The Debate Resolutions
NOTE: All information provided in readings, lectures, films, and in class discussion are valid sources to use in any given debate. You may also do further research in order to solidify your positions. One good source is the website for your textbook, Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism, by Richard H. Robbins, at http://faculty.plattsburgh.edu/richard.robbins/legacy/. Be sure to know that even if you are not a debater for a given resolution, you are REQUIRED to be able to give evidence supporting and/or refuting each of resolution.
Resolution I: It is central to the successful operation of the culture of capitalism that the consumer be segregated or masked from the consequences of his or her lifestyle on the laborer, on the environment, and on the way of life of those whose degradation makes his or her life possible.
Resolution II: The whole process of capital investment, making a profit, finding the cheapest labor, and so on represents what Karl Marx called commodity fetishism in which the real source of profits and the non-economic consequences of capitalism are largely hidden from view.
Resolution III: The core premise of the culture of consumer capitalism is that commodity consumption is the source of well-being, and Western society becomes a society of perpetual growth. To maintain this culture and society requires the exploitation of most of the world’s resources and peoples.
INEQUALITIES IN THE QUALITY OF LIFE
Resolution I: The problem of world hunger is not a problem of food shortage and under-production, but instead, of the inequalities of local and global food distribution and inadequate food security. (Hint: for a definition of food security, and other relevant terms, see http://www. brown.edu/Departments/World_Hunger_Program/hungerweb/intro/basic_definitions.html
Resolution II: The UN states, “It is reasonable to argue that the health system is fair when the risk of health-care costs faced by each household are related to ability to pay rather than to the risk of illness” (p. 192). Global health is in peril because health care is provided on a market basis.
Resolution III: According to the UN, “In spite of progress achieved in the provision of adequate housing and related infrastructure, the number of people that have to do with out remains unacceptably high” (p. 200). They argue, also, that state governments must play an important role in housing policy. But governments can’t do much, because the problems in this area are bigger than their ability to solve them.
IMPERIALISM, DEBT, AND NATION-STATES
(Practice Resolution) In the process of providing
financial support to stricken economies, the IMF is essentially reducing the
risks of international financial investors, while, at the same time,
transferring the suffering to ordinary citizens of stricken countries.
Resolution I: In order to provide the economic integration required for the smooth functioning of the economy, the modern state must convince its populace that they share a common culture or destiny. This is accomplished largely through the state control of mandatory education.
Resolution II: The nation-state will soon be replaced by new institutions, the most important being the transnational corporation.
Resolution III: The growth in importance of the non-governmental organization (NGO), or the non-profit sector, is largely the result of the withdrawal of the state from the provision of services (health, education, welfare, etc.) that it had, traditionally, provided.
POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT
Resolution I: Since food in the culture of capitalism is simply one of hundreds of thousands of commodities, hunger is largely a matter of people not having enough money to purchase it.
Resolution II: The fact that people are starving to death because they haven’t the money to buy food is obscured by calling starvation “malnutrition,” and treating it as a medical problem. The major solution to hunger is building entitlements and focusing on the economic well-being of women.
Resolution III: The specter of population growth is a device used in the culture of capitalism to shift the blame for global problems to their victims, and to obscure the real cause, perpetual and uneven economic growth.
ENVIRONMENT AND DISEASE
Resolution I: It is not only impossible to sustain the culture of capitalism at its present rate of consumption, but the expansion of that culture and its consumption habits to other areas of the globe will vastly accelerate environmental collapse. Moreover, given the nature of the culture of capitalism, it is impossible to halt the destruction of the environment.
Resolution II: Every culture or age has its characteristic illness and disease; for the culture of capitalism, characteristic diseases are those linked to poverty, hunger, and environmental devastation, and the increasing disparity in wealth between the rich and the poor.
Resolution III: AIDS, above all illnesses, is the signature disease of the culture of capitalism.
INDIGENOUS PEOPLES AND ETHNICITY
Resolution I: “A careful examination of the conditions of indigenous peoples before and after their incorporation into the world market economy leads to the conclusion that their standard of living is lowered, not raised, by economic progress—and often to a dramatic decline.” – John Bodley
Resolution II: The cultures of indigenous peoples are vulnerable to destruction from capitalist expansion partially because their way of life differs so significantly from that in the culture of capitalism.
Resolution III: If we examine cases of purported “ethnic conflict” we generally find that it involves more than “ancient hatred”; even the “hatreds” we find are relatively recent, and constructed by those ethnic entrepreneurs taking political advantage of situations rooted in colonial domination and fed by neo-colonial exploitation.
RESISTANCE AND REBELLION
Resolution I: Capitalism is revolutionary in the sense that to foster perpetual growth, it must constantly revolutionize the factors of production, promote ever increasing consumption, and, consequently, regularly modify patterns of social, political, and economic relations.
Resolution II: The goal of most peasant resistance is not necessarily to overthrow a system of oppression or domination, but, rather, to survive. This makes perfect sense since, given the structure of the modern economy, peasant or small-scale agriculture cannot survive.
Resolution III: The subjugation of women is rooted in the patterns of economic exploitation endemic to the culture of capitalism.
URBANIZATION / FUTURISTIC PROJECTIONS
Resolution I: The rise of industry has been associated with a process of urban growth in which most people in developed countries have come to live in towns. However, industrial development does not fulfill its promises of a better life, because it does not provide jobs for all those who move to cities in response to the displacement.
Resolution II: The future of capitalism must be marked by the continuing concentration of wealth in the hands of a few, and the growing impoverishment of the many.
Resolution III: Since the culture of capitalism must continually destroy the environment, expand economic hardship, and create continual conflict and resistence, it must inevitably collapse and be replaced by either a socialist world government or highly localized, independent, and self-sufficient cultures.