Summary

• Objects (1 modified, 1 added, 0 removed)
  • Caselist.RoundClass[18]
  • Caselist.CitesClass[16]

Details

Caselist.RoundClass[18]

EntryDate

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1		-2017-01-02 20:02:24.787
	1	+2017-01-02 20:02:24.0

Caselist.CitesClass[16]

Cites

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	1	+Link depends on AC
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	3	+capitalism inevitably leads to violent expansion; the impact is war and extinction
	4	+Foster, Oregon University Department of Sociology Professor, 05
	5	+(John B., Monthly Review, http://www.monthlyreview.org/0905jbf.htm, September, accessed 7/8/09, JD)
	6	+From the longer view offered by a historical-materialist critique of capitalism, the direction that would be taken by U.S. imperialism following the fall of the Soviet Union was never in doubt. Capitalism by its very logic is a globally expansive system. The contradiction between its transnational economic aspirations and the fact that politically it remains rooted in particular nation states is insurmountable for the system. Yet, ill-fated attempts by individual states to overcome this contradiction are just as much a part of its fundamental logic. In present world circumstances, when one capitalist state has a virtual monopoly of the means of destruction, the temptation for that state to attempt to seize full-spectrum dominance and to transform itself into the de facto global state governing the world economy is irresistible. As the noted Marxian philosopher István Mészáros observed in Socialism or Barbarism? (2001)—written, significantly, before George W. Bush became president: “What is at stake today is not the control of a particular part of the planet—no matter how large—putting at a disadvantage but still tolerating the independent actions of some rivals, but the control of its totality by one hegemonic economic and military superpower, with all means—even the most extreme authoritarian and, if needed, violent military ones—at its disposal.”The unprecedented dangers of this new global disorder are revealed in the twin cataclysms to which the world is heading at present: nuclear proliferation and hence increased chances of the outbreak of nuclear war, and planetary ecological destruction. These are symbolized by the Bush administration’s refusal to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty to limit nuclear weapons development and by its failure to sign the Kyoto Protocol as a first step in controlling global warming. As former U.S. Secretary of Defense (in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations) Robert McNamara stated in an article entitled “Apocalypse Soon” in the May–June 2005 issue of Foreign Policy: “The United States has never endorsed the policy of ‘no first use,’ not during my seven years as secretary or since. We have been and remain prepared to initiate the use of nuclear weapons—by the decision of one person, the president—against either a nuclear or nonnuclear enemy whenever we believe it is in our interest to do so.” The nation with the greatest conventional military force and the willingness to use it unilaterally to enlarge its global power is also the nation with the greatest nuclear force and the eadiness to use it whenever it sees fit—setting the whole world on edge. The nation that contributes more to carbon dioxide emissions leading to global warming than any other (representing approximately a quarter of the world’s total) has become the greatest obstacle to addressing global warming and the world’s growing environmental problems—raising the possibility of the collapse of civilization itself if present trends continue. The United States is seeking to exercise sovereign authority over the planet during a time of widening global crisis: economic stagnation, increasing polarization between the global rich and the global poor, weakening U.S. economic hegemony, growing nuclear threats, and deepening ecological decline. The result is a heightening of international instability. Other potential forces are emerging in the world, such as the European Community and China, that could eventually challenge U.S. power, regionally and even globally. Third world revolutions, far from ceasing, are beginning to gain momentum again, symbolized by Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution under Hugo Chávez. U.S. attempts to tighten its imperial grip on the Middle East and its oil have had to cope with a fierce, seemingly unstoppable, Iraqi resistance, generating conditions of imperial overstretch. With the United States brandishing its nuclear arsenal and refusing to support international agreements on the control of such weapons, nuclear proliferation is continuing. New nations, such as North Korea, are entering or can be expected soon to enter the “nuclear club.” Terrorist blowback from imperialist wars in the third world is now a well-recognized reality, generating rising fear of further terrorist attacks in New York, London, and elsewhere. Such vast and overlapping historical contradictions, rooted in the combined and uneven development of the global capitalist economy along with the U.S. drive for planetary domination, foreshadow what is potentially the most dangerous period in the history of imperialism.
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	8	+the alternative is to challenge capitalism through a methodology of historical materialism; that’s key mobilizing the economic base; knowledge fuels the revolution
	9	+Lukacs 67 (George, Hungarian Marxist philosopher and literary critic. He is a founder of the tradition of Western Marxism. He contributed the ideas of reification and class consciousness to Marxist philosophy and theory, and his literary criticism was influential in thinking about realism and about the novel as a literary genre. He served briefly as Hungary's Minister of Culture as part of the government of the short-lived Hungarian Soviet Republic, History and Class Consciousness)
	10	+Historical materialism has, therefore, a much greater value for the proletariat than that of a method of historical research. It is one of the most important of all its weapons. For the class struggle of the proletariat signifies at the same time the awakening of its class consciousness. And this awakening followed everywhere from an understanding of the true situation, of the actually existing historical connections. And it is this that gives the class struggle of the proletariat its special place among other class struggles, namely that it obtains its sharpest weapon from the hand of true science, from its clear insight into reality. Whereas in the class struggles of the past the most varied ideologies, religious, moral and other forms of 'false consciousness' were decisive, in the case of the class struggle of the proletariat, the war for the liberation of the last oppressed class, the revelation of the unvarnished truth became both a war-cry and the most potent weapon. By laying bare the springs of the historical process historical materialism became, in consequence of the class situation of the proletariat, an instrument of war. The most important function of historical materialism is to deliver a precise judgement on the capitalist social system, to unmask capitalist society. Throughout the class struggle of the proletariat, therefore, historical materialism has constantly been used at every point, where, by means of all sorts of ideological frills, the bourgeoisie had concealed the true situation, the state of the class struggle; it has been used to focus the cold rays of science upon these veils and to show how false and misleading they were and how far they were in conflict with the truth. For this reason the chief function of historical materialism did not lie in the elucidation of pure scientific knowledge, but in the field of action. Historical materialism did not exist for its own sake, it existed so that the proletariat could understand a situation and so that, armed with this knowledge, it could act accordingly. 224-225
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	12	+Historical materialism provides a methodology that breaks open societal contradictions while allowing each person to understand their cultural relationship to capital-this is key to self liberation
	13	+McNight 10
	14	+Andrew N. McNight, University of Alabama at Birmingham, A Pragmatic and pedagogically Minded Revaluation of Historical Materialism, Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, vol.8. no.2, http://www.jceps.com/PDFs/08-2-04.pdf
	15	+It is this elucidation of historical materialism that I feel provides theoretically fertile ground for pragmatic application. As will be restated later, there is play between the base and the superstructure, especially regarding the cultural outcroppings of the material. However, the field of analysis provides a means by which we may examine these relationships and perhaps denude contradictions and false consciousness within class relations. It is communicative action toward some kind of economic liberations that is sought through, as Williams (1977) put it, ―three senses that would direct our attention . . . (a) institutions; (b) forms of consciousness; (c) political and cultural practices‖ (77). In this sense we find some degree of harmony with Dewey (1927), that the interplay among the historically created material conditions, the individual consciousness, and that of cultural identity within a plurality of groups/classes. He states, From the standpoint of the individual, it consists in having a responsible share according to capacity in forming and directing the activities of the group to which one belongs in participating according to need in the values with the groups sustain. From the standpoint of the groups, it demands liberation of the potentialities of members of a group in harmony with the interests and goods which are in common. Since every individual is a member of many groups, this specification cannot be fulfilled except when different groups interact flexibly and fully in connection with other groups. (147) The flexibility interaction mentioned for Dewey is inevitable, unless there is to be complete obliteration of one or more of the constituent groups via some kind of class totalization, one that denies identity with multiple groups and the potential common interests among groups although differently expressed, perhaps. The plurality of voices and the endeavor of multiple social analyses within a historical materialist framework may very well aid us in distinguishing ―the phrases and fancies of parties from their real organism and their real interests‖ (47), aforementioned by Marx. This is the site of pedagogy in my view—where students of various ages and backgrounds might accurately discover their own cultural location and point it toward ―liberation of the potentialities of members of a group in harmony with the interests and goods which are in common‖ (147), aforementioned by Dewey as the ethical outcome. Admitted, his interpretation may represent a bit of a break between a pragmatist‘s view and more rigid versions of Marxian thought, one that will be given context in the next section.
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	19	+The role of the ballot is to interrogate competing methodologies. As long as you think our alternative provides the best methodology on how to eradicate capitalism, you vote neg on our offense.
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	21	+And, our role of the ballot solves two separate disads to their framework:
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	23	+Epistemology DA: Our primary ethico-policital responsibility is to challenge capitalism; their scholarship is inherently flawed because any policy-making which fails to challenge this system contributes to its normalization in politics
	24	+Zizek and Daly 04 (Slavoj and Glyn, Conversations with Zizek pg. 14-16)
	25	+For Zizek it is imperative that we cut through this Gordian knot of postmodern protocol and recognize that our ethico-political responsibility is to confront the constitutive violence of today's global capitalism and its obscene naturalization/ anonymization of the millions who are subjugated by it throughout the world. Against the standardized positions of postmodern culture – with all its pieties concerning 'multiculturalist' etiquette – Zizek is arguing for a politics that might be called 'radically incorrect' in the sense that it breaks with these types of positions' and focuses instead on the very organizing principles of today's social reality: the principles of global liberal capitalism. This requires some care and subtlety. For far too long, Marxism has been bedevilled by an almost fetishistic economism that has tended towards political morbidity. With the likes of Hilferding and Gramsci, and more recently Laclau and Mouffe, crucial theoretical advances have been made that enable the transcendence of all forms of economism. In this new context, however, Zizek argues that the problem that now presents itself is almost that of the opposite fetish. That is to say, the prohibitive anxieties surrounding the taboo of economism can function as a way of not engaging with economic reality and as a way of implicitly accepting the latter as a basic horizon of existence. In an ironic Freudian-Lacanian twist, the fear of economism can end up reinforcing a de facto economic necessity in respect of contemporary capitalism (i.e. the initial prohibition conjures up the very thing it fears). This is not to endorse any kind of retrograde return to economism. Zizek's point is rather that in rejecting economism we should not lose sight of the systemic power of capital in shaping the lives and destinies of humanity and our very sense of the possible. In particular we should not overlook Marx's central insight that in order to create a universal global system the forces of capitalism seek to conceal the politico-discursive violence of its construction through a kind of gentrification of that system. What is persistently denied by neo-liberals such as Rorty (1989) and Fukuyama (1992) is that the gentrification of global liberal capitalism is one whose 'universalism' fundamentally reproduces and depends upon a disavowed violence that excludes vast sectors of the world's population. In this way, neo-liberal ideology attempts to naturalize capitalism by presenting its outcomes of winning and losing as if they were simply a matter of chance and sound judgement in a neutral marketplace. Capitalism does indeed create a space for a certain diversity, at least for the central capitalist regions, but it is neither neutral nor ideal and its price in terms of social exclusion is exorbitant. That is to say, the human cost in terms of inherent global poverty and degraded 'life-chances' cannot be calculated within the existing economic rationale and, in consequence, social exclusion remains mystified and nameless (viz. the patronizing reference to the 'developing world'). And Zizek's point is that this mystification is magnified through capitalism's profound capacity to ingest its own excesses and negativity: to redirect (or misdirect) social antagonisms and to absorb them within a culture of differential affirmation. Instead of Bolshevism, the tendency today is towards a kind of political boutiquism that is readily sustained by postmodern forms of consumerism and lifestyle. Against this Zizek argues for a new universalism whose primary ethical directive is to confront the fact that our forms of social existence are founded on exclusion on a global scale. While it is perfectly true that universalism can never become Universal (it will always require a hegemonic-particular embodiment in order to have any meaning), what is novel about Zizek's universalism is that it would not attempt to conceal this fact or to reduce the status of the abject Other to that of a 'glitch' in an otherwise sound matrix.
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	27	+Exclusion DA: Normalization of neoliberalism eradicates civic participation by silencing the voices of marginalized classes and excluding them from political engagement; eradicating economic inequality is a prerequisite to policy education
	28	+Hay 04, PHD POLSIS, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham
	29	+(Colin, Economy and Society Volume 33 Number 4 November 2004: 500-527 p.523-4)
	30	+Accordingly, however depoliticized and normalized neoliberalism has become, it remains a political and economic choice, not a simple necessity. This brings us naturally to the question of alternatives. A number of points might here be made which follow fairly directly from the above analysis. First, our ability to offer alternatives to neoliberalism rests now on our ability to identify that there is a choice in such matters and, in so doing, to demystify and deconstruct the rationalist premises upon which its public legitimation has been predicated. This, it would seem, is a condition of the return of a more normative and engaging form of politics in which more is at stake than the personnel to administer a largely agreed and ostensibly technical neoliberal reform agenda. Second, the present custodians of neoliberalism are, in many cases, reluctant converts, whose accommodation to neoliberalism is essentially borne of perceived pragmatism and necessity rather than out of any deep normative commitment to the sanctity of the market. Thus, rather than defend neoliberalism publicly and in its own terms, they have sought instead to appeal to the absence of a choice which might be defended in such terms. Consequently, political discourse is technocratic rather than political. Furthermore, as Peter Burnham has recently noted, neoliberalism is itself a deeply depoliticizing paradigm (2001), whose effect is to subordinate social and political priorities, such as might arise from a more dialogic, responsive and democratic politics, to perceived economic imperatives and to the ruthless efficiency of the market. As I have sought to demonstrate, this antipathy to ‘politics’ is a direct correlate of public choice theory’s projection of its most cherished assumption of instrumental rationality onto public officials. This is an important point, for it suggests the crucial role played by stylized rationalist assumptions, particularly (as in the overload thesis, public choice theory more generally and even the time-inconsistency thesis) those which relate to the rational conduct of public officials, in contributing to the depoliticizing dynamics now reflected in political disaffection and disengagement. As this perhaps serves to indicate, seemingly innocent assumptions may have alarmingly cumulative consequences. Indeed, the internalization of a neoliberalism predicated on rationalist assumptions may well serve to render the so-called ‘rational voter paradox’ something of a self-fulfilling prophecy.12 The rational voter paradox / that in a democratic polity in which parties behave in a ‘rational’ manner it is irrational for citizens to vote (since the chances of the vote they cast proving decisive are negligible) / has always been seen as the central weakness of rational choice theory as a set of analytical techniques for exploring electoral competition. Yet, as the above analysis suggests, in a world constructed in the image of rationalist assumptions, it may become depressingly accurate. Political parties behaving in a narrowly ‘rational’ manner, assuming others (electors and market participants) to behave in a similarly ‘rational’ fashion will contribute to a dynamic which sees real electors (rational or otherwise) disengage in increasing numbers from the facade of electoral competition. That this is so is only reinforced by a final factor. The institutionalization and normalization of neoliberalism in many advanced liberal democracies in recent years have been defended in largely technical and rationalist terms and in a manner almost entirely inaccessible to public political scrutiny, contestation and debate. The electorate, in recent years, has not been invited to choose between competing programmatic mandates to be delivered in office, but to pass a judgement on the credibility and competence of the respective candidates for high office to behave in the appropriate (technical) manner in response to contingent external stimuli. Is it any wonder that they have chosen, in increasing numbers, not to exercise any such judgement at all at the ballot box? As this final point suggests, the rejection of the neoliberal paradigm, the demystification of its presumed inevitability and the rejection of the technical and rationalist terms in which that defence has been constructed are intimately connected. They are, moreover, likely to be a condition not only of the return of normative politics but also of the re-animation of a worryingly disaffected and disengaged democratic culture.

EntryDate

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	1	+2017-01-02 20:02:27.472

Judge

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	1	+David Henning

Opponent

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	1	+West Des Moines Valley KK

ParentRound

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	1	+18

Round

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	1	+1

Team

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	1	+Appleton East Moorhead Neg

Title

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	1	+0- Capitalism K

Tournament

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	1	+Badgerland