Privates CP + Coercion DA
Privates CP
1NC CP Text
Plan Text: The Private Sector should [insert plan]
Solvency - General
The private sector can do the plan and more. They have
innovative technology and experience in oceanographic data
collection.
Woll, 12 (Steve, Steve Woll, an active AMS Member, and a meteorologist, is Director of
Business Development for WeatherFlow Inc in Poquoson, Virginia. He served as a
Meteorology and Oceanography Officer for the United States Navy for over twenty years.
He has an MBA degree from the College of William and Mary, an MS degree from the
Naval Postgraduate School, and a BS degree from Duke University., The role of the
private sector in ocean sensing, October 14-19,
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/icp.jsp?arnumber=6405082)
Recent years have seen the development of innovative and often lower-cost ocean
observing technologies[are], putting more capability than into the hands of private
sector ever companies, in some cases for the first time. At the same time, activity by
private sector companies in the coastal oceans has increased in support of oil and gas
exploration, offshore wind energy, homeland security, maritime shipping, fisheries,
and other drivers. Oceanographic data from private sector sources has the potential to
fill in existing data gaps in a cost-effective manner. In order to optimize our ability
to make use of such data, a discussion of the policy surrounding the use of
private sector data (and of the underlying data infrastructure needed to support it) is
needed. This paper discusses some of the background, history, and considerations that
have a bearing on the use of such private sector data.
The private sector is the MOST efficient when it comes to the
collection of ocean data through exploration. Implementing the
plan through the private sector would increase the
oceanographic data collected and increase economic activity, all
while eliminating government spending.
Woll, 12 (Steve, Steve Woll, an active AMS Member, and a meteorologist, is Director of
Business Development for WeatherFlow Inc in Poquoson, Virginia. He served as a
Meteorology and Oceanography Officer for the United States Navy for over twenty years.
He has an MBA degree from the College of William and Mary, an MS degree from the
Naval Postgraduate School, and a BS degree from Duke University., The role of the
private sector in ocean sensing, October 14-19,
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/icp.jsp?arnumber=6405082)
The last twenty years have seen an increase in the number and breadth of various publicprivate partnerships in both oceanography and meteorology, and the policies of the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) specifically encourage those
efforts. On the oceanographic side, the National Ocean Service (NOS) operates the
Integrated Oceanographic Observing System (IOOS), which has been very successful at
coordinating the efforts of federal government agencies, universities, and private sector
companies, establishing a robust Data Management and Communications (DMAC)
capability and providing funding to performers through a set of Regional Associations
(RAs) that coordinate activities within their regions. At the same time, the technological
boom of the last half century has begun to see the broader deployment of some specific
types of oceanographic and marine meteorological sensors by private companies for
private purposes (e.g. oil exploration, operation of port facilities, wind energy
prospecting, etc.). Because specific companies or customers fund the collection of this
data for specific business purposes, the resulting data sets have generally been kept
proprietary and not shared with the government or the public. As IOOS, NOAA, and
most of the federal government face severe budgetary constraints for the
foreseeable future, it is prudent for the Oceanography Enterprise to review all of the
options available to help IOOS, NOAA, and the broader Oceanography Enterprise meet
their collective mission requirements. The NMP has been very successful at getting the
NWS access to large numbers of high quality, professional grade meteorological
observations via restricted licensing and the MADIS data architecture. Given this
demonstrated success, implementing a similar data policy and supporting data
architecture at NDBC and other oceanographic repositories should be given serious
consideration. At the same time, a data policy of unrestricted licensing and an
unrestricted data architecture should also be considered, since such an arrangement is
the most flexible, gets the most data into the most hands, and can reasonably be
expected to directly support more users and generate more economic activity.
Review of these options should be conducted by IOOS and the Oceanographic Enterprise
leadership and a working group representing government, university, and private sector
interests. Debating the merits, costs, and benefits of these and other options would be an
extremely healthy and useful exercise for IOOS and the broader oceanographic
community. The resulting decisions and subsequent policy guidance would serve to
provide a much-needed clarity, thereby allowing all participants and the Oceanography
Enterprise as a whole to optimize their planning for the next decade and beyond.
A nonfederal organization can do the plan and still capture their
leadership benefits
Orcutt et al, 3 - Professor of Geophysics and Deputy Director Scripps Institution of
Oceanography (John, also Interim Dean of Marine Sciences University of California San
DiegoNov. 4, 2003 “Major Ocean Exploration Effort Would Reveal Secrets of the Deep”
http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=10844)
-- A new large-scale, multidisciplinary ocean exploration program would
increase the pace of discovery of new species, ecosystems, energy sources, seafloor features, pharmaceutical products, and
artifacts, as well as improve understanding of the role oceans play in climate change, says a new
congressionally mandated report from the National Academies' National Research Council. Such a program should be run by a
nonfederal organization and should encourage international participation, added the committee
WASHINGTON
that wrote the report. Congress, interested in the possibility of an international ocean exploration program, asked the Research Council to examine the feasibility of
The committee concluded, however, that given the limited resources in many
other countries, it would be prudent to begin with a U.S. program that would include
foreign representatives and serve as a model for other countries. Once programs are
established elsewhere, groups of nations could then collaborate on research and pool
their resources under international agreements. "The United States should lead by
example," said committee chair John Orcutt, professor of geophysics and deputy director, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California,
San Diego. Vast portions of the ocean remain unexplored. In fact, while a dozen men have walked on the moon, just two have
such an effort.
The bottom of the ocean is the
Earth's least explored frontier, and currently available submersibles -- whether manned, remotely
operated, or autonomous -- cannot reach the deepest parts of the sea," said committee vice chair Shirley A. Pomponi, vice
president and director of research at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution, Fort Pierce, Fla. Nonetheless, recent discoveries of
previously unknown species and deep-sea biological and chemical processes have
heightened interest in ocean exploration. For example, researchers working off the coast of California revealed how
traveled to the farthest reaches of the ocean, and only for about 30 minutes each time, the report notes. "
some organisms consume methane seeping through the sea floor, converting it to energy for themselves and leaving hydrogen and carbon dioxide as byproducts.
The hydrogen could perhaps someday be harnessed for fuel cells, leaving the carbon dioxide – which contributes to global warming in the atmosphere – in the sea.
Likewise, a recent one-month expedition off Australia and New Zealand that explored deep-sea volcanic mountains and abyssal plains collected 100 previously
Most current U.S. funding for ocean research,
however, goes to projects that plan to revisit earlier sites or for improving understanding
of known processes, rather than to support truly exploratory oceanography, the report says. And
unidentified fish species and up to 300 new species of invertebrates.
because the funding bureaucracy is discipline-based, grants are usually allocated to chemists, biologists, or physical scientists, rather than to teams of researchers
A coordinated, international ocean exploration effort is not
unprecedented, however; in fact, the International Decade of Ocean Exploration in the 1970s was considered a great success. The new
program proposed in the report would complement more traditional oceanographic
research, and should be operated by a nonfederal contractor chosen through a
competitive bidding process, the committee said. Having an independent organization
manage the program has many benefits, including the creativity, cost savings, and performance incentives that the competitive
bidding process inspires. Contractors also can receive funding from multiple government agencies as
well as private contributors. Federal agencies are more frequently turning to
independent contractors to carry out special projects, the committee noted. It recommended that
representing a variety of scientific fields.
any contractor chosen to run the ocean exploration program should be subjected to regular external review. The most appropriate part of the federal government to
house the ocean exploration program and oversee the contractor is the National Oceanographic Partnership Program, an existing collaboration of 14 federal
agencies, the committee decided. Before this can happen, however, Congress needs to revise the partnership program charter so it can receive direct and
substantial appropriations of federal funds. If this funding issue is not resolved, the ocean exploration program could be sponsored by the National Science
Foundation or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Implementing the proposed program would cost approximately $270 million the first year,
and about $100 million annually thereafter, the committee estimated. A less extensive program could be run for about $70 million a year, the report notes.
Education and public outreach need to be an integral part of the ocean exploration program, especially to build global support, the committee emphasized.
Ocean discovery "easily captures the imagination of people of all ages," the report adds. Yet a recent
survey by a consortium of aquariums, zoos, and museums revealed that for the most part Americans have only superficial knowledge of how oceans function and
are connected to human well-being. Teachers should be involved in the program from the start so that they understand the science and can incorporate it in their
lesson plans. Keeping Congress and other government officials informed about plans and accomplishments also will be critical to the program's success. The report
also says that the program's dedicated flagship should be given a name that the public will come to associate with the program, much as Jacques Cousteau's
Calypso became a household term. In addition, satellites and the Internet could be used to maintain real-time communications between the vessel and classrooms
the ocean exploration effort will need a fleet of new
manned and unmanned submersibles. The manned subs should be capable of diving to at least 6,500 meters, while remotely
or the general public. In addition to a main expedition ship,
operated vehicles should be designed to reach depths of 7,000 meters or more. Additional autonomous underwater vehicles that are programmed to travel a
specific route, collecting information along the way with sensors and cameras, also are needed. An upcoming National Research Council report will discuss plans to
replace Alvin, the 35-year-old manned submersible that was used for groundbreaking research, such as the discovery of deep-sea hydrothermal vents, and took the
first human visitors to the wreck of the Titanic. The ocean exploration study was mandated by Congress and sponsored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration. The National Research Council is the principal operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Engineering. It is a
private, nonprofit institution that provides science and technology advice under a congressional charter. A committee roster follows.
It should be managed through a private contractor
NRC 03 – Committee on Exploration of the Seas, Ocean Studies Board Division on
Earth and Life Studies. (“Exploration of the Seas: Voyage into the Unknown”, National
Research Council, the National Academies Press,
http://explore.noaa.gov/sites/OER/Documents/national-research-council-voyage.pdf,
pg. 84-86)
An ocean exploration program could be managed within the sponsoring agency or through a contract to
an independent entity. In the past, it was common for major programs to be managed from within the sponsoring agency, even at NSF, which
maintains a lean administrative structure and no in-house research or facilities. The advantages of retaining the management for major programs within the
sponsoring agency are that the agency retains ownership of the program, connections to other internal agency programs are tight, and those within the agency who
have nurtured the program are rewarded by assuming leadership. In fact, this is the route that NOAA has adopted for its current ocean exploration program. In
recent years, agencies are increasingly turning to nongovernmental groups to take on the day-to-day operations of large programs. The advantages of this approach
the process of competitive bidding for the management of the program leads to
creativity in program design, cost savings, and incentives for excellent performance. Second,
are several. First,
as programs build up and close down, there is no need to accommodate the personnel
requirements through agency headcount. NSF chose the independent contractor route in selecting the Joint Oceanographic
Institutions (JOI) (Box 5.2) to run ODP (Box 4.1), and has recently issued a request for proposals for management of the Ocean Observing Initiative. NASA will be
The advantages of an external
contractor are potentially even greater for an ocean exploration program. For example, if NOPP were
to lead the effort, management by an independent contractor would provide a neutral
third party to balance the interests of the various agency partners and accept
contributions from a variety of public and private sources. If NOAA were to lead the program, management by an
external group could mitigate some of the perceived inadequacies in the present, internal-NOAA program.
For example, the program would be an “arm’s length” away from the pressures of the agency mission and subjected to regular external review. Depending
on the choice of the external managing organization, grant processing, priority-setting,
connection to the external community, and transparency of decision making could be
improved. If NSF were asked to lead the program, the agency would almost surely choose this route rather than build internally the infrastructure to
manage the exploration-specific assets and data system. Finding: Management of large-scale ocean research programs
can be effectively and efficiently operated through the use of independent contractors.
Nonfederal operators can receive support from multiple government agencies and receive financial support from
private sponsors. Independent audits of program performance can be used to ensure the program is achieving the desired outcomes.
Recommendation: A nonfederal contractor should be used to operate the proposed U.S. ocean
exploration program. The original contract should be awarded following a competitive
bidding process. The program should be reviewed periodically and should seek to leverage federal resources for additional private contributions.
selecting an independent contractor to manage the International Space Station (ISS) (Box 5.3).
Private investors are seeking to invest more in renewable energy
Wessing 12(Taylor Wessing LLP, international law firm, 2012, “Private Capital and Clean
Energy Study”)
The quest for alternative funding sources for the clean energy sector has never been more
acute. Venture capital firms that funded the first wave of European clean energy technology
companies are either withdrawing from the sector entirely or moving up the value chain to
support less risky, later stage businesses. To put this in context, European clean energy
companies only secured $82 million in venture capture capital investment in 1Q12, under half
the $210 million raised during the corresponding period in 2011. The funding picture for power
generation projects is equally bleak. Only $7.4 billion was allocated to European clean energy
projects in 1Q12, 45% below the $13.5 billion recorded during 1Q11. In contrast, private capital
investors are ready to increase their investment in the clean energy sector. Over 40% of
surveyed private investors will allocate over 10% of their available funds to the clean energy
sector during the next 18 months – a 300% increase on the number of investors that allocated
this proportion of their available capital during the previous 18 months.
Private corporations are interested in OTEC
TGA n.d. (The Green Age, “Electricity Corporation OTEC Plants, Bahamas”, n.d.,
http://www.thegreenage.co.uk/cos/electricity-corporation-otec-plants-bahamas/)
OTE Corporation Bahamas OTEC Power Plant To be effective, companies such as OTE
Corporation are bringing together both Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) and Seawater
District Cooling (SDC) solutions, to leverage the benefits of the infrastructure that is put in place.
OTE Corporation’s current plan is to construct the world’s first two commercially viable OTEC
plants in the Bahamas which would be able to generate between 5-10MWs of electricity, 24/7.
OTE Corporations unique capabilities in deep water piping means that these types of facilities
will be able to support energy generation of this size and also be both technologically and
commercially viable. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been signed with the
Bahamas Electricity Corporation (BEC) and a preliminary Power Purchasing Agreement (PPA)
with a major Pacific utility company, which means this project is a few steps closer to getting the
green light. OTE Corporation Seawater District Cooling Solution In parallel, OTE Corporation has
been selected to construct the world’s largest deep ocean Seawater District Cooling (SDC)
facility, which would bring about 80-90% saving in electricity usage for air-conditioning in this
world famous luxury resort. The Energy Services Agreement is in place and once again the
project is closer now to getting the green light to proceed. OTEC Economic Feasibility From a
technological perspective, the more the component parts are improved means that from a
economic perspective costs are able to be reduced. This then goes a long way to make OTEC
solutions more economically feasible. For example, making sure that the heat exchanger has low
corrosion levels means that repair and servicing costs fall and overall profitability levels of a
plant will increase. OTEC Environmental Impact From an environmental perspective the build
process will hinge on the piping infrastructure being put in place without interrupting local
marine ecosystems. The piping system is buried deep in the ocean, which means it takes water
that contains high nitrate concentrations, otherwise useful to support marine life. Also a 10m
diameter pipe is needed to pump enough water to support a 100MW plant. This is why the
infrastructure has to be created so it doesn’t have a detrimental effect on the environment
around it, which would be counterintuitive to the principles behind OTEC and also defeat the
purpose of this technology. Studies are taking place to look at the impact a plant would have on
the marine life around it. 3D modelling for example has been able to project the area that will
be affected by an OTEC power plant and nutrient extraction levels. These studies help
companies like OTE Corporation work through improving the technological solutions to mitigate
these impacts.
Solvency- Ocean Exploration
Ocean exploration should be privately funded
Aquarium of the Pacific and NOAA 2013(Aquarium of the Pacific and NOAA, July 19-21,
2013,“The Report of Ocean Exploration 2020: A National Forum”,
http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/oceanexploration2020/nationalframework.html)
By 2020, private sector investments in exploration technology development, specifically for the dedicated national program of
exploration, exceed the federal investment, but federal partners play a key role in testing and refining new technologies. Forum
participants agreed that a top priority for a national ocean exploration program of distinction is
the development of mechanisms to fund emerging and creatively disruptive technologies to
enhance and expand exploration capabilities. In addition to significant federal government investment in ocean
exploration technology over time—whether by the U.S. Navy, NASA, NOAA, or other civil- ian agencies involved in ocean
exploration—many
felt strongly that to shorten the time from development to unrestricted
adoption, more of the required investment would come from the private sector. These emerging
technologies will likely include the next generations of ships; remotely operated vehicles; autonomous underwater vehicles;
telepresence capa- bilities; and new sensors. Most participants felt that continuing to develop human occupied vehicles should be a
much lower priority for a national program than focusing on autonomous vehicles, sensors, observatories, and communications
systems. Participants also felt that federal partners in the national program of exploration should play a key role in testing and
refining these technologies as well as working to adapt existing and proven technologies for exploration. Overall, some of the most
important technologies to cultivate are those that collect physical and chemical oceanographic data, biological data, and seafloor
mapping data.
Solvency- OTEC
Private investors are seeking to invest more in renewable energy
Wessing 12(Taylor Wessing LLP, international law firm, 2012, “Private Capital and Clean
Energy Study”)
The quest for alternative funding sources for the clean energy sector has never been more
acute. Venture capital firms that funded the first wave of European clean energy technology
companies are either withdrawing from the sector entirely or moving up the value chain to
support less risky, later stage businesses. To put this in context, European clean energy
companies only secured $82 million in venture capture capital investment in 1Q12, under half
the $210 million raised during the corresponding period in 2011. The funding picture for power
generation projects is equally bleak. Only $7.4 billion was allocated to European clean energy
projects in 1Q12, 45% below the $13.5 billion recorded during 1Q11. In contrast, private capital
investors are ready to increase their investment in the clean energy sector. Over 40% of
surveyed private investors will allocate over 10% of their available funds to the clean energy
sector during the next 18 months – a 300% increase on the number of investors that allocated
this proportion of their available capital during the previous 18 months.
Solvency– STEM
The USFG acknowledges the private sector as a better
alternative for STEM education than federal agencies.
C.S.S.T, 14 (The Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,The Committee on
Science, Space, and Technology has jurisdiction over all energy research, development,
and demonstration, and projects therefor, and all federally owned or operated nonmilitary energy laboratories; astronautical research and development, including
resources, personnel, equipment, and facilities; civil aviation research and development;
environmental research and development; marine research; commercial application of
energy technology; National Institute of Standards and Technology, standardization of
weights and measures and the metric system; National Aeronautics and Space
Administration; National Science Foundation; National Weather Service; outer space,
including exploration and control thereof; science scholarships; scientific research,
development, and demonstration, and projects therefor., Private Sector STEM Initiatives
Make Big Impact, January 9th, http://science.house.gov/press-release/private-sectorstem-initiatives-make-big-impact)
Washington, D.C. – The Research and Technology Subcommittee today held a hearing to
review science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education initiatives
developed and conducted by private organizations. Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas):
“A well-educated and trained STEM workforce will promote our future economic
prosperity. But we must persuade our nation’s youth to study science and engineering so
they will want to pursue these careers. We need to learn what is taking place outside of
the federal government so we can be sure we are not spending taxpayer dollars on
duplicative programs. And we need to more effectively use taxpayers’ dollars to gain the
most benefit for our students and our country. You can’t have innovation without
advances in technology. The STEM students of today will lead us to the cutting-edge
technologies of tomorrow.” The administration’s fiscal year 2014 budget request
proposed over $3 billion across more than thirteen different agencies of the federal
government for STEM education. Despite this level of federal spending, according to a
recent poll, American students rank 26th in math and 21st in science. Witnesses today
discussed what is being done by industry to support STEM education. Understanding the
work of the private sector in the STEM fields will inform the federal government’s role,
help to reduce duplication of effort, and leverage existing programs. Research and
Technology Subcommittee Chairman Larry Bucshon (R-Ind.): “One of the most essential
aspects to keeping America at the forefront of STEM innovation, advancement and
development is engaging students at a young age and keeping them interested in
pursuing STEM degrees and careers. As a cardiothoracic surgeon and father of four
children between the ages of 9 and 20, I understand that such programs and activities
are necessary to enhance America’s economic growth and competitiveness.” The first
panel of witnesses today discussed how industry and philanthropic organizations offer
financial or technical support for students, professional development opportunities for
teachers, and technology for classrooms as a way to encourage interest in and support
for STEM education. On the second panel, high school students who benefitted from
private sector STEM initiatives discussed their positive experiences and what they
learned. Many industry sectors, non-profit organizations, entrepreneurs and educational
institutions are working in a variety of ways in order to bolster the STEM related
workforce pipeline. Partnerships with education providers, STEM focused competitions,
and other opportunities have become important pieces of private sector efforts to
strengthen the STEM workforce.
Solvency– Warming/Adaptation
Engaging the private sector in climate change prevention is
essential for multiple reasons. It not only combats climate
change, but it also develops our adaptive technologies.
Miller, 14 (Alan, Alan S. Miller is a climate change and global environmental expert
with more than 30 years experience. Until his retirement in December 2013, he was the
Principal Climate Change Specialist at the International Finance Corporation, the
private-sector lending arm of the World Bank Group, where his general responsibility
was climate change policy and analysis. He is a widely published author on climate
change, energy, and development, including a leading environmental law textbook. His
degrees are from Cornell University (A.B., Government 1971) and University of Michigan
(J.D. and M.P.P. 1974)., Why We Must Engage the Private Sector in Climate Change
Adaptation Efforts, January 9th, http://blogs.worldbank.org/climatechange/why-wemust-engage-private-sector-climate-change-adaptation-efforts)
Scientists have reached near-consensus about climate change and its impacts. We’ve also
seen the creation of several significant donor-supported climate funds, as well as a
steady increase in policy and financial support for climate-friendly technologies. In one
critical respect, however, we need more progress: making the private sector a partner in
helping nations build resilience and adapt to climate change. The business community
needs to be our partner as we build resilience against and adapt to climate change. Yet to
date, adaptation discussions inside and outside official climate negotiations have
had surprisingly little business engagement. The focus thus far has been almost
entirely on what governments need to do, and who should pay. In some quarters,
business interest has even been viewed as inappropriate competition for scarce
resources. This is changing in a few countries, but not yet in developing nations where
the biggest needs exist. Adaptation planning and investments must include the private
sector – and the sooner this happens, the better. Engaging the private sector is essential
for multiple reasons. It can mobilize financial resources and technical capabilities,
leverage the efforts of governments, engage civil society and community efforts, and
develop innovative climate services and adaptation technologies. Private entities
dominate many investments that are critical to adaptation, such as the location and
design of buildings and other infrastructure investments. Private-sector corporations
also develop – and often dominate – the design and delivery of many adaptation services
such as weather observation technology and early warning systems. Drought-resistant
seeds and other agricultural products, along with water management infrastructure and
technologies, also tend to fall within their purview. Although insurance tends to be much
less available and relevant to investment in developing nations, there are already
significant examples of “Cat” bonds and other products that spread the risk and speed
the recovery of countries after natural disasters. As the largest victims of natural
disasters, corporations are also in a position to spread climate awareness and rally
political support for climate action. Finally, and in some ways most important, the
private sector must take on a bigger, if not the dominant, financing role for climate
adaptation in all but the poorest countries if we are to prepare sufficiently for the
challenges that lie ahead. So what do we mean by partnering with the private sector in
adaptation projects? In a recent article I co-authored with Bonizella Biagini, the Global
Environment Facility’s adaptation manager, we review the concept and provide some
highlights: In partnership with the International Finance Corporation, a private port
facility in Colombia identified its vulnerability to long-term sea level rise. The company
modified and increased its planned investments to anticipate and incorporate greater
structural integrity. It subsequently announced it will make similar enhancements to all
eight ports that it owns and manages. Munich Re, a major insurance company, has made
analysis and management of the impacts of natural disasters a central basis for selecting
and working with clients – not simply spreading risks, but making their clients more
resilient to reduce losses. This improves the company’s profitability and helps clients
avoid business interruption. In very poor countries with weak business development,
adaptation programs can help channel development into less vulnerable areas. In Sierra
Leone, for example, small and medium-sized enterprises offered affordable water
harvesting, storage and distribution systems that helped communities withstand
projected changes in rainfall patterns and intensity – all activities that were also
supported by existing adaptation funds. Highly innovative adaptation products and
services developed and marketed by private companies are already improving climate
resilience. Low-cost weather observation systems placed on cell phone towers, for
example, are a fraction of what radar systems cost and often work as well or better in
many locations. Companies that offer farmers highly targeted weather and soil
information, meanwhile, can help improve yields and reduce vulnerability to climate
change. Of course, governments play a key role to make businesses more aware of
climate risks and boost private sector engagement through partnerships. The IFC and
the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development have been working with the
government of Turkey and its business associations to do just that. A recent ambitious
effort along these lines is also taking place in New York City, where city officials are
inviting insurance companies to discuss coastal protection investments. City officials
recognize that since insurers will be among the major beneficiaries, they may be asked to
share the costs of the major improvements required. Efforts to engage the private sector
in adaptation to climate change are beginning and must be accelerated. Public policy
should provide appropriate incentives for adaptation measures and, where necessary,
regulation to avoid shifting risks to the public. The financial community can help by
recognizing the relevance of climate risk as a factor when it evaluates the expected future
performance of companies, for example by offering climate leaders a financial premium.
These are all common-sense steps we must take with our private-sector partners as we
prepare the world for the future.
The private sector is a more viable option at combating climate
change. Their preexisting technology and innovating potential
can fix the government’s failure to reduce CO2, but investment is
needed.
Ide, 12 (Kentaro, Kentaro Ide is Senior Associate, Customs and Global Trade at Deloitte.
He was a research Assistant, Center for the Promotion of Disarmament and NonProliferation at Japan Institute of International Affairs. He attended the School of
Oriental and African Studies, U. of London and the University of British Columbia.,
Analysis: The private sector and climate change, February 13th,
http://www.rtcc.org/2011/11/10/analysis-the-private-sector-and-climate-change/)
With the future of the Kyoto Protocol uncertain, and pressure mounting on the world’s
governments to slash their greenhouse gas emissions, the role of the private sector in
combating climate change is becoming ever more relevant. Technology, innovations and
green entrepreneurs are increasingly part of the solution – but they cannot survive in a
vacuum. In the first of a three-part series, sustainability analyst Kentaro Ide reflects on
the Marketization of Climate Change. “In this time of government failure and media
inattentiveness to climate issues, leadership is coming from the private sector,” says one
speaker, addressing her full audience of businesspeople. It is the second and final day of
Energy Solutions 2011, a buzzing expo of 300-plus exhibitors and numerous seminars,
and the speaker is hardly alone in her enthusiasm for the potential of the private sector
in addressing climate change. Faith in the market as a channel for developing and
disseminating technologies (a broad definition of which includes business processes and
tacit knowledge) to combat climate change is nothing new. The UNFCCC has devised its
own market-based mechanisms, such as emissions trading and the Clean Development
Mechanism (CDM), to spur private investment and R&D in “green” technologies.
Likewise, the RTCC policy manifesto highlights the importance of private enterprise and
technological innovation in creating a low-carbon economy. Within London alone, expos
like Energy Solutions or the Carbon Show (along with the countless organizations that
recognize and reward private innovations) illustrate the growing market for technologies
ranging from hardware for voltage and/or current optimization to consultancy services
for greener business operations. Furthermore, new movements such as social
entrepreneurship and impact investing are seeking to create alternative models for
financing and promoting innovation by applying business strategies to meet social and
environmental objectives. From traditional businesses pursuing green profit
opportunities to new enterprises prioritizing their social mission over profit
maximization, many of these actors share a sense that the private sector is “picking up
the slack” in tackling climate change. This is particularly true among proponents of
social entrepreneurship, who cite government failure as a key reason for seeking privateled solutions to social issues. Even among traditional businesses, some UK firms
marketing solutions for voltage optimization, for example, claim that their business
models can remain profitable even without further regulations on energy efficiency.
Solvency- Offshore Drilling
Offshore drilling should be private
Nate Berg June 14, 2010 (http://www.planetizen.com/node/44623)
"We need to move away from the crony corporatism that has characterized much of the nation's energy sector during the last century or so. It would be foolish to promise that
market-based reforms would prevent another disaster, but they would be more effective than yet more meaningless bureaucracy. There are several reasons for this. First,
the existing government regulations have been counterproductive. They pushed energy
companies offshore - miles and miles offshore. America is a resource-rich country, and unlike
other resource-rich countries, we have locked up most of our resources so we can't use them.
While the Gulf of Mexico holds about 44 billion barrels of oil in undiscovered reserves, according to Minerals Management Service (MMS) estimates, the continental U.S. has
slightly more onshore. The difference is that we are allowed to explore and extract the offshore reserves, while it is extremely difficult to get permission to do the same on land.
As a result, most exploration takes place offshore, where the consequences of a spill are so much greater."
USFG Funding Bad
US Government funding is bad and green energy should be
private
Nelson 12 (Jim Nelson, CEO of Solar3D Inc., US Government Should Trust the Free Market for
Green Energy Investment, May 29, 2012,
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2012/05/us-government-shouldtrust-the-free-market-for-green-energy-investment)
The loan guarantee program should be retired permanently. The path to commercialization
requires brains, discipline and grit. It is rarely aided, and often impeded, by government
involvement. Our government should trust the free market forces that have made America
great. The government’s green energy policy includes two parts: (1) supporting basic research,
with the aim of developing new green energy technologies; and (2) making loan guarantees that
promote the adoption of green energy technologies. Supporting basic research is an important
role of government, but the loan guarantee program is a wasteful mistake because it doesn’t
work. The Department of Energy’s loan guarantee to Solyndra was an embarrassing example of
the malfunction of the current system. The investment was undoubtedly scrutinized and rejected by the Silicon Valley-based venture capital
firms — organizations abundantly more qualified to identify good investments than government committees. There was no urgent strategic need for the U.S. to have Solyndra
The decision to fund Solyndra’s attempt to commercialize did not stand up to
reason. However, politics ultimately trumped reason. The bureaucrats awarding the financial aid
were beholden to political masters, who had promised Americans that they were going to fix the
U.S. economy by creating green jobs — something that could not possibly happen in any
timeframe worthy of consideration. The price of the Solyndra failure was borne by the American
people. It would be interesting, but probably undiscoverable at this point, to know how many
projects that are currently funded with loan guarantees would be funded privately if loan
guarantees did not exist. After technology is proven, good investments should be able to get private funding and negate the need for government support.
rush its product to market.
Bad investments shouldn’t be funded at all.
Government subsidies are the silent killer of Renewable Energy
Paul Nahi 2/14/2013 (CEO of Enphase Energy,
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ciocentral/2013/02/14/government-subsidies-silent-killer-ofrenewable-energy/)
Hardly a day goes by that we don’t hear or engage in a conversation about energy. Too often, those conversations are about failed companies that lived only for government
largesse. Whether the discussion is about the cost of energy, the damage being done to the environment, or national security issues, there is one constant
: everyone
agrees that the world needs safe, clean, and affordable energy. As the chief executive of a solar technology company, no one
wants an abundant supply of clean energy and a healthy solar energy industry more than I do. And the best pathway to a stable renewable
energy industry is to create self-sufficiency and independence from government financial
assistance. One might question the rationality of this position, given the fact that between 1994
and 2009 the U.S. oil and gas industries received a cumulative $446.96 billion in subsidies,
compared to just $5.93 billion given to renewables in those years. (The nuclear industry, by the
way. received $185 billion in federal subsidies between 1947 and 1999.) Certainly, subsidies are a useful tool to help
establish an emerging industry. But where there is no projected end to funding, subsidies stop being a
catalyst, and start becoming a crutch. This is especially true when companies supported by subsidies become powerful enough to influence
governments to perpetuate their support. Healthy companies depend upon sound business models in a competitive environment. Lousy companies that are limping along on
subsidies will slow the growth of the industry. If a product is well designed and meets the needs of the consumer, it will find success in a market economy. In that same market,
the real costs of the product are accounted for in a company’s profit margin. That is not true of traditional energy companies. Complex and arcane tax laws are used to subsidize
these corporations and obscure the true cost of energy. Government subsidies effectively transfer a portion of the costs to taxpayers, enabling artificially low prices and inflated
Equally dangerous is the government’s direct investment in private companies. Much has
been made of the current administration’s investments in certain renewable energy companies,
some of which failed. The politically motivated headlines concerning these investments may
serve as a rallying cry for critics, but they fail to identify the fundamental mistake. If the
administration is trying to cultivate a new industry by leveling a playing field, it needs to focus
on demand creation and not try to manage supply. In doing so, it will unleash talented entrepreneurs – as well as the investors willing
profits.
to back them. Some companies will survive, others will not. But those that do will have the essential ingredients for sustained success. There is absolutely a role for government
in technology development. Most companies, especially young ones, cannot afford to invest in basic research. The time frames are long, and only a small portion of the research
results in commercially viable products. Yet, this research is the foundation of future industries. Investment in basic research, through our universities and research institutions,
that yields licensable technologies, is a more prudent path for the allocation of public resources. The confusion behind energy subsidies coupled with slanted media coverage
has resulted in a myth that solar power is not cost competitive and is dependent on government subsidies. This is simply false. In many parts of the country today, solar energy is
less expensive than conventional forms of energy, creating consumer demand for solar to reduce monthly energy bills. And the solar industry is both an affordable and
sustainable source of clean energy, and a significant job creator. The U.S. solar workforce today is around 120,000 strong and growing. The facts are clear. The costs of
If we build the
true costs into the price of all energy, solar power is not only competitive, it’s cheaper. However
we will only see that truth if we remove direct and indirect energy subsidies. We have a strong market for solar
development and production of fossil fuel energy have been underwritten with our tax dollars to the benefit of a few traditional energy companies.
power today. We have a willing market, the necessary technology, and an undisputable imperative to create a cleaner, safer planet. I’m committed to leading a company that
delivers the best technology and service. We will continue to revolutionize power generation on a global scale, one kilowatt hour at a time. But a robust, renewable energy
market will remain hampered if the energy industry continues to chase the next subsidy. For the good of our energy future, subsidies for all energy must eventually end.
Government funded renewable energy companies have failed
Kish 12(Daniel Kish, senior vice president for policy at the Institute for Energy Research,
“Subsidies for Green Energy Do Not Help American Consumers”, 18 Jan 2012,
http://www.usnews.com/debate-club/should-the-government-invest-in-greenenergy/subsidies-for-green-energy-do-not-help-american-consumers)
Politicians are learning what the American people have known for years: Uncle Sam is a pretty lousy investor and a terrible venture
capitalist. In recent months, the evidence has mounted. From
Solyndra to Soperton, the federal government
has pumped billions of taxpayer dollars into countless "green energy" companies. Simply, the
government should not be picking winners and losers. No source of energy requiring heavy government
subsidies or that government forces you to buy should receive taxpayer money. In the end, the
government is hurting the American people. The game goes like this: The government taxes the American worker,
and then takes a portion of those tax dollars and gives it to Solyndra or another favored political ally of whomever has power in
Washington. Then it forces the utilities to buy the energy. Taxpayers' money
is needed to keep the apparent
energy costs from the green sources down because if the real cost were paid directly by consumers on their monthly
electric bills or at the gas pump, they would revolt. In fact, if development of these sources made any economic sense, private sector
job creators would be lining up to do it. Case in point: Look at what has happened with the shale energy revolution in places like
Pennsylvania and North Dakota. When energy is affordable and technology is available, Americans will unleash the power of
innovation and risk their own capital to develop any source. In fact, 1 in 5 new jobs created since 2003 has been oil- and natural gasrelated. But with green energy, firms need Uncle Sam to ensure their profit. Since
2007, total federal energy
subsidies increased from $17.9 billion to $37.2 billion. Seventy-seven percent of that increase is due to the
Obama administration's stimulus. Renewable subsidies increased 186 percent, led by wind energy, which
received a 10-fold increase to nearly $5 billion. None of this, by the way, has kept energy prices
down. Electricity prices have increased by 23 percent in the last five years. [Check out the U.S. News
Energy Intelligence blog.] Meanwhile, the government is rigging the game through mandates that force American consumers to buy
green energy sources to meet the requirements of the law. Currently, 29 states have green energy mandates that require a certain
percentage of the states' electricity to be generated from these sources. Among states with renewable mandates, consumers pay on
average 38 percent more for electricity. The evidence is clear: Federal subsidies for green energy sources do not help American
consumers or ensure the economic viability of green energy companies like Solyndra that can't turn a profit even with half a billion
dollars in taxpayer money.
Government investments in private renewable energy
companies hamper growth
Nahi 13 (Pual Nahi, CEO of Enphase Energy, “Government Subsidies: Silent Killer Of
Renewable Energy”, 14 Feb 2013,
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ciocentral/2013/02/14/government-subsidies-silent-killer-ofrenewable-energy/)
Healthy companies depend upon sound business models in a competitive environment. Lousy
companies that are limping along on subsidies will slow the growth of the industry. If a product
is well designed and meets the needs of the consumer, it will find success in a market economy.
In that same market, the real costs of the product are accounted for in a company’s profit
margin. That is not true of traditional energy companies. Complex and arcane tax laws are used
to subsidize these corporations and obscure the true cost of energy. Government subsidies
effectively transfer a portion of the costs to taxpayers, enabling artificially low prices and
inflated profits. Equally dangerous is the government’s direct investment in private companies.
Much has been made of the current administration’s investments in certain renewable energy
companies, some of which failed. The politically motivated headlines concerning these
investments may serve as a rallying cry for critics, but they fail to identify the fundamental
mistake. If the administration is trying to cultivate a new industry by leveling a playing field, it
needs to focus on demand creation and not try to manage supply. In doing so, it will unleash
talented entrepreneurs – as well as the investors willing to back them. Some companies will
survive, others will not. But those that do will have the essential ingredients for sustained
success. There is absolutely a role for government in technology development. Most companies,
especially young ones, cannot afford to invest in basic research. The time frames are long, and
only a small portion of the research results in commercially viable products. Yet, this research is
the foundation of future industries. Investment in basic research, through our universities and
research institutions, that yields licensable technologies, is a more prudent path for the
allocation of public resources. The confusion behind energy subsidies coupled with slanted
media coverage has resulted in a myth that solar power is not cost competitive and is
dependent on government subsidies. This is simply false. In many parts of the country today,
solar energy is less expensive than conventional forms of energy, creating consumer demand for
solar to reduce monthly energy bills. And the solar industry is both an affordable and
sustainable source of clean energy, and a significant job creator. The U.S. solar workforce today
is around 120,000 strong and growing. The facts are clear. The costs of development and
production of fossil fuel energy have been underwritten with our tax dollars to the benefit of a
few traditional energy companies. If we build the true costs into the price of all energy, solar
power is not only competitive, it’s cheaper. However we will only see that truth if we remove
direct and indirect energy subsidies. We have a strong market for solar power today. We have a
willing market, the necessary technology, and an undisputable imperative to create a cleaner,
safer planet. I’m committed to leading a company that delivers the best technology and service.
We will continue to revolutionize power generation on a global scale, one kilowatt hour at a
time. But a robust, renewable energy market will remain hampered if the energy industry
continues to chase the next subsidy. For the good of our energy future, subsidies for all energy
must eventually end.
A level playing field is necessary in renewable energy
corporations
USECRE n.d.(United States Export Council for Renewable Energy ,“CHAPTER 3. ENCOURAGING
PRIVATE-SECTOR INVESTMENT”, n.d.,
http://www.oas.org/dsd/publications/Unit/oea79e/ch07.htm)
The issue of a “level playing field” - meaning an environment in which every private-sector player has an equal opportunity to succeed and in which no
artificial barrier affects the results - is best analyzed on an individual country basis. In every country the electricity sub-sector is shaped by the
resources, economics and history unique to that country. In general, new
technologies are seldom on an equal footing
with established technologies; subsidized technologies have an advantage over unsubsidized
technologies; and technologies with front-end-loaded capital costs are disadvantaged in an
economic regime with a short-term pricing structure. Nevertheless, the policy strategists in each country will need to
examine the status quo - the existing state of the electricity industry on the day of the inquiry - to determine whether, and to what extent, barriers exist
which unfairly favor investments in oil, gas and coal over investments in the renewables. The impediments to grid-connected renewable generation and
the potential mechanisms to bridge those impediments can be illustrated by comparing the unbundled, competitive electricity market model and the
more traditional government utility model. In the case of the unbundled, competitive market, an unlevel playing field may be created if short-term
pricing is mandated, and in the case of the state-owned, vertical utility, an unlevel playing field may be created if the bidding system is biased (or
slanted) in favor of the conventional fuels. What are the impediments to renewables in a market system? The
privatization of utility
systems has brought a degree of market discipline and economic reality to the electricity
business of many nations and has fostered conditions generally conducive to private investment.
However, the shift to a short-term market for wholesale electricity may hamper development of
new renewable energy generation projects in previously undeveloped resource areas except in those
countries that have implemented special policies to offset this result. Projects that depend on short-term markets for all or most of their revenues are
known as “merchant plants”. Merchant plants are built with the understanding that they have not specifically identified buyers to purchase their
output at fixed prices over a long-term (typically 15-20 years). Instead, they sell into the short-term market and receive whatever price the market
dictates for that particular week, day, hour or half hour. An electricity market that offers only short-term prices constitutes an inhospitable climate for
building new, renewable energy projects. In the absence of long-term capacity expansion planning, the dynamics of the short-term market cause a
country’s electric capacity expansion to be based on short-term economic principles. Experience has shown that under these conditions new capacity
needs will be met by thermal projects having the lowest capital costs and the shortest lead times for construction. The
problem is not that
renewable on-grid generation cannot be competitive in such a market, rather that financial
markets are resistant to financing capital-intensive facilities unless there is some assurance of a
revenue flow that returns principal and interest. In a short-term market, governments may have to build a bridge to
encourage the development of renewable energy projects that deliver long-term benefits. A short-term market assigns
absolutely no value to the fact that a renewable energy generation will essentially be free once
its debt has been retired. Consequently, renewable energy generation is vulnerable to the short-term market price choice of a gas-fired
combustion turbine despite its high fuel cost and short life. Developers of inexpensive thermal plants can survive in a purely short-term market
environment because: · thermal plants typically recover their operating cost since a major portion of their cost is fuel related, and since short-term
markets tend to track fuel prices; · the lower debt load on their projects leaves them with a far lower financial exposure to a prolonged slump in market
prices; new fossil plants with low per kilowatt capital costs are likely to recover those costs before fuel prices rise to a level that affects their viability;
and · the very short construction lead times of thermal plants provides timing flexibility, permitting them to take advantage of market trends - however,
this timing flexibility is also an attribute of some types of renewable resource facilities, such as wind and solar facilities. Renewable
energy
generation will essentially be free once its debt has been retired. In a short-term market system, a major barrier to
the acquisition of new renewable resource generation is the lack of buyer (utilities, distribution companies, etc.) motivation. Short-term electricity
prices are based on electricity generated by existing plants, the capital costs of which are already absorbed. The initial electricity prices offered by new
plants coming on line will invariably exceed the current short-term price for electricity. It is therefore difficult to envision how a short-term market
system will enable new generating capacity unless the wholesale buyers in the system project electricity prices for completing generation over a term
of years, and contract for energy for that long-term period. Electricity from new renewable generation facilities will frequently be higher than any
current short-term market price, but will be competitive (cost-effective) if long-term contracts are considered. To date, lenders have not been willing to
provide debt capital for renewable energy merchant plant projects dependent on short-term markets in countries whose newly established markets
have yet to achieve a solid track record. Since lenders require that renewable projects demonstrate steady, predictable cash flows to meet debt-service
requirements over a long-term period, the significant price risk created by unpredictable, fluctuating short-term prices effectively preclude financing
under present market conditions.
Government is inherently inefficient
Allan Brownfield JUNE 01, 1977 http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/the-inherentinefficiency-of-government-bureaucracy
There are few who will disagree with the fact that, in recent years, the governmental
bureaucracy has grown dramatically while its efficiency has deteriorated in an equally dramatic
manner.
Privatization Good
Privatization of water has saved lives
Cato 8/25 (Fredrik Segerfeldt, 8/25/2005, “Private Water Saves Lives”,
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/private-water-saves-lives, HS)
Worldwide, 1.1 billion people, mainly in poor countries, do not have access to clean, safe water.
The shortage of water helps to perpetuate poverty, disease and early death. However, there is
no shortage of water, at least not globally. We use a mere 8 per cent of the water available for
human consumption. Instead, bad policies are the main problem. Even Cherrapunji, India, the
wettest place on earth, suffers from recurrent water shortages. Ninety-seven per cent of all
water distribution in poor countries is managed by the public sector, which is largely responsible
for more than a billion people being without water. Some governments of impoverished nations
have turned to business for help, usually with good results. In poor countries with private
investments in the water sector, more people have access to water than in those without such
investments. Moreover, there are many examples of local businesses improving water
distribution. Superior competence, better incentives and better access to capital for investment
have allowed private distributors to enhance both the quality of the water and the scope of its
distribution. Millions of people who lacked water mains within reach are now getting clean and
safe water delivered within a convenient distance. The privatization of water distribution has
stirred up strong feelings and met with resistance. There have been violent protests and
demonstrations against water privatization all over the world. Western anti-business nongovernmental organizations and public employee unions, sometimes together with local
protesters, have formed anti-privatization coalitions. However, the movement’s criticisms are
off base. The main argument of the anti-privatization movement is that privatization increases
prices, making water unaffordable for millions of poor people. In some cases, it is true that
prices have gone up after privatization; in others not. But the price of water for those already
connected to a mains network should not be the immediate concern. Instead, we should focus
on those who lack access to mains water, usually the poorest in poor countries. It is primarily
those people who die, suffer from disease and are trapped in poverty. They usually purchase
their lower-quality water from small-time vendors, paying on average 12 times more than for
water from regular mains, and often more than that. When the price of water for those already
connected goes up, the distributor gets both the resources to enlarge the network and the
incentives to reach as many new customers as possible.
Privatization good.
Higher Council for Privatization- (“About Privatization/Benefits,”
http://www.hcp.gov.lb/pages.asp?pageid=2&subid=10) SLD
Ever since the 1970s, many industrialized countries have acknowledged the benefits of
privatizing some of their state-owned enterprises in an effort to improves their quality of service
and reduces the cost on consumers. The trend towards privatization has since spread to the four
corners of the world, with more and more Governments choosing to resort to this option after it
has proven its merits. From Egypt to Jordan, Kuwait and The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, many of
the regions nations have adopted privatization as a viable and cost efficient solution to many of
their problems.¶ The benefits of privatization are numerous, be it for the public at large,
consumers or the local economy.¶ Privatization will create new jobs as companies expand their
operations and seek to gain market share in a competitive environment. These jobs will
hopefully encourage young Lebanese to stay in the country and not emigrate. Privatization will
also secure better salaries as private companies usually operate in better financial conditions
than public ones and can offer their employees higher salaries and incentives. Additionally,
because of far fewer bureaucratic obstacles, private companies can provide their employees
with more opportunities for advancement and growth, as well as better training and skills
enhancement. Privatization will ensure consistent quality services and products as in a
monopoly-free environment, companies will need to innovate and invest in modern equipments
so as to differentiate their service offering from that of their competitors, leading to all round
better services and products that are consistent and continuous. That should, for example, lead
to the introduction of the latest technologies in telecom, such as G3, and 24/7 supply of
electricity to all Lebanese areas. Privatization will increase productivity levels and encourage
innovation since it is well documented that private companies are generally more productive
and efficient as they tend to have the financial and human resources, as well as the
organizational flexibility, needed to operate at an optimum level. Public organizations,
meanwhile, tend to score low on productivity as they often operate in monopolistic
environments, lacking the financial incentives to innovate and be more productive. Privatization
will help reduce the bureaucracy and red tape that has historically plagued public entities to the
detriment of consumers. Private companies are required to operate with minimal bureaucracy
to survive and thrive in an ever-competitive market. Privatization, combined with the
establishment of independent regulatory authorities for privatized sectors (whose
responsibilities include the fostering of competition), will ultimately lead to the abolishment of
monopolies, be it in telecom or the production and distribution of electricity. The entry of
different operators to the market will then increase competition and lead to a reduction in
prices for the consumers. ¶ Privatization will put an end to the financial drains of state-owned
enterprises that have put a strain on the public treasury. As an example, the state has had to
subsidize EDL for up to a billion dollars a year; an amount that could have been spent on
education, health care, security or other sectors in need of financing. Privatized entities will
have to pay corporate income tax to the Government, hence contributing to its revenues in
greater measure as their businesses improve. Privatization will help significantly trim the public
debt as, by law, all proceeds from privatization must be used to extinguish the public debt. ¶
Privatization can put an end to political favoritism in employment and in the provision of public
services. Privatization will allow the private sector to play a larger role in the privatized sectors
as entrepreneurs establish supply, distribution and other ancillary businesses around the
privatized entities. By privatizing major public entities, and opening up the market for
investment by foreign companies, the Government can attract foreign capital; an important
ingredient for job creation and economic development. The launch of IPOs as part of the
privatization processes will undoubtedly increase the volume of trading on the Beirut Stock
Exchange and further develop Lebanon's local capital markets. A major component of a market
economy is the reduced role of the state in the economy, with a greater contribution by the
private sector, which in turn fosters economic flexibility and eliminates rigidity resulting from
public sector bureaucracy. Privatization will translate into a favorable climate for investments,
characterized by a liberal open market economy and reduced bureaucracy and red tape, thus
repositioning Lebanon as a business hub.
Net Benefit – Coercion
1NC
The affirmative uses other people’s money to fund public
expenditures – it amounts to stealing.
Machan, Tibor R., 2004, Professor Emeritus Department of Philosophy @ Auburn
University, Research Fellow at Hoover Institution Stanford University, Putting Humans
First pg.
Thinkers of all stripes tend to understand the problem with unlimited usage of land or water held "in common." What has not been as widely understood is that a
tragedy of the commons exists as well in our national treasury. Recognizing the applicability of the analysis to public finance will help us understand the universal
applicability of some features of economic analysis. That might incline us to look on the tragedy of the commons as more significant than has been hitherto thought
for purposes of gleaning some insights about the nature of justice itself If, furthermore, we consider the significance of the principle that "ought implies can" for a
In the
public treasury, we have what by law amounts to a common pool of resources from
which members of the political community may try to extract as much as will serve their
purposes, with little thought to the aggregate negative economic consequences. These
include red ink, high taxes, or loss of productivity nationwide—consequences that any
particular group's self grabbing can only minutely affect. Whether for artistic,
educational, scientific, agricultural, athletic, medical, or general moral and social
progress, the treasury is regarded as a common pool that all citizens in a democratic
society may dip into. And, of course, nearly everyone has very sound reasons for dipping
into it—their goals are usually well enough thought out that they have confidence in their
plans. They know that if they receive support from the treasury, they can further these
goals. So they graze this commons as much as their political power will enable them to.
Any commons is going to be exploited by individual agents without regard to standards
or limits—which explains, at least in part, why the treasuries of most Western
democracies are being slowly depleted, deficits are growing without any sign of restraint,
and such political limits as do persist tend to gradually wither away. Japan, Germany,
Great Britain, and, of course, the United States are all experiencing this common looting
of the treasury, as are numerous other societies that make public funds available for
private purposes. For how else can we construe education, scientific research, the
building of athletic parks, the upkeep of beaches, forests, and so forth except as the
funding of special private goals by means of a common treasury?
theory of justice, it could turn out that some extant theories, such as egalitarianism, will have to be seriously rethought and ultimately shelved.
This allows individuals to be treated as a means to an end –
holding individuals responsible for public goods amounts to the
death of liberty.
Machan, Tibor R., 1995, Professor Emeritus Department of Philosophy @ Auburn University,
Research Fellow at Hoover Institution Stanford University, Private Rights, Public Illusions
If the proper political goal is the equal progress of all individuals, then obviously the proper function of
laws is to achieve this goal. Clearly, bringing about full equality among citizens will require the widespread
enforcement of economic and related changes required to eradicate the natural and inevitable difference
among individuals. The totalitarian and dictatorial consequences are easy to infer. Voluntary
cooperation and generosity are certainly encouraged by those who oppose governmental welfarism. Within
the welfarist system, however, these benevolent qualities are not regarded as enough. Individuals are not
trusted to live peacefully and to be responsible for reaching their full potential. The entire concern with
equality of welfare, even in the framework of “upgrading the poor” and “upholding society’s moral fiber,”
is inconsistent with the ideal that each person must make his or her own way in life. This trend towards
economic and spiritual equalization is so strong that when institutions do not meet the established norm,
the government forces progress by utilizing its retaliatory powers for redistributive and paternalistic
purposes. This can be seen in the use of, for example, forced busing to meet integration standards. The
government can also indirectly force institutions to meet various standards by making financial assistance
conditional on certain requirements. Such requirements treat members of society as tools for other people’s
programs. This personal responsibility for others’ goals and well-being, which underlies political support
for many desirable programs, also fuels -by making them conceptually and legally acceptable in the sphere
of social engineering-the techniques of behavior modification and, at the extreme end, involuntary
psychosurgery. All governmental action that does not serve to repel or retaliate against coercion is
antithetical to any respect for human dignity. While it is true that some people should give to others to
assist them in reaching their goals, forcing individuals to do so plainly robs them of their dignity. There is
nothing morally worthwhile in forced giving. Generally, for a society to respect human dignity, the
special moral relations between people should be left undisturbed. Government should confine itself to
making sure that this voluntarism is not abridged, no matter how tempting it might be to use its coercive
powers to attain some worthy goal.
That makes life worthless.
Raz, Joseph, Phd Philosophy, THE MORALITY OF FREEDOM, 1991, p. 359.
One way to test the thesis of the primacy of action reasons is to think of a person who is entirely passive,
and is continuously fed, cleaned, and pumped full with hash, so that he is perpetually content, and wants
nothing but to stay in the same condition. It's familiar imaginary horror. How do we rank the success of
such a life? It is not the worst life one can have. It is simply no a life at all. It lacks activity, it lacks
goals. To the extent that one is tempted to judge it more harshly than that and to regard it as 'negative' life
this is because of the wasted potentiality. It is a life which could have been and was not. We can isolate
this feature by imagining that the human being concerned is mentally and physically affected in a way which rules out the possibility
of a life with any kind of meaningful pursuit in it. Now it is just not really a life at all. This does not preclude one
from say that it is better than human life. It is simply sufficiently unlike human life in the respects
which matter that we regard it as only a degenerate case of human life. But clearly not being alive
can be better than that life.
2NC Overview
Vote negative – the affirmative redistributes wealth gained
through private effort for public good – this treats people as a
means to an end, denying individual agency and freedom of
choice – that’s Machan.
The impact is no value to life – a world in which people are not
allowed to make their own choices concerning the fruit of their
labor makes everyone dependent on the government, nullifying
agency and making life not worth living.
Side constraint – gotta reject every instance.
Sylvester Petro, professor of law at Wake Forest, Spring 1974, Toledo Law Review, p.
480
However, one may still insist on echoing Ernest Hemingway – “I believe in only one
thing: liberty.” And it is always well to bear in mind David Hume’s observation: “It is
seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once.” Thus, it is unacceptable to
say that the invasion of one aspect of freedom is of no import because there
have been invasions of so many other aspects. That road leads to chaos,
tyranny, despotism, and the end of all human aspiration. Ask Solzhenstyn, Ask
Milovan Djilas. In sum, if one believes in freedom as a supreme value and proper
ordering principle for any society aiming to maximize spiritual and material welfare,
then every invasion of freedom must be emphatically identified and resisted
with undying spirit.
Turns case – property rights prerequisite to the right to life.
Uyl, Douglas J. Den, AND Rasmussen, Douglas B., Professors of Philosophy,
1984, The Philosophic Thought of Ayn Rand
The Right to life is the source of all rights – and the right to property is their only
implementation. Without property rights, no other rights are possible. Since man has to
sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to product of his effort has no
means to sustain his life. The man who produces while others dispose of his product is a
slave.
Tie-breaker – rights before life.
Machan, Tibor R., 2003, Professor Emeritus Department of Philosophy @ Auburn
University, Research Fellow at Hoover Institution Stanford University, Passion for
Liberty pg.
Some have wanted to dispense with the idea of rights altogether, especially in the wake of
so much corrupt discussion of rights, or rights talk, in our political and legal arena.
Professor Heather Gert, among others, has argued for this on the grounds that each case
of rights violation can, supposedly, be reduced to a matter of injuring or harming
someone, So rights talk is superfluous.26Yet dispensing with rights is not as easy as one
might think. Violating rights is not the same as injuring or harming someone in a
narrower sense. I may violate someone's rights by depriving her of the chance to make a
bad choice, thus not hurting but in some sense helping her. I would (paternalistically
perhaps) impose on her something that she ought to be free to decide whether to accept
or not, but doing this may not injure or harm her in any immediate manner at all. To
take a choice away from a person does not always result in harming her, yet it is the
major ingredient of violating her rights. What it hampers and violates is the very
capacity that is at the root of what makes a good human life possible. Thus, if as an act
of good Samaritanism, I prevent a person from injecting heroin, I may have benefited
her (perhaps only temporarily), but I have, nevertheless, violated her
rights.27Furthermore, rights are not the kind of moral concept that arises primarily in the
context of personal ethics or morality or even of small-scale social morality. Rights are
general organizing norms—meta-norms, as Rasmussen and Den Uyl characterize
them28—for a just community They belong in a constitution. They serve to establish
"borders" around persons to secure for them a sphere of personal jurisdiction or
authority, of sovereignty. From within those borders they are able to make good
judgments about how to live, including whom to invite in and whom to join on the
outside.
Guaranteed risk of our impacts means you vote neg on
probability.
Machan, Tibor R., 2003, Professor Emeritus Department of Philosophy @ Auburn
University, Research Fellow at Hoover Institution Stanford University, Passion for
Liberty pg.
All in all, then, I support the principled or rights-based approach. In normal contexts,
honesty is the best policy, even if at times it does not achieve the desired good results; so
is respect for every individual's rights to life, liberty, and property. All in all, this is what
will ensure the best consequences—in the long run and as a rule. Therefore, one need not
be very concerned about the most recent estimate of the consequences of banning or not
banning guns, breaking up or not breaking up Microsoft, or any other public policy, for
that matter. It is enough to know that violating the rights of individuals to bear arms is a
bad idea, and that history and analysis support our understanding of principle. To violate
rights has always produced greater damage than good, so let's not do it, even when we
are terribly tempted to do so, Let's not do it precisely because to do so would violate the
fundamental requirements of human nature. It is those requirements that should be our
guide, not some recent empirical data that have no staying power (according to their very
own theoretical terms). Finally, you will ask, isn't this being dogmatic? Haven't we
learned not to bank too much on what we've learned so far, when we also know that
learning can always be improved, modified, even revised? Isn't progress in the sciences
and technology proof that past knowledge always gets overthrown a bit later? As in
science and engineering, so in morality and politics: We must go with what we know but
be open to change— provided that the change is warranted. Simply because some
additional gun controls or regulations might save lives (some lives, perhaps at the
expense of other lives) and simply because breaking up Microsoft might improve the
satisfaction of consumers (some consumers, perhaps at the expense of the satisfaction of
other consumers) are no reasons to violate basic rights. Only if and when there are solid,
demonstrable reasons to do so should we throw out the old principles and bring on the
new principles. Any such reasons would have to speak to the same level of fundamentally
and relevance as that incorporated by the theory of individual rights itself. Those
defending consequentialism, like Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, have argued the
opposite thesis: Unless one can prove, beyond a doubt, that violating rights in a
particular instance is necessarily wrong in the eyes of a "rational and fair man," the state
may go ahead and "accept the natural outcome of dominant opinion" and violate those
rights.1 Such is now the leading jurisprudence of the United States, a country that
inaugurated its political life by declaring to the world that each of us possesses
unalienable rights, ones that may never be violated no matter what!
2NC – A2: Util/Extinction Outweighs
We access most probable internal link to extinction.
Rand 1963
(Ayn, The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism, Page 145)
A society that robs an individual of the product of his effort or enslaves him, or attempts to limit the
freedom of his mind, or compels him to act against his own rational judgement—a society that sets up a
conflict between its edicts and the requirements of man’s nature—is not, strictly speaking, a society,
but a mob held together by institutionalized gang-rule. Such a society destroys all the values of human
coexistence, has no possible justification and represents, not a source of benefits, but the deadliest
threat to man’s survival. Life on a desert island is safer than and incomparably preferable to existence in
Soviet Russia or Nazi Germany.
Risking extinction to protect rights is justified – we shouldn’t
protect future generations if they have no liberty.
Henry Shue, Professor of Ethics and Public Life, Princeton University, 1989, <Nuclear Deterrence and
Moral Restraint, p. 64-5>
The issue raises interesting problems about obligations among generations. What obligations do we owe to future generations whose very existence will be affected by our risks? A
utilitarian calculation would suggest that since the pleasures of future generations may last infinitely (or until the sun burns out), no risk
that we take to assure certain values for our generation can compare with almost infinite value in the future.
Thus we have no right to take such risks. In effect, such an approach would establish a dictatorship of future generations over
the present one. The only permissible role for our generation would be biological procreation. If we care about other values in addition to
survival, this crude utilitarian approach produces intolerable consequences for the current generation.
crude
Moreover, utility is too crude a concept to support such a calculation. We have little idea of what utility will mean to generations very distant from ours. We think we know
something about our children, and perhaps our grandchildren, but what will people value 8,000 years from now? If we do not know, then there is the ironic prospect that something
we deny ourselves now for the sake of a future generation may be of little value to them. A more defensible approach to the issue of justice among generations is the principle of
we shall not be certain of the detailed
preferences of increasingly distant generations, but we can assume that they will wish equal chances of survival. On the other hand, there is
no reason to assume that they would want survival as a sole value any more than the current generation
does. On the contrary, if they would wish equal access to other values that give meaning to life, we could infer that they might wish us to take some
risks of species extinction in order to provide them equal access to those values. If we have benefited from
"life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," why should we assume that the next generation would want only
life?
equal access. Each generation should have roughly equal access to important values. We must admit that
Their claims justify atrocity – rights come first.
Callahan, Fellow at the Institute of Society and Ethics, 1973 (Daniel, The Tyranny of
Survival, Pages 91-93)
There seems to be no imaginable evil which some group is not willing to inflict on
another for the sake of survival, no rights, liberties or dignities which it is not ready to
suppress. It is easy, of course, to recognize the danger when survival is falsely and
manipulatively invoked. Dictators never talk about their aggressions, but only about the
need to defend the fatherland, to save it from destruction at the hands of its enemies. But
my point goes deeper than that. It is directed even at legitimate concern for survival,
when that concern is allowed to reach an intensity which would ignore, suppress or
destroy other fundamental human rights and values. The potential tyranny of survival as
a value is that it is capable, if not treated sanely, of wiping out all other values. Survival
can become an obsession and a disease, provoking a destructive singlemindedness that
will stop at nothing. We come here to the fundamental moral dilemma. If, both
biologically and psychologically, the need for survival is basic to man, and if survival is
the precondition for any and all human achievements, and if no other rights make much
sense without the premise of a right to life - then how will it be possible to honor and act
upon the need for survival without, in the process, destroying everything in human
beings which makes them worthy of survival. To put it more strongly, if the price of
survival is human degradation, then there is no moral reason why an effort should be
make to ensure that survival. It would be the Pyrrhic victory to end all Pyrrhic victories.
Extinction of humanity is inevitable and unavoidable – we
should focus on optimizing the time we have by protecting
property rights.
Espey, Distinguished Professor of Life Sciences Trinity, 00 This evidence has been
gender paraphrased
<Lawrence L. 8/26, ON THE DESTINY OF CIVILIZED CULTURES,
www.trinity.edu/lespey/culture/118essay.html>
An understanding of evolutionary processes reveals that all civilizations (and eventually
all forms of life) on Earth are destined to extinction. In view of the evidence that "man's
central position of control in nature's scheme is deteriorating badly, and that in the
expanding cosmology, man is already being bypassed" (267), it appears there has indeed
been an exaggeration of the dominion of Homo sapiens. In fact, five billion years from
now, as the "red giant" of our solar system casts its final glare upon the planet that it
generously vitalized during its course of evolution in the vast Universe, there will not be
a single intelligent earthling to proclaim to the heavens that the brief moment of human
existence was any more or any less significant than the duration of any other organism
that inhabited the Earth. Under the solemn disillusionment of this destiny, it becomes
imperative to find some objective that will produce an incentive to endure the struggle
ahead. But what is there to work toward? What is there to value? Goring (276) believes
that, "lacking the power to alter his fate, (hu)man's noblest attitude must be one of
dignity, comprehension, and defiance." And possibly he is right. Perhaps this is the goal
that all of mankind should take into consideration. It is an attitude that is somewhat
analogous to a sentiment once composed by Pascal (277): "(Hu)man(ity) is but a reed,
the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking reed. It is not necessary that the entire
universe arm itself to crush him. A breath of air, a drop of water, suffices to kill him. But
were the universe to crush him, (hu)man(ity) would still be more noble than that which
kills him, because he knows that he dies; and the universe knows nothing of the
advantage it has over him. Our whole dignity consists, then, in thought. Our elevation
must be derived from this, not from space and duration, which we cannot fill. Let us
endeavor, then to think well: this is the principle of ethics." Thus, Pascal has implied
that (hu)man(ity) could find dignity within an endeavor to formulate an ethic that is
more appropriate to the present circumstances. This idea seems credible, for after all,
"the greatest value has at all times been placed upon systems of ethics" (278). (Ironically,
if (hu)man(ity) does have the brain capacity to think more wisely, then the rudiment of
his extinction might also become the source of his dignity.)
2NC – A2: You Allow Environmental Destruction
Our worldview solves the environment best.
Machan, Tibor R., 2004, Professor Emeritus Department of Philosophy @ Auburn
University, Research Fellow at Hoover Institution Stanford University, Putting Humans
First pg.
Whatever they may concede about the virtues of the market, Heilbroner and the rest nonetheless fail to
consistently recognize that individual property owners have a direct and immediate interest in the fate of
their own property—a self-interested motivation that leads them to maintain and sustain that property.
Environmentalists often dislike the very idea of what they regard as environmental treasures being
controlled by private hands. After all, the right of ownership means that the owner of a particular chunk of
environment is free to alter it in ways that the environmentalist might not like. But, in the first place, there
is nothing privileged about the environmentalist's values and preferences with respect to the environment as
opposed to the values and preferences of those who would drill for oil or build a shopping mall or buy the
oil or shop at the mall. And there is also no reason why environmentalists can't procure parts of the
environment on a free market much as any business group could do. After all, as private property owners of
treasured lands or waters, environmentalists are free to run their own property according to their own
principles of environmental preservation without fear of bureaucratic bungling or pressure-group
politics.We talk too much about "our" water, land, mountains, or animals—for it is precisely when an
environmental area is held "in common" that no one but a select group of power holders (and those who
successfully lobby them) can exercise any power at all over that area. "Common" ownership is no ownership at all. You cannot give any of the "commonly held" land to your friends or children. Nor can you sell
it to fund some medical treatment you may need or education you may wish to provide to your children.
Nor can you even simply traverse the lands and waters and mountains, either, let alone hobnob with the
animals at your heart's content. Common ownership, so called, generates overuse and confusion—the
famous "tragedy of the commons." In practice, the destructive incentives inherent in a commons are
combated by turning control over to a few. In democratic societies, this few gains control by persuading the
majority of voters to give them power to put the commons to use as they see fit. In dictatorships, not even
that kind of support is needed, although in both systems the power tends to fluctuate with the winds of
opinion—either among the many or among the elite.
Any reason individuals can’t help the environment apply equally
to the government.
Machan, Tibor R., 2004, Professor Emeritus Department of Philosophy @ Auburn
University, Research Fellow at Hoover Institution Stanford University, Putting Humans
First pg.
My first response is that there is no justification for greater distrust of "the market" than of the scientific bureaucracy that would be charged with doing the
monitoring, regulating, and containing that Heilbroner and so many other champions of regimentation plump for. Such sweeping distrust of voluntary processes
tends to arise from comparing the market system to some ideal and static construct developed in the mind of a theorist—not to real alternatives. Since human
community life is dynamic, the best way to improve it is by the establishment of certain basic principles of law, or a constitution, that will keep the dynamics of the
if human agents in the marketplace, guided by the rule of law
based on their natural individual rights to life, liberty, and property, are by nature incapable of meeting the ecological challenges Heilbroner and many others in the
environmentalist movement have in mind, one wonders how these challenges could be
better met by some "new" brand of statism. After all, why should we expect ecologically
minded bureaucrats to be somehow better motivated, more competent, Let us for the sake of argument
community within certain bounds.9 But
understand Heilbroner not to be advocating full-fledged collectivism but rather a compromise between an individualist-capitalist system and a collectivist system—
that is, the welfare state. After all, he stipulates that the ecologically prudent socioeconomic system he envisions would be substantially individualist insofar as the
institution of private property would not be entirely abolished in such a system. On the other hand, it is a system that would be "monitored, regulated, and
contained to such a degree that it would be difficult to call the final social order capitalism." That sound you hear is a sigh of exasperation. Do we really need once
again to abandon the individualist alternative for some increasingly regimented social order? Let us consider why an individual rights approach will more likely
resolve environmental problems and, thus, be more conducive to the common good—as understood within a framework that acknowledges the ontological priority
of human individuals over their various groupings—than alternatives that propose to chronically violate individual rights. While this may seem question begging—
by denying at the outset any meaningful non-individualist sense of the common good—it will turn out not to be once the individualist environ-mentalism that
, how could a systemic intervention be for the common good if
various members of the community are habitually harmed by it?)
emerges comes to full light. (Indeed
Harm would be limited to one’s own property.
Machan, Tibor R., 2004, Professor Emeritus Department of Philosophy @ Auburn
University, Research Fellow at Hoover Institution Stanford University, Putting Humans
First pg.
The natural rights tradition holds that such harmony is best secured by granting every
individual a sphere of personal jurisdiction. Within this jurisdiction each person is
empowered—and, yes, not being coerced by others is indeed empowerment for nearly all
of us—to accomplish individual goals to the best possible extent. Properly protected
personal jurisdictions limit the potential for social mischief. For by prohibiting persons
from intruding on others or violating the rights of others, what the evil persons do is
more likely to hurt only themselves (and voluntary associates like business partners and
spouses). A polity of well-enforced rights thus systematically discourages wrongdoing—
including gratuitous despoliation or damage of the environment—which, in turn, confers
overall benefit to the community.
Individual rights solve best.
Machan, Tibor R., 2004, Professor Emeritus Department of Philosophy @ Auburn
University, Research Fellow at Hoover Institution Stanford University, Putting Humans
First pg.
A sound environmentalism—one that puts humans first—would not countenance
coercively enforced privilege for a particular clique of humans. Instead, it would
acknowledge the essentially individual, self-responsible nature, and equal rights of all
human beings. It would recognize that each member of a human community is sovereign
and that no one may exercise rule over another without that other's consent. In practice,
public policy based on such principles would allow land to be bought and sold freely,
without anyone being authorized to wield the power of use and disposal over land that
they have merely appropriated rather than obtained fair and square in the marketplace.
It would be an environmentalism based on the principles of justice, property rights, due
process, and freedom.
2NC – A2: Coercion is Racist
No Impact – you can be racist under our framework but you
cannot infringe on someone else’s negative rights because you
are racist because that would be coercive and always rejected.
There is a difference between mental and physical coercion.
Yes, it is morally legitimate to be a racist, but not to act out on
that racism. We may not agree with racism but freedom of
though exists in our society, if it didn’t, then we’d all be passive
subjects in a coercive society.
Forcing racists to be nice doesn’t change them, only persuasion
is moral in trying to stop racism forced giving has no worth,
that’s the overview
2NC – A2: Objectivism Bad
Your arguments do not apply – our argument is not a call to end
all altruism, it is a call to be able to give to others only if you
want to. Altruism is completely acceptable under our value
system only if it is not forced altruism. This is consistent with
everything that we have said throughout this round.
2NC – A2: Justifies Slavery
We solve best – protecting individual rights means you can’t
violate anyone else’s freedom.
Yates, Stephen, Professor of Philosophy at South Carolina, 1995, Liberty for the 21st
Century eds. Machan and Rasmussen
Today’s arguments for large-scale affirmative action reparations for blacks because of historical victimization (slavery, segregation) therefore fail. No one alive
today was a slave or even born to a slave. Indeed, when slavery was practiced only a small percentage of whites owned slaves. Yet with all that said, one may reply
that some blacks were harmed greatly by laws and practices aimed at them by some whites; the same can be said for women and other minority groups (American
Indians come to mind). Racism, though fading in the face of near-universal disapproval, still exists; some whites would still use the legal system to lock blacks out
Libertarianism has the most powerful
starting point available for an appropriate civil rights agenda that offers protection to
everyone: the concept of self-ownership, coupled with the denial that anyone owns the
life or fruits of the labors of others. This constitutes the most forceful objection to
slavery possible. According to libertarian principles, the sole purpose of government is
to protect individuals’ rights to life, liberty, and justly acquired property. Slavery
presupposes that some individuals may own other individuals as property and dispose of
their lives as they see fit. This clearly violates the latter’s rights to life and liberty, at the
very least! Doing away with slavery was in fact a libertarian move, if a mostly
unconscious one.
of markets if they could. Thus arises the need for civil liberties agenda of some sort.
Coercion allowed for slavery.
Machan, Tibor R., 1995, Professor Emeritus Department of Philosophy @ Auburn
University, Research Fellow at Hoover Institution Stanford University, Private Rights,
Public Illusions
With all this said, we can accept some portion of the popular idea that the United States
enjoyed laissez-faire capitalism for several decades of its early history, especially when
we compare it to other societies. Free enterprise is not just Fourth of July rhetoric but a
prominent feature of the 1800s, and it still plays a considerable role in U.S. life. While
several states have always practiced government intervention, most did so less in the
early days of the Republic than either before its birth or in more recent decades – except,
of course, with regard to the lives of black slaves and Native Americans, whose property
rights were almost completely ignored with full legal sanction in various regions of the
United States.
2NC Extensions
Government Taxation is Coercion. This Violates human rights and
freedom, which are prerequisites to a free America
Rand 1963 (Ayn Rand, American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter,
“POV: Man’s Rights; The Nature of Government”,1963,
http://ari.aynrand.org/issues/government-and-business/individual-rights)
If one wishes to advocate a free society — that is, capitalism — one must realize that its
indispensable foundation is the principle of individual rights. If one wishes to uphold
individual rights, one must realize that capitalism is the only system that can uphold and
protect them. And if one wishes to gauge the relationship of freedom to the goals of today’s intellectuals, one may gauge it by the fact that the concept of individual rights is evaded,
distorted, perverted and seldom discussed, most conspicuously seldom by the so-called “conservatives.”¶ “Rights” are a moral concept — the concept that provides a logical transition from the
principles guiding an individual’s actions to the principles guiding his relationship with others — the concept that preserves and protects individual morality in a social context — the link between
the moral code of a man and the legal code of a society, between ethics and politics.
Individual rights are the means of subordinating
society to moral law.¶ Every political system is based on some code of ethics. The dominant ethics of mankind’s history were variants of the altruist-collectivist doctrine
which subordinated the individual to some higher authority, either mystical or social. Consequently, most political systems were variants of the same statist tyranny, differing only in degree, not in
basic principle, limited only by the accidents of tradition, of chaos, of bloody strife and periodic collapse. Under all such systems, morality was a code applicable to the individual, but not to society.
Society was placed outside the moral law, as its embodiment or source or exclusive interpreter — and the inculcation of self-sacrificial devotion to social duty was regarded as the main purpose of
ethics in man’s earthly existence.¶ Since there is no such entity as “society,” since society is only a number of individual men, this meant, in practice, that the rulers of society were exempt from
moral law; subject only to traditional rituals, they held total power and exacted blind obedience — on the implicit principle of: “The good is that which is good for society (or for the tribe, the race,
the nation), and the ruler’s edicts are its voice on earth.”¶ This was true of all statist systems, under all variants of the altruist-collectivist ethics, mystical or social. “The Divine Right of Kings”
summarizes the political theory of the first — ”Vox populi, vox dei” of the second. As witness: the theocracy of Egypt, with the Pharaoh as an embodied god — the unlimited majority rule or
democracy of Athens — the welfare state run by the Emperors of Rome — the Inquisition of the late Middle Ages — the absolute monarchy of France — the welfare state of Bismarck’s Prussia —
the gas chambers of Nazi Germany — the slaughterhouse of the Soviet Union.¶ All these political systems were expressions of the altruist-collectivist ethics — and their common characteristic is
The most
profoundly revolutionary achievement of the United States of America was the subordination of
society to moral law.¶ The principle of man’s individual rights represented the extension
of morality into the social system — as a limitation on the power of the state, as man’s
protection against the brute force of the collective, as the subordination of might to right. The United States
was the first moral society in history.¶ All previous systems had regarded man as a sacrificial means to the ends of others, and society as an end in
itself. The United States regarded man as an end in himself, and society as a means to the
peaceful, orderly, voluntary coexistence of individuals. All previous systems had held
that man’s life belongs to society, that society can dispose of him in any way it pleases,
and that any freedom he enjoys is his only by favor, by the permission of society, which may be revoked at any time.
The United States held that man’s life is his by right (which means: by moral principle and by his nature), that a right
is the property of an individual, that society as such has no rights, and that the only
moral purpose of a government is the protection of individual rights.¶ A “right” is a moral principle defining
the fact that society stood above the moral law, as an omnipotent, sovereign whim worshiper. Thus, politically, all these systems were variants of an amoral society.¶
and sanctioning a man’s freedom of action in a social context. There is only one fundamental right (all the others are its consequences or corollaries): a man’s right to his own life. Life is a process
of self-sustaining and self-generated action; the right to life means the right to engage in self-sustaining and self-generated action — which means: the freedom to take all the actions required by
the nature of a rational being for the support, the furtherance, the fulfillment and the enjoyment of his own life. (Such is the meaning of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.)¶ The
Thus, for
every individual, a right is the moral sanction of a positive — of his freedom to act on his own judgment, for his own goals,
by his own voluntary, uncoerced choice. As to his neighbors, his rights impose no obligations on them except of a negative kind: to abstain from
violating his rights.¶ The right to life is the source of all rights — and the right to property is their only implementation. Without property rights, no other
rights are possible. Since man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life. The man who
concept of a “right” pertains only to action — specifically, to freedom of action. It means freedom from physical compulsion, coercion or interference by other men.¶
produces while others dispose of his product, is a slave.¶ Bear in mind that the right to property is a right to action, like all the others: it is not the right to an object, but to the action and the
consequences of producing or earning that object. It is not a guarantee that a man will earn any property, but only a guarantee that he will own it if he earns it. It is the right to gain, to keep, to use
and to dispose of material values.¶ The concept of individual rights is so new in human history that most men have not grasped it fully to this day. In accordance with the two theories of ethics, the
mystical or the social, some men assert that rights are a gift of God — others, that rights are a gift of society. But, in fact, the source of rights is man’s nature.¶ The Declaration of Independence
stated that men “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” Whether one believes that man is the product of a Creator or of nature, the issue of man’s origin does not alter the
fact that he is an entity of a specific kind — a rational being — that he cannot function successfully under coercion, and that rights are a necessary condition of his particular mode of survival.¶
“The source of man’s rights is not divine law or congressional law, but the law of identity. A is A — and Man is Man. Rights are conditions of existence required by man’s nature for his proper
survival.
If man is to live on earth, it is right for him to use his mind, it is right to act on his own free judgment, it is right for him to work for his
to keep the product of his work. If life on earth is his purpose, he has a right to live as a rational being: nature forbids him the irrational.” (Atlas
values and
Shrugged)¶ To violate man’s rights means to compel him to act against his own judgment, or to expropriate his values. Basically, there is only one way to do it: by the use of physical force. There
are two potential violators of man’s rights: the criminals and the government. The great achievement of the United States was to draw a distinction between these two — by forbidding to the
second the legalized version of the activities of the first.¶ The Declaration of Independence laid down the principle that “to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men.” This
provided the only valid justification of a government and defined its only proper purpose: to protect man’s rights by protecting him from physical violence.¶ Thus the government’s function was
changed from the role of ruler to the role of servant. The government was set to protect man from criminals — and the Constitution was written to protect man from the government. The Bill of
Rights was not directed against private citizens, but against the government — as an explicit declaration that individual rights supersede any public or social power.¶ The result was the pattern of
a civilized society which — for the brief span of some hundred and fifty years — America came close to achieving. A civilized society is one in which physical force is banned from human
relationships — in which the government, acting as a policeman, may use force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use.¶ This was the essential meaning and intent of
America’s political philosophy, implicit in the principle of individual rights. But it was not formulated explicitly, nor fully accepted nor consistently practiced.¶ America’s inner contradiction was the
altruist-collectivist ethics. Altruism is incompatible with freedom, with capitalism and with individual rights. One cannot combine the pursuit of happiness with the moral status of a sacrificial
animal.¶ It was the concept of individual rights that had given birth to a free society. It was with the destruction of individual rights that the destruction of freedom had to begin.¶ A collectivist
tyranny dare not enslave a country by an outright confiscation of its values, material or moral. It has to be done by a process of internal corruption. Just as in the material realm the plundering of a
country’s wealth is accomplished by inflating the currency — so today one may witness the process of inflation being applied to the realm of rights. The process entails such a growth of newly
promulgated “rights” that people do not notice the fact that the meaning of the concept is being reversed. Just as bad money drives out good money, so these “printing-press rights” negate
authentic rights.¶ Consider the curious fact that never has there been such a proliferation, all over the world, of two contradictory phenomena: of alleged new “rights” and of slave-labor camps.¶
The “gimmick” was the switch of the concept of rights from the political to the economic realm.¶ The Democratic Party platform of 1960 summarizes the switch boldly and explicitly. It declares that
a Democratic Administration “will reaffirm the economic bill of rights which Franklin Roosevelt wrote into our national conscience sixteen years ago.”¶ Bear clearly in mind the meaning of the
concept of “rights” when you read the list which the platform offers:¶ “1. The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation. ¶ “2. The right to earn
enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation.¶ “3. The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living. ¶ “4. The
right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home and abroad.¶ “5. The right of every family to a
decent home.¶ “6. The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health.¶ “7. The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness,
accidents and unemployment.¶ “8. The right to a good education.”¶ A single question added to each of the above eight clauses would make the issue clear: At whose expense?¶ Jobs, food,
clothing, recreation(!), homes, medical care, education, etc., do not grow in nature. These are man-made values — goods and services produced by men. Who is to provide them?¶ If some men
are entitled by right to the products of the work of others, it means that those others are deprived of rights and condemned to slave labor.¶ Any alleged “right” of one man, which necessitates the
violation of the rights of another, is not and cannot be a right.¶ No man can have a right to impose an unchosen obligation, an unrewarded duty or an involuntary servitude on another man. There
can be no such thing as “the right to enslave.”¶ A right does not include the material implementation of that right by other men; it includes only the freedom to earn that implementation by one’s
own effort.¶ Observe, in this context, the intellectual precision of the Founding Fathers: they spoke of the right to the pursuit of happiness — not of the right to happiness. It means that a man has
the right to take the actions he deems necessary to achieve his happiness; it does not mean that others must make him happy.¶ The right to life means that a man has the right to support his life
by his own work (on any economic level, as high as his ability will carry him); it does not mean that others must provide him with the necessities of life.¶ The right to property means that a man has
the right to take the economic actions necessary to earn property, to use it and to dispose of it; it does not mean that others must provide him with property.¶ The right of free speech means that a
man has the right to express his ideas without danger of suppression, interference or punitive action by the government. It does not mean that others must provide him with a lecture hall, a radio
station or a printing press through which to express his ideas.¶ Any undertaking that involves more than one man, requires the voluntary consent of every participant. Every one of them has the
right to make his own decision, but none has the right to force his decision on the others.¶ There is no such thing as “a right to a job” — there is only the right of free trade, that is: a man’s right to
take a job if another man chooses to hire him. There is no “right to a home,” only the right of free trade: the right to build a home or to buy it. There are no “rights to a ‘fair’ wage or a ‘fair’ price” if
no one chooses to pay it, to hire a man or to buy his product. There are no “rights of consumers” to milk, shoes, movies or champagne if no producers choose to manufacture such items (there is
only the right to manufacture them oneself). There are no “rights” of special groups, there are no “rights of farmers, of workers, of businessmen, of employees, of employers, of the old, of the
young, of the unborn.” There are only the Rights of Man — rights possessed by every individual man and by all men as individuals.¶ Property rights and the right of free trade are man’s only
“economic rights” (they are, in fact, political rights) — and there can be no such thing as “an economic bill of rights.” But observe that the advocates of the latter have all but destroyed the former. ¶
Remember that rights are moral principles which define and protect a man’s freedom of action, but impose no obligations on other men. Private citizens are not a threat to one another’s rights or
freedom. A private citizen who resorts to physical force and violates the rights of others is a criminal — and men have legal protection against him.¶ Criminals are a small minority in any age or
country. And the harm they have done to mankind is infinitesimal when compared to the horrors — the bloodshed, the wars, the persecutions, the confiscations, the famines, the enslavements, the
wholesale destructions — perpetrated by mankind’s governments. Potentially, a government is the most dangerous threat to man’s rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force
against legally disarmed victims. When unlimited and unrestricted by individual rights, a government is men’s deadliest enemy. It is not as protection against private actions, but against
governmental actions that the Bill of Rights was written.¶ Now observe the process by which that protection is being destroyed.¶ The process consists of ascribing to private citizens the specific
violations constitutionally forbidden to the government (which private citizens have no power to commit) and thus freeing the government from all restrictions. The switch is becoming progressively
more obvious in the field of free speech. For years, the collectivists have been propagating the notion that a private individual’s refusal to finance an opponent is a violation of the opponent’s right
of free speech and an act of “censorship.”¶ It is “censorship,” they claim, if a newspaper refuses to employ or publish writers whose ideas are diametrically opposed to its policy. ¶ It is “censorship,”
they claim, if businessmen refuse to advertise in a magazine that denounces, insults and smears them.¶ It is “censorship,” they claim, if a TV sponsor objects to some outrage perpetrated on a
program he is financing — such as the incident of Alger Hiss being invited to denounce former Vice-President Nixon.¶ And then there is [Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission]
Newton N. Minow who declares: “There is censorship by ratings, by advertisers, by networks, by affiliates which reject programming offered to their areas.” It is the same Mr. Minow who threatens
to revoke the license of any station that does not comply with his views on programming — and who claims that that is not censorship.¶ Consider the implications of such a trend.¶ “Censorship” is
a term pertaining only to governmental action. No private action is censorship. No private individual or agency can silence a man or suppress a publication; only the government can do so. The
freedom of speech of private individuals includes the right not to agree, not to listen and not to finance one’s own antagonists.¶ But according to such doctrines as the “economic bill of rights,” an
individual has no right to dispose of his own material means by the guidance of his own convictions — and must hand over his money indiscriminately to any speakers or propagandists, who have
a “right” to his property.¶ This means that the ability to provide the material tools for the expression of ideas deprives a man of the right to hold any ideas. It means that a publisher has to publish
books he considers worthless, false or evil — that a TV sponsor has to finance commentators who choose to affront his convictions-that the owner of a newspaper must turn his editorial pages
over to any young hooligan who clamors for the enslavement of the press. It means that one group of men acquires the “right” to unlimited license — while another group is reduced to helpless
irresponsibility.¶ But since it is obviously impossible to provide every claimant with a job, a microphone or a newspaper column, who will determine the “distribution” of “economic rights” and select
the recipients, when the owners’ right to choose has been abolished? Well, Mr. Minow has indicated that quite clearly.¶ And if you make the mistake of thinking that this applies only to big property
owners, you had better realize that the theory of “economic rights” includes the “right” of every would-be playwright, every beatnik poet, every noise-composer and every nonobjective artist (who
have political pull) to the financial support you did not give them when you did not attend their shows. What else is the meaning of the project to spend your tax money on subsidized art?¶ And
while people are clamoring about “economic rights,” the concept of political rights is vanishing. It is forgotten that the right of free speech means the freedom to advocate one’s views and to bear
the possible consequences, including disagreement with others, opposition, unpopularity and lack of support. The political function of “the right of free speech” is to protect dissenters and
unpopular minorities from forcible suppression — not to guarantee them the support, advantages and rewards of a popularity they have not gained.¶ The Bill of Rights reads: “Congress shall
make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press . . .” It does not demand that private citizens provide a microphone for the man who advocates their destruction, or a passkey for
the burglar who seeks to rob them, or a knife for the murderer who wants to cut their throats.¶ Such is the state of one of today’s most crucial issues: political rights versus “economic rights.” It’s
either-or. One destroys the other. But there are, in fact, no “economic rights,” no “collective rights,” no “public-interest rights.” The term “individual rights” is a redundancy: there is no other kind of
rights and no one else to possess them.¶ Those who advocate laissez-faire capitalism are the only advocates of man’s rights.
Government Taxation is Coercion and Deprives People of Liberty
Berlin 1958(Isaiah Berlin, Russo-British Jewish social and political theorist,
philosopher and historian of ideas “Two Concepts of Liberty”, 1958,
https://www.wiso.unihamburg.de/fileadmin/wiso_vwl/johannes/Ankuendigungen/Berlin_twoconceptsofliberty.
pdf)
To coerce a man is to deprive him of freedom - freedom from what? Almost every moralist¶ in human history
has praised freedom. Like happiness and goodness, like nature and reality, it is a¶ term whose meaning is so porous that
there is little interpretation that it seems able to resist. I do not ¶ propose to discuss either the history of this protean word
or the more than two hundred senses of it¶ recorded by historians of ideas. I propose to examine no more than two of
these senses - but they are¶ central ones, with a great deal of human history behind them, and, I dare say, still to come.
The first¶ of these political senses of freedom or liberty (I shall use both words to mean the same), which¶ (following
much precedent) I shall call the 'negative' sense, is involved in the answer to the question ¶ 'What is the area within which
the subject - a person or group of persons - is or should be left to do¶ or be what he is able to do or be, without
interference by other persons?' The second, which I shall ¶ call the 'positive' sense, is involved in the answer to the
question 'What, or who, is the source of¶ control or interference that can determine someone to do, or be, this rather than
that?' The two¶ questions are clearly different, even though the answers to them may overlap. I am normally said to be
free to the degree to which no man or body of men interferes with¶ my activity. Political liberty in this sense is simply the
area within which a man can act unobstructed¶ by others. If I am prevented by others from doing what I could otherwise
do, I am to that degree¶ unfree; and if this area is contracted by other men beyond a certain minimum, I can be described
as¶ being coerced, or, it may be, enslaved. Coercion is not, however, a term that covers every form of ¶ inability. If I say
that I am unable to jump more than ten feet in the air, or cannot read because I am ¶ blind, or cannot understand the
darker pages of Hegel, it would be eccentric to say that I am to that ¶ degree enslaved or coerced. Coercion
implies
the deliberate interference of other human beings¶ within the area in which I could
otherwise act. You lack political liberty or freedom only if you are¶ prevented from
attaining a goal by human beings.3 Mere incapacity to attain a goal is not lack of¶ political freedom.4 This is
brought out by the use of such modern expressions as 'economic freedom'¶ and its counterpart, 'economic slavery'. It is
argued, very plausibly, that if a man is too poor to afford¶ something on which there is no legal ban - a loaf of bread, a
journey round the world, recourse to the¶ law courts - he is as little free to have it as he would be if it were forbidden him
by law. If my¶ poverty were a kind of disease which prevented me from buying bread, or paying for the journey ¶ round the
world or getting my case heard, as lameness prevents me from running, this inability¶ would not naturally be described as
a lack of freedom, least of all political freedom. It is only¶ because I believe that my inability to get a given thing is due to
the fact that other human beings¶ have made arrangements whereby I am, whereas others are not, prevented from having
enough¶ money with which to pay for it, that I think myself a victim of coercion or slavery. In other words, ¶ this use of the
term depends on a particular social and economic theory about the causes of my¶ poverty or weakness. If my lack of
material means is due to my lack of mental or physical capacity,¶ then I begin to speak of being deprived of freedom (and
not simply about poverty) only if I accept¶ the theory.5 If, in addition, I believe that I am being kept in want by a specific
arrangement which I¶ consider unjust or unfair, I speak of economic slavery or oppression. The nature of things does not ¶
madden us, only ill will does, said Rousseau.6 The criterion of oppression is the part that I believe to¶ be played by other
human beings, directly or indirectly, with or without the intention of doing so, in ¶ frustrating my wishes. By being free in this
sense I mean not being interfered with by others. The¶ wider the area of non-interference the wider my freedom.
Taxation is equivalent to slavery and funds inefficient bureaucracy
Wollstein, member of ISIL's Board of Directors and a founder of the original Society for
Individual Liberty, 07 (Jarret B. Wollstein, member of ISIL's Board of Directors and a
founder of the original Society for Individual Liberty, 2007, “WE MUST END TAX SLAVERY
NOW”, http://www.isil.org/resources/lit/end-tax-slavery.html#author)
At the current rate of growth, within 20 years taxes will consume every penny we earn. Long before then, we will all be
Taxation is impractical, unnecessary,
and immoral. It is impractical because tax-supported public services – from public
schools to police protection – work poorly, if at all, and are very wasteful.
Taxation is unnecessary because any service or product that people truly want or
need – from education to roads to charity – they can and will purchase without
being forced to pay. And taxation is immoral because it is based on brute force –
the threat of fines and imprisonment of peaceful citizens.
For 150 years, America got
living in public housing projects and eating government cheese.
along fine without the personal income tax, sales tax, profits tax, and most other taxes. We need to end taxes now, before
tax slavery ends America.
Government funded programs are coercive and irresponsible
Wollstein, member of ISIL's Board of Directors and a founder of the original Society for
Individual Liberty, 07
(Jarret B. Wollstein, member of ISIL's Board of Directors and a founder of the original
Society for Individual Liberty, 2007, “WE MUST END TAX SLAVERY NOW”,
http://www.isil.org/resources/lit/end-tax-slavery.html#author)
These incidents show how far our government has strayed from its original
purpose of protecting our lives, liberty, and property. Providing basic government
services such as police, courts, and military defense would cost a fraction of what
we now pay in taxes. Fifty years ago, the US had an excellent court system and the most powerful military in
the world, yet taxes then consumed less than 5% of the average person's income. Today, taxes are over ten times
as high, and ninety percent of the money we pay in taxes is wasted. Would you
send $20 billion of our tax dollars to Mexico to prop up the peso? Would you pay
for inner-city schools that graduate students who are unable to read or write?
Would you pay farmers not to grow food? Would you authorize the Pentagon to spend $7,622 for a
coffee maker designed to survive a plane crash? Would you have spent billions to build up the militaries of the Shah of
Iran and Gen. Noriega of Panama? Would you spend $352,000 to study the mating habits of the California kangaroo rat?
Would you spend $17,000 so an artist could display a picture of Christ in a jar of human urine? Any
business that
spent money as irresponsibly as the government does would quickly go bankrupt
– if their directors weren't lynched first. But, as the Supreme Court has ruled, government is
not legally obligated to provide you with any specific service in return for the
taxes you pay. Unlike legitimate businesses, only the government can legally force
you to pay for its programs, no matter how wasteful or outrageous. And there's no limit
to how much of your income the government can seize.
Government taxation is coercive theft
Doug Casey (author of "Crisis Investing," which spent 26 weeks as No. 1 on the New York
Times Best-Seller list; editor and publisher of the International Speculator, one of the
nation's most established and highly respected publications on gold, silver and other
natural resource investments), 2002
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=15336)
To eliminate any misunderstanding as to what taxes are, it's helpful to define the
word "theft." One good definition is "the wrongful taking and carrying away of
the personal goods of another." The definition does not go on to say "unless you're
the government." There is no difference, in principle, between the state taking property
and a street gang doing so, except that the State's theft is "legal" and its agents are immune from
prosecution. Many people do not accept that analogy, because the government is
widely viewed as being of, for and by the people – even though it's also acknowledged
as acting badly from time to time. Suppose a mugger demanded your wallet – perhaps
because he needed money to buy a new car – and threatened you with violence if you
weren't forthcoming. Everyone would call that a criminal act. Suppose, however, the
mugger said he wanted the money to buy himself food. Would it still be theft? Suppose now that
he said he wanted your wallet to feed another hungry person, not himself. Would it still be theft?
Now let's suppose that this mugger convinces most of his friends that it's OK for
him to relieve you of your wallet. Would it still be theft? What if he convinces a
majority of citizens? Principles stand on their own. Even if a criminal act is committed
for good purpose, or with the complicity of bystanders, (even if those people call
themselves the government), it is still an act of criminal aggression. It's important
to establish an ethical viewpoint on the matter, even if it doesn't change your
reaction to the mugger's (or the State's) demands. Just as it's usually unwise to resist a
mugger, it's usually unwise to resist the government, which has a lot of force on its side.
Link
Eliminating Coercion is a PREREQUISITE to Freedom
Eugene Miller Summarizing (and) F.A. Hayek
Freedom requires that the coercion of some by others in¶ society be reduced as much as possible. One function
of¶ government is to prevent individuals from coercing other¶ individuals, but then government itself must be
prevented¶ from using coercion improperly. In a free society, the¶ exercise of government’s coercive power is
constrained and¶ made predictable by general rules that apply equally to all¶ individuals, including to those who make and
enforce the laws.¶ A
free society is one that empowers individuals to develop and¶ follow their
own life plans. Attempts to manipulate the¶ environment of individuals, e.g. by withholding vital¶
information, are insidious forms of coercion.
Tyranny Link
Heinlein, 1966 (Robert A. Heinlein, Bestselling author of The Moon Is a Harsh
Mistress, Life-Line, Destination Moon, and more. Won the democratic nomination for
Governor of California. Graduated from the U.S. Naval academy with a B.A. in Naval
Engineering, and also took classes at UCLA, 1966, “The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress”)
“There is no worse tyranny than to
because you think it would be good for him.”
force a man to pay for what he does not want merely
The Result of the Government Being too Large is that it Bullies us
John Stossel, March, 2014 (John Stossel is the host of "Stossel" (Thursdays at 9 PM/ET), a weekly program
highlighting current consumer issues with a libertarian viewpoint. Stossel also appears regularly on Fox News Channel (FNC)
providing signature analysis)
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/03/26/bullies-rule-when-government-gets-too-big-lose/
We're told government protects us, but protectors quickly become bullies.¶ Take the
Food and Drug Administration. It seems like the most helpful part of government: It
supervises testing to make sure greedy drug companies don't sell us dangerous stuff.¶
The FDA's first big success was stopping thalidomide, a drug that prevented the nausea
of morning sickness. It was approved first in Europe, where some mothers who took it
proceeded to give birth to children with no arms and legs. ¶ The FDA didn't discover the
problems with thalidomide. It was just slow. ¶ The drug application was stuck in the
FDA's bureaucracy. But being slow prevented birth defects in America. It taught
politicians and bureaucracy that slower is better. Then the FDA grew, like a tumor.¶
Today, it takes up to 15 years to get a new drug approved. Though most devices and
drugs never are.¶ What do Americans lose when regulators say "no"? Usually, we never
find out. We don't know what vaccines or painkillers are never developed because
regulation discouraged companies from trying something new.¶ But here's one example
where we do know what we lost:¶ Uterine prolapse is a common and nasty complication
of childbearing. It causes urinary incontinence and terminates most couples' sex lives.
Complicated surgery and clumsy devices didn't offer much help until device companies
developed implants that often did.¶ However, since biology is unpredictable, some
implants fail. In 2011, the FDA abruptly demanded "more studies."¶ The bullies' mandate
unleashed a hornets' nest of tort lawyers. They advertised, "Did your device fail? Call,
and we will get you money!" They soon piled up so many suits that device manufacturers'
insurers canceled liability coverage. Device companies then withdrew devices from the
market. So now women suffering from uterine prolapse have fewer options. This is a
price of bureaucratic "caution."¶ Reasonable people can debate whether the FDA assures
product efficacy and safety. But the regulatory boot always presses toward delay.¶
Innovators don't dare make a move without saying, "Regulator, may I please?"¶ In rare
cases, when new devices are approved, there is a new obstacle: complex marketing
restrictions. Say something about your product that the government doesn't like, and you
may be fined. The Office of the Inspector General and federal and state prosecutors troll
for rule violations, then sue and fine.¶ This harms patients. Most never know they were
harmed, because we never know what we might have had.¶ There are only two ways to do
things in life: voluntarily or by force. Government is force. Government bureaucrats, who
spend their whole lives pushing the rest of us around, easily become bullies.¶ We need
some government force. The worst places in the world are countries that don't have rule
of law. Then people are afraid to build factories because mobs may steal what they make,
or a dictator may take the whole factory. No one builds, so everyone stays poor.¶ It's good
America has rule of law. It's good we have a military to defend us from foreign attacks,
police that keep the peace, courts that ensure contracts are honored, environmental rules
that punish polluters.¶ But now our government goes way beyond that. It employs 22
million people. Not all have the power to impose force on the rest of us, but millions do.
Some use it to bully us in big and petty ways.¶ Twenty-two million government workers
delay the Keystone XL oil pipeline, raid poker games, force us to put ethanol in cars,
prohibit drugs and medical devices that might make our lives better, take about half our
money, and jail more citizens than even China and Russia do.¶ Like frightened kids in
elementary school, we learn to accept this, to think it's natural. But it's not right that
government forbids people in pain to make their own choices about what might help
them.¶ Voluntary is better than force. Free is better than coerced. We're better off when
government is small and people are left to do as they please, unbullied.
Impacts
Coercion risks the worst atrocities
Harry Browne, 2003 (Libertarian Presidential candidate and executive director of
public policy at American Liberty Foundation)
http://www.jrbooksonline.com/pdf_books/why_govt_doesnt_work.pdf
Magazine, financial advisor and economist, Why Government Doesn’t Work, pg 66-67)
The reformers of the Cambodian revolution claimed to be building a better
world. They forced people into reeducation programs to make them better citizens. Then they used
force to regulate every aspect of commercial life. Then they forced office
workers and intellectuals to give up their jobs and harvest rice, to round
out their education. When people resisted having their lives turned upside
down, the reformers had to use more and more force . By the time they
were done, they had killed a third of the country’s population, destroyed
the lives of almost everyone still alive, and devastated a nation. It all began
with using force for the best of intentions—to create a better world. The
Soviet leaders used coercion to provide economic security and to build a
“New Man”—a human being who would put his fellow man ahead of
himself. At least 10 million people died to help build the New Man and the
Workers’ Paradise. But human nature never changed—and the workers’ lives were always Hell, not
Paradise. In the 1930s many Germans gladly traded civil liberties for the economic
revival and national pride Adolf Hitler promised them. But like every other
grand dream to improve society by force, it ended in a nightmare of
devastation and death. Professor R.J. Rummel has calculated that 119 million people
have been killed by their own governments in this century. Were these
people criminals? No, they were people who simply didn’t fit into the New
Order—people who preferred their own dreams to those of the reformers. Every time you allow
government to use force to make society better, you move another
step closer to the nightmares of Cambodia, the Soviet Union, and
Nazi Germany. We’ve already moved so far that our own government can perform with impunity the
outrages described in the preceding chapters. These examples aren’t cases of
government gone wrong; they are examples of government—period. They
are what governments do—just as chasing cats is what dogs do. They are
the natural consequence of letting government use force to bring about a
drug-free nation, to tax someone else to better your life, to guarantee your
economic security, to assure that no one can mistreat you or hurt your
feelings, and to cover up the damage of all the failed government
programs that came before.
That makes life worthless.
Raz 1991 (Joseph Raz, Phd Philosophy, 1991, “THE MORALITY OF FREEDOM”, 1991)
One way to test the thesis of the primacy of action reasons is to think of a person
who is entirely passive, and is continuously fed, cleaned, and pumped full with
hash, so that he is perpetually content, and wants nothing but to stay in the
same condition. It's familiar imaginary horror. How do we rank the success of
such a life? It is not the worst life one can have. It is simply no a life at all. It
lacks activity, it lacks goals. To the extent that one is tempted to judge it more
harshly than that and to regard it as 'negative' life this is because of the
wasted potentiality. It is a life which could have been and was not. We can
isolate this feature by imagining that the human being concerned is mentally and physically affected in a way which rules
Now it is just not really a life at all.
This does not preclude one from say that it is better than human life. It is
simply sufficiently unlike human life in the respects which matter that we
regard it as only a degenerate case of human life. But clearly not being
alive can be better than that life.
out the possibility of a life with any kind of meaningful pursuit in it.
The impact is no value to life – a world in which people are not allowed to make
their own choices concerning the fruit of their labor makes everyone dependent
on the government, nullifying agency and making life not worth living.
(Side constraint – gotta reject every instance.)
Limited government is key to prevent tyranny, which killed more people
than both World Wars combined – the plan provides positive rights, or
entitlements that causally fail to protect the right to life
Erich Weede (Professor of Sociology at the University of Bonn) Winter 2008: Human Rights, Limited
Government, and Capitalism. http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj28n1/cj28n1-3.pdf
Negative rights serve to protect the individual, his liberty, and his property from
coercion and violence. Negative rights prevent others from undertaking some types
of actions, but they do not oblige others to help one. In order to safeguard negative
rights government has to be limited. The link between negative rights and limited
government was already well understood long before the term “human rights”
gained currency. In the late 17th century, Locke ([1690] 2003: 161, 189) wrote: The supreme power
cannot take from any man part of his property without his own consent: for the
preservation of property being the end of government . . . wherever the power, that is put in any
hands for the government of the people, and the preservation of their properties, is applied to other ends, and made
use of to impoverish, harass, or subdue them into arbitrary and irregular commands
of those that have it; there it presently becomes tyranny, whether those that thus
use it are one or many. ¶ The right to life certainly is a fundamental human right. It is a negative right
since it only requires that others do not kill one. In this context, one should recall that about 169
million people have been killed by states or their governments in the 20th century
(Rummel 1994). Communists and National Socialists established the most murderous
regimes. Among the victims of communism, there are tens of millions of deaths from
starvation after the coerced collectivization of agriculture in Stalin’s Soviet Union or
Mao’s China. Although the 20th century suffered two world wars and other bloody wars, fewer people died on the
battlefield or because of bombing campaigns than have been murdered or starved to death by their
own governments. Whoever wants to protect human rights should therefore first of
all focus on the necessity of protecting people from the state and its abuses of
power. ¶ Positive Rights ¶ Positive rights or entitlements commit the state and its officials to undertake
certain types of action—for example, to guarantee certain minimal standards of material well-being.
The American Bill of Rights (1789) is limited to negative or protective rights, while the United Nations
General Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and the European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights (2000) encompass both protective rights
The trend from short lists of negative rights to long lists of negative and
positive rights has been accompanied by a rapid and sustained increase in public
spending in the West (Tanzi and Schuknecht 2000). ¶ Classical liberals, in contrast to people called
“liberals” in 20th century America and “social democrats” in Europe, demanded the primacy of
individual liberty and thereby of protective rights and limited government.
Providing people with entitlements forces the state to curtail the negative rights and
liberties of individuals. In order to fund entitlements the state has to tax (i.e., to take
coercively from) some people in order to provide for others. Entitlements have to rest on coercion and
redistribution—that is, on a greater restriction of negative rights or individual
liberty than would otherwise be necessary. As the balance of achievements and victims of
communism demonstrates, the attempt to provide entitlements did not prevent tens of
millions of deaths from starvation. Actually, the attempt to provide more than negative
rights resulted in something less: the lack of respect of negative and positive rights. As I shall argue,
this association between the attempt to guarantee entitlements by a monopoly of coercion and
central planning is causally related to the repeated failure to protect even the right
to life. ¶
and entitlements.1
Coercion Violates Rights, and Without Rights, We can’t have a Just
Society
Machan, Tibor R., 2003, Professor Emeritus Department of Philosophy @
Auburn University, Research Fellow at Hoover Institution Stanford University,
Passion for Liberty pg.
Some have wanted to dispense with the idea of rights altogether, especially in the wake of so much corrupt discussion of
rights, or rights talk, in our political and legal arena. Professor Heather Gert, among others, has argued for this on the
grounds that each case of rights violation can, supposedly, be reduced to a matter of injuring or harming someone, So
Violating rights is not
the same as injuring or harming someone in a narrower sense. I may violate
someone's rights by depriving her of the chance to make a bad choice, thus not
hurting but in some sense helping her. I would (paternalistically perhaps) impose on her
something that she ought to be free to decide whether to accept or not, but doing
this may not injure or harm her in any immediate manner at all. To take a choice
away from a person does not always result in harming her, yet it is the major
ingredient of violating her rights. What it hampers and violates is the very capacity that is at the root
of what makes a good human life possible. Thus, if as an act of good Samaritanism, I prevent
a person from injecting heroin, I may have benefited her (perhaps only
temporarily), but I have, nevertheless, violated her rights. Furthermore, rights are not the
rights talk is su_perfluous.26Yet dispensing with rights is not as easy as one might think.
kind of moral concept that arises primarily in the context of personal ethics or morality or even of small-scale
social morality. Rights
are general organizing norms—meta-norms, as Rasmussen and Den Uyl
characterize them —for a just community They belong in a constitution. They serve to
establish "borders" around persons to secure for them a sphere of personal
jurisdiction or authority, of sovereignty. From within those borders they are able
to make good judgments about how to live, including whom to invite in and whom
to join on the outside.
28
Affirmative Answers
A2 Solvency- General
Private sector technology is insufficient to explore the
oceans—the federal government is key to improve
technologies that would unlock new exploration capabilities
Munk, 13 - Professor emeritus--Scripps Institution of Oceanography (Walter Munk
2013 “Exploration Seen Through the Lens of Research,”
http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/oceanexploration2020/oe2020_report.pdf)
By 2020, private
sector investments in exploration technology development, specifically for the
the federal investment, but federal partners
play a key role in testing and refining new technologies. Forum participants agreed that a
top priority for a national ocean exploration program of distinction is the development of
mechanisms to fund emerging and creatively disruptive technologies to enhance and
expand exploration capabilities. In addition to significant federal government investment in
ocean exploration technology over time—whether by the U.S. Navy, NASA, NOAA, or other civil- ian
dedicated national program of exploration, exceed
agencies involved in ocean exploration—many felt strongly that to shorten the time from development to unrestricted
adoption, more of the required investment would come from the private sector. These
emerging technologies
will likely include the next generations of ships; remotely operated vehicles; autonomous
underwater vehicles; telepresence capabilities; and new sensors. Most participants felt that
continuing to develop human occupied vehicles should be a much lower priority for a national program than focusing on
autonomous vehicles, sensors, observatories, and communications systems. Participants
also felt that federal
partners in the national program of exploration should play a key role in testing and
refining these technologies as well as working to adapt existing and proven technologies
for exploration. Overall, some of the most important technologies to cultivate are those that
collect physical and chemical oceanographic data, biological data, and seafloor mapping
data.
Privatization conflicts with political opinion
Steve Tadelis, associate professor of business and public policy | 4/3/11 |
New York’s deputy mayor, Stephen
Goldsmith, a champion of privatization, announced plans to
“insource” tasks and services that the city previously privatized and assigned to
contractors and consultants, citing opportunities to save money for the city. Isn’t saving
money the motivation behind recent plans by Florida’s Republican leaders to privatize
prisons and probation services? Governor Tom Corbett of Pennsylvania, likewise,
announced earlier this month that he will study the benefits of privatizing state owned
liquor stores. But he said that it “isn’t about the money. It’s about the principle.
Government should no more run the liquor stores than it should run the pharmacies and
gas stations.” What, then, should governments be providing, and does privatization
actually save money or inflate expenses? The answer is, it depends. There are services that have been proven easy to
privatize, such as garbage collection. The task is simple and well defined: drive the truck, pick up the cans, dump the trash and don’t spill it
on the street. How
do we ensure high quality service? Citizens will complain if it isn’t. But not
everything that seems straightforward is easy to privatize. Take information-technology (IT) services.
There are dozens, if not hundreds of private companies that provide a variety of IT services, making it easy to find qualified private
providers who can bid for, and supply, IT services. But for
governments to use the market mechanism, they
have to specify in advance what services are needed, how they will be delivered, how
success will be confirmed, and how payments will be made. What makes IT services challenging is the
rapid change in the ways we use IT and in the technologies that are used to deliver it. Not long ago I heard a telling story from a city
manager in California. Some city council members suggested that there is no reason to have an in-house IT department when there are so
many excellent private companies that do the same thing. Shortly thereafter, they hired a private firm at a price that was significantly less
than their costs of having an in-house team. Things went great until the first time they asked the company to produce a new report. The
company’s response was “that’s not in the contract and we will have to charge an extra fee.” This made sense. The problem was that every
few weeks a new report or a new analysis was needed for some ongoing activity, leading to a succession of change order requests with extra
payments. Since the company owned the database, the city could not get competitive bids for new changes. Within months, the city had to
hire a part-time employee to deal with change orders. After a couple of years it was clear that the city was paying more than double for the
same quality of IT services they previously received from their former in-house staff. When the two year contract was up for renewal, they
terminated the contract and brought back an in-house team. This kind of problem is not exclusive to local governments. Big corporations
can fall into the same trap. In 2004, Sears, Roebuck and Co. outsourced its IT services to Computer Sciences Corp (CSC). After less than a
year, Sears terminated the $1.6 billion 10-year agreement with CSC and brought the services back in-house. In 2002 Diebold outsourced its
IT services to Deloitte with a 7-year contract in place. In 2006 Diebold backed out of the contract 3 years early and brought back 80 workers
to provide the services in-house. More recently, in July, 2009 Boeing acquired one of its most important contactors, Vought Industries, to
achieve better control over the much delayed production process of Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner. At the heart of these problems lies a conflict of
interest that is present in any outsourcing or privatization relationship. The buyer, or city, seeks to provide a service at lower costs
compared to in-house provision. On the other hand, the contractor wants to make a profit. This tension means that the relationship must be
designed carefully in order to ensure a successful outcome for both local government and private contractor. If
the service that is
outsourced or privatized is difficult to scope, define, bound or monitor, then what the
government may seek and what the contractor delivers are neither aligned nor easily
described. This leads to an imperfect contract for which neither party’s expectations are
adequately accounted for. Costs can skyrocket due to change orders. In a public
procurement setting where there are no immediate market pressures to control costs,
this can lead to long lasting waste. Furthermore, if the service requires adaptation as the
relationship evolves, then the flexibility a government would have with its own workforce
is lost. Politicians like simple messages. The trouble is that political agendas seldom
align with the cost-benefit analysis required for good privatization policy decisions. The
tough part is strategically choosing the right projects and services for privatization that
have a good chance of avoiding outsourcing’s pitfalls. Politicians like simple messages.
Conservatives like to say that “privatization provides good services at low costs,” while
many liberals will claim that “privatization reduces quality and costs jobs.” Both can be right or
wrong, depending on the particulars of the service involved. The ugly part is that political agendas seldom align
with the cost-benefit analysis required for good privatization decisions. An operational
framework for strategically choosing whether or not to privatize a given service requires
an ability to identify both the opportunities from privatization and its potential pitfalls.
We can only hope that Mr. Goldsmith has some people who can do it for the benefit of New York’s citizens.
Privatization Bad
Privatization Funding Bad
We Own It (”5 reasons why privatisation is bad for you”,
http://weownit.org.uk/privatisation, HS)
1. Your services get worse. Private companies do not have a social purpose, their legal
priority is making a profit for shareholders, not putting people first. This means they
may end up cutting corners, or underinvesting in our services. They have a duty to make
as much money as they can. Water companies ignore leaks instead of investing in
infrastructure, while private company involvement in the NHS has been bad for patients.
Private companies also have 'commercially confidential' contracts, so they don't share
information with others; this makes it harder for them to work in partnership to provide
an integrated service. 2. Your costs go up. You pay more, both as a taxpayer and directly
when you pay for public services. Value for money goes down because private companies
must make a profit for their shareholders and they also pay their top executives more
money. This means either we the people, or the government, or both, end up paying
more than they did before. Fares on our privatised railways and buses are the most
expensive in Europe, while people are also being hit with high energy bills. 3. You can’t
hold private companies accountable. If the local council runs a service, you know where
to go to complain. But if a private company runs a service, they are not democratically
accountable to you. That makes it harder for you to have a voice. Academy schools are
less accountable to parents. Atos, the welfare provider, tried to silence disability
campaigners instead of responding to their concerns. 4. Staff are undermined. If you
work in public services, privatisation will make your life harder. A Europe-wide study
found that privatisation has had ‘largely negative effects on employment and working
conditions’. There are often job cuts and qualified staff are replaced with casual workers,
who are paid less and have worse conditions. This has a knock-on effect on the service
being provided – for example, in the cases of care workers or court interpreters. 5. It’s
difficult to reverse Once our public services are privatised, it's often difficult for us to get
them back. Not only that, we lose the pool of knowledge, skills and experience that public
sector workers have acquired over many years. We also lose integration across different
services (private companies often don't share information because it's 'commercially
confidential').
Privatization is bad
Addicting Info 9/29 (Wendy Gittleson, 9/29/12, “9 Reasons Why Business People
Are Terrible At Governing”, http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/09/29/9-reasons-whybusiness-people-are-terrible-at-governing/, HS)
1. Companies are in business for one reason and one reason only…to make money. They
are not in business to serve their employees or even their customers. A corporation is
legally obligated to put profit above all else. This philosophy typically boils down to
making the cheapest product the market will allow (or offering the least amount of
service) and selling it at the highest price the market will allow. It’s one thing if your cell
phone has a built in life span of six months to two years. It’s quite another for the
electrical power grid. 2. Businesses do not care about their customers. I know. That
statement is a little cold. They spend billions in advertising convincing us that they care
about us. They truly want us to have clean clothes. They want us to have a clean
environment. They want your children to frolic in fields. They sell you that toy just so
your child can see you as the hero you are. They want you to be happy. Actually, no
where in the corporate charter does it talk about customer happiness or even customer
satisfaction. Sure, if a competitor is making their customers happy, there might be some
incentive to go in that direction, but ultimately, it’s about the shareholders and only the
shareholders. It’s easier and cheaper to improve the marketing than it is to improve the
product or service. In other words, it’s fine to sell defective products, as long as they can
manipulate a certain percentage of the people into believing they are buying a good
product at a good price, their shareholders are happy. If the marketing campaign is really
good, they will convince their customers that product defects are normal (as with many
electronics) and that they should pay to replace their defective product with the next
generation of the very same defective product.
Private Businesses go bankrupt
Addicting Info 9/29 (Wendy Gittleson, 9/29/12, “9 Reasons Why Business People Are
Terrible At Governing”, http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/09/29/9-reasons-whybusiness-people-are-terrible-at-governing/, HS)
9. Finally, businesses can, and do do something that would be unacceptable for the US
Government…they go bankrupt. In all fairness, government runs best when represented
by a variety of backgrounds. Business people do have a place in government as do trash
collectors, artists and even community organizers. It runs best with a variety of
perspectives. It runs best when it is run by We the People.
USFG Good Achievements
The USFG has already established many solid programs on its
own; public criticism is unfounded
Martha J. Pierce is a member of The Olympian’s Board of Contributors June 17, 2013
http://www.theolympian.com/2013/06/17/2587880/many-reasons-we-need-astrong.html#storylink=cpyhttp://www.theolympian.com/2013/06/17/2587880/many-reasons-we-need-a-strong.html
For more than 50 years there has been a drumbeat of propaganda downgrading
government: Government can do nothing right, and government is the problem. At first
the attack was on the size of government and all its employees. From the Great
Depression through World War II, government needed to employ those whom the
private sector would not. During WWII, many were needed to conduct the war effort. Some of those were dollar-a-year men
volunteering to work for that sum as a service to their country. In the post-WWII years, government remained large, helping other nations
to recover from the devastation of the war years (the Marshall Plan). By 1954, a Cold War mentality had become the norm in our society,
and the war in Korea required the continuation of a war bureaucracy. The John Birch Society emerged, creating fear of communism using
George Kennan’s Domino Theory as a threat of what was going to happen to this nation. Today,
conservatives of all
stripes continue a disdain for government. Disdain hides the real issue behind all of this.
Small government means no government. Take back the Constitution means reinterpret
that document to appeal to special interests. A social safety net means a sanctimonious
morality for a few. Citing a fear of socialism means ending Social Security and Medicare.
Privatize everything. Never admit there are limits to privatization. Some conservatives
believe they understand the Constitution because they have memorized that document. I
doubt they have read “The Federalist Papers.” The language is a little antique to read
comfortably. Yet Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay made the
Constitution very clear for all, including our own generation. As our revolution ended, the Industrial
Revolution was escalating in England. Essays written by these men stated that government is good, necessary and has utility. Writing to
explain the Constitution, they said: preserve the governments of the states, preserve the union and encourage improvements in
infrastructure — to speed growth in a young nation in debt. Hamilton was the one who clearly understood that governments do not function
without income. Eventually Hamilton instituted a national bank, a prototype of today’s Federal Reserve. His idea was that a public/private
bank would give those with wealth a stake in the new nation. Taxation is essential. These men recognized the federal government had a role
in equitably distributing tax funds across the states. The men of the Federalist Papers and creators of the Constitution were not socialists
per se, but they understood the limits of states to provide all that was needed. The
private sector was perceived as a
partner, not a preferred substitute for government. Colonists were never overtaxed any
more than we are today. They did have similar problems regarding those who wanted
young businesses to be independent of English regulation. In fact, the Boston Tea Party
was really about bailing out the East India Co. from near bankruptcy in exchange for a
small increase in taxes (Wall Street and the auto industry today). Change is accelerating
faster than many can cope with; therefore, the assumption is that things were easier and
simpler in the past. We face global competition today, mind-boggling technological
change and fear that society is losing something of value. Individuals fear government is
cheating them of freedom. For the young, there is a great deal of hope, and many are on
the frontier of change that will provide both progress and a social safety net that will ease
economic disruptions. Can we afford it all? Yes. Many overseas investors still value this
nation’s economy, primarily for safety, and will continue to loan us money. National fear
is unfounded.
Room for Improvement
Douglas J. Amy, Professor of Politics at Mount Holyoke College, 2010
http://www.governmentisgood.com/articles.php?aid=8
As impressive as the accomplishments of government are in the U.S., there is clearly
room for it to play a much more constructive role in people’s lives. In fact, many
Americans sense this already. One of the most common complaints about government is
that it is not doing enough to address a whole raft of problems. Sure the air is cleaner than it was,
but we still have major smog problems in many cities. Of course we have done much to reduce poverty among the elderly,
but a high level of poverty among the general population still exists. And while energy efficiency has improved, we still
have an economy that is dangerously dependent on oil and other fossil fuels. Some
may be tempted to
conclude from these situations that government simply can’t do anything more to help –
that we have reached the limits of what government can do in these areas. But this is not
the case. We know that government could actually do much more. How do we know this?
Because governments in many other advanced democracies have already done much
more to effectively address these problems.
Our Government’s Accomplishments have gone understated
Rex Nutting, Sept. 27, 2011, 12:00 a.m. EDT
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-10-best-things-government-has-done-for-us-2011-09-26
a.) Protecting our freedoms. Our political and economic rights are the foundation of our
democracy and capitalist economy. Without them, we’d be nothing.
We often think of our rights as a protection against the heavy hand of government, but
we shouldn’t ignore the contribution that the people through their government have
made in expanding those rights since the early days of the republic, when they applied
only to white men with property. Liberals who look fondly upon the government as a
benevolent force often do so because the federal government was on their side in the
great battles to abolish slavery and to extend rights to African-Americans, women,
Native Americans, immigrants, workers, gays and many others. Liberals don’t like big
government; they like a good and just government. For their part, conservatives want a
government that enforces property rights and protects us against tyranny.
b.) Giving away the land.
The United States developed as one of the most egalitarian nations in history, mostly
because the government gave away millions of acres of land and sold more at rockbottom prices to regular people who worked that land and made it productive. From the
Land Ordinance of 1785 right on to the Homestead Act of 1862, the government offered
cheap or free land to people who would have been serfs or indentured servants in any
other society. The government gave poor but hard-working people a stake in their
country. Other government programs gave away valuable mining and timber land for a
pittance. Many a fortune owes its genesis to the government.
c.) Educating everybody.
Our economy and democracy would be impossible without an educated, skilled populace.
From the beginning of our nation, offering free and universal public education has been
one of the most important functions of government. The federal government has always
had a role, from the 1785 Land Act and the land-grant colleges established under Lincoln
to the GI Bill and beyond. It’s no accident that America leads the world in technological
innovation.
Link Turn
A federal operational commitment to exploration is key to
getting the most private investment on board
Newton, 13 - Ph.D., Executive Director, Northwest Association of Networked
Ocean Observing Systems; Principal Oceanographer, University of Washington Applied
Physics Laboratory; and Affiliate Assistant Professor, University of Washington School of
Oceanography (Jan, “DEEP SEA CHALLENGE: INNOVATIVE PARTNERSHIPS IN
OCEAN OBSERVATION” S. HRG. 113–268, 6/13, gpo.gov)
Private foundations are well suited to funding large equipment (e.g., buoys, radars), new
technologies (e.g., sensors), or infrastructure (e.g., building, ship, computer). NANOOS has benefited from two different
$500K awards from the Murdock Charitable Trust for observing equipment (buoys, gliders, sensors). These groups like to
offer large sums for discrete items from time to time. Another example would be in funding grand challenges like the Xprize being offered by private industry for a low cost, accurate pH sensor. However,
funding for the sustained
operations and maintenance (O&M) is critical for ocean observing systems and is best suited
to the Federal Government, because of the stability needed for assurance of the
data and information. Foundations and private industry do not offer opportunities for O&M grants, to my
knowledge. Leveraging is quite effective for infrastructure, platforms, data systems, and other ‘‘items.’’ In NANOOS, we
use a single buoy for many diverse sensors and applications. We leverage the NANOOS data visualization system to serve
many diverse data streams. But we
have no way to support the people’s jobs to maintain the buoy
or run the data system on a continuous basis except for through Federal or other governmental
funding. The nation has a National Science Foundation that serves well our ocean science research. IOOS leverages
those results every day, since the observing technologies, modeling capabilities and analytical capabilities stem from these
investments. We
must balance national funding for sustained ocean observations, such as
IOOS, in order to maintain the jobs required to keep the observations coming, the
models running, and the information products and data flowing to the public.
Private sector models federal action
Sielen, 14 - Senior Fellow for International Environmental Policy at the Center for
Marine Biodiversity and Conservation at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (Alan
B, “Sea Change: How to Save the Oceans,” 4/16,
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/141198/alan-b-sielen/seachange?sp_mid=45656665&sp_rid=aHVyd2pzMTJAd2Z1LmVkdQS2)
The oceans of studies on dying seas have done nothing to stop their devastation. In a 2011
report, the Oxford-based International Program on the State of the Ocean wrote that the planet faced “losing marine
species and entire marine ecosystems, such as coral reefs, within a single generation.” Last month, the United Nations
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported that the effects of human-induced climate change are already farreaching. It also singled out ocean acidification. As the oceans absorb higher levels of carbon, the more acidic water
threatens coral reefs, shellfish, and other marine life. The experts only confirm what people around the world see every
day: marshland, once teeming with wildlife, paved over; subsistence fishermen in poor countries driven from the ocean by
industrial fishing; recreational fishermen chasing fewer and smaller fish farther out to sea; surfers getting hepatitis shots
before entering sewage-contaminated waters; families on vacation snorkeling through coral bone-yards. In the
Chesapeake Bay, the United States’ largest estuary, harvests of native oysters have fallen to less than one percent of
historic levels due to the combined effects of overfishing, disease, and habitat destruction. There
is no shortage of
international recommendations, action plans, and other prescriptions for restoring the
oceans’ health. The 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, the 2002
Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development, and the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable
Development (Rio+20) all put forward different ways to protect the oceans from pollution and overfishing, preserve
biological diversity, and help developing countries build the scientific and institutional capacities to run effective
conservation and management programs of their own. The calls for action have brought some victories, such as
international rules limiting what oil tankers discharge into the sea, a global ban on the disposal of nuclear waste into the
ocean, and the creation of marine reserves, or protected areas of the ocean. But as
much as these measures
helped, they have not eliminated all the other threats to the seas. Government leaders
are in a unique position to seize the bully pulpit. In the United States, successes under
both Republican and Democratic administrations are reminders of what is possible.
Russell Train, chairman of U.S. President Richard Nixon’s Council on Environmental Quality, led efforts to secure
an international agreement on prohibiting the dumping of toxic waste into the ocean at
the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm. In 1977,
U.S. President Jimmy Carter, responding to a series of tanker accidents off U.S. shores, called for a major international
treaty on tanker safety and pollution prevention. Eleven months later, industries and most maritime countries backed two
major international agreements: the MARPOL Protocol to prevent pollution from ships and the SOLAS Protocol for the
safety of life at sea. Steady
U.S. leadership contributed to the adoption in 1993 of a global ban
on dumping radioactive waste into the ocean. In 2006, U.S. President George W. Bush established the
Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument, the world’s largest ocean preserve. Where
government goes, the private sector can follow. Some businesses, nongovernmental
organizations, and research institutions have brought the message of ocean health home
to more and more people by educating consumers about such things as sustainable
fisheries and the health dangers of industrial chemicals. Through a $53 million grant from
Bloomberg Philanthropies, two environmental organizations and an investment firm recently joined forces to revitalize
fishing off the coasts of Brazil, the Philippines, and Chile. In
the United States, one of those
organizations, Oceana, is also working with the energy industry and Congress to expand
offshore wind production. But these are, by and large, the exceptions. Too often, government and industry have
failed in their duty to safeguard the seas. The National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon spill concluded that
“systematic failures in both industry practices and government policies” led to the spill. For years, the United States and
other countries often stretched the definition of freedom of navigation -- a crucial principle of international law -- to avoid
strict environmental standards and enforcement for vessels. Exaggerated concern over environmental regulation by
defense and commercial interests continues today on issues such as restrictions on the military use of sonar to protect
whales, dolphins, and other marine life and the creation of special shipping routes in ecologically sensitive areas to bypass
endangered species. Although few would tolerate bulldozing the California redwoods or Madagascar’s baobab, industrial
fishing fleets get away with destroying underwater Edens. The United States still hasn’t ratified the 1982 United Nations
Law of the Sea Convention, which established international rules for all uses of the oceans and their resources. As a result,
the United States cannot fully participate in negotiations over how the convention
applies to competing claims on continental shelf resources in the Arctic, or to protecting
U.S. waters from pollution originating in other countries. ALL OR NOTHING Restoring the
oceans will require a shift in how governments and societies act, including a fundamental
transformation in the use and management of energy, agriculture, and natural resources
in general. Achieving substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, transitioning
to clean energy, eliminating the worst toxic chemicals, and cutting pollution from fertilizers and pesticides in
watersheds will not be easy. All those are the results of long-standing political factors,
economic behaviors, and consumer choices. Take climate change and ocean acidification. They are related to so many
other pressing problems -- rising seas, extreme weather, destruction of ecosystems, loss of biological diversity, species
extinction, drought, disease, food and freshwater scarcity, and the astronomical costs of responses -- that any strategy for
the seas’ renewal is an empty vessel without concerted action on climate change and ocean acidification. The
ultimate
policy prescriptions for those problems might be clear -- carbon taxes, conservation, legally binding
international rules to limit greenhouse gas emissions, enforceable environmental standards across industries, and
advanced fuel systems, from better batteries to fuel cells. But
they are still years away.
Coercion Answers
Government Coercion isn’t Inherently Bad. It can be Justified
Edward Glaeser, 2007 (Edward Glaeser is the Fred and Eleanor Glimp professor of economics at Harvard
University. He serves as the director of the Taubman Center for State and Local Government and as director of the
Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston at the Kennedy School of Government.)
http://www.cato-unbound.org/2007/05/11/edward-glaeser/coercive-regulation-balance-freedom
But, as Klein notes, just
because something is coercive, doesn’t mean that it is wrong. The
coercive power of the state is useful when it protects our lives and property from outside
harm. If we think that state-sponsored redistribution is desirable, then we are willing to
accept more coercion to help the less fortunate. We also rely on state-sponsored coercion
regularly when writing private contracts. The ability of creditors to collect depends on
the power of the state to coerce borrowers.¶ The great difficulty is that coercion is both necessary and
terrifying. For millenia, governments have abused their control over the tools of violence. The historical track record
insists that we treat any governmental intervention warily. What principles help us decide on the appropriate limits to
government-sponsored coercion? Are minimum wage laws acceptable coercion or do they fall outside of the pale?¶ I start
with the view that individual freedom is the ultimate goal for any government. The ultimate job of the state is to increase
the range of options available to its citizens. To me, this is not a maxim, but an axiom that is justified by both philosophy
and history. On a basic level, I believe that human beings are the best judges of what is best for themselves. I also believe
that the right to make our own decisions is an intrinsically good thing. I also believe that people become better decisionmakers through the course of regularly making their own decisions. Moreover, the historical track record looks a lot better
for governments that put freedom first. The liberal democracies, defined by their affection for liberty, have been far better
for their citizens, than alternatives, whether Communist or Fascist, that enforced state-sponsored visions of how people
should live their lives.¶ A belief in the value of liberty flows strongly through mainstream neoclassical economics.
Economists frequently speak about an aim of maximizing utility levels, and this is often mistranslated as maximizing
happiness. Maximizing freedom would be a better translation. The only way that economists know that utility has
increased is if a person has more options to choose from, and that sounds like freedom to me. It is this attachment to
liberty that makes neoclassical economists fond of political liberty and making people richer, because more wealth means
more choices.¶ There is a recent wave of scholarship suggesting that the government can help individuals be happy by
reducing their choices. While happiness may be a very nice thing, it is neither the obvious central desiderata for private or
public decision-making. On a private level, I make decisions all that time that I expect to lower my level of happiness,
because I have other objectives. On a public level, I can’t imagine why we would want to privilege this emotion over all
other goals. A much better objective for the state is to aim at giving people the biggest range of choices possible, and then
let people decide what is best for them.¶ But putting freedom first doesn’t mean abandoning the state. At the very least, we
rely on the government to protect our private property against incursions by others. Even
most libertarians
think that it is reasonable for the state to enforce contracts. This enforcement increases
the range of contractual options and this, in a way, expands liberty.¶ While these forms of state
action are readily defensible, many of the thorniest questions involve tradeoffs between the liberty of one person and the
liberty of another. Taking wealth from Peter and giving it to Paul increases the choices available to Peter and decreases the
choices available to Paul. Governmental coercion to redistribute income cannot be opposed purely on the grounds that it
restricts liberty. Certainly, redistribution reduces the freedom of the taxpayer but it increases the options of the recipient
of governmental largesse.¶ With this lengthy preamble, let me switch to the minimum wage and related restrictions on the
ability to contract. The minimum wage reduces the options available to the employer, who must pay his workers more. It
also reduces the freedom of both employer and employee, both of whom lose the ability to contract at a lower wage.
Opposing this loss of freedom is an increase in the options available to workers who remain employed and now earn a
higher wage. While I am no fan of higher minimum wages, I can imagine settings in which the increase in the freedom of
the still-employed workers could be more important than the offsetting losses to individual liberty. We cannot get to a
clear answer on the minimum wage on the basis of an axiomatic desire to increase the range of choices available to
individuals, because we are trading one person’s choices against the choices of another.¶ Perhaps one might come to a
clear view on the minimum wage by hewing to an uncompromising belief in freedom to contract.
More Government Does Not Mean Less Freedom.
Libertarianism and Libertarian Mindsets are Just ways of
Stopping Left Wing Initiatives
Douglas J. Amy, Professor of Politics at Mount Holyoke College, 2007
http://www.governmentisgood.com/articles.php?aid=18more-government-does-not-mean-less-freedom/&print=1
"The
size and extent of government activity, by itself, tells us nothing about how free or
oppressive a society is."¶ Despite the claims of conservatives, there is no necessary tradeoff between government size and the freedom of its citizens.¶ "FREEDOM!" has always been a
rallying cry of anti-government activists. Many conservatives embrace and extol the libertarian principle that “Individual
freedom and government power are polar opposites. More government means less freedom.”1 For them, the trade-off
between government size and individual liberty is inevitable, and this is the main reason they work to minimize
government.¶ As Ronald Reagan once put it: “Runaway government threatens … the very preservation of freedom itself.”2
Charlton Heston, speaking to a college audience in the 1990s, argued that the government had become more than just a
threat, that it had already reached oppressive proportions in the United States: ¶ There is now no aspect of American life,
public or private, that the federal government does not invade, instruct and finally coerce to its will. Farm and factory,
home and school, university and research center, club and playground – all are overlaid with a spidery network of laws,
guidelines, restrictions and Draconian penalties that stifle the spirit, the energy, the creative capacity of what was once the
freest nation on earth. In this hemisphere, now that Ortega and Noriega have fallen, the collectivists' sentiments
discredited around the world fly best, I fear, in Cuba and Washington, D.C.3¶ Heston’s views may seem extreme, but it is
important to realize that many Americans are concerned about government impinging on their freedoms. Almost a third
of us believe that the federal government “poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens.”
And many people resent it fiercely whenever the government prevents them from doing what they want to do – whether it
is riding a motorcycle without a helmet, filling in a wetland on their property, or carrying a gun for their own protection. ¶
Bashing the government in the name of freedom can be a very effective political tactic.
After all, freedom is quintessentially American. It is our most basic political value and a fundamental part of our national
political identity. We are “the land of the free” as we sing in our national anthem. And
so, to the extent that
government can be portrayed as interfering with our individual rights and freedoms, it
will be seen as bad – as anti-American.¶ The political right's ability to convince many
Americans that there is an inevitable trade-off between government and freedom has
been one of its greatest ideological victories. In one stroke, it renders illegitimate
virtually all liberal policy initiatives. Any effort to expand social programs or increase
regulation becomes seen as an attack on freedom. If you value freedom, it is argued, you should
strongly oppose any increase in public sector activity. If you love freedom, you should hate government. ¶ Or so it seems.
In reality, this view of the relationship between freedom
and government is incomplete, distorted, and often wrong. It relies almost entirely on a
misleading stereotype: government as “Big Brother.” But if we can step back and look at the
performance of our democratic government in a more objective and less dogmatic way, we
begin to see that many of the basic conservative and libertarian assumptions about
government and freedom are mistaken.¶ No Necessary Trade-off Between Government and Freedom¶ Let’s
But things are not always as they seem.
start by seeing what is wrong with the assumption that there is an inevitable trade-off between government and our
individual rights and liberties. Former U.S. House Majority Leader Dick Armey put this assumption succinctly: “The
sheer mass of our federal government is simply inconsistent with a free society.”5 But it is a mistake to believe that the
size or extent of government has anything to do with how oppressive it is. For example, you could have a country with a
minimal public sector that was very repressive to its citizens. It would have low taxes, few social service programs, and
hardly any regulations on business. But it could also be incredibly oppressive – allowing only one-party elections, banning
free speech, muzzling the press, preventing freedom of assembly, jailing people arbitrarily, etc. On the other hand, we
could have a society with a public sector much larger than we have now that has all the freedoms of a modern democracy.
Belgium, for example, has a public sector almost twice the size of the United States as a proportion of GDP, and has much
more extensive health care, unemployment, and pension programs. Yet Belgian citizens enjoy essentially the same rights
and liberties as Americans. We see very few Belgian political refugees applying for asylum in the U.S. because they are
oppressed in their homeland.¶ So the size and extent of government activity, by itself, tells us nothing about how free or
oppressive a society is. The necessary trade-off
simply does
between government size and citizen’s freedom
not exist. And the reason it does not exist is because many of the most
common activities of the modern state – building roads and highways, putting out fires,
fighting disease, treating our sewage, providing college loans, funding basic scientific
research, providing medical care for the elderly, supplying clean water, feeding the poor,
providing parks and recreational facilities, subsidizing farmers, educating our children,
forecasting the weather, sending out Social Security checks, and so on – are not
inherently coercive or oppressive at all. So it is simply mistaken to automatically equate more
government with less freedom.¶ The minimal-government crowd uses this “more government =
less freedom” formula to make all sorts of alarmist claims. For example, some suggest
that every increase in government power is a step down the road to totalitarianism and
repression. This is a favorite argument of many conservatives and they use it to oppose
even small and seemingly reasonable increases in government programs or regulations.
For example, they argue that if we allow the government to insist on background checks to buy guns, this will lead to
mandatory gun registration, which will eventually lead to confiscation of guns, and this will put the government in a
position to repress a disarmed and helpless citizenry. Or they suggest that legalizing assisted-suicide for terminally ill
patients will only set the stage for government euthanasia programs aimed at the handicapped and others. Or they fear
that mandating non-smoking areas is merely a step toward outlawing cigarettes altogether. Or they contend that if we
allow environmental regulations to restrict how an owner deals with wetlands on their property, we are going down a road
in which property rights will eventually be meaningless because the state will control all property. This seems to be the
view of the conservative judge Janice Rogers – one of George W. Bush’s appointees to the federal judiciary. In one of her
opinions, she railed against local restrictions on the rights of real estate developers in California and concluded that
“Private property, already an endangered species in California, is now entirely extinct in San Francisco."6 ¶ In his book,
Defending Government, Max Nieman has labeled this argument the “Big Brother Road to Dictatorship.” It suggests that
the expansion of government powers in the U.S. during the last 75 years has been inevitably leading us down the path
toward totalitarianism. But as he has noted, there is really no valid evidence for this theory. If
we look at how
modern dictatorships have come about, they have not been the product of gradually
increasing social programs and regulations over property and business. As Neiman explains:¶ It
is common among conservative critics of public sector activism to characterize government growth in the arena of social
welfare, environment, consumer and worker protection, and income security as steps toward the loss of liberty and even
totalitarianism. Many critics of the emergence of the modern social welfare state … have tried to convey the sense that the
road to totalitarian hell is paved with the good intentions of the social democratic program. …There is no record, however,
of any oppressive regime having taken power by advancing on the social welfare front. Lenin and Stalin, Mussolini, Mao
Tse-tung, Fidel Castro, and Chile’s Pinochet did not consolidate power by gradually increasing social welfare programs,
taxes, and regulation of the environment or workplace. Rather, these assaults on personal freedom and democratic
governance involved limitation on civil rights and political rights, the legitimization of oppression and discrimination
against disfavored or unpopular groups, and the centralization and expansion of military and policy forces. Hitler did not
become the supreme ruler of the Nazi state by first taking over the health department.
Perm: Do the Plan and reject ALL other instances of
unnecessary coercion
Coercion is Fine and Moral as Long as it’s Reasonable. A World
without Coercion is Inconsistent with Nature
Lord Keynes, 2011 (Lord Keynes is a world-renowned blogger with over 1200 posts and over 13,000 page
views. His bibliography for this story is: Maxwell, S. 2000. The Price is Wrong: Understanding What Makes a Price Seem
Fair and the True Cost of Unfair Pricing, John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, N.J. and Mises, L. 1998 [1949]. Human Action: A
Treatise on Economics, Ludwig von Mises Institute, Auburn.)
http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2011/05/coercion-and-taxation-is-theft-argument.html
I see one of the latest responses to one of my previous posts is this:¶ “Your statists simply refuse to analyze human activity
as voluntary on the one hand or the result of hostile force and/or fraud on the other, the Rothbardian test. That is because
unsophisticated people understand the difference quite well and would see what a nest of theft and fraud the Keynesian
program is.Ӧ I am well aware of the difference between forced and voluntary behaviour, and the
simple truth is
that you cannot live in a world without some degree of reasonable force and coercion (the
operative word being “reasonable”). For example, your wife or child is about to walk in front of a
speeding car, and there is no time to yell a warning. Do you:¶ (1) Use coercion to stop
them from being killed or injured by grabbing them, or¶ (2) Do nothing because coercion
is always wrong.¶ If you do what any normal, moral human being does, you do (1), and that
course of action can be defended as a moral and right thing to do on many ethical theories. If you choose (2), on the
grounds that nobody can be subject to involuntary coercion at any time, you are revealed as an utterly immoral idiot, to
my mind. The crucial point is that when coercion occurs it must be justifiable. To say that coercion is reasonable is to say
that it is justifiable in a convincing way, on some grounds. ¶ We
are told by some Austrians (perhaps not the more
nobody should be subject to involuntary coercion at all, and
usually they appeal to natural rights arguments and nature. But I doubt whether such
libertarian concepts really are consistent with nature. Take this libertarian insistence
that we must be free from any coercive authority, done without our consent. This is a
radical violation of one fundamental part of human nature: the relationship of parents to
children. How can you raise children without using coercion without their consent? You
can’t. The alternative is letting children run wild. Reasonable coercion is necessary, in so far as it does not conflict with
intellectually sophisticated ones) that
the legal rights that all human beings are given under the law.¶ But to return to the comment above, it is a typical version
of the “taxation is theft” argument. ¶ First of all, how would Austrians know that all people who pay taxes regard this as
theft? It
is natural to dislike paying taxes, but evidence suggests that many people – a
majority – think it is the moral thing to do:¶ “The IRS Oversight Board conducted an independent poll in
2005 that found 96 percent of the respondents agreed ‘it is every American’s civic duty to
pay their fair share of taxes.’¶ The Pew Research Center in a similar study in 2006 found 79 percent of the
respondents said that cheating Uncle Sam was ‘morally objectionable.’¶ Certainly, Americans pay their taxes because they
have to: ever since 1945, taxes have been automatically withdrawn from pay-checks. But people also comply because they
think it is fair. Polls show that most Americans think only ‘a few’ people cheat on their taxes. Paying
taxes, just like
leaving a tip, is a social norm” (Maxwell 2000: 146).¶ Yes, Americans might dislike paying tax,
but it appears a majority think it is both fair and right, just as you might dislike looking after a
troublesome, obnoxious teenage child, even though you recognise that this is the right thing to do and the law says you
must do so as a parent. ¶ With regard to modern taxes which pay for public goods, it appears to me that it is the
Austrians/libertarians who are in the minority. But, of course, just because a majority of people think something is moral,
this does not necessarily make it so. You need a defensible moral theory to justify some action as right. This issue cuts
right to questions about philosophy of ethics.¶ If two people (a libertarian and Keynesian, say) wanted to seriously debate,
they would have to ask:¶ (1) Is there an objective theory of ethics?¶ If one person does not believe in objective ethics, then
the debate collapses into whether ethics is objective or subjective. Also, anyone who believes that morality is subjective can
just appeal to David Gauthier’s Morals by Agreement and come up with some contractarian theory in which, if a majority
of people assent to living by certain rules, then this is perfectly defensible ethics. If
one takes David Gauthier’s
Morals by Agreement as a method for ethics, then modern social democratic states
already have a majority that supports basic principles like progressive taxation, so it
appears to have ample justification.¶ But the statement “taxation is theft” seems to require that some
objective ethical theory is true, however, so:¶ (2) If both people agree that ethics is objective, then what ethical system is
true?¶ Our morality cannot be justified by an appeal to nature: that is why most natural rights/natural law based ethics
collapse, and why natural rights ethics in the Rothbardian or Randian tradition won’t fly.¶ In my opinion, the workable
objective theories of ethics that are not obviously flawed are Rawl’s human rights ethics, or rule
consequentialism/utilitarianism (as in Brad Hooker, 2000, Ideal Code, Real World, Oxford University Press, Oxford).
Some claim that a modern form of Kantian ethics is defensive, though I have my doubts.¶ Since taxes are levied to provide
public goods and services (e.g., universal health care in all industrializied nations except the US), it is not difficult to
justify them morally under Rawl’s human rights ethics or rule consequentialism.¶ Also, since in every ethical system some
values will conflict, where does human life and the preservation of human life rank in these systems?¶ The belief that
taxation is theft obviously implies that property rights are absolute or at least high in value. But why on earth should
property rights rank above human life? Under rule consequentialism even the initiation of force involved in taking wealth
might be perfectly justified, e.g.,¶ (1) If a village of 100 people has one well which is in the possession of one man, who
suddenly refuses to give water to anyone else, and there is no rain or any other water and people are dying of thirst, can
the dying people use force against the man (but not kill or wound him) to take what water they need just to survive?
(leaving him of course with his proper share).¶ If a person said “no,” I would conclude that the person is morally bankrupt
(since I regard rule consequentialism as defensible theory). If “yes,” then it is obvious that rule utilitarianism allows the
use of reasonable force to take some reasonable amount of property, if people's lives or welfare are at stake.¶ In fact,
utilitarianism as a moral theory was also held by Ludwig von Mises, who rejected natural rights, and used utilitarianism to
justify a minimal state and limited interventions like fire regulations:¶ “There is, however, no such thing as natural law and
a perennial standard of what is just and what is unjust. Nature is alien to the idea of right and wrong. “Thou shalt not kill”
is certainly not part of natural law. The characteristic feature of natural conditions is that one animal is intent upon killing
other animals and that many species cannot preserve their own life except by killing others. The notion of right and wrong
is a human device, a utilitarian precept designed to make social cooperation under the division of labor possible. All moral
rules and human laws are means for the realization of definite ends. There is no method available for the appreciation of
their goodness or badness other than to scrutinize their usefulness for the attainment of the ends chosen and aimed at”
(Mises 1998 [1949]: 716).¶ “Economics neither approves nor disapproves of government measures restricting production
and output. It merely considers it its duty to clarify the consequences of such measures. The choice of policies to be
adopted devolves upon the people. But in choosing they must not disregard the teachings of economics if they want to
attain the ends sought. There are certainly cases in which people may consider definite restrictive measures as justified.
Regulations concerning fire prevention are restrictive and raise the cost of production. But the curtailment of total output
they bring about is the price to be paid for avoidance of greater disaster. The decision about each restrictive measure is to
be made on the ground of a meticulous weighing of the costs to be incurred and the prize to be obtained. No reasonable
man could possibly question this rule” (Mises 1998 [1949]: 741).¶ Perhaps is time for Austrians to attack Mises as an “evil”
statist who advocated using coercion to enforce fire codes?¶ Progressive taxes and Keynesian macroeconomic management
of an economy are justifiable on utilitarian grounds. As
for the libertarian minority who disagree, there
is no reason why a minority of people with a debased sense of morality should not pay
their share.
The Disad is Non-unique, Coercion Happens all the Time
Fetissenko, Maxim, 2008 (“Behaviorism, Performance Management, and the Inevitability of Coercion in
Conflict Resolution and Prevention” Maxim Fetissenko is a Professor of Communications Studies at Northeastern
University) http://citation.allacademic.com//meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/2/5/7/5/4/pages257540/p257540-4.php
The example of the tax collection process in the United States (or in any other country) demonstrates punishment’s
essential systemic role. Few would disagree with the idea that some form of taxation is necessary for maintaining the
There is
little doubt that eliminating the prospect of punishment for not paying taxes
and choosing to rely, instead, exclusively on “rational persuasion” would
inevitably result in a bankrupt treasury. And this example is far from unique. Legitimate coercion is
basic infrastructure of any state. Yet, even with the existing strict penalties, tax evasion is not uncommon.
part of everyday life in all societies, and many uses of punishment are accepted as indispensable tools of behavior control
governments may attempt to maintain a monopoly on the use of armed force, but they
are not the only agents utilizing punishment, which, of course, is not limited to the use of
armed force. Examples of routine applications of punishment range from an
employer using a disciplinary action to get his workers to arrive at work on
time, to a parent “grounding” her child for misbehavior. Moreover, in many
everyday communication situations we often rely on coercion (as defined in the
sociological sense of the term) without realizing it. Miller (1980) suggests: “much persuasive
discourse is indirectly coercive. In other words, the persuasive
effectiveness of messages often depends heavily on the credibility of
threats and promises proffered by the communicator” (p. 12). There is little doubt that he
at all social levels. Indeed,
is right. Coexistence of Persuasion and Coercion Inhabitants of any modern (or not so modern) society have two options
when it comes to accepting the rules of conduct which they would not be inclined to adopt on their own: a) they can
“voluntarily” agree to accept such rules as legitimate (one could say, be persuaded to accept or b) they can choose to
reject such rules, and then the society will attempt to force a change in the dissidents’ attitudes and behavior through
some application of punishment