the general realization of his enlightened social and educational reforms in that spirit. He was asking for the impossible. As we also know, the high-sounding “utilitarian” moral principle of “the greatest good for the greatest number” came to nothing since its Benthamite advocacy. The problem for us is that without a proper assessment of the nature of the economic and social crisis of our time—which by now cannot be denied by the defenders of the capitalist order even if they reject the need for a major change—the likelihood of success in this respect is negligible. The demise of the “Welfare State” even in the mere handful of the privileged countries where it has been once instituted offers a sobering lesson on this score. Let me start by quoting a recent article by the editors of the authoritative daily newspaper of the international bourgeoisie, The Financial Times. Talking about the dangerous financial crisis—acknowledged now by the editors themselves to be dangerous—they end their article with these words: “Both sides [the U.S. Democrats and the Republicans] are to blame for a vacuum of leadership and responsible deliberation. It is a serious failure of governance and more dangerous than Washington believes.”1 This is all that we get as editorial wisdom about the substantive issue of “sovereign indebtedness” and mounting budget deficits. What makes the Financial Times editorial even more vacuous than the “vacuum of leadership” deplored by the journal is the sonorous subtitle of this article: “Washington must stop posturing and start governing.” As if editorials like this could amount to more than posturing in the name of “governing”! For the grave issue at stake is the catastrophic indebtedness of the “powerhouse” of global capitalism, the United States of America, where the government’s debt alone (without adding corporate and private individual indebtedness) is counted already in well above 14 trillion dollars—flashed up in large illuminated numbers on the façade of a New York public building indicating the irresistible trend of rising debt. The point I wish to stress is that the crisis we have to face is a profound and deepening structural crisis which needs the adoption of far-reaching structural remedies in order to achieve a sustainable solution. It must also be stressed that the structural crisis of our time did not originate in 2007, with the “bursting of the US housing bubble,” but at least four decades earlier. I spoke about it in such terms way back in 1967, well before the May 1968 explosion in France,2 and I wrote in 1971, in the Preface to the Third Edition of Marx’s Theory of Alienation, that the unfolding events and developments “dramatically underlined the intensification of the global structural crisis of capital.” Utopianism isn’t a blueprint for ordering the future, but a tool for disrupting the present Newman 10 (Saul, Australian political theorist and central post-anarchist thinker. Newman coined the term ‘post-anarchism’ “The Politics of Postanarchism” pp. 67-68) BSH However, it may be more productive to think about utopia in a slightly different way. Rather than utopia being seen as a blueprint for a future post-revolutionary society, as a set of processes and organisational measures to be implemented as part of a revolutionary programme, utopia might be seen as a (non)place of alterity – in other words, as a moment of exteriority which, like the Other in Levinasian ethics, punctures and displaces the existing sovereign order. The place of utopia – which is also a non- place, a future that is yet to be created, and no doubt never will be created in exactly the way it is envisaged – is something that allows us to distance ourselves from the existing order, to see its limits; to understand that it can be transcended, that there are alternative and vastly better ways of living one’s life. As Abensour argues, utopia should be seen as a way of inciting desire – the desire for something else, for something other than what we currently have: ‘Is it not proper to utopia to propose a new way of proceeding to a displacement of what is and what seems to go without saying in the crushing name of “reality”?’48 We are crushed under the weight of the current order, which tells us that this is our reality, that what we have now is all there is and all there ever will be. Utopia provides an escape from this stifling reality by imagining an alternative to it; it opens up different possibilities, new ‘lines of flight’. In this way, reality is shaken up and destabilised. Therefore, the potency of utopia lies not in providing a way of ordering society after the revolution, but in disordering society as it exists today, in providing a point of rupture in existing social relations, introducing into them an element of radical heterogeneity. The point about utopia, then, is not that it is a specific place that we get to, but rather a non- place that unsettles the consistency of all places. This idea of dreaming what is different should not be dismissed as an apolitical fantasy; on the contrary, the desire for a different reality, for different and unrealised ways of life, is something that draws attention to the limits and inadequacies of current institutions, and thus provides a point of radical critical reflection on them. As Abensour shows, the utopian drive – what he calls ‘persistent utopia’ – intersects with the desire to think democracy differently, to realise democracy beyond the state, which is precisely the project of anarchism: The two in fact have proximate emancipatory projects: on the side of democracy, the establishment of a collective power, a political community whose nature is permanent struggle against the domination of the powerful; on the side of utopia, the choice of association against hierarchically structured societies based on domination.49 Central to utopia, then, is a critique of domination: a politics of non- domination; not in the sense of providing a precise recipe for building a society in which domination is absent, but in the sense of allowing us to think outside domination, to think the outside of domination. AT: Transition Wars These movements are different – crumbling economies in the global north have created material solidarity between the first and third world – creates an effective and peaceful mindset shift Harvey 11 (Ryan, writer, an organizer with the Civilian-Soldier Alliance, “Globalization” Is Coming Home: Protests Spread as Financial Institutions Target Global North”, Thursday 27 October 2011, http://www.truth-out.org/world-finally-fighting-infectionneoliberalism/1320164620?q=globalization-coming-home-protests-spread-financialinstitutions-target-global-north/1319721791) Shortly before the once-prized economy of Argentina collapsed at the end of 2001, a “European Summer” saw massive protests across Europe against “neoliberalism”, the corporate economic system behind what is commonly called “globalization.” Emphasizing the privatization of public services and resources and the removal of environmental and human rights regulations deemed “barriers to trade”, neoliberal globalization was widely recognized as the key factor exacerbating the gulf between rich and poor on a global scale. These protests were the largest and most brutal events that this movement experienced in the Global North; with In Gothenburg, three protesters would be shot by the police, and in Genoa, 21 year-old Carlo Giuliani would be shot twice in the face and then run over by a police truck, killing him instantly. The echoes of these events can still be heard throughout Europe, especially among those who experienced the traumatic police repression or served jail time for their role in the events. A few weeks ago, I saw a beautiful stencil memorial to Carlo in a hallway of one of Austria’s last political squats – just one reminder that the political memory of these uprisings is very much part of the fabric of the European autonomous left. But there’s a much louder echo being heard in Europe right now, the echo of corporate-globalization itself. And as in the last decade, a rage that has built up over many years is beginning to emerge in the form of a mass, loosely coordinated social movement. In Europe, young and old alike have been facing the dissolution of what had long been considered staples of western European countries; England’s health care system is on the privatization block; the right to squat abandoned houses is being stripped in England and The Netherlands; the International Monetary Fund has tightened its grip on Greece, Ireland, and Portugal with increasing austerity measures, and tuition rates for students across the continent are rising dramatically. Alongside these economic conditions, increasingly militarized restrictions to immigration into what has been dubbed “Fortress Europe” stand as a drastic reminder that money and products, but not people, travel freely into and out of neoliberal economies. What is happening is that “globalization” is coming home to the countries that helped create it. The rich economies of the global north, which long relied on the exploitation of southern peoples and economies, are coming under the same restrictions they once imposed on the rest of the world. Though many poor people in these countries have long suffered from domestic exploitation, the present wave of budgets cuts threatens to expose both the poor and middle-classes to harsher realities, unifying them in a social movement that is now attempting to maintain this often-fragile alliance. What we are seeing now is the emergence of a similar political discussion to the days after Seattle, only this time we have turned inward in the Global North: we are now not just talking about solidarity with the Global South, rather we are addressing issues both global and local, as we are feeling the harsh effects of a global economy designed for a minority of the world’s wealthiest people. AT: Cap Good – Generic Even if they win that cap is good for some, 5/6ths of humanity can’t benefit from it DeSoto 0 (Hernando, president of the institute for liberty and democracy, “The Mystery of Capital: why capitalism triumphs in the West and fails everywhere else” Pg. 5-8 JF) In this book I intend to demonstrate that the major stumbling block that keeps the rest of the world from benefitting from capitalism is its inability to produce capital. Capital is the force that raises the productivity of labor and creates the wealth of nations. It is the lifeblood of the capitalist system, the foundation of progress, and the one thing that the poor countries of the world cannot seem to produce for themselves, no matter how eagerly their people engage in all the other activities that characterize a capitalist economy. I will also show, with the help of facts and figures that my research team and I have collected, block by block and farm by farm in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America, that most of the poor already possess the Even in the poorest countries, the poor save. The value of savings among the poor is, in fact, immense—forty times all the foreign aid received throughout the world since 1945. In Egypt, for instance, the wealth that the poor have accumulated is worth fifty-five times as much as the sum of all direct foreign investment ever recorded there, including the Suez Canal and the Aswan Dam. In Haiti, the poorest nation in Latin America, the total assets of the poor are more than one hundred fifty times greater than all foreign investment received since Haiti’s independence from France in 1804. If the United States were to hike its foreign-aid budget to the level recommended by the United assets they need to make a success of capitalism. Nations—0.7 percent of national income—it would take the richest country on earth more than 150 years to transfer the they hold these resources in defective forms: houses built on whose ownership rights are not adequately recorded, unincorporated business with undefined liability, industries located where financiers and investors cannot see them. Because the rights to these possessions are not adequately documented, these assets cannot readily be turned into capital, cannot be traded outside of narrow local circles where people know and trust each other, cannot be used as collateral for a loan, and cannot be used as a share against an investment. In the West, by contrast, every parcel of land, every building, every piece of equipment, or store of inventories is represented in a property document that is the visible sign of a vast hidden process that connects all these assets to the rest of the economy. Thanks to this representational process, assets can lead an invisible, parallel life alongside their material existence. They can be used as world’s poor resources equal to those they already possess. But collateral for credit. The single most important source of funds for new businesses in the United States is a mortgage on the entrepreneur’s house. These assets can also provide a link to the owner’s credit history, an accountable address for the collection of debt and taxes, the basis for the creation of reliable and universal public utilities, and a foundation for the By this process the West injects life into assets and makes them generate capital. Third world and former communist nations do not have this representational process. As a result, most of them are undercapitalized, in the same way that a firm is undercapitalized when it issues fewer securities than its income and assets would justify. The enterprises of creation of securities (like mortgage-backed bonds) that can then be rediscounted and sod in secondary markets. the poor are very much like corporations that cannot issue shares or bonds to obtain new investment and finance. Without representations, their assets are dead capital. The poor inhabitants of these nations— five-sixths of humanity—do have things, but they lack the process to represent their property and create capital. They have houses but not titles; crops but not deeds; business but not statutes of incorporation. It is the unavailability of these essential representations that explains why people who have adapted every other Western invention, from the paper clip to the nuclear reactor, have not been able to produce sufficient capital to make their domestic capitalism work. This is the mystery of capital. Solving it requires an understanding of why Westerners, by representing assets with titles, are able to see and draw out capital from them. One of the greatest challenges to the human mind is to comprehend and to gain access to those things we know exist but cannot see. Not everything that is real and useful is tangible and visible. Time, for example, is real, but it can only be efficiently managed when it is represented by a clock or a calendar. Throughout history, human beings have invented representational systems—writing, musical notation, double-entry bookkeeping—to grasp with the mind what human hands could never touch. In the same way, the great practitioners of capitalism, from the creators of integrated title systems and corporate stock to Michael Milken, were able to reveal and extract capital where others saw only junk by devising new ways to represent the invisible potential that is The absence of this process in the poorer regions of the world—where two-thirds of humanity lives—is not the consequence of some Western monopolistic conspiracy. It is rather that Westerners take the mechanism so completely for granted that they have lost all awareness of its existence. Although it is huge, nobody sees it, including the Americans, Europeans, and Japanese who owe all their wealth to their ability to use it. It is an implicit legal infrastructure hidden deep within their property systems—of which ownership locked up in the assets we accumulate. is but the tip of the iceberg. The rest of the iceberg is an intricate man-made process that can transform assets and labor into capital. This process was not created from a blue-print and is not described in a glossy brochure. Its origins are obscure and its significance buried in the economic subconscious of Western capitalist nations. Capitalism causes incalculable deaths—nothing can outweigh 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 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 ). An estimate d 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 stupid little world wars and equally stupid 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. The AFF is concerned with solving fleeting, conjunctural crises, which are inevitably recurring features of the fundamental structural crisis of capital. Error replication is inevitable, and our impacts outweigh Meszaros 2006 (Istvan, Monthly Review, September, “The Structural Crisis of Politics”) 2. The Nature of Capital’s Structural Crisis In this respect it is necessary to clarify the relevant differences between types or modalities of crisis. It is not a matter of indifference whether a crisis in the social sphere can be considered a periodic/con-junctural crisis, or something much more fundamental than that. For, obviously, the way of dealing with a fundamental crisis cannot be con-ceptualized in terms of the the categories of periodic or conjunctural crises. To anticipate a main point of this lecture, as far as politics is con-cerned the crucial difference between the two sharply contrasting types of crises in question is that the periodic or conjunctural crises unfold and are more or less successfully resolved within a given framework of politics, whereas the fundamental crisis affects that framework itself in its entirety. In other words, in relation to a given socioeconomic and political system we are talking about the vital difference between the more or less frequent crises in politics, as against the crisis of the estab-lished modality of politics itself, with qualitatively different require-ments for its possible solution. It is the latter that we are concerned with today. In general terms, this distinction is not simply a question of the apparent severity of the contrasting types of crises. For a periodic or conjunctural crisis can be dramatically severe—as the “Great World Economic Crisis of 1929–1933” happened to be—yet capable of a solution within the parameters of the given system. Misinterpreting the severity of a given conjunctural crisis as if it was a fundamental systemic crisis, as Stalin and his advisers did in the midst of the “Great World Economic Crisis of 1929–1933,” is bound to lead to mistaken and indeed volun-taristic strategies, like declaring social democracy to be the “main enemy” in the early 1930s, which could only strengthen, as in fact it trag-ically did strengthen, Hitler’s forces. And in the same way, but in the opposite sense, the “non-explosive” character of a prolonged structural crisis, in contrast to the “thunderstorms” (Marx) through which periodic conjunctural crises can discharge and resolve themselves, may also lead to fundamentally misconceived strategies, as a result of the misin-terpretation of the absence of “thunderstorms” as if their absence was the overwhelming evidence for the indefinite stability of “organized capitalism” and of the “integration of the working class.” This kind of misinterpretation, to be sure heavily promoted by the ruling ideological interests under the pretenses of “scientific objectivity,” tends to rein-force the position of those who represent the self-justifying acceptance of the reformist accommodationist approaches in institutionalized—for-merly genuinely oppositional—working–class parties and trade unions (now, however, “Her Majesty’s Official Opposition,” as the saying goes). But even among the deeply committed critics of the capital system, the same misconception regarding the indefinitely crisisfree perspective of the established order can result in the adoption of a self-paralyzing defensive posture, as we witnessed in the socialist movement in the last few decades. It cannot be stressed enough, the crisis of politics in our time is not intelligible without being referred to the broad overall social framework of which politics is an integral part. This means that in order to clarify the nature of the persistent and deepening crisis of politics all over the world today we must focus attention on the crisis of the capital system itself. For the crisis of capital we are 18 experiencing—at least since the very beginning of the 1970s—is an all-embracing structural crisis. Let us see, summed up as briefly as possible, the defining characteristics of the structural crisis we are concerned with. The historical novelty of today’s crisis is manifest under four main aspects: ♦ (1) its character is universal, rather than restricted to one particular sphere (e.g., financial, or commercial, or affecting this or that particu-lar branch of production, or applying to this rather than that type of labour, with its specific range of skills and degrees of productivity, etc.); ♦ (2) its scope is truly global (in the most threateningly literal sense of the term), rather than confined to a particular set of countries (as all major crises have been in the past); ♦ (3) its time scale is extended, continuous—if you like: permanent— rather than limited and cyclic, as all former crises of capital happened to be. ♦ (4) its mode of unfolding might be called creeping—in contrast to the more spectacular and dramatic eruptions and collapses of the past— while adding the proviso that even the most vehement or violent con-vulsions cannot be excluded as far as the future is concerned: i.e, when the complex machinery now actively engaged in “crisis-management” and in the more or less temporary “displacement” of the growing con-tradictions runs out of steam.... [Here] it is necessary to make some general points about the criteria of a structural crisis, as well as about the forms in which its solution may be envisaged. To put it in the simplest and most general terms, a structural crisis affects the totality of a social complex, in all its relations with its con-stituent parts or subcomplexes, as well as with other complexes to which it is linked. By contrast, a non-structural crisis affects only some parts of the complex in question, and thus no matter how severe it might be with regard to the affected parts, it cannot endanger the continued survival of the overall structure. Accordingly, the displacement of contradictions is feasible only while the crisis is partial, relative and internally manageable by the system, requiring no more than shifts—even if major ones— within the relatively autonomous system itself. By the same token, a structural crisis calls into question the very existence of the overall complex concerned, postulat-ing its transcendence and replacement by some alternative complex. The same contrast may be expressed in terms of the limits any particular social complex happens to have in its immediacy, at any given time, as compared to those beyond which it cannot conceivably go. Thus, a structural crisis is not concerned with the 19 Thus, in a fairly obvious sense nothing could be more serious than the structural crisis of capital’s mode of social metabolic reproduction which defines the ultimate limits of the established order. But even though profoundly serious in its all-important general parameters, on the face of it the structural crisis may not appear to be of such a decid-ing importance when compared to the dramatic vicissitudes of a major conjunctural crisis. For the “thunderstorms” through which the con-junctural crises discharge themselves are rather paradoxical in the sense that in their mode of unfolding they not only discharge (and impose) but also resolve themselves, to the degree to which that is feasible under the circumstances. This they can do precisely because of their partial char-acter which does not call into question the ultimate limits of the established global structure. At the same time, however, and for the same reason, they can only “resolve” the underlying deep-seated structural problems—which necessarily assert themselves again and again in the form of the specific conjunctural crises—in a strictly partial and tempo-rally also most limited way. Until, that is, the next conjunctural crisis appears on society’s horizon. By contrast, in view of the inescapably complex and immediate limits but with the ultimate limits of a global structure.... prolonged nature of the structural crisis, unfolding in historical time in an epochal and not episodic/instantaneous sense, it is the cumulative interrelationship of the whole that decides the issue, even under the false appearance of “normality.” This is because in the structural crisis everything is at stake, involving the all-embracing ultimate limits of the given order of which there cannot possibly be a “symbolic/paradigmatic” particular instance. Without understanding the overall systemic connections and implications of the particular events and developments we lose sight of the really significant changes and of the corresponding levers of poten-tial strategic intervention positively to affect them, in the interest of the necessary systemic transformation. Our social responsibility therefore calls for an uncompromising critical awareness of the emerging cumulative interrelationship, instead of looking for comforting reassurances in the world of illusory normality until the house collapses over our head. A2: Cede the Political “We should” is a tried and failed strategy – the government pursues empire and destruction on purpose, and we must re-orient our political strategy to account for this fact Herod 2001 (James, “A Stake, Not a Mistake: On Not Seeing the Enemy”, October, http://www.jamesherod.info/index.php?sec=paper&id=9 Accessed 6/27/10) So what has been the response of the 'progressive community' to the bombing of Afghanistan? As usual, they just don't get it. They just can't seem to grasp the simple fact that the government does this stuff on purpose. Endlessly, progressives talk as if the government is just making a mistake, does not see the real consequences of its actions, or is acting irrationally, and they hope to correct the government's course by pointing out the errors of its ways. Progressives assume that their goals -- peace, justice, well-being -- are also the government's goals. So when they look at what the government is doing, they get alarmed and puzzled, because it is obvious that the government's actions are not achieving these goals. So they cry out: "Hey, this policy doesn't lead to peace!" or "Hey, this policy doesn't achieve justice (or democracy, or development)!" By pointing this out, they hope to educate the government, to help it to see its mistakes, to convince it that its policies are not having the desired results.[2] How can they not see that the US government acts deliberately, and that it knows what it is doing? How can they not see that the government's goals are not peace and justice, but empire and profit. It wants these wars, this repression. These policies are not mistakes; they are not irrational; they are not based on a failure of moral insight (since morality is not even a factor in their considerations); they are not aberrations; they are not based on a failure to analyze the situation correctly; they are not based on ignorance. This repression, these bombings, wars, massacres, assassinations, and covert actions are the coldly calculated, rational, consistent, intelligent, and informed actions of a ruling class determined at all costs to keep its power and wealth and preserve its way of life (capitalism). It has demonstrated great historical presence, persistence, and continuity in pursuing this objective. This ruling class knows that it is committing atrocities, knows that it is destroying democracy, hope, welfare, peace, and justice, knows that it is murdering, massacring, slaughtering, poisoning, torturing, lying, stealing, and it doesn't care. Yet most progressives seem to believe that if only they point out often enough and loud enough that the ruling class is murdering people, that it will wake up, take notice, apologize, and stop doing it. Here is a typical expression of this naiveté (written by an author, Brian Willson, who was in the process of introducing a list of US interventions abroad!): "Many of us are continually disturbed and grief stricken because it seems that our U.S. government does not yet understand: (a) the historical social, cultural, and economic issues that underlay most of the political and ecological problems of the world; (b) the need to comply with, as legally agreed to, rather than continually defy, international law and international institutions established for addressing conflict; and (c) that military solutions, including production, sale, and use of the latest in technological weapons, are simply ill-equipped and wrong-headed for solving fundamental social and economic problems." [3] He is wrong on all three counts. (a) The US government has an intimate, detailed knowledge of the social, cultural, and economic characteristics of every country it intervenes in. It is especially familiar with the ethnic, linguistic, political, and religious divisions within the country. It is not interested in how these issues "underlay most of the political and ecological problems of the world", since it is not interested in those problems, certainly not in solving them, since it is the main creator of those problems. Rather, it uses its expert knowledge to manipulate events within the country in order to advance its own goals, profit and empire. (b) The US government understands perfectly that it expressly needs not to comply with international law in order to maintain its ability to act unilaterally, unfettered by any constraints, to advance its imperial aims. The claim that the US defies international law because of a misunderstanding is absurd. (c) Who says that the US government is trying to solve "fundamental social and economic problems"? These are not its aims at all. The objectives that it does pursue, consciously and relentlessly, namely profit and empire, are in fact the causes of these very "social and economic problems". Furthermore, for its true aims, military solutions, far from being "ill-equipped and wrong-headed", work exceptionally well. Military might sustains the empire. Arming every little client regime of the international ruling class with 'the latest in technological weapons" is necessary, and quite effective, in maintaining the repressive apparatus needed to defend empire, in addition to raking in lots of profit for the arms manufacturers. But evidently Mr. Willson "does not yet understand" any of these things. Let's take another example. Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman, otherwise very sensible writers, complain that "bombing a desperately poor country under the yoke of a repressive regime is a wrongheaded response [to the "unspeakable acts of violence" committed on Sept. 11]. "The U.S. bombing of Afghanistan should cease immediately," they say. They discuss three reasons: "1. The policy of bombing increases the risk of further terrorism against the United States. 2. The bombing is intensifying a humanitarian nightmare in Afghanistan. 3. There are better ways to seek justice." All three statements are true of course, but irrelevant, because seeking justice, avoiding humanitarian nightmares, and reducing the risk of terrorism do not enter into the calculations of US policy makers. Quite the contrary, US policy makers create injustice, humanitarian nightmares, and terrorism, throughout the world, in pursuit of the imperial objective of making profit, and this has been thoroughly documented in thousands of scholarly studies. So for Mokhiber and Weissman to talk in this way, and phrase the problem in this way, exposes their failure to really comprehend the enemy we face, which in turn prevents them from looking for effective strategies to defeat that enemy, like so many other opponents of the "war". Hence all the moralizing, the bulk of which is definitely directed at the rulers, not at the ruled. That is, it is not an attempt to win over the ruled, but an attempt to win over the rulers. [4] It's what I call the "we should" crowd -- all those people who hope to have a voice in the formation of policy, people whose stances are basically that of consultants to the ruling class. "We" should do this, "we" shouldn't do that, as if they had anything at all to say about what our rulers do. This is the normal stance among the bootlicking intelligentsia of course. But what is it doing among progressives and radicals? their stance is seen to be not exactly that of consultants, but that of citizens making demands upon their government, what makes them think that the government ever listens? I think this attitude -Even if the "we should" attitude -- is rooted in part at least in the fact that most progressives still believe in nations and governments. They believe that this is "our" country, and that this is "our" government, or at least should be. So Kevin Danaher says that "we should get control of the government." They identify themselves as Americans, or Germans, or Mexicans, or Swedes. So they are constantly advising and making demands that 'their' government should do this and that. If they would reject nationalism altogether, and states and governments, they could begin to see another way. A variation of the 'this is a mistake' theme has appeared in commentaries on the present "war", on Afghanistan. Progressives argue that the US is "falling into a trap". They argue that Osama bin Laden had hoped to provoke the US into doing just what it is doing, attacking Afghanistan. In their view, the US government is being stupid, acting blindly, responding irrationally, and showing incompetence. That is, it is "making a mistake". It never seems to occur to these analysts that the government may actually be awake, even alert, or that it jumped at the opportunity offered it by the attacks of September Eleven to do what it had wanted to do anyway - seize Afghanistan, build a big new base in Uzbekistan, declare unending war on the enemies of Empire everywhere, and initiate draconian repression against internal dissent in order to achieve "domestic tranquility". I saw yet another variation on the theme just recently. John Tirman writes about "Unintended Consequences".[5] He thinks that "No matter how cautious generals and political leaders are ... unseen and unintended [results] occur, at times as a bitter riptide which overwhelms the original rationales for engaging in armed combat. This unpredictable cycle of action and reaction has thwarted U.S. policy in southwest Asia for 50 years." It's the usual mistake: Tirman imputes policies to the US government which it does not have. US policy has not been thwarted, it has been highly successful. The US has succeeded in keeping control of Middle Eastern oil for the past half century. This is what it wanted to do, and this is what it did. Tirman however reviews the history of US intervention in the Middle East, beginning with the overthrow of Mossedegh in Iran in 1953, and sees it as one long blunder, nothing but bumbling incompetence, complicated further by 'unintended consequences' which thwart the goals of American foreign policy. He seems to think that the US was (or "should be") trying to reduce US dependence on Middle Eastern oil, fighting Islamic fundamentalism, reducing human suffering, assisting in economic development, promoting democracy, and so on -anything and everything except what it is actually doing, keeping control of Middle Eastern oil, and using any means necessary to do so. Tirman is aware of course that this (oil) is the true aim of US policy, because he quotes directly from US officials who state this objective explicitly, but somehow this doesn't sink in. Instead, he finally asks in exasperation: "What will be next in this series of haunting mistakes?" 2AC Perm Solvency Perm do the plan and the not mutually exclusive parts of the alt – it’s an ethical alt to excessive capitalism Martin ’10 [Robert Martin, RVI English Representative – RVI is Renaissance Vanguard International, an organization founded on Communitarian and Distributist principles, “Centrifuge Capitalism” – Amerika – Jun 21st, 2010 – http://www.amerika.org/politics/centrifuge-capitalism/]//lz Centralization and capitalism are necessary for any intelligent civilization, yet in excess drains the base population of any sustenance whatsoever, leaving them unemployed, homeless and starving at worst. The answer to this event is not a swing on the pendulum all the way onto total equality fisted socialism out on a plate for everyone who isn’t rich, that would be devastating for organization, but is a more natural ecosystem type of financing of a near-barter economics with different values and currencies for localized entities and more buoyant monetary for inter-localities – only monetizing where absolutely necessary. Without the higher economics that goes beyond small barter communities, there could be no space programs, or planetary defences providing the technology or the organization necessary to survive extinction events or fund a military etc, it’s critical for the structure of the superorganism – yet too much and some individuals inside of it become so padded from outside reality that they completely ignore the world around them. Centralization is pseudo gravity of the political variant, it sucks everything down into a point, and through this it creates a civilization, a planet of its own amidst a world of other civilizations all coalescing out of species of life at a specific evolutionary capacity. Global modern day capitalism, in its most destructive phase, is made out of a ‘substance’ that cannot overcome itself to produce wealth through its centralization, as far as it has gone now. But it is possible, if many ‘planets’ ‘stars’ or everything that makes up a wealthy locality all evolve to revolve around a central core, then this will produce a kind of ‘active centralization’ where the dead and cold rock of debt is stripped apart of its structure and is made into pure wealth, pure value and then jetted out of the core of civilization, thereby producing wealth on a higher niche via fusing the negative debt with the unseen gravity of its social environment. Evolution is at a somewhat constant rate and afflicts every gene and meme in existence at varying energies, if we don’t adapt to our environment then we will be at the mercy of the ourselves alone, likewise if we don’t adapt ourselves we will be at the mercy of our environment alone. Although good for some, for the future it is severely disabling and cannot allow for space exploration. Capitalism, like every theory, is memes, be improved by alternating the frequencies and wavelengths of its usage, it can be evolved to be more collective, to refertilize the environment so that individuals can once again contribute back into the centralization instead of a ‘once in a civilization opportunity’ where we have one big boom and the rest is dumped in the toilet for the peasants to feast. Like therefore it can these active galaxies, absorb that which gets too centralized and jet it out as high energy wealth across the void of space, this jet then crushes the inert clouds, or communities, around it into fusing stars of their own. Modern capitalism needs a black hole at its centre, therefore the individuals at the core of its centrifuge will be spaghettified and will have their organizations and corporations torn apart into sub atomic values that then are then fused into exotic wealth able to drive civilization into space and into creating new homes on distant planets for our species. The centralization, combined with its spin, acts as a funnel to the higher castes of society that are then able to create beyond themselves enough that we can produce strong civilizations, culture, technology and mechanization. So remember you shit eating socialists, don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater or your people will not have an intelligent future at all, regressing into your economic swamps is not a viable solution Cede the Political Alternative cedes the political Wilson 2K [Author of many books including ‘The Myth of Political Correctness’ – 2000 (John K. Wilson, “How the Left can Win Arguments and Influence People” p. 7- 10] Socialism is dead. Kaput. Stick a fork in Lenin's corpse. Take the Fidel posters off the wall. Welcome to the twenty-first century. Wake up and smell the capitalism. I have no particular hostility to socialism. But nothing can kill a good idea in America so quickly as sticking the "socialist" label on it. The reality in America is that socialism is about as successful as Marxist footwear (and have you ever seen a sickle and hammer on anybody's shoes?). Allow your position to be defined as socialist even if it isn't (remember Clinton's capitalist health care plan?), and the idea is doomed. Instead of fighting to repair the tattered remnants of socialism as a marketing slogan, the left needs to address the core issues of social justice. You can form the word socialist from the letters in social justice, but it sounds better if you don't. At least 90 percent of America opposes socialism, and 90 percent of America thinks "social justice" might be a good idea. Why alienate so many people with a word? Even the true believers hawking copies of the Revolutionary Socialist Worker must realize by now that the word socialist doesn't have a lot of drawing power. In the movie Bulworth, Warren Beatty declares: "Let me hear that dirty word: socialism!" Socialism isn't really a dirty word, however; if it were, socialism might have a little underground appeal as a forbidden topic. Instead, socialism is a forgotten word, part of an archaic vocabulary and a dead language that is no longer spoken in America. Even Michael Harrington, the founder of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), didn't use the word socialism in his influential book on poverty, The Other America. The best reason for the left to abandon socialism is not PR but honesty. Most of the self-described "socialists" remaining in America don't qualify as real socialists in any technical sense. If you look at the DSA (whose prominent members include Harvard professor Cornel West and former Time columnist Barbara Ehrenreich), most of the policies they urge-a living wage, universal health care, environmental protection, reduced spending on the Pentagon, and an end to corporate welfare-have nothing to do with socialism in the specific sense of government ownership of the means of production. Rather, the DSA program is really nothing more than what a liberal political party ought to push for, if we had one in America. Europeans, to whom the hysteria over socialism must seem rather strange, would never consider abandoning socialism as a legitimate political ideology. But in America, socialism simply isn't taken seriously by the mainstream. Therefore, if socialists want to be taken seriously, they need to pursue socialist goals using nonsocialist rhetoric. Whenever someone tries to attack an idea as "socialist" (or, better yet, "communist"), there's an easy answer: Some people think everything done by a government, from Social Security to Medicare to public schools to public libraries, is socialism. The rest of us just think it's a good idea. (Whenever possible, throw public libraries into an argument, whether it's about good government programs or NEA funding. Nobody with any sense is opposed to public libraries. They are by far the most popular government institutions.) If an argument turns into a debate over socialism, simply define socialism as the total government ownership of all factories and natural resources-which, since we don't have it and no one is really arguing for this to happen, makes socialism a rather pointless debate. Of course, socialists will always argue among themselves about socialism and continue their internal debates. But when it comes to influencing public policy, abstract discussions about socialism are worse than useless, for they alienate the progressive potential of the American people. It's only by pursuing specific progressive policies on nonsocialist terms that socialists have any hope in the long term of convincing the public that socialism isn't (or shouldn't be) a long-dead ideology. Cap Good – War Capitalism leads to interdependence which greatly reduces the risk of war – five reasons Yee 99 (Tan Tan, Journal of the Singapore Armed Forces, Jan-Mar, http://www.mindef.gov.sg/safti/pointer/back/journals/1999/Vol25_1/7.htm)JFS Like the Democratic Peace Proposition, the notion that increased interdependence reduces the probability of war among nations is not new. For one, economists have long demonstrated that economic interdependence benefits both parties through the process of international trade. The underlying rationale is worth explaining. In a simple model of a two-state-two-product international economy, even if a particular state is more efficient at producing both goods, it would still make more economic sense for each state to specialise in producing one of the goods and thereafter obtain the other through barter exchange. This is because the issue is one of relative rather than absolute efficiency; the more efficient state should optimise its limited resources to focus entirely on producing the goods where it has a relatively greater efficiency. From an economic viewpoint, therefore, international trade represents one of the rare occasions in international affairs that present a win-win situation to both parties.15 Traditionally, theories on the effect of interdependence between states on the risk of war can be divided into two main camps. On the one extreme, liberals argue that economic interdependence lowers the likelihood of war by increasing the value of trading over the alternative of aggression; in other words, states would rather trade than fight.16 To put it simply, trade is mutually beneficial, while war is at best a zero-sum game. At the same time, the increasing lethality of modern weapons has greatly increased the costs and risks of war, thus making the trading option seem even more rational. Four other subsidiary propositions supporting the liberal view are worth mentioning here.17 Firstly, the increased economic activity that accompanies higher trade levels tends to promote domestic prosperity, and in doing so lessens the internal problems that push leaders to war. Secondly, trade may alter the domestic structure of a particular state, giving more influence to groups with a vested interest in the continuation of peaceful trade. Thirdly, a higher level of interdependence inevitably leads to increased interaction between governments and peoples. This enhances understanding and an appreciation of each other's views and perspectives, reducing the misunderstandings and miscalculations that sometimes lead to war. The final argument asserts that trade has the spillover effect of enhancing political ties between trading partners, thus improving the prospects for long-term co-operation. Going by the liberal arguments, there is cause for optimism as long as a high level of interdependence can be maintained among all states. Rosecrance sums up the view rather neatly that high interdependence fosters peace by making trading more profitable than invading.18 Some liberals explain the continuing occurrence of war as a result of the misconception of political leaders caught up in the outmoded belief that war still pays.19 Yet others saw it as the misguided attempts by political leaders to gamble for an outright victory in war, in which case the benefits would be even greater. The contention is that inspite of the pacifist tendencies that interdependence brings about, it may sometimes not be enough to prevent war from happening. Empirically proven to solve war Griswold 5 (Daniel, director of Center for Trade Policy Studies@CATO, December 28, http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=5344) As one little-noticed headline on an Associated Press story recently reported, "War declining worldwide, studies say." According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the number of armed conflicts around the world has been in decline for the past half-century. In just the past 15 years, ongoing conflicts have dropped from 33 to 18, with all of them now civil conflicts within countries. As 2005 draws to an end, no two nations in the world are at war with each other. The death toll from war has also been falling. According to the AP story, "The number killed in battle has fallen to its lowest point in the post-World War II period, dipping below 20,000 a year by one measure. Peacemaking missions, meanwhile, are growing in number." Those estimates are down sharply from annual tolls ranging from 40,000 to 100,000 in the 1990s, and from a peak of 700,000 in 1951 during the Korean War. Many causes lie behind the good news -- the end of the Cold War and the spread of democracy, among them -- but expanding trade and globalization appear to be playing a major role. Far from stoking a "World on Fire," as one misguided American author has argued, growing commercial ties between nations have had a dampening effect on armed conflict and war, for three main reasons. First, trade and globalization have reinforced the trend toward democracy, and democracies don't pick fights with each other. Freedom to trade nurtures democracy by expanding the middle class in globalizing countries and equipping people with tools of communication such as cell phones, satellite TV, and the Internet. With trade comes more travel, more contact with people in other countries, and more exposure to new ideas. Thanks in part to globalization, almost two thirds of the world's countries today are democracies -- a record high. Second, as national economies become more integrated with each other, those nations have more to lose should war break out. War in a globalized world not only means human casualties and bigger government, but also ruptured trade and investment ties that impose lasting damage on the economy. In short, globalization has dramatically raised the economic cost of war. Third, globalization allows nations to acquire wealth through production and trade rather than conquest of territory and resources. Increasingly, wealth is measured in terms of intellectual property, financial assets, and human capital. Those are assets that cannot be seized by armies. If people need resources outside their national borders, say oil or timber or farm products, they can acquire them peacefully by trading away what they can produce best at home. Trade from Capitalism solves wars Mark Harrison, Research fellow at the Hoover Institution and Professor of Economics at the University of Warwick, October 19, 2011, Capitalism at War http://ssrn.com/abstract=1992623 Martin, Mayer, and Thoenig (2008) show how globalization has helped to manage war risks. Using data from 1970 to 2000, they show that trade has a double effect on the propensity for war. Consider any pair of countries. The more a country traded with its pair, they show, the more likely were the two to remain at peace. But as trade increased with third countries, the less likely was peace to persist. Bilateral trade reduced the frequency of bilateral war; multilateral trade increased it.¶ At the root of the historical process was falling trade costs (Jacks, Meissner, and Novy 2008). Suppose the leaders of a country have some reason to fight their neighbour. Under high trade costs, the adversary is the only trading partner. There is no substitute for the food and fuel previously imported, so war leads to autarky. The peacetime supply chain is broken; the home prices of food and fuel must rise. The duration of autarky is uncertain, since it depends on how quickly the war can be concluded, which is a matter of chance. As a result, the risk of persistent trade disruption and economic losses is high. When trade costs are low, in contrast, the home country can lay off its war risks in the rest of the world; for example, it can easily substitute away from the neighbour for the source of its imports. The broken supply chain can be replaced with others. Thus, low trade costs enable the home country to fight its neighbour while continuing to trade with the rest of the world. Cap doesn’t cause war Mark Harrison, Research fellow at the Hoover Institution and Professor of Economics at the University of Warwick, October 19, 2011, Capitalism at War http://ssrn.com/abstract=1992623 Ricardo (1817) used the word “capitalist” to distinguish the owners of capital from the owners of land and labour. But the mere existence of capitalists falls short of implying “capitalism,” an entire economic and social system with private capital ownership at its foundation. In fact, the identity of capitalism was created by its critics, Proudhon (1861) and Marx (1867). Marx, before anyone else, argued that capitalism’s defining features allow us logically to infer distinct and general attributes of capitalism (such as alienation) and propensities (such as the declining rate of profit). To inquire in this sense into whether “capitalism” as such has a propensity for anything, let alone something as emotive as war, is to enter a debate on conceptual territory chosen by the enemies of capitalism. Second, the histories of capitalism and warfare are certainly intertwined, but not uniquely. War is as old as history; capitalism is not. All societies that have given rise to organized government have engaged in warfare (Tilly 1975). The slave and serf societies and city states of the ancient, classical, and medieval eras made war freely. Turning to modern times, the socialist states of the twentieth century were born in wartime, prepared for war, and did not shrink from the use of military power to achieve their goals. Thinking comparatively, it will not be easy to identify any causal connection between capitalism and war. At most, we will look for some adaptation or propensity for war under capitalism, relative to other systems. Third, if there is a story here, who are the actors? Capitalism is an economic structure; war is a political act. War can hardly be explained by structure alone, for there is no war without agency, calculation, and decision. Given this, our search must be for aspects of capitalism that may have created incentives and propensities for the political actors to choose war with greater frequency, and made them more willing to impose the increasing costs of war on society, than under alternative conditions, real or counterfactual. Cap Good - Democracy Cap promotes democracy and peace Mark Harrison, Research fellow at the Hoover Institution and Professor of Economics at the University of Warwick, October 19, 2011, Capitalism at War http://ssrn.com/abstract=1992623 What do capitalist institutions contribute to the empirical patterns in the data? Erik Gartzke (2007) has re-examined the hypothesis of the “democratic peace” based on the possibility that, since capitalism and democracy are highly correlated across countries and time, both democracy and peace might be products of the same underlying cause, the spread of capitalist institutions. It is a problem that our historical datasets have measured the spread of capitalist property rights and economic freedoms over shorter time spans or on fewer dimensions than political variables. For the period from 1950 to 1992, Gartzke uses a measure of external financial and trade liberalization as most likely to signal robust markets and a laissez faire policy. Countries that share this attribute of capitalism above a certain level, he finds, do not fight each other, so there is capitalist peace as well as democratic peace. Second, economic liberalization (of the less liberalized of the pair of countries) is a more powerful predictor of bilateral peace than democratization, controlling for the level of economic development and measures of political affinity. Democracy prevents wars, even in a world of realism Erik Gartzke associate professor of political science at UC San Diego, and Alex Weisiger, Ph.D. in Political Science and assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania, 15 January 2010, http://www-polisci.tamu.edu/upload_images/132/PICC/Gartzke_Jan2010.pdf That democracies do not fight each other, or that they fight only rarely, is now one of the most widely accepted empirical findings in political science. 2 Initial studies that found what later came to be known as the democratic peace (Babst 1964; Small and Singer 1976) encountered skepticism, as the discovery was incompatible with the realist precept that second image politics was largely irrelevant to challenges to the democratic peace, both qualitative (Layne 1994) and quantitative (Spiro 1994; Farber and Gowa 1997; Gowa 1999), often originated from the realist camp. Over time, however, more extensive and careful quantitative research, most notably a series of studies by Russett, international a airs. Early Oneal, and co-authors (Maoz and Russett 1992, 1993; Oneal, et al. 1996, 2003; Oneal and Ray 1997; Oneal and Russett 1997, 1999a, 1999b, 1999c; Russett 1993; Russett and Oneal 2001), have addressed many methodological concerns with prior studies, creating a consensus within the field that the empirical relationship between joint democracy and peace is genuine. 3 An intense but increasingly one-sided debate has occurred between those who treat democratic peace as a dyadic observation (Maoz and Abdoladi 1989; Bremer 1992; Morgan and Campbell 1991; Maoz and Russett 1993; Oneal and Russett 1997; Russett and Oneal 2001) and those who argue that democracies are generally more peaceful (Benoit 1996; Ray 1995; Rummel 1996; Rousseau et al. 1996). This debate has clear normative implications, even as its results sharpen theoretical insight: an explanation for the monadic relationship is typically unable to account for a dyadic observation, and vice versa. For example, Kant's assertion that citizens in a republic are naturally loath to spill their own blood (Kant 1972[1795]), implies a monadic, not a dyadic phenomenon. Democratic capitalism leads to peace Bruce Russett, Dean Acheson Professor of International Relations and Director of United Nations Studies at Yale University, 1995, Grasping the Democratic Peace: Principles for a Post- Cold War World, Princeton University Press, http://www.polisci.ufl.edu/usfpinstitute/2010/documents/readings/Russett,%20Grasping,%20c hap.%201.pdf Democratic capitalism leads to peace. As evidence, Schumpeter claims that throughout the capitalist world an op- position has arisen to "war, expansion, cabinet diplomacy"; that contemporary capitalism is associated with peace par- ties; and that the industrial worker of capitalism is "vigorously anti-imperialist." In addition, he points out that the capital- ist world has developed means of prevent- ing war, such as the Hague Court and that the least feudal, most capitalist society— the United States—has demonstrated the least imperialistic tendencies (Schumpeter 1955, pp. 95-96). An example of the lack of imperialistic tendencies in the U.S., Schumpeter thought, was our leaving over half of Mexico unconquered in the war of 1846-48. Schumpeter's explanation for liberal pacifism is quite simple: Only war profi- teers and military aristocrats gain from wars. No democracy would pursue a minority interest and tolerate the high costs of imperialism. When free trade prevails, "no class" gains from forcible expansion because foreign raw materials and food stuffs are as accessible to each nation as though they were in its own territory. Where the cultural backward- ness of a region makes normal economic intercourse dependent on colonization it does not matter, assuming free trade, which of the "civilized" nations undertakes the task of coloni- zation. (Schumpeter, 1955, pp. 75-76) Democracies prevent wars – they empirically don’t fight each other Bruce Russett, Dean Acheson Professor of International Relations and Director of United Nations Studies at Yale University, 1995, Grasping the Democratic Peace: Principles for a PostCold War World, Princeton University Press, http://www.polisci.ufl.edu/usfpinstitute/2010/documents/readings/Russett,%20Grasping,%20c hap.%201.pdf The end of ideological hostility matters doubly because it represents a surrender to the force of Western values of economic and especially polit- ical freedom.To the degree that countries once ruled by autocratic sys-tems become democratic, a striking fact about the world comes to bear on any discussion of the future of international relations: in the modern in-ternational system, democracies have almost never fought each other. This statement represents a complex phenomenon: (a) Democracies rarely fight each other (an empirical statement) because (b) they have other means of resolving conflicts between them and therefore do not need to fight each other (a prudential statement), and (c) they perceive that democracies should not fight each other (a normative statement about principles of right behavior), which reinforces the empirical state- ment. By this reasoning, the more democracies there are in the world, the fewer potential adversaries we and other democracies will have the wider the zone of peace. This book will document, explain, and speculate about the implications of the phenomenon of democratic peace. Even with disputes, democracy prevents it from going over the brink Bruce Russett, Dean Acheson Professor of International Relations and Director of United Nations Studies at Yale University, 1995, Grasping the Democratic Peace: Principles for a PostCold War World, Princeton University Press, http://www.polisci.ufl.edu/usfpinstitute/2010/documents/readings/Russett,%20Grasping,%20c hap.%201.pdf The strong norm that democracies should not fight each other seems to have developed only toward the end of the nineteenth century. That time period provides a number of examples in which stable democracies en-gaged in serious diplomatic disputes that took them to brink of war, without ever actually going over the edge. In this restraint of action be-tween democracies, and in the subsequent evaluations of the crises by the peoples and elites involved, we can discern some important differences : has long between the expectations and norms operating among democracies and practices to those that became operative when a democracy entered into an adversar- spoke of ial relationship with an authoritarian state. Cap Good – Environment The environment is getting better because of capitalism Goldberg 2K (Jonah, Editor-at-Large – National Review, “Witness Earth Day”, The National Review, 4-24, http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NGM0YjAzNGYyMzg0NjhkZDVmNzE0ZWI2NjIyZDE4N2Q=) First, the environment is getting better. The air is cleaner, the water too. Species extinctions are declining and we haven't lost any really cute animals in a very long time. There are more trees in the US than there were in the 1920s. Vital resources are all getting cheaper. Food is abundant — despite the fact that people like Paul Ehrlich predicted that most surviving Americans would be eating human-foot stew by now. Capitalism is the fastest route to a clean environment. Remember: Rich people pass child-labor laws, Clean Air Acts, Clean Water Acts, Endangered Species Acts — because they can afford to. It is a fact that a person faced with the choice of not killing a rhino versus feeding his family will almost always choose feeding his family. Liberals believe that laws can trump necessity. This is very rarely the case. That's why America passed anti-child labor laws only after we got prosperous enough to be able to afford to send our kids to school rather than work. Transition from property rights will destroy ecological diversity Bailey 01 (Ronald, Science Correspondent – Reason, “Rage Against the Machine”, Reason Magazine, 33(3), July, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1568/is_3_33/ai_76447014/pg_11) Yet if the global commons is expanded as the neo-Luddites hope, much more of the earth will look like the blasted, barren landscape of the Sahel. The Sahel is the onceproductive savanna region south of the Sahara that has been devastated by overgrazing herds of the indigenous peoples who hold its pasturages in common. As troubling, trying to manage a commons via political means requires centralized authority administering increasingly detailed regulations, with a cadre of bureaucrats to monitor and enforce them. True decentralization is possible only by abolishing the commons, enclosing it, and assigning property rights to people. This harnesses the incentives of private property, which encourages people to protect and preserve their property. This has been done in the case of fisheries in New Zealand and Iceland. And private temperate forests are expanding in developed countries. Even the half-hearted sulfur dioxide emissions market in the United States has achieved remarkable reductions in air pollution. Between 1995 and 1999, for instance, emissions have fallen some 22 percent below federally set targets-and at a cost more than 40 percent below the initial projections. Rejecting capitalism causes massive ecological disasters Butters 07 (Roger B., Ph.D., President – Nebraska Council on Economic Education, Assistant Professor of Economics – University of Nebraska at Lincoln, “Teaching the Benefits of Capitalism”, http://www.hillsdale.edu/images/userImages/afolsom/Page_6281/Butters.pdf) Property rights create the incentive needed to conserve scarce resources. Why is the air outside polluted and the air in your car clean? The answer is property rights. You don’t own the air outside your car so you gladly pollute it whereas the air inside your car, over which you have a property right, is jealously maintained with air‐conditioning, filters and air fresheners. How can we solve the pollution problem? Simple, establish a property right and require that all exhaust fumes be vented inside the vehicle that creates them. Suddenly the incentive to use better fuels, drive a more efficient vehicle and reduce emissions would result in booming innovation in pollution abatement; all in response to a property right. Clearly this example pushes into the absurd, but it illustrate the point none‐the‐less. For a more practical comparison consider why private bathrooms are clean, and public ones are not. Better yet, why are Maine Lobsters plentiful and orange roughy aren’t? – Property rights. Why are cows thriving and tigers vanishing? Property rights. For cows people have a direct incentive to preserve, protect and improve. For tigers the only incentive is to use the resource before someone else does. Why are elephants and other endangered species on the rebound in some African countries? Property rights. By letting villages own the animals they have an incentive to preserve, protect and improve, and as a result the animals are thriving. Rather than calling poachers when a rhinoceros decimates your corn field, you care for the animal, make sure it has several young and then auction the right to shoot it to a wealthy game hunter. The animals are preserved, the population is maintained, the village receives increased wealth and a private individual has a unique experience. By defining the property right we have gone from extinction and poverty to trade and wealth and at the end of the day there are more, not fewer rhinoceroses. The tragedy of the commons is one of the most valuable and pervasive examples of what happens when property rights are poorly defined and unenforced. What is the benefit of capitalism? It provides us with property rights that create the incentives to preserve, protect and improve. It is not surprising that the greatest ecological disasters have all occurred in societies without strong social institutions that protect property. Capitalism helps the environment – generates the necessary capital and empowers individuals to push for environmental protections Kublicki 94 (Nicolas, LLM in Environmental Law – George Washington Law School, “The Greening of Free Trade: NAFTA, Mexican Environmental Law, and Debt Exchanges for Mexican Environmental Infrastructure Development”, Columbia Journal of Environmental Law, 19 Colum. J. Envtl. L. 59, Lexis) n82. The economic model that pits economic growth against environmental protection is socialist in nature. Contrary to popular belief among radical environmentalists, communist countries and those socialist countries that regard growth as in opposition to environmental protection pollute much more than their capitalist counterparts. The reasons for this are twofold. First, commmunist ideology is based on the mistaken belief that Man is supreme and that Man can do with nature whatever he wishes, without negative consequence. See generally Evgene Konstantinovich Fedorov, Man and Nature (1972) (discussing the communist view of the relationship of man and the environment). See also Alston Chase, The Monster That Will Drink the Danube, Traveler, Mar. 1992, at 118 (example of Gabcikovo dam project initiated by Joseph Stalin in Czechoslovakia and Hungary that will cause the desertification of thousands of square acres). Pursuant to communist philosophy, because Man is supreme, he does not need to plan ahead for later generations, since he will be able to remedy the situation in the future. Second, the all-powerful government owns all of the means of industrial and agricultural production in communist countries and, to a lesser extent, in socialist countries as well. Such ownership is inherently inefficient because it fails to motivate an efficient use of capital. Therefore, the government has no incentive to burden itself with environmental regulations. Furthermore if the government wished to do so, it could not afford to, as its non-competitive economy does not generate sufficient capital. In contrast, the application of capitalist democratic free market theory generates both the capital needed to pay for environmental protection and the political freedom for the people to force government to promulgate environmental regulations for the common good. Cap Good – A2: Root Cause The ‘root cause’ approach is blind and false Martin 90 Brian Martin, Department of Science and Technology Studies, University of Wollongong, Australia, Uprooting War, 1990 edition http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/pubs/90uw/uw13.html The discussion so far concerns capitalist firms within a particular state. The wider question is, what role does the world capitalist system play in the war system? When examining particular wars, the immediate role of profit and accumulation are often minimal. Examples are World War Two, the Indochinese War and the many Middle East wars. Even in many colonial empires, immediate economic advantages for the capitalist class have played a minor role compared to issues of expansion and maintenance of state power. The role of capitalism mainly entered through its structuring of economic relations which are supervised separately and jointly by capitalist states. The main military service of the state to capitalists in the international system is to oppose movements which threaten the viability of capitalist economic relations. This includes state socialism and all movements for self-management. At the same time, the way this state intervention operates, namely through separate and potentially competing state apparatuses, can conflict with the security of capitalism. Wars and military expenditures can hurt national economies, as in the case of US government expenditures for fighting in Vietnam. Only some struggles against capitalism have potential for challenging the war system. Efforts to oppose capital by mobilising the power of the state do little in this direction. In particular, promotion of state socialism (the destruction of capitalism within a state mode, with the maintenance of bureaucratic control and military power) does little to address the problem of war. The trouble here is that much of the socialist left sees capitalism as the sole source of evil in the world. This approach is blind to the roots of social problems that do not primarily grow out of class domination, including racism, sexism, environmental degradation and war. Because of this blindness, even the struggle against capitalism is weakened, since attention is not paid to systems of power such as patriarchy and bureaucracy which are mobilised to support capitalism as well as other interests. Cap Good – Sustainable Cap sustainable now, solutions can be offered pollution, financial instability, health problems and inequality Rogoff 11 Kenneth Rogoff, Professor of Economics at Harcard, 12/2/2011, “Is Modern Capitalism Sustainable?,” http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/is-modern-capitalism-sustainable-, KB In principle, none of capitalism’s problems is insurmountable, and economists have offered a variety of market-based solutions. A high global price for carbon would induce firms and individuals to internalize the cost of their polluting activities. Tax systems can be designed to provide a greater measure of redistribution of income without necessarily involving crippling distortions, by minimizing non-transparent tax expenditures and keeping marginal rates low. Effective pricing of health care, including the pricing of waiting times, could encourage a better balance between equality and efficiency. Financial systems could be better regulated, with stricter attention to excessive accumulations of debt. CommentsWill capitalism be a victim of its own success in producing massive wealth? For now, as fashionable as the topic of capitalism’s demise might be, the possibility seems remote. Nevertheless, as pollution, financial instability, health problems, and inequality continue to grow, and as political systems remain paralyzed, capitalism’s future might not seem so secure in a few decades as it seems now. Capitalism helps the economy, democratic governing, education, and life. Empirically proven in multiple countries. Leeson 10 (Peter Leeson, BB&T Professor for the Study of Capitalism at the Mercatus Center. "Two Cheers for Capitalism?" http://www.springerlink.com/content/tu16g275r66162r6/ 3/30/10) According to a popular view that I call “two cheers for capitalism,” capitalism’s effect on development is ambiguous and mixed. This paper empirically investigates that view. I find that it’s wrong. Citizens in countries that became more capitalist over the last quarter century became wealthier, healthier, more educated, and politically freer. Citizens in countries that became significantly less capitalist over this period endured stagnating income, shortening life spans, smaller gains in education, and increasingly oppressive political regimes. The data unequivocally evidence capitalism’s superiority for development. Full-force cheerleading for capitalism is well deserved and three cheers are in order instead of two. Keywords Capitalism Socialism . Development . Peter Berger In 1974 Peter Berger published his important book, Pyramids of Sacrifice. That book examines what Berger calls “political ethics and social change.” In particular, it considers the “ethical dilemmas of development.” As Berger (1986: 12) described the project 12 years later, Pyramids of Sacrifice was “largely shaped by my experience in and my reflections about Latin America . . . In this book I tried very hard to be evenhanded as between capitalist and socialist models of development, arguing that both should be assessed in terms of a number of moral criteria I proposed . . . I have had no reason to change these moral criteria since then, but precisely their application to the empirical evidence led me step by step to my present position, which is that capitalism is the morally safer bet .” Berger’s position in Pyramids of Sacrifice was that capitalism has some benefits and shortcomings. The same is true of socialism. Between the two modes of politicaleconomic organization, there’s no obvious choice. To satisfactorily deal with development, thinkers on both sides of the capitalism/socialism debate must abandon their “dogmatic” adherence to extremes and forge a practical third way. Although Berger later abandoned this position and came to the “pro-capitalism side,” the view he expressed in Pyramids of Sacrifice is important to consider because it approximates a view that many people hold today. According to this view, although markets can be important contributors to development, they can also undermine it. Evidence for capitalism’s effect on development is ambiguous and mixed. Thus we should be cautious and modest advocates of markets. According to those who hold this position, social scientists who do not water down, qualify, and temper their praise and advocacy of capitalism as an engine of development are “ideologues,” “dogmatists,” and “free-market fundamentalists.” They let wishful thinking contaminate their scientific views and privilege faith over the hard empirical evidence, which neither supports an “extreme” position in favor or capitalism for development, nor permits categorical claims for capitalism’s superiority. I call this popular view “two cheers for capitalism.” Berger’s (1986) later book, The Capitalist Revolution, urges social scientists of all stripes not to be “dogmatic,” to generate falsifiable propositions and, most important for my analysis, to examine the evidence in light of those propositions. In the spirit of Berger’s request, this paper evaluates the two cheers for capitalism view empirically. I selected the evidence I examine for this purpose on the basis of the two moral criteria that Berger says we should look at when considering development in his Pyramids of Sacrifice. The first criterion, which he calls the “calculus of pain,” refers to the avoidance of human suffering. Berger’s second criterion, which he calls the “calculus of meaning,” refers to respect for the values of individuals in the developing world. I also empirically evaluate a common variation on the two cheers for capitalism view. This view suggests that even if capitalism is good for development, “excessive” or “uncontrolled” capitalism isn’t. Beyond some point, more capitalism is counterproductive. Laissez faire isn’t conducive to development because maximal capitalism is past the optimum . A well-regulated marked economy with healthy doses of intervention to restrain its excesses is conducive to maximal development. Only a dogmatic free-market ideologue would argue otherwise. Although it has a different purpose in mind, my approach is similar to Andrei Shleifer’s (2009) in his recent paper, “The Age of Milton Friedman.” Shleifer was interested in documenting how the world’s embrace of freemarket policies over the last 25 years has affected global development. I’m interested in documenting how countries that became more capitalist over this period fared compared to countries that became less capitalist in terms of their development. My finding is straightforward : the two cheers for capitalism view is wrong. Although many relationships in the social sciences are unclear, capitalism’s relationship to development isn’t one of them. Unless one is ashamed of unprecedented increases in income, rising life expectancy, greater education, and more political freedom, there’s no reason to be a milquetoast defender of capitalism . That is what sprawling free markets have meant for countries that became more capitalist over the last quarter century. There’s no evidence that countries that eschewed the global trend toward freer markets and embraced substantially greater state control performed better on any of these indicators. On the contrary, they performed demonstrably worse. I also find that the two cheers for capitalism variant that desires markets, but “within reason,” is wrong. There’s no evidence for a Lorenz curvetype relationship between capitalism and development. Development is monotonically increasing in capitalism. Maximal capitalism begets maximal development. It doesn’t make one “dogmatic” to acknowledge these facts. It makes one dogmatic to refuse to acknowledge them. They are facts. There are precious few overwhelmingly clear relationships in the social sciences. We should embrace this one rather than running away from it. The data clearly support capitalism’s superiority for development and merit its unqualified defense by social scientists who believe that wealth is better than poverty, life is better than death, and liberty is better than oppression. Full-force cheerleading for capitalism is well deserved and three cheers are in order instead of two . Data and Empirical Approach This paper doesn’t explore the theoretical underpinnings of the empirical relationships it documents. Its purpose is purely empirical. Those underpinnings have been discussed by political economists going back centuries. The interested reader should consult Adam Smith’s (1776) Wealth of Nations, F.A. Hayek’s (1920) “Use of Knowledge in Society,” and Ludwig von Mises’ (1949) Human Action. The lazy reader may consult Peter Leeson’s (2008) summary of these arguments and their connections in “Escaping Poverty: Foreign Aid, Private Property, and Economic Development.” I was at a conference a few years ago in which, following a spirited discussion about the merits of capitalism for development, one of the participants, fearing the praise for capitalism was growing unduly strong on one side of the room, noted that “The jury is still out on how capitalism has affected development globally. Capitalism has brought some benefits for certain countries; but we can’t make blanket statements about capitalism’s ‘goodness’ for development. We simply don’t have the evidence we need to make a judgment on this question. What little evidence we do have is less than clear.” She made this comment to her colleagues’ approving nods. I’ve subsequently heard others make similar claims. This is classic “two cheers for capitalism” thinking. Contrary to this participants’ claim, the jury isn’t still out on how capitalism has affected development globally. We have plenty of evidence. And it overwhelmingly points in one direction: the growth of capitalism has made the world better off. The relationships I look at below aren’t the only ones one might want to consider. Certainly others could be examined. I encourage the reader to do so if she’s curious. In a moment I’ll present the evidence on the growth of capitalism and then on income. Income is highly and positively correlated with nearly every positive development indicator one can think of (for example, access to a clean water source), and highly and negatively correlated with nearly every negative development indicator one can think of (for example, infant mortality). There are exceptions. But this strong tendency militates against depicting many of these relationships. Once the relationship between capitalism and income is established, for most purposes, it becomes redundant to examine the relationship between capitalism and improved access to a clean water source, infant mortality, and so on. If the reader wishes to verify this for herself, she’s encouraged to plot the data and see. I consider the trajectory of capitalism and four “core” development indicators in countries that have embraced and rejected capitalism over the past quarter century. These categories are average income, life expectancy, years of schooling, and democracy. I selected these indicators for 228 Soc (2010) 47:227–233 two reasons. First, they are “big” and basic ones that capture the main categories of development that most people are concerned with: wealth, health, education, and political freedom. Second, these categories comport with those I imagine Berger had in mind when he identified the development criteria he laid out in Pyramids of Sacrifice. These were, recall, the avoidance of human suffering (hence, the wealth and health indicators) and respect for the self-determination of the indigenous population (hence the education and democracy indicators). My indicators are imperfect proxies of these categories. Arguably, all of them are relevant to both categories. If the reader has other categories in mind that she believes would better capture what Berger had in mind and would better evaluate the number of cheers that capitalism deserves, she’s encouraged to collect the relevant data, depict the relationship, and report the results to us. My data are drawn from several sources. The first is the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of the World Project (2008), which provides data on the extent of capitalism across countries and over time. Fraser measures countries’ economic freedom every 5 years and assigns points to countries on the basis of five equally weighted categories related to government’s size and activeness in the economy. Together these categories create a composite measure of capitalism, or “economic freedom,” that ranges from zero (completely unfree) to ten (completely free). The five categories this index includes are: 1) Size of government, which considers the share of government’s expenditures, level of taxes, and the degree of state ownership in an economy. 2) Legal structure and security of property rights, which measures the quality and effectiveness of a country’s legal system, such as how independent its judiciary is, the impartiality of courts, military interference with the legal system, and how well government protects private property rights. 3) Access to sound money, which measures the extent of inflation, and freedom to own foreign currency domestically and abroad. 4) Freedom to trade internationally, which measures the extent of tariff and non-tariff trade barriers, international capital market controls, exchange rate regulation or other regulation on the ability to trade internationally. And 5) Credit, labor, and business regulation, which covers government control of credit markets, minimum wages, price controls, time to start a new business, the number of licenses, permits and other bureaucratic approvals involved with starting and operating a business, and restrictions on hiring and firing workers. I get data for my development indicators from Shleifer (2009), who collects his information from several standard sources. His data on countries’ GDP per capita and life expectancies are from the World Bank’s World Development Indicators (2006). His data on education and democracy are from the Barro-Lee (2000) dataset and the Polity IV Database (2000) respectively. A Funny Thing Called Evidence Over the past quarter century there’s been a clear trend in the world’s political-economic organization: the globe has moved toward more capitalism and less reliance on government management of the economy. The growth of capitalism globally is remarkable in both its consistency and magnitude. Figure 1 depicts this growth by plotting the average level of economic freedom in the world over the last 25 years at 5-year intervals. Contrary to the “two cheers for capitalism” view, flourishing capitalism has unequivocally led to flourishing development . Figure 2a illustrates the movement of income over the same period. It depicts average GDP per capita PPP (in constant 2000 international $) at 5-year intervals in countries that became more capitalist over the last quarter century. To determine which countries became more capitalist over this period, I simply subtracted countries’ economic freedom scores in 2005 from their scores in 1980. When scores weren’t available for 1980, I used the next closest year to calculate their change. The resulting subsample includes all countries that had a positive economic freedom change. The data are clear: countries that became more capitalist became much wealthier. The average country that became more capitalist over the last 25 years saw its GDP per capita (PPP) rise from about $7600 to nearly $11,800—a 43% increase. If rapidly rising wealth deserves cheering, so does capitalism . What about longevity? All the money in the world doesn’t mean anything if you’re not alive to spend it on things that improve your life. Figure 2b charts the movement of average life expectancy at birth in countries that became more 5.4 5.6 5.8 6 6.2 6.4 6.6 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 Economic Freedom in the World Fig. 1 The growth of capitalism globally Soc (2010) 47:227–233 229 capitalist over the last quarter century at 5-year intervals. Growing capitalism is clearly associated with growing life expectancy. In the average country that became more capitalist over the last 25 years, the average citizen gained nearly half a decade in life expectancy. If longer life for the average person deserves cheering, so does capitalism. Man doesn’t live by bread alone. Education not only allows him to live the “life of the mind,” but also to build his human capital. Both of these things give individuals more power to shape their identity and their destiny—to live life as they see fit. How has the spread of capitalism world-wide affected education? Figure 2c illustrates this relationship by plotting average years of schooling in the total population (citizens age 25 and over) in countries that became more capitalist for the years 1980 through 1995 at 5-year intervals. (Data were unavailable for the years 2000 and 2005). In the average country that became more capitalist, the average number of years of schooling in the population rose from 4.7 to just over 6. If more education for the average citizen deserves cheering, so does capitalism. Economic freedom and the economic benefits it brings are one thing. But what about political freedom? How has democracy fared in countries that have become more capitalist over the last quarter century? Consider Fig. 2d, which illustrates the growth of democracy in countries that became more capitalist over the last 20 years at 5-year intervals between 1980 and 2000. (Data were unavailable for 2005). The discerning reader will have now detected a pattern: the growth of capitalism has unequivocally led to improved development in countries that became more capitalist. Political freedom is no exception. Countries that became more capitalist over the last 20 years became dramatically more democratic. On a 0–10 scale, where 10 represents “total democracy” or “complete political freedom,” the average country that became more capitalist rose from a democracy level of 3.8 to 6.4—a 68% increase. If growing political freedom and democracy deserves cheering, so does capitalism. There are no ambiguities about what capitalism has meant for development. If, like most people, you consider large increases in wealth, health, education, and freedom a good thing, capitalism deserves three loud cheers.