CDL Core Files 2014/2015

Capitalism Critique

Index
NEG

Capitalism Critique Negative

Capitalism Critique Negative

Capitalism 1NC [1/3]................................................................................................................2

Capitalism 1NC [2/3]................................................................................................................3
Capitalism 1NC [3/3]...............................................................................................................4
2NC / 1NR Extensions: A/T #1 No Link [1/1]....................................................................5
2NC / 1NR Extensions: A/T #2 Capitalism Good [1/1].....................................................6
2NC / 1NR Extensions: A/T #3 Permutation [1/1]............................................................7
2NC / 1NR Extensions: A/T #4 Key to the Environment [1/1].........................................8
2NC / 1NR Extensions: A/T #5 Alternative Fails [1/2].....................................................9
2NC / 1NR Extensions: A/T #5 Alternative Fails [2/2]...................................................10
Plan-Specific Link: Aquaculture [1/1].....................................................................................11
Plan-Specific Link: Offshore Wind [1/1]................................................................................12
Plan-Specific Link: Oil Drilling [1/1]......................................................................................13
Plan-Specific Link: Coral Reef Exploration [1/1]...................................................................14

Answers follow in the same file.

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Capitalism Critique

1NC Shell
NEG

Capitalism 1NC [1/3]

A. Link ocean exploration and development are part and parcel of capitalisms
project of exploitation.
Clark and Claussen 2005
[Brett Clark and Rebecca Clausen. Professors of Sociology at North Carolina State-Raleigh and Fort Lewis,
respectively. The Metabolic Rift and Marine Ecology: An Analysis of the Ocean Crisis within Capitalist Production
2005. http://courses.arch.vt.edu/courses/wdunaway/gia5524/clausen.pdf]

We have reached a point where the cumulative and ongoing human effect on the oceanic environment is
threatening the biological integrity of marine ecosystems. In turn, the ability of marine environments to
provide livelihoods for those who depend on the sea is placed at risk. The body of scientific knowledge
about oceanic systems presents a sobering lesson on the coevolution of human society and the marine
environment during the capitalist industrial era. The June 2003 Pew Oceans Commission report to the
nation highlights this concern: Marine life and vital coastal habitats are straining under the increasing
pressure of our use. We have reached a crossroads where the cumulative effect of what we take from, and
put into, the ocean substantially reduces the ability of marine ecosystems to produce the economic and
ecological goods and services that we desire and need. What we once considered inexhaustible and
resilient is, in fact, finite and fragile. (p. v) Both land and sea are confronting serious environmental
stresses that threaten their ability to regenerate. The particular problems experienced in each biological
realm cannot be viewed as isolated issues or aberrations, only to be corrected with further technological
development. Rather, these ecological conditions must be understood as they relate to the systematic
exploitation of nature for profit. The negative human health and ecological consequences of capitalist fish
production must be analyzed in relation to an economic system based on the accumulation of capital. The
capacity of humans to transform nature in ways detrimental to societies has long been known. Only
recently, however, have social interactions with nature, as well as ecological limits, become major subjects
for sociological inquiry (Buttel, 1987; Dunlap, 1997; Foster. 1994). As the scale of environmental problems
escalates, the ecological sustainability of human societies is being called into question (Buell, 2003;
Commoner, 1971 ; Ehrlich & Holdren, 1971 ; Foster, 2002; Vitousek, Mooney, Lubchenko, & Melilo, 1997).
The oceans serve as a critical realm where society interacts with nature. A historical materialist approach
illuminates how the human relationship with the ocean has changed over time as specific social and
economic conditions evolved. Although social science has been slow to examine issues related to oceans,
the range of social issues (sustenance, employment, transportation, pollution, etc.) related to the seas
demands more attention.

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CDL Core Files 2014/2015

Capitalism Critique

1NC Shell
NEG

Capitalism 1NC [2/3]

B. Impact capitalist pillage of the ocean risks extinction as a result of ecological
destruction and ruthless competition
Clark and Claussen 2008
[Brett Prof Sociology at the University of Utah. And Rebecca Prof Sociology at Fort Lewis. The Oceanic Crisis:
Capitalism and the Degradation of Marine Ecosystem The Monthly Review, 2008.
http://monthlyreview.org/2008/07/01/the-oceanic-crisis-capitalism-and-the-degradation-of-marine-ecosystem/]

Oceans that were teeming with abundance are being decimated by the continual intrusion of exploitive
economic operations. At the same time that scientists are documenting the complexity and
interdependency of marine species, we are witnessing an oceanic crisis as natural conditions, ecological
processes, and nutrient cycles are being undermined through overfishing and transformed due to global
warming. The expansion of the accumulation system, along with tech- nological advances in fishing, have
intensified the exploitation of the world ocean; facilitated the enormous capture of fishes (both target and
bycatch); extended the spatial reach of fishing operations; broadened the species deemed valuable on the
market; and disrupted metabolic and reproductive processes of the ocean. The quick-fix solution of
aquaculture enhances capitals control over production without re- solving ecological contradictions. It is
wise to recognize, as Paul Burkett has stated, that short of human extinction, there is no sense in which
capitalism can be relied upon to permanently break down under the weight of its depletion and
degradation of natural wealth. Capital is driven by the competition for the accumulation of wealth, and
short-term profits provide the immediate pulse of capitalism. It cannot operate under conditions that
require reinvestment in the reproduction of nature, which may entail time scales of a hundred or more
years. Such requirements stand op posed to the immediate interests of profit. The qualitative relation
between humans and nature is subsumed under the drive to accumulate capital on an ever-larger scale.
Marx lamented that to capital, Time is everything, man is nothing; he is at the most, times carcase.
Quality no longer matters. Quantity alone decides everything.Productive relations are concerned with
production time, labor costs, and the circulation of capitalnot the diminish- ing conditions of existence.
Capital subjects natural cycles and processes (via controlled feeding and the use of growth hormones) to
its economic cycle. The maintenance of natural conditions is not a concern. The bounty of nature is taken
for granted and appropriated as a free gift. As a result, the system is inherently caught in a fundamental
crisis arising from the transformation and destruction of nature. Istvn Mszros elaborates this point,
stating: For today it is impossible to think of anything at all concerning the ele-mentary conditions of
social metabolic reproduction which is not lethally threatened by the way in which capital relates to them
the only way in which it can. This is true not only of humanitys energy requirements, or of the
management of the planets mineral resources and chemical potentials, but of every facet of the global
agriculture, including the devastation caused by large scale de-forestation, and even the most
irresponsible way of dealing with the element without which no human being can survive: water itself....In
the absence of miraculous solutions, capitals arbitrarily self-asserting attitude to the objective
determinations of causality and time in the end inevitably brings a bitter harvest, at the expense of
humanity [and nature itself].

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Capitalism Critique

1NC Shell
NEG

Capitalism 1NC [3/3]

C. Alternative vote negative to reject their endorsement of capitalism. Imagining
an economic movement away from capitalism achieves real, concrete change.
White and Williams 2012
[Richard White Senior Lecturer of Economic Geography at Sheffield Hallam University. And Cohn Williams
Professor of Public Policy in the Management School at University of Sheffield. Capitalist Hegemony: Rereading
Western Economics in the Accumulation of Freedom, 2012. Pg 131-32]

The American anarchist Howard Ehrlich argued, "We must act as if the future is today." What we have
hoped to demonstrate here is that non-capitalist spaces are present and evident in contemporary
societies. We do not need to imagine and create from scratch new economic alternatives that will
successfully confront the capitalist hegemony thesis, or more properly the capitalist hegemony myth.
Rather than capitalism being the all powerful, all conquering, economic juggernaut, the greater truth is
that the "other" non-capitalist spaces have grown in proportion relative in size to the capitalism realm.
This should give many of us great comfort and hope in moving forward purposefully for, as Chomsky
observed: "[a]lternatives have to be constructed within the existing economy, and within the minds of
working people and communities."' In this regard, the roots of the heterodox economic futures that we
desire do exist in the present. Far from shutting down future economic possibilities, a more accurate
reading of "the economic" (which decenters capitalism), coupled with the global crisis that capitalism
finds itself in, should give us additional courage and resolve to unleash our economic imaginations,
embrace the challenge of creating "fully engaged" economies. These must also take greater account of the
disastrous social and environmental costs of capitalism and its inherent ethic of competition. As
Kropotkin wrote: Don't compete!-competition is always injurious to the species, and you have plenty of
resources to avoid it! Therefore combine-practice mutual aid! That is the surest means for giving to each
and all to the greatest safety, the best guarantee of existence and progress, bodily, intellectual, and
moral .... That is what Nature teaches us; and that is what all those animals which have attained the
highest position in the respective classes have done. That is also what man [ski-the most primitive
man-has been doing; and that is why man has reached the position upon which we stand now." A more
detailed and considered discussion of the futures of work, however, is beyond the scope of this chapter.
What we have hoped to demonstrate is that in reimagining the economic, and recognizing and valuing the
non-capitalist economic practices that are already here, we might spark renewed enthusiasm, optimism,
insight, and critical discussion within and among anarchist communities. The ambition here is similar to
that of Gibson-Graham, in arguing that: The objective is not to produce a finished and coherent template
that maps the economy "as it really is" and presents... a ready made "alternative economy." Rather, our
hope is to disarm and dislocate the naturalized dominance of the capitalist economy and make a space for
new economic beeomings-ones that we will need to work to produce. If we can recognize a diverse
economy, we can begin to imagine and create diverse organizations and practices as powerful constituents
of an enlivened non capitalist policies of place.

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Capitalism Critique

2NC / 1NR Extensions

NEG

2NC / 1NR Extensions: A/T #1 No Link [1/1]

1. The affirmative is aligned with capitalist interests. Ocean exploration and
development are not neutral projects, but instead serve to facilitate exploitation for
the expansion of the market. Our 1NC Clark and Claussen evidence says despite the
finite nature of ocean resources, capital interests provide never-ending
justifications for exploitation.
2. [INSERT PLAN-SPECIFIC LINK]

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Capitalism Critique

2NC / 1NR Extensions

NEG

2NC / 1NR Extensions: A/T #2 Capitalism Good [1/1]

1. Capitalism risks extinction. A profit motive exists for unsustainable exploitation
of Earths oceans, which ensures runaway overfishing and habitat destruction. Our
1NC Clark and Claussen evidence says even though capitalists purport to protect the
oceans, when push comes to shove they will always prioritize economic benefits,
which is an unsustainable model.
2. Capitalism is fundamentally unsustainable and risks extinction.
Wise et al 2010
[Raul. Professor of Development Studies at the Universidad Autonoma de Zacatecas (Mexico). Reframing the
Debate on Migration, Development and Human Rights: Fundamental Elements October 2010.
www.migracionydesarrollo.org]

At the end of the first decade of the 21st century, a general crisis centered in the United States affected the
global capitalist system on several levels (Mrquez, 2009 and 2010). The consequences have been varied:
Financial. The overflowing of financial capital leads to speculative bubbles that affect the socioeconomic
framework and result in global economic depressions. Speculative bubbles involve the bidding up of
market prices of such commodities as real estate or electronic innovations far beyond their real value,
leading inevitable to a subsequent slump (Foster and Magdof, 2009; Bello, 2006). Overproduction.
Overproduction crises emerge when the surplus capital in the global economy is not channeled into
production processes due to a fall in profit margins and a slump in effective demand, the latter mainly a
consequence of wage containment across all sectors of the population (Bello, 2006). Environmental.
Environmental degradation, climate change and a predatory approach to natural resources contribute to
the destruction of the latter, along with a fundamental undermining of the material bases for production
and human reproduction (Fola- dori and Pierri, 2005; Hinkelammert and Mora, 2008). Social. Growing
social inequalities, the dismantling of the welfare state and dwindling means of subsistence accentuate
problems such as poverty, unemployment, violence, insecurity and labor precariousness, increasing the
pressure to emigrate (Harvey, 2007; Schierup, Hansen and Castles, 2006). The crisis raises questions
about the prevailing model of globalization and, in a deeper sense, the systemic global order, which
currently undermines our main sources of wealthlabor and natureand overexploits them to the extent
that civilization itself is at risk. The responses to the crisis by the governments of developed countries and
international agencies promoting globalization have been short-sighted and exclusivist. Instead of
addressing the root causes of the crisis, they have implemented limited strategies that seek to rescue
financial and manufacturing corporations facing bankruptcy. In addition, government policies of labor
flexibilization and fiscal adjustment have affected the living and working conditions of most of the
population. These measures are desperate attempts to prolong the privileges of ruling elites at the risk of
imminent and increasingly severe crises. In these conditions, migrants have been made into scapegoats,
leading to repressive anti- immigrant legislation and policies (Massey and Snchez, 2006). A significant
number of jobs have been lost while the conditions of remaining jobs deteriorate and deportations
increase. Migrants living standards have drastically deteriorated but, contrary to expectations, there have
been neither massive return flows nor a collapse in remittances, though there is evidence that migrant
worker flows have indeed diminished.

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Capitalism Critique

2NC / 1NR Extensions

NEG

2NC / 1NR Extensions: A/T #3 Permutation [1/1]

1. The permutation still links to our capitalism impacts. Ocean exploration and
development is inseparable from capitalism because financial interests always
override the oceans well-being. If we win our link arguments, you should reject the
permutation theres no benefit to preferring it over the alternative alone.
2. The permutation is capitalism in disguise. Total rejection is necessary.
Kovel 2002
[Joel. Professor of Social Science at Bard College. The Enemy of Nature, 2002. Pg 142-43]
The value-term that subsumes everything into the spell of capital sets going a kind of wheel of accumulation, from
production to consumption and back, spinning ever more rapidly as the inertial mass of capital grows, and generating
its force field as a spinning magnet generates an electrical field. This phenomenon has important implications for the
reformability of the system. Because capital is so spectral, and succeeds so well in ideologically mystifying its real
nature, attention is constantly deflected from the actual source of eco-destabilization to the instruments by which that
source acts. The real problem, however, is the whole mass of globally accumulated capital, along with the speed of its
circulation and the class structures sustaining this. That is what generates the force field, in proportion to its own
scale; and it is this force field, acting across the numberless points of insertion that constitute the ecosphere, that
creates ever larger agglomerations of capital, sets the ecological crisis going, and keeps it from being resolved. For one
fact may be taken as certain that to resolve the ecological crisis as a whole, as against tidying up one corner or
another, is radically incompatible with the existence of gigantic pools of capital, the force field these induce, the
criminal underworld with which they connect, and, by extension, the elites who comprise the transnational
bourgeoisie. And by not resolving the crisis as a whole, we open ourselves to the spectre of another mythical creature,
the many-headed hydra, that regenerated itself the more its individual tentacles were chopped away. To realize this is
to recognize that there is no compromising with capital, no schema of reformism that will clean up its act by making it
act more greenly or efficiently We shall explore the practical implications of this thesis in Part III, and here need
simply to restate the conclusion in blunt terms: green capital, or non-polluting capital, is preferable to the
immediately ecodestructive breed on its immediate terms. But this is the lesser point, and diminishes with its very
success. For green capital (or socially/ecologically responsible investing) exists, by its very capital-nature, essentially
to create more value, and this leaches away from the concretely green location to join the great pool, and follows its
force field into zones of greater concentration, expanded profitability and greater ecodestruction.

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Capitalism Critique

2NC / 1NR Extensions

NEG

2NC / 1NR Extensions: A/T #4 Key to the Environment [1/1]

1. Capitalism isnt key to the environment it destroys the environment. The
motives that underlie the plan are driven by the competition for wealth and shortterm gain. Capitalism and environmental sustainability are mutually exclusive
because capitalism cannot operate under conditions that require protecting nature.
Thats our 1NC Clark and Claussen evidence.
2. Capitalism destroys the environment
Smith 2007
[Richard. Post-Doctoral Fellow at the East-West Center and Rutgers University. The Ecosuicidal Economics of Adam Smith Capitalism Nature Socialism, Vol 18 N2. 2007. Available
via Proquest]
Despite the difficulty such a massive challenge poses, it does not mean that people have to starve. On the
contrary, if we do not make these cuts and restructure the global economy, not only will millions soon die
from starvation, floods, drought and other catastrophes, but the capitalist engine of ecodestruction will
drive humanity to the brink of collapse, if not extinction. The problem is, given the requirements of
capitalist reproduction, particularly the need to meet shareholder demands for growing profits, no
corporation can cut production and stay in business. Furthermore, any broad effort to slow production
and consumption would only bring on market collapse and economic depression. So, as long as Blair,
Stern, Al Gore, and the rest of the corporate and political elite are committed to maintaining and
perpetuating global capitalism as their first and foremost priority, they have no choice but to subordinate
the environment to growth and consumption, override their own environmental targets, turn themselves
into hypocrites, and doom the future of humanity. To imagine, as they do, that technical innovations,
carbon taxes, "green shopping" and the like will allow production and consumption to spiral endlessly
upward and consume evermore resources while pollution and emissions spiral downward is to live in a
delusional dreamworld of faith-based economics that has no empirical basis.11 Through most of human
history up to around the 17th century, humanity suffered from class structures that put brakes on
productivity growth, institutionalized underproduction as a regular feature of economic life, and so
brought on periodic famines and demographic collapse. But since the advent of the capitalist mode of
production, humanity has both benefitedbut also increasingly sufferedfrom the opposite problem:
crises and consequences of overproduction, which have typically taken the form of economic crashes and
depression. Today, this engine of relentless technological revolution and productivity growth has built an
economy of such power, capacity and scale that it is systematically destroying the very ecological basis of
human life.

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Capitalism Critique

2NC / 1NR Extensions

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2NC / 1NR Extensions: A/T #5 Alternative Fails [1/2]

1. The alternative solves rejecting capitalism allows status quo movements against
it to achieve success. Our 1NC White and Williams evidence says rejecting
capitalism allows us to move toward real alternatives within the existing economy.
2. The alternative solves best. Collections of people against capitalism are gathering
in the status quo a clear vision against capitalism is key to their effective
resistance.
Wise 2009
[Raul. Professor of Development Studies at the Universidad Autonoma de Zacatecas, in Mexico. Forced Migration
and US Imperialism: the Dialectic of Migration and Development Crit Sociol, 2009. Available via Proquest.]

The profound need for change in the structural dynamics and strategic practices at work in the current
schemes of regional integration and neoliberal national development have given way to two types of social
agents, which can be separated into two groups: those from above and those from below. The current
economic project has clearly been implemented from above by the agents of US imperialism in tandem
with Mexican allies. They work within a political coalition that seeks to maintain the privileges of
neoliberal integration and push them to its very limits. In short, this is an actual class project that
promotes economic asymmetries, social inequalities and phenomena such as poverty, unemployment,
labor precarization and migration. In contrast, those below particularly in Mexico are mostly
unhappy and disenchanted, although they sometimes engage in open acts of opposition, resistance, and
rebellion. It is true that there is currently no collective agent that can articulate a project that counters the
one being implemented by neoliberal elites. However, we should point out that a number of dispersed
social alternative movements have willingly, even optimistically, sprung up. The Mexican agricultural
sector, one of the quarters that has been hardest hit by the implementation of NAFTA and is suffering in
the productive, commercial, population and environmental areas, has given rise to movements like El
Barzn (The Plow), El Campo No Aguanta Ms (The Countryside Cant Take Anymore; see Bartra, 2003)
and the campaign Sin Maz no hay Pas (No Corn, no Country). Other denouncers of the neoliberal system
include the Ejrcito Zapatista de Liberacin Nacional (Zapatista Army of National Liberation, EZLN) and
its Otra Campaa (Other Campaign), as well as some sectors of the social and electoral left who have
converged into the Coalicin por el Bien de Todos (Coalition for the Good of All) and the Convencin
Nacional Democrtica (National Democratic Convention). There are also other more or less important
national sociopolitical movements, but what is worth noticing is that the widespread popular discontent
(which could even extend to the majority of Mexicans) is not expressed in an organized manner and has
not produced yet an alternative development project. On a binational level, the actions of opposition
forces have been even more scattered. Initially, the Red Mexicana de Accin frente al Libre Comercio
(Mexican Action Network in Opposition of Free Trade) communicated with likeminded organizations in
the USA and Canada that opposed the signing of NAFTA, but since then its actions (which involve
agreements between unions and social organizations on both sides of the border) have been few and far
between (Brooks and Fox, 2004). The idea that migrants are agents of development has been promoted
for over a decade. This proposal, which is in no way sustainable when applied to large-scale social
processes, suggests that migrants should be held responsible for promoting development in their
countries of origin. And yet, as Fox (2005) has pointed out, migrant society has produced social actors
who operate on three levels: integration into US society (e.g. unions, the media, and religious
organizations); networki ng and promoti on of devel opment i n pl aces of ori gi n (i . e. nati ve
organizations), and binational relationships that combine the previous two (i.e. pan-ethnic organizations).
For example, Mexican migrant organizations fund public works and social projects in their communities
of origin with the aid of the program Tres por Uno.

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Capitalism Critique

2NC / 1NR Extensions

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2NC / 1NR Extensions: A/T #5 Alternative Fails [2/2]

Wise continues, no text deleted
And during the spring of 2006 USA-residing immigrants participated in massive marches in favor of their
working, political, social, and civil rights. As for the latter, Petras (2006) points out that between March
25 and May 1, 2006 close to five million migrant workers and their supporters marched through nearly
100 cities of the US. This, he notes, is the biggest and most sustained workers demonstration in the
history of the USA. In its 50-year history, the US trade union confederation, the AFL-CIO, has never been
capable of mobilizing even a fraction of the workers convoked by the migrant workers movement. The
rise and growth of the movement is rooted in the historical experience of the migrant workers
(overwhelmingly from Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean), the exploitative and racist experience
they confront today in the USA and the future in which they face imprisonment, expulsion and
dispossession. Generally speaking, migrants and their organizations affect the political, social, economic,
and cultural aspects of sending and receiving countries to varying degrees. However, it would be a
theoretical mistake to present migrants themselves as a collective agent of transformation. If we intend to
portray them as agents of development, then we had better examine the strategic projects and structural
dynamics present on the differ- ent planes and levels, as well as the interests that prompt participation
from above and from below. This will allow us to understand the role played by migrants. Stating that
they cannot be considered agents of development does not entail a pessimistic message advocating
immobility. Quite the opposite: this can help us disentangle possible forms of articulation between
migrant organizations and social sectors that seek a new type of development agenda, one that can be
applied on the global, regional, national, and local levels. Only then will we be able to discuss the
configuration of an agent of social trans- formation that includes migrant participation. In any case, as
Petras (2006) has pointed out, [t]he emergence of the mass migrant workers movement opens a new
chapter in the working class struggle both in North America, and Central America. First and foremost it
represents the first major upsurge of independent working class struggle in the USA after over 50 years of
decline, stagna- tion and retreat by the established trade union confederation.

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Capitalism Critique

Plan-Specific Links
NEG

Plan-Specific Link: Aquaculture [1/1]

( ) Aquaculture is fundamentally aligned with capitalism it is designed achieve
capital accumulation
Phyne 1997
[John. Capitalist Aquaculture and the Quest for Marine Tenure in Scotland and Ireland Studies in Political
Economy, 1997. Available via Ebscohost.]

During the enclosure of English agriculture, commoners became subject to poaching violations for
continuing to exercise customary rights which dated from "time immemorial. The law converted common
lands into the private property necessary for capital accumulation. Yet, in England and elsewhere, the
marine environment remained subject to public, private and customary rights. Currently, the introduction
of industrial aquaculture into a multipurpose marine environment presents conflicts analogous to the
struggle for enclosure. Industrial aquaculturalists, like capitalist farmers, want legal and en- forceable
property rights to ensure their interests in capital accumulation." Within the context of late twentieth
century capitalism, however, this is contingent upon the legal frame- work used by the state in coastal
areas.

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Capitalism Critique

Plan-Specific Links
NEG

Plan-Specific Link: Offshore Wind [1/1]

( ) The plan is fundamentally capitalist. Their green revolution simply redistributes exploitation.
White 2002
[Damian. PhD and Research Fellow in the School of Cultural Studies at the University of East London. A Green
Industrial Revolution? Sustainable Technological Innovation in a Global Age Environmental Politics, Vol 11, N2.
2002. Available via JSTOR]

The first point is essentially negative. Notably, it draws attention to the fact that even if all the obstacles to
a green industrial revolution posed by the structuring of the current political economy are addressed ifthere are notforces to make things differently - the type of eco-technological and ecoindustrial
reorganisation that triumphs could simply serve and reinforce the patterns of interest of dominant
groups. A neo-liberal version of the 'green industrial revolution' could simply give rise to eco-technologies
and forms of industrial reorganisation that arc perfectly compatible with extending social control, military
power, worker surveillance and the broader repressive capacities of dominant groups and institutions. It
might even be that a corporate dominated green industrial revolution would simply ensure that employers
have 'smart' buildings which not only give energy back to the national grid but allow for new 'solar
powered' employee surveillance technologies. What of a sustainable military-industrial complex that uses
green warfare technologies that kill human beings without destroying ecosystems? To what extent might a
'nonhero' dominated green industrial revolution simply ensure that the South receives ecotechnologies
that primarily express Northern interests (for example, embedding relations of dependency rather than of
self management and autonomy?). In short then, a green industrial revolution could simply give rise to
new forms of 'green governmentality' [Dorier et aI., 1999].

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Capitalism Critique

Plan-Specific Links
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Plan-Specific Link: Oil Drilling [1/1]

( ) Oil exploration and development is capitalist exploitation, which risks
environmental calamity.
Klaas 2014
[Staff Writer. Capitalism, Peak Oil, and Endless Crisis. 1/17/14 http://anti-imperialism.com/2014/01/17/capitalismpeak-oil-and-endless-crisis]

Because of the abundance of oil in certain areas of the world, accompanied by a peculiar profitability of
capital, the world oil sector presents a very high level of geographical centralization and concentration of
capital, with approximately 100 fields producing 50% of the global supply, 25 producing 25% of it and a
single field, the Ghawar field of Saudi Arabia, producing around 7%. Most of these fields are old and well
past their peak, with the others likely to enter decline within the next decade. Miller argued that
conditions are such that, despite volatility, prices can never return to pre-2004 levels, saying it is highly
likely that when the US pays more than 4% of its GDP for oil, or more than 10% of GDP for primary
energy, the economy declines as money is sucked into buying fuel instead of other goods and service.
What can a Marxist conclude from this open admission of capitalist contradiction and desperation? This
is the most important realization: capitalist crisis is now necessarily endless. There is a crossroad in front
of humanity as a whole and its interest in survival: either end the capitalist mode of production, or accept
the inevitability of a Malthusian nightmare of more hunger, more wars over resources, increasingly social
Darwinist methods of population control, and whatever will be needed to maintain the rule of capital at
the expense of everyone else. Without a steady and cheap supply of oil, there is no capitalism; oil is its
blood. Capital accumulation requires an energy sources which tendentially increases its potential supply;
no such energy source exists, and even if one was found, every part of the technological infrastructure of
capitalist society, running on oil, would take a long time to be retooled or dismantled to give way to new
infrastructure running on this new energy source. This kind of transition would never be feasible in a
world where the rule is exploitation of man by man, and of nation by nation. There can be no painless
solution to an ecological crisis that jeopardizes the future of humanity while world politics revolves
around defending the profits of monopoly capital, and not the general interests of human survival. The
whole point of capitalist production, production for the most immediate profit, stands in contradiction to
the well being of humanity and the production of the conditions required by human life. On top of its own
internal limit of capitalism, capital itself and its over-accumulative tendencies, capitalist production in the
era of imperialism has entered into a conflict with an external limit, something never before seen for a
mode of production on this scale: capitalism is exhausting non-reproducible resources. It is now
necessary for every individual to take up the struggle to put production and distribution under social
control.

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Plan-Specific Links
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Plan-Specific Link: Coral Reef Exploration [1/1]

( ) Conservation and protection efforts obscure capitalisms role in oceanic
destruction this makes continued exploitation inevitable.
Brockington and Duffy 2010
[Dan Brockington is a professor in Conservation and Devlopment at the University of Manchester and has conducted
research in South Africa, India, Tanzania, New Zealand, and Australia. Rosaleen Duffy is a professor at the University
of London, "Capitalism and conservation: the production and reproduction of biodiversity conservation." Antipode
42.3 2010]

One of the central themes of this collection is that conservation is proving instrumental to capitalisms
growth and reproduction. It provides an environmental fix (as Harvey might put it). As Igoe and
colleagues observe (this issue), where Green Marxists have predicted environmental impediments that
would threaten capitalisms prosperity (OConnor 1988), in fact these very impediments are the source of
new forms of accumulation. Consumers thrive on scarcity, anxiety, fear (all help create demand), so
perhaps the flourishing of capitalism in conservation, which deals in similar currency, should not be such
a surprise. It is still important, however, to understand how this union is being achieved. Tackling that
question is one of the main achievements of the essay by Igoe and colleagues. Following Sklair and others
they propose the existence of hegemonic mainstream conservation interests composed of an alliance of
corporate, philanthropic and NGO interests (Sklair 2001). Mainstream conservation (one part of Sklairs
sustainable development historic bloc) proposes resolutions to environmental problems that hinge on
heightened commodity production and consumption, particularly of newly commodified ecosystem
services. Their views are promulgated through a mutually reinforcing collection of spectacularmedia
productions circulated in advertisements and on the web. The power of these productions lies not in their
robustness, logic or rigour, but rather because they are presented and consumed within societies
dominated by spectacle (Debord 1995 [1967]). That is, these are societies where representations of, and
connection to, places, people and causes have long been mediated through commodified images. In
consuming these images people are given the romantic illusion that they are adventurously saving the
world (p 502) while the deleterious ecological impacts of these very purchases, and the lifestyles they
require, are neatly erased. By focusing consumers attention on distant and exotic locales, the spectacular
productions . . . conceal the complex and proximate connections of peoples daily lives to environmental
problems, while suggesting that the solutions to environmental problems lay in the consumption of the
kinds of commodities that helped produce them in the first place (p 504).]

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Capitalism Critique

Index
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Capitalism Critique Affirmative

Capitalism Critique Affirmative 15
2AC Frontline: Capitalism Critique [1/5]...............................................................................16
2AC Frontline: Capitalism Critique [2/5]...............................................................................17
2AC Frontline: Capitalism Critique [3/5]..............................................................................18
2AC Frontline: Capitalism Critique [4/5]...............................................................................19
2AC Frontline: Capitalism Critique [5/5]...............................................................................21

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1. No link the plan is not part and parcel of capitalism. The ocean has been
exploited and polluted as a result of the flawed environmental policies of the past.
The plan moves to resolve these problems.
2. Capitalism is good it prevents extinction
Rockwell 2002
[Lew. President of the Mises Institute. Why They Attack Capitalism 2002 http://mises.org/freemarket_detail.aspx?
control=418 2002]

If you think about it, this hysteria is astonishing, even terrifying. The market economy has created
unfathomable prosperity and, decade by decade, for centuries and centuries, miraculous feats of
innovation, production, distribution, and social coordination. To the free market, we owe all material
prosperity, all our leisure time, our health and longevity, our huge and growing population, nearly
everything we call life itself. Capitalism and capitalism alone has rescued the human race from degrading
poverty, rampant sickness, and early death. In the absence of the capitalist economy, and all its
underlying institutions, the worlds population would, over time, shrink to a fraction of its current size, in
a holocaust of unimaginable scale, and whatever remained of the human race would be systematically
reduced to subsistence, eating only what can be hunted or gathered. And this is only to mention its
economic benefits. Capitalism is also an expression of freedom. It is not so much a social system but the
de facto result in a society where individual rights are respected, where businesses, families, and every
form of association are permitted to flourish in the absence of coercion, theft, war, and aggression.
Capitalism protects the weak against the strong, granting choice and opportunity to the masses who once
had no choice but to live in a state of dependency on the politically connected and their enforcers. The
high value placed on women, children, the disabled, and the aged unknown in the ancient worldowes
so much to capitalisms productivity and distribution of power. Must we compare the record of capitalism
with that of the state, which, looking at the sweep of this past century alone, has killed hundreds of
millions of people in wars, famines, camps, and deliberate starvation campaigns? And the record of
central planning of the type now being urged on American enterprise is perfectly abysmal.

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3. Permutation: do both capitalism is inevitable, but the plan reforms it in ways
that make it sustainable.
Wilson 2001
[John. Progressive Author, Founder of the Institute for College Freedom. How the Left Can Win Arguments and
Influence People: A Tactical Manual for Pragmatic Progressives, 2001. GoogleBooks, Pg 121-3]

Capitalism is far too ingrained in American life to eliminate. If you go into the most impoverished areas of
America, you will find that the people who live there are not seeking government control over factories or
even more social welfare programs; they're hoping, usually in vain, for a fair chance to share in the
capitalist wealth. The poor do not pray for socialism-they strive to be a part of the capitalist system. They
want jobs, they want to start businesses, and they want to make money and be successful. What's wrong
with America is not capitalism as a system but capitalism as a religion. We worship the accumulation of
wealth and treat the horrible inequality between rich and poor as if it were an act of God. Worst of all, we
allow the government to exacerbate the financial divide by favoring the wealthy: go anywhere in America,
and compare a rich suburb with a poor town-the city services, schools, parks, and practically everything
else will be better financed in the place populated by rich people. The aim is not to overthrow capitalism
but to overhaul it. Give it a social-justice tune-up, make it more efficient, get the economic engine to hit on
all cylinders for everybody, and stop putting out so many environmentally hazardous substances. To
some people, this goal means selling out leftist ideals for the sake of capitalism. But the right thrives on
having an ineffective opposition. The Revolutionary Communist Party helps stabilize the "free market"
capitalist system by making it seem as if the only alternative to free-market capitalism is a return to
Stalinism. Prospective activists for change are instead channeled into pointless discussions about the
revolutionary potential of the proletariat. Instead of working to persuade people to accept progressive
ideas, the far left talks to itself (which may be a blessing, given the way it communicates) and tries to sell
copies of the Socialist Worker to an uninterested public.

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4. Capitalism is necessary to sustainable solutions to environmental degradation
Barry 2007
[John. Professor of Politics at the University of Belfast. Towards a Model of Green Political Economy: from
Ecological Modernization to Economic Security The International Journal of Green Economics, Vol 1 N4. 2007.
Available via Ebscohost]

Economic analysis has been one of the weakest and least developed areas of broadly green/sustainable
development thinking. For example, whatever analysis there is within the green political canon is largely
utopian usually based on an argument for the complete transformation of modern society and economy
as the only way to deal with ecological catastrophe, an often linked to a critique of the socioeconomic
failings of capitalism that echoed a broadly radical Marxist/socialist or anarchist analysis; or
underdeveloped due, in part, to the need to outline and develop other aspects of green political theory.
However, this gap within green thinking has recently been filled by a number of scholars, activists, think
tanks, and environmental NGOs who have outlined various models of green political economy to
underpin sustainable development political aims, principles and objectives. The aim of this article is to
offer a draft of a realistic, but critical, version of green political economy to underpin the economic
dimensions of radical views about sustainable development. It is written explicitly with a view to
encouraging others to think through this aspect of sustainable development in a collaborative manner.
Combined realism and radicalism marks this article, which starts with the point that we cannot build or
seek to create a sustainable economy ab nihlo, but must begin from where we are, with the structures,
institutions, modes of production, laws and regulations that we already have. Of course, this does not
mean simply accepting these as immutable or set in stone; after all, some of the current institutions,
principles and structures underpinning the dominant economic model are the very causes of
unsustainable development. We do need to recognise, however, that we must work with (and through
in the terms of the original German Green Partys slogan of marching through the institutions) these
existing structures, as well as change and reform and in some cases, abandon them as either unnecessary
or positively harmful to the creation and maintenance of a sustainable economy and society. Equally, this
article also recognises that an alternative economy and society must be based in the reality that most
people (in the West) will not democratically vote for a completely different type of society and economy.
That reality must also accept that a green economy is one that is recognisable to most people and that
indeed safeguards and guarantees not just their basic needs but also aspirations (within limits). The
realistic character of the thinking behind this article accepts that consumption and materialistic lifestyles
are here to stay (so long as they do not transgress any of the critical thresholds of the triple bottom line)
and indeed there is little to be gained by proposing alternative economic systems, which start from a
complete rejection of consumption and materialism. The appeal to realism is in part an attempt to correct
the common misperception (and self-perception) of green politics and economics requiring an excessive
degree of self-denial and a puritanical asceticism (Goodin, 1992, p.18; Allison, 1991, p.170178). While
rejecting the claim that green political theory calls for the complete disavowal of materialistic lifestyles, it
is true that green politics does require the collective reassessment of such lifestyles, and does require a
degree of shared sacrifice. It does not mean, however, that we necessarily require the complete and
across-the-board rejection of materialistic lifestyles. There must be room and tolerance in a green
economy for people to live ungreen lives so long as they do not harm others, threaten long-term
ecological sustainability or create unjust levels of socioeconomic inequalities. Thus, realism in this context
is in part another name for the acceptance of a broadly liberal or post-liberal (but certainly not antiliberal) green perspective.1

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5. The alternative fails simply rejecting capitalism results in greater oppression
Hanhnel 2007
[Robin. Prof Economics at American. Eco-Localism: A Constructive Critique Capitalism
Nature Socialism, Vol 18 N2. 2007. Ebsco//GBS-JV]
Some anti-capitalists advocate denouncing capitalism as the root source of many of today's problems. But
when asked what kind of economy should replace capitalism, they answer in deliberately vague and
general terms: ''a just and democratic economy'' or ''an economy that is not wasteful and destructive of the
environment.'' There are understandable reasons to be concerned about the pitfalls of visionary thinking.
But rejecting discussion and debate over how we can better organize our economic activities to achieve
economic justice, economic democracy, and environmental sustainability is self-defeatingno more so
than today, when the destruction wrought by capitalism to the natural world and the human community
is becoming increasingly apparent and impossible to ignore. Some hesitate to spell out how a postcapitalist economy should be run for fear of putting people off. They worry that saying we are anticapitalist risks alienating people we work with in reform movements, since most people working in reform
movements assume the capitalist system is sound and only flawed in its application. However, it makes
little sense to risk putting people off by saying we reject the capitalist system itself without trying to
explain in concrete terms what we want instead. Others eschew debates about economic vision for fear it
will lead to sectarianism that divides us unnecessarily and distracts us from focusing on more urgent
tasks. Given the history of sectarianism on the Left, there is every reason to fear this dynamic. But we
must guard against sectarianism on many issues, and the advice to table economic vision would only be
sensible if it were true that deliberations on this issue were unnecessary. Still others claim that specifying
how societies or communities can create economic systems that incorporate social justice, environmental
health, and other democratic values is totalitarian, because it robs those who will live in post-capitalist
economies of their democratic right to manage their economy as they see fit when the time comes. This
argument is nonsense. Since when did discussing difficult and momentous issues in advance impede
deliberative democracy rather than advance it? I can't see that this would be a problem unless those
debating such matters attempt to impose their formulae on future generations. And nobody I know who
discusses democratic post-capitalist possibilities has any such pretensions. Of course there is a time and
place for everything. There are venues where pontificating on the inherent evils of the capitalist system is
inappropriate and counterproductive. Similarly, there are venues where discussing arrangements for how
those in worker councils could manage themselves or how different groups of workers and consumers
might coordinate their interrelated activities fairly and efficiently is out of place. The question is not
whether every commentary, speech, conference document, article, or book must explain how a problem
today is linked to capitalism, or how it could be solved in an alternative economy. Rather, it is whether
theorizing about economic vision and testing our convictions in the flesh, where possible, plays an
important role in the movement to replace the economics of competition and greed with the economics of
equitable cooperation. The simplest argument for the value of visionary thinking lies in the question: How
can we know what steps to take unless we know where we want to go? For those of us who believe we are
attempting to build a bridge from the economics of competition and greed to the economics of equitable
cooperation, we must have some idea of where we want the bridge to end as well as where it must begin.
But the strongest reason for embracing the issue of what we would do when capitalism falters is our track
record of failure. This is not the first time people have been entreated to jettison capitalism for a better
alternative. While communist economies were not failures for the reasons widely believed, they were
colossal failures nonetheless. And they were certainly not the desirable alternative to capitalism that was
promised. So people have every reason to be skeptical of those who claim there is a desirable alternative to
capitalism. They also have every right to demand more than platitudes and generalities. Reasonable
peoplenot only doubting Thomaseswant to know how our alternative to capitalism would differ from
the last one and how it would work in concrete terms. Literally billions of people were misled by our anticapitalist predecessors, with terrible consequences. We should not deceive ourselves that many today are

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willing to accept our assurances on faith that we have it right this time. We avoid contentious issues about
the alternative to capitalism only at our own peril.

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Hanhnel continues, no text deleted
It may be that God has given 21st-century capitalism the rainbow sign, but salvation from doomsday will
be no faith-based initiative. We must show an overwhelming majority of the victims of capitalism how a
better system can work. We must provide convincing answers to hard questions about why our
procedures will not break down, get hijacked by new elites, or prove incapable of protecting our natural
environment. If we cannot do these things, the economics of equitable cooperation will remain little
more than a prayer on the lips of the victims of competition and greed. The time has passed for excuses
and intellectual laziness. Critics of capitalism must think through and explain to others how we propose to
do things differently and why outcomes will be significantly betterespecially since the sacrifices people
must make on the road to replacing capitalism will often be great. Therefore, there must be good reasons
for people to believe the benefits will be great as wellif not for themselves, then at least for their
children. This does not mean we must agree right now on what the best alternative to capitalism looks
likewhich is fortunate, because at this point there is no agreement on whether the best alternative is
some form of market socialism, community-based economics, or democratic planning. The debate about
alternatives to capitalism in the wake of the collapse of communism is still in its infancy. Nevertheless, the
quality of the debate over economic vision must inspire confidence that the movement for equitable
cooperation is busy tackling this crucial task effectively. How best to organize a system of equitable
cooperation is not a trivial intellectual problem, and [end page 64] the answers will not be obvious
without a great deal of deliberation, which must take place before the answers are needed.

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