K Capitalism

1NC
The aff both hollows out the state for neoliberal purposes and
obscures a systemic analysis of the ever-presence of corporate
surveillance, furthering capitalist domination
Toynbee 13 (Polly, columnist for the Guardian former BBC social affairs editor,
columnist and associate editor of the Independent, co-editor of the Washington
Monthly and a reporter and feature writer for the Observer, The Guardian, June 10,
Snowden's revelations must not blind us to government as a force for good,
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jun/10/snowden-governmentforce-for-good-big-brother)

The state is our enemy, a malevolent, prying Big Brother who can
intrude on anyone, anywhere . The fallout from Edward Snowden's revelations to the Guardian about the
extent of the state's invasion of privacy will be long-lasting. How much more shocking that this is allowed by a Democratic president
who stood for hope and trust. No wonder the right eagerly expresses its shock, from Glenn Beck to Mitt Romney, with an I-told-youso relish that stirs the anti-government paranoia of the militias, the Tea Party and all who saw a communist plot even in minimalist
Obamacare.

Everywhere the idea of the good state is under siege . Civil liberties

advocates often find their arguments against an over-mighty state purloined by the right, chiming nicely with libertarian shrink-thestatists. In the Commons William Hague denied GCHQ complicity, but nonetheless government looms like a predator drone locking
on to every private email.

The triumph of anti-state neoliberalism has for

decades cowed the case for government as a force for goo d. In nervous
retreat, politicians of the liberal left have too willingly colluded with the prevailing state-inept, private-sector-better wind.

The

crash and the slump should have ignited a sense that government
is often all that stands between us and disaster, but the foghorns of
the right succeeded in blaming government more than runaway
financiers . Basic economics still has the nerve to teach as fact that markets are more rational than public servants can
ever be:

economic success depends on rugged global

entrepreneurialism where silverbacks of the market eat what they

kill, obstructed only by pettyfogging state bureaucrats chaining
them down with irksome employment regulations, corporate taxes,
health and safety

and God knows what. The pro-state case is uphill work when trolled into "Go and live in North

Korea, then." The danger is the NSA revelations tip the balance. Published this week, The Entrepreneurial State, by Professor
Mariana Mazzucato of Sussex University, offers a forensic analysis of how the state is prime investor and creator of most great
innovations.

Companies can thank the state not just for their security

under the law, for educating their staff, or building roads for their
trucks but for the most productive great leaps forward too . Not only the
internet but its technologies sprang from vast state investment (such as GPS and touch screens, biotech and nanotech), where the
state took the risk but others took the profit;

Apple and Google rode on the back of state

research ; US pharmaceuticals depend on $600bn of state-funded research, accounting for 75% of the drugs that companies
profit from afterwards. Mazzucato debunks the myth that the state needs do nothing but stay away and says

the green

revolution is the next great investment successful states are makin g

though not Britain's,

stymied by the neoliberal ascendency that brands

climate change a socialist plot . Those who see the state as an alien
with tentacles grown beyond democratic control want to hack it
down . The greater threat is a too weak state overwhelmed by global
business.

Defending the benevolent state as the best expression of the collective public endeavour gets harder when trust

in the politicians who run it ebbs away. Fine speeches may be a hazard when, fairly or not, Obama disappoints for failing to govern
with the majesty of his rhetoric. In Britain the MPs' expenses scandal was damaging enough, worse still if despite frequent
entrapment senior parliamentarians are still "cabs for hire". Corruption looks endemic when ex-ministers reap rich rewards from
companies contracting with their former departments. What use a lobbyists' register when lobbyists sit at the heart of government?
Cameron's election strategist, Lynton Crosby, won't reveal his clients, yet his lobbying firm has represented alcohol and tobacco
interests that have successfully kicked away laws on cigarette packaging, alcohol pricing and registering lobbyists. Murdoch had his
own man at Cameron's side from day one, no revolving door but en suite. What is the public to think? With political trust rarer than
hen's teeth, the mendacity of the Conservatives at the last election will make it near impossible to persuade anyone at the next one.
The "most family-friendly" and "the greenest" government ever; "no NHS reorganisation"; no VAT rise; no cuts to education
maintenance allowance or child trust fund; three more army battalions; 3,000 more police; rail fares to be pegged; a post office bank
created and not sold off none of it was intended to be true. Cameron said just days before the election: "Any cabinet minister who
comes to me and says 'Here are my plans' and they involve frontline reductions, they'll be sent straight back to their department to
go away and think again." None were sent back. "All in it together," said George Osborne as he cut benefits and gave top earners a
5% tax bonus.

How can people trust political promises again ? All this stirs anti-

government hostility, as more voters refuse to vote, or opt for anyone disguised as an outsider

blame for demanding magic from their leaders

. Are citizens to

tip-top public services but low taxes,

total security but no intrusion on privacy ? " You can't have 100%
security and also then have 100% privacy and zero inconvenience ,"
said President Obama, defending US surveillance this week. An off-duty soldier is slaughtered, bombs go off at the Boston marathon
and the first question asked is: why isn't anyone who ever expressed an extreme view under 24-hour watch? Trust comes from
telling the truth and treating citizens as adults: it can't be done, and anyway the terror risk is low compared with road deaths or the
two women murdered by partners each week. Labour's hard task is not just to instil trust in the party but to repair the idea of good
government. Honesty, authenticity and conviction build trust, while overcaution seems shifty. Trust comes not just from popular
policies, such as massive home-building, but sticking to unpopular ones. Refusing a referendum because Ed Miliband will not lead
Britain out of Europe to its destruction may be more of a winner than it seems: Ukip is the democratic choice for exit, Labour for
staying at the international table. However counterintuitive in this era, Labour needs to hymn the good the state does and the
civilising value of what taxes buy health, education, safety, proud public spaces. All the things that people value most.

Capitalism causes extinction and destroys value to life

Simonovic 7 [Ljubodrag, Ph.D. in Philosophy; M.A. in Law; author of seven books, 2007, A New World is Possible, Basis of
contemporary critical theory of capitalism.] Gender edited

The final stage of a mortal combat between [hu]mankind and capitalism is in progress . A
specificity of capitalism is that, in contrast to "classical" barbarism (which is of destructive, murderous and plundering nature), it
annihilates life by creating a "new world" a "technical civilization" and an adequate, dehumanized and
denaturalized man. Capitalism has eradicated man from his (natural) environment and has cut off the roots through which he had
drawn life-creating force. Cities are "gardens" of capitalism where degenerated creatures "grow". Dog excrement, gasoline and
sewerage stench, glaring advertisements and police car rotating lights that howl through the night - this is the environment of the
"free world" man. By

destroying the natural environment capitalism creates increasingly extreme

climatic conditions in which man is [people are] struggling harder and harder to survive and
creates artificial living conditions accessible solely to the richest layer of population, which cause
definitive degeneration of man [people] as a natural being[s]. "Humanization of life" is being
limited to creation of micro-climatic conditions, of special capitalistic incubators - completely commercialized artificial living
conditions to which degenerated people are appropriate. The most dramatic truth is: capitalism can survive the death of man as a
human and biological being. For

capitalism a "traditional man [person]" is merely a temporary means of

its own reproduction. "Consumer-man [person]" represents a transitional phase in the capitalismcaused process of mutation of man towards the "highest" form of capitalistic man: a robot-man.
"Terminators" and other robotized freaks which are products of the Hollywood entertainment industry which creates a "vision of the
future" degenerated in a capitalist manner, incarnate creative powers, alienated from man, which become vehicles for
destruction of man and life. A new "super race" of robotized humanoids is being created, which should clash with "traditional
mankind", meaning with people capable of loving, thinking, daydreaming, fighting for freedom and survival
- and impose their rule over the Earth. Instead of the new world, the "new man" is being created - who has been reduced to a level of
humanity which cannot jeopardize the ruling order. Science and technique have become the basic lever of capital for the destruction
of the world and the creation of "technical civilization". It is not only about destruction achieved by the use of technical means. It is
about technicization of social institutions, of interpersonal relations, of the human body. Increasing transformation

of
nature into a surrogate of "nature", increasing dehumanization of the society and increasing denaturalization of man are
direct consequences of capital's effort, within an increasingly merciless global economic war, to achieve
complete commercialization of both natural and the social environment. The optimism of the
Enlightenment could hardly be unreservedly supported nowadays, the notion of Marx that man imposes on himself only such tasks
as he can solve, particularly the optimism based on the myth of the "omnipotence" of science and technique. The race for profits has
already caused irreparable and still unpredictable damage to both man and his environment. By the creation of "consumer society",
which means through the transition of capitalism into a phase of pure destruction, such

a qualitative rise in destruction

of nature and [hu]mankind has been performed that life on the planet is literally facing a
"countdown ". Instead of the "withering away" (Engels) of institutions of the capitalist society, the withering away of life is
taking place.

Reject the aff in favor of historical materialism as emblematic

of the logic of capital- solves inevitability
Hudis 97 (Peter, Professor of Humanities and Philosophy, Conceptualizing an
Emancipatory Alternative: Istvan Meszaross Beyond Capital, Socialism and
Democracy, volume 11, issue number 1)

creating the necessary mediations towards [the abolition of

capital] cannot be left to some far-away future...for if the mediatory
steps are not pursued right from the outset, as an organic part of
the transformatory strategy, they will never be taken" (1995: 729).He moreover argues,
It is not too difficult to point to crisis symptoms that foreshadow
the breakdown of the established socioeconomic and political order.
He writes, "

However, in and of itself the profound structural crisis of the capital system is very far from being enough to inspire confidence in a successful outcome.

The pieces must be picked up and put together in due course in a

positive way. And not even the gravest crisis or the most severe breakdowns are of much help by themselves in that respect. It is
always incomparably easier to say 'no' than to draw even the bare
outlines of a positive alternative to the negated object. Only on the
basis of a coherent strategic view of the overall social complex can
even a partial negation of the existent be considered plausible or legitimate
(xvii-xviii). Mszros is under no illusions about the difficulty of outlining such a "theory of transition." It entails not only
going against the grain of established thought, but also challenging
the logic of capital itself, since the very nature of capital as a
universalizing social form Is to convey the impression that the
transitory, historic stage of capitalism is natural and immutable. At the
same time, Mszros is fully conscious of the pitfall of falling into utopianism by outlining blueprints of a future society. Though hatching Utopian schemes
may seem immediately satisfying, they generally fail to lift thought beyond the very contours of the social form they seek to critique.

The task

of confronting the question of "what happens after the revolution"

involves a far more laborious and formidable task, one centered on explicating the social formations
and tendencies inherent in modern society which can point us
beyond the contours of the present capital-system.

Links

Cloud Computing
Cloud computing shift surveillance over to corporations
Subani 9 (Hamad, Author of multiple political books, 09/06/02, Techtangerine, Ten Reasons Why
Cloud Computing is a Bad Idea, http://www.techtangerine.com/2009/06/02/ten-reasons-why-cloudcomputing-is-a-bad-idea/)
Cloud Computing makes you dependent on the goodwill of your ISP Cloud Computing may require gratuitous
bandwidth for the client, depending on what the client is hosting on the Cloud. And the same ISPs who are
clamouring for bandwidth caps may charge and arm and a leg if the client exceeds his or her bandwidth quota.

Cloud Computing can expose you to the unethical practices of your

ISP Major ISPs have come under fire for spying on their customers
P2P networks on behalf of the Recording Industry. Can these ISPs be trusted with
sensitive traffic to and from the Cloud? We are told that everything will be encrypted through VPNs. But still, given

Cloud Computing is against

the spirit of Personal Computing Personal Computers were meant to
empower individuals, make them more independent and productive .
the tainted role of ISPs, can ISPs be trusted for non-encrypted traffic?

Most of todays industry heavyweights owe their success to living up to these expectations. Microsoft and IBMs
unexpected touting of Cloud Computing is more akin to Toyota adopting the business model of a car rental agency
(If that were to happen, Toyota may likewise rebrand itself in the fashion of Silicon Valley, as a subscription based
Transport Service Provider). It is no surprise that old timers, such as Steve Wozniak who have been at the forefront

Cloud
Computing makes your Cloud Data subject to American law Since
most of the major Cloud Computing servers are operated by
companies based in the United States, data you put on your Cloud is
subject to American law. And the American law in turn, is subject to overrides,
loopholes, Patriot Acts, and exceptions, depending on which
governmental agency (or which person/interest) wants your data. You
of the development of personal computing, have publicly voiced their concerns over Cloud Computing.

may not even be informed that your data was compromised for the same reason Jack Bauer gets away with

Cloud
data no longer needs a warrant to be obtained by the authorities . To
torturing his hostages/prisoners (national security). And even if there is no national security issue,

quote, CLOUD DATA Documents, Photos, and Other Stuff Stored Online How They Get It: Authorities typically need
only a subpoena to get data from Google Drive, Dropbox, SkyDrive, and other services that allow users to store data
on their servers, or in the cloud, as its known. What the Law Says: T he

law treats cloud data

the same as draft emails authorities dont need a warrant to get
it. But files that youve shared with others say, a collaboration using Google Docs might require a warrant
under the ECPA if its considered communication rather than stored data. Thats a very hard rule to apply, says
Greg Nojeim, a senior counsel with the Center for Democracy & Technology. It actually makes no sense for the way

data will pass through American ISPs that provide

the Cloud with uptime. It could be intercepted by State Agencies even before it
reaches the Cloud. A case point is that of Amazon Web Services, a flagship of the cloud computing
we communicate today. And before reaching the Cloud, your

model. Amazon Web Services quietly booted whistleblowing website Wikileaks off their cloud computing servers.

This was done without any court order. Looks like Amazon Web
Services is also a flagship of the American government. In another piece of
news, Amazon has won a $600 million contract to build a Cloud Computing System for the CIA. Most American
businesses with a shred of integrity in this regard have already closed doors, and therefore those that remain in
business should be considered suspect. Take the case of Lavabit, a highly secure (and free) POP/IMAP/Webmail
email service. This service was used by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. On 8th August 2013, Lavabit users
were greeted with the following message: My Fellow Users, I have been forced to make a difficult decision: to
become complicit in crimes against the American people or walk away from nearly ten years of hard work by

shutting down Lavabit. After significant soul searching, I have decided to suspend operations. I wish that I could
legally share with you the events that led to my decision. I cannot. I feel you deserve to know whats going onthe
first amendment is supposed to guarantee me the freedom to speak out in situations like this. Unfortunately,
Congress has passed laws that say otherwise. As things currently stand, I cannot share my experiences over the
last six weeks, even though I have twice made the appropriate requests. Whats going to happen now? Weve
already started preparing the paperwork needed to continue to fight for the Constitution in the Fourth Circuit Court
of Appeals. A favorable decision would allow me resurrect Lavabit as an American company. This experience has
taught me one very important lesson: without congressional action or a strong judicial precedent, I would _strongly_
recommend against anyone trusting their private data to a company with physical ties to the United States.
Sincerely, Ladar Levison Owner and Operator, Lavabit LLC Defending the constitution is expensive! Help us by
donating to the Lavabit Legal Defense Fund here. Or take the case of Cryptoseal Privacy, a VPN service which
suddenly shuttered leaving perplexed users with the following message: With immediate effect as of this notice,
CryptoSeal Privacy, our consumer VPN service, is terminated. All cryptographic keys used in the operation of the
service have been zerofilled, and while no logs were produced (by design) during operation of the service, all
records created incidental to the operation of the service have been deleted to the best of our ability. Essentially,
the service was created and operated under a certain understanding of current US law, and that understanding may
not currently be valid. As we are a US company and comply fully with US law, but wish to protect the privacy of our
users, it is impossible for us to continue offering the CryptoSeal Privacy consumer VPN product. In other words,

if

your service provider is based in America and hasnt already

shuttered over ethical concerns, chances are that it is sharing your
data with the NSA. Cloud Computing can expose your Confidential Data to Corrupt Elements (and no,
I am not talking about hackers and identity thieves) Since corruption in Western society is more of an invitation-only
club, most people refer to it only in couched terms. But unless you are really naive, it is a reality you must be
prepared to deal with. Back in 2004, a Utah guy got an application for a major credit card. The problem was that the
name and address on the application had only been provided to the Registry of Motor Vehicles. The bad news is not
that American State Agencies have backdoor access to American corporations. Rather, American corporations have
an incestuous relationship with American State Agencies. If s uppose

you are a non-American

corporation with your Cloud hosted by an American corporation, and your main competitor is an American
heavyweight with backdoor access to the State Agencies, your confidential data on the
Cloud may be just a few phone calls away. American corporations are known to use the
State Agencies as personal armies, although very little of this gets documented. Worse, if the CEO of the
Company that hosts your Cloud and the CEO of your competitor
belong to the same fraternity, your confidential data on the cloud
may be just a handshake away. Of course, your data on the Cloud is encrypted and cannot be
accessed by anyone other than yourself. But then, there are always exceptions. Amazon Web Services is considered

Amazon.com sneakily deleted

etexts off its users Kindles. Ironically, the extexts deleted were George
Orwells Animal Farm and 1984. Both these books deal with the
suppression of dissent by totalitarian regimes. The furore that followed the move
to be a flagship of the Cloud Computing model. In July 2009,

was attributed to the fact that Amazon.com had remotely deleted files that were on the users own device, and
therefore the move was like a hacker-style intrusion. But if suppose the Kindle followed the Cloud Computing model,
where ebooks were read and stored online instead of the device itself, Amazon.com would probably never get
caught. And the unavailablity of these titles could be attributed to an innocuous server outage. In April 2010, China
hijacked the Internet for 18 minutes by tricking other telecom routers. Nearly 15% of all American civilian and
military Internet traffic was quietly redirected into Chinese networks before being rerouted without delay. If your
cloud data transfers were included in this traffic, there is a possibility that it is being dissected somewhere in

Regular users of cloud computing should be warned that their

data transfers can fall into the hand of whichever nation that goes
on a bandwidth sucking rampage. Cloud Computing is sounding more like a Lobby than a Trend
Beijing.

Suddenly, all ringers, gurus, and experts are clamouring for Cloud Computing. Articles are appearing in respectable
publications weighing the pros and cons. Business heads are flaunting how they managed to cut costs. Does this
remind you of Big Tobacco, Big Sugar, Big Science and Big Pharma? Do you buy into the pitch? Are you willing to
invest your data in the scheme? Cloud Computing may be of little consequence for the Average Small Business
The May 2009 issue of WIRED carried an interesting article on Cloud Computing, highlighting pros and cons. The key
example cited in favour of Cloud Computing was an Eli Lily information consultant, who as a client of Amazon Web

Services uses his iPhone to run genomic analysis on the Cloud. How many businesses executives can picture
themselves doing this? Cloud Computing may not contribute to your national economy When you buy the hardware,
software and technical expertise for setting up a server locally, you are supporting several local businesses. With
Cloud Computing, you bypass all of these. But arent the major Cloud Computing providers American owned and
American based? Yes they are. But when they get things figured out, they might consider outsourcing. And Cloud
Computing is very feasible to outsource. Given their track record, they dont exactly cherish employing Americans,
unless Obama forces them to do so. Update (An Eleventh Reason?): Cloud Computing may not be as reliable as
touted. To quote AP News 21/04/2011, Major websites including Foursquare and Reddit crashed or suffered
slowdowns Thursday after technical problems rattled Amazon.coms widely used Web servers, frustrating millions of
people who couldnt access their favorite sites. Though better known for selling books, DVDs and other consumer
goods, Amazon also rents out space on huge computer servers that run many websites and other online services.
The problems began at an Amazon data center near Dulles Airport outside Washington and persisted into the
afternoon. The failures were widespread, but they varied in severity. HootSuite, which lets users monitor Twitter and
other social networks more easily, was down completely, as was questions-and-answers site Quora. The locationsharing social network Foursquare experienced glitches, while the news-sharing site Reddit was in emergency
read-only mode. Many other companies that use Amazon Web Services, like Netflix Inc. and Zynga Inc., which runs
Facebook games, appeared to be unscathed. Amazon has at least one other major data center that stayed up, in
California. No one knew for sure how many people were inconvenienced, but the services affected are used by
millions. Amazon Web Services provide cloud or utility-style computing in which customers pay only for the
computing power and storage they need, on remote computers. Lydia Leong, an analyst for the tech research firm
Gartner, said that judging by details posted on Amazons AWS status page, a network connection failed Thursday
morning, triggering an automatic recovery mechanism that then also failed. Amazons computers are divided into
groups that are supposed to be independent of each other. If one group fails, others should stay up. And customers
are encouraged to spread the computers they rent over several groups to ensure reliable service. But Thursdays
problem took out many groups simultaneously. Update (a Twelfth reason?): Michael Chertoff Loves Cloud Computing
Michael Chertoff Shape Shifting....In 1999, an obscure conspiracy theorist, David Icke, made a startling claim. He
stated that the ruling elite of the Western world were actually shape-shifting lizards. This theory became a laughing
matter and was even used to smear genuine conspiracy theorists. But no matter how much time passed, the theory
would simply not die. Ask any follower of Icke, and they will point you to images of the ruling elite, such as this
photograph of Michael Chertoff (Secretary of homeland security from 2005 to 2009). That is supposedly the face he
makes before shape-shifting into a ten foot lizard. Even we are to dismiss the claims of Ickes followers, the
generally accepted consensus among the alternate media is that the man exists to defecate on the liberties of the
American people. Chertoffs grandpoppa is of Russian origin, and in Soviet Russia, Internet surfs YOU! In a February
9th 2012 op-ed in the Washington post, Chertoff can be seen whining how EU privacy laws may balkanize the
Internet, because American Cloud Computing providers will not be allowed to invade the privacy of their European
customers. Update (A Thirteenth Reason?): Like it or not, Cloud Computing is being forced down your throat In late

Internet users discovered that they were being

prevented from accessing certain websites that contained keywords relating to porn
and copyright infringement. It turns out that Cisco had remotely updated their router
software, forcing them to use a new cloud service that censored websites containing the aforementioned
June of 2012, some

keywords. In order for the censorship to work, the urls the Internet users were visiting were being forwarded to

people rightly feared that Cisco was using the

Cloud to spy on their Internet activities. Cisco quickly backtracked and issued an
Ciscos Connect Cloud Service and

apology. In more recent shenanigans, the babyish design of the Windows 8 tile interface was discovered to be
another attempt to shove Cloud Computing on unsuspecting computer users. While the Tile interface is great for
touchscreens and tablets, it can be fairly problematic when it comes to managing files. There is no way to access
the Windows file system through it. The Tiles got the Windows user base so grumpy that Windows 8 caused the
most precipitous decline in PC history! And the dumbed down approach has caused such consternation among
power users that the free Windows 8.1 update restores the classic Start button and allows users to bypass the Tile
interface to reach the good old Desktop. Microsoft has touted the Tile interface as a way for your apps and
programs to provide you with updated information while running in the background. But the apps and programs
that provide live info through Tiles are mainly cloud based apps. For example, Microsoft charges a hefty price for
its Outlook mail client. Any rational user would expect that there would be an Outlook Tile which would notify them
of new messages, reminders and calendar appointments, given the simplicity of programming such a Tile. But no,
there aint. The only usable Tile that can be used for email and calendar hooks up to Microsofts cloud-based email
service. Outlook users drawing mail from their own email service providers are simply not invited to the Tile
interface. To quote on exasperated user: They are trying to FORCE people into the cloud, Their cloud in order to get
these tiles to work at all. And another user: I think that Microsoft will soon find itself under the guns of the law
AGAIN if they dont release a way for people to use these features with an enterprise environment WITHOUT having
to use their live accounts. It is crazy to think that they are trying to force an enterprise user to use their mail and
calendar apps, but wont let you use your information locally in it. I think that Microsoft ahs really missed the mark

here. I know that most tester and die-hards will just say use the main Outlook and I am. Here is the point though,
IF you are going to supposedly revolutionize Windows and take away a]our START button and force us to use the
new UI, Then the LEAST you can do is make all the bells and whistles offered work Locally and through your new
online service. Dont tell us that in order for it to work, we can only use yours. The Mail and Calendar Tiles that do
work in Windows 8 sync up with Microsofts servers. Given the fact that Microsoft has officially admitted to releasing
the data of 137,424 of its users to various world governments, can it be trusted with such private information?

Culture
Emphasis on culture over materialism is flawed
Zavarzadeh 3 (Mas'ud, retired professor of English at Syracuse University ,The Pedagogy of
Totality Journal of Advanced Composition Theory 2003 JAC Online ***the event Zavarzadeh refers to
is 9/11 KC)

a view of history as an expansionism of

"power" (see Hardt and Negri) and as conflicts of "ideologies" (see Fukuyama). It is based
on the notion that "discourse" and "ideas" shape the world since, ultimately, history
itself is the discursive journey of the Soul toward a cultural and spiritual resolution of material contradictions. This
theory mystifies history by displacing "class" (labor) with "ideas" and
"discourse," and it consequently produces world history as a "clash of
civilizations" that rewrites the world in the interest of the Euroamerican
capitalism (see Huntington). According to the clash theory (which is the most popular
interpretive axis of 9/ 11), people do what they do because of their "culture" not
because they exploit the labor of others (and live in comfort), or because their
labor is exploited by others (and therefore they live in abject poverty). The event, in other words, is
Underlining his pedagogy is, in other words,

an instance of the clash of civilizations: culture ("values," "language," "religion," the "affective") did it. "They" hate

Since "values" are transhistorical, the

clash is spiritual, not material. But culture, didn't do it. Contrary to contemporary
dogma (see Hall, "Centrality"), culture is not autonomous; it is the bearer of
economic interests. Cultural values are, to be clear, inversive: they are a
spiritualization of material interests. Culture cannot solve the
contradictions that develop at the point of production; it merely suspends
them. Material contradictions can be solved only materially -namely, by the class
"our" way of life ("Their 'values' clash with our 'values"').

struggles that would end the global regime of wage labor. The event is an unfolding of a material contradiction not a
clash of civilizations. If teaching the event does not at least raise the possibility of a class understanding of it, the

the CIA fought

the Soviets (and then the Taliban) because U.S. capitalism needs to turn
Afghanistan into a "new silk road." The conquest of Afghanistan, in other words, was planned long
before the event, and its goal was neither liberation of the Afghani people nor
what the CIA calls "democratization." It was simply aimed at turning the
country into a huge pipeline station. In his testimony before the "House Committee on
teaching is not pedagogy; it is ideology (as I outline it later in this essay). To be more precise,

International Relations Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific" on February 12, 1998 (three years before "9/11"), John

The Caspian
region contains tremendous untapped hydrocarbon reserves , much of them
J. Maresca, the Vice President for International Relations of Uno cal Corporation, stated that

located in the Caspian Sea basin itself. Proven natural gas reserves within Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and
Kazakhstan equal more than 236 trillion cubic feet. The region's total oil reserves may reach more than 60 billion
barrels of oil-enough to service Europe's oil needs for 11 years. Some estimates are as high as 200 billion barrels. In
1995, the region was producing only 870,000 barrels per day (44 million tons per year [Mtly]). (Monthly Review, Dec.
2001) The problem for U. S. capital was how to get the energy to the market .
The safest and most profitable way to get the energy to the West was, Maresca testified, by building "A commercial
corridor, a 'new' Silk Road" through Afghanistan. Developing "cost-effective, profitable and efficient export routes for
Central Asia," according to Maresca, is the point of converging "U.S. commercial interests and U.S. foreign policy":

Afghanistan had to be liberated to build the new silk road not because of a
"clash of civilizations." A pedagogy that brings up the event in the
classroom has a responsibility at least to raise these issues: to limit
"knowledge" to "background information" and then substitute CIA stories
for conceptual analysis of material causes is not curing ignorance but

legitimating it. Attributing the causes of the event to culture, therefore, is

to obscure the world class relations and the fact that their "hatred" is not the effect
of an immanent evil in their religion or language or values but the brutal
exploitation of capital that has tom apart "their" way of life to build new
silk roads all over "their" world. The silk road always and ultimately leads to "events." To blame other
cultures, as Berube does when he refers to "searing images of cheering Palestinian children," is to let
capitalism off the hook. It is a practice that produces a "false
consciousness" in students so that they make sense of the world through
spiritualistic "values" that marginalize the actual struggles over the
surplus labor of the "other"- which is what makes their own life comfortable. This is not curing
ignorance; it is the corporate pedagogy of a flag-waving nationalism.

Disability
Persons with disabilities will inevitably lose the competition
game created by capital this also turns case
Roberts 3 (Pamela, School of Policy Studies Roosevelt University, Disability Oppression in the
Contemporary U. S. Capitalist Workplace, Science & Society, Vol. 67, No. 2, Summer 2003, 136159,
KC)

employees with disabilities

often are hired and retained less for their value as producers than for
their value as symbols. As producers, they typically are undervalued; as
symbols, they provide employers with the appearance of responsiveness
to disability advocates, adherence to stated policies, or compliance with laws.
Contemporary work organizations, as Acker (1990) famously underscored, commonly
operate with a notion of an ideal employee. Sometimes explicitly but more
often implicitly, this ideal is a white, able-bodied male, against which nonwhites, women, and people with disabilities are invidiously compared.
Individuals who do not fit the ideal get hired, but disproportionately in
lower-level jobs and often as tokens. The concentration of employees with
disabilities at the bottom of the occupational structure is consistently
revealed by employment data, and tokenism seems to account in many
cases for their hiring and retention. Capital not only often undervalues the
labor of employees with disabilities, but commonly treats such employees as
an unreasonable drain on revenues. This can be seen most clearly in the
area of accommodations. Capital, which of course admits no universal right
to employment, admits no necessity to design and organize production
processes to accommodate all possible employees, including employees
with disabilities. In this context, accommodations, even the reasonable
accommodations required under the ADA, are easily viewed not as necessary
measures for realizing the potential of the labor force but as unnecessary
costs. As a colleague and I have reported elsewhere (Harlan and Robert, 1998), employers use a
This study of the ADAs implementation phase makes clear that

variety of subterfuges to prevent employees with disabilities from requesting accommodations.

Ultimately,

the least likely type of accommodation to be granted is any that

might be perceived by able-bodied employees as equally useful to them .
Thus, requests for more flexible work schedules or relief from mandatory overtime routinely get

Granting such requests could easily snowball into numerous requests

from able bodied employees for comparable accommodations. More
fundamentally, granting such requests would threaten to expose the
contingent character of the workplace routines that capital imposes on its
employees. Ultimately, granting such requests could potentially lay bare
the arbitrary nature of capitalist authority. It is thus no wonder that, as
one employee with a disability explained, They [employers] dont want to
set a precedent (42). In the capitalist context of competitive labor
markets and job hierarchies, of course, even undervalued and token
employees can be perceived as threatening by co-workers and
supervisors. If, as is known, white males can feel threatened by the prospect
of minorities or women performing comparable or higher-level jobs,
consider how easy it is for able-bodied employees to feel threatened by
denied.

the prospect of employees with disabilities doing comparable work. Some

alienation and harassment of employees with disabilities doubtless stems
from workplace enactment of wider cultural patterns, but much is due to
the competitive nature of the capitalist workplace itself. Alienating and
harassing employees with disabilities is a way of effectively sidelining
them in the competitive struggle.

The exclusion of differently-abled bodies is the product of a

socialized capitalist devaluation of life. Understanding the way
bodies are defined by their productive capacity is key to
interpreting the intersection between disability studies and
class antagonism.
Judashko 14 (Cary, 4/2, Anti-Imperialism, Capitalism and the Material Realities
of People with Disabilities Today, http://antiimperialism.com/2014/04/02/capitalism-and-the-material-realities-of-people-withdisabilities-today)

Disability is socially constructed. You are marked as disabled by

society when the category of people associated with your
abnormality cannot access things the rest of society can readily
access and take for granted. For example, people who are deaf are classified as disabled based on the fact that
the majority of us can hear and thus expect the deaf to be able to process such information (e.g. video, music,
other audible information in the world around us). In other words, society is structured around people who can hear,
and those who this structure cannot readily accommodate are categorized as disabled. But it is important to note

disability is socially imposed on a material world. Deaf people are unable to

hear, as are many animals (who live in their environments without being disabled). This
understanding, which sees disability as being based on material
factors but nonetheless ultimately socially constructed, is known as the social model of
disability. People with disabilities are identified by society when
they are excluded from a social site which chooses not to
accommodate them. Various statistics reflect this dynamic; according to the OECD, within OECD
countries 19% of lesser educated people are identified as disabled,
however only 11% of those with higher education are identified as
disabled. With greater access to education, more sites of society are open to you (e.g. it might be easier to
that

talk to people as a person with autism or more jobs might be open to you if you know a bit of vocab), thus society

Women report
disability at higher rates then men. This is likely a result of women
already being excluded from certain activities. When you add any
perceived abnormality on top of that, they are even less likely to
be accommodated. People with disabilities have had some success in getting help to live in society
through various programs. Among the first programs that attempted to
improve social standing of people with disabilities were simple cash
benefits (i.e. Social Security Disability Income, charity, etc). These programs attempted to install means of
income for people with disabilities, to help them get by due to the fact that
capitalism actively tries to exclude them from the labor force. However,
chooses to accommodate these people more often than those with less education.

these programs (despite being often very minimal payments), are in essence an attempt to install equality of

There are
the obvious anti-discrimination laws, e.g. you cannot ask someone if
they are disabled and you are not allowed to deny them service or
employment as a result. This is a typical liberal response to
discrimination: dont actually reverse harm done to or accommodate the
discriminated, simply state in the law its not legal to discriminate against
them. This is comparable to the civil rights acts for the Captive Afrikan people and other oppressed groups. It is
results. This does not do anything other then provide a welfare check funded by imperial dividend.

of course a crime to discriminate, but youd be lying to yourself if you thought that this has addressed the root of

People with disabilities later began to

receive a much more radical concession, laws like the ADA or the
Equality law in the UK. These laws state that reasonable
accommodation must be provided to people with disabilities, such
as wheelchair ramps for those unable to walk. These laws were put in place in response to the
systemic inequality in a meaningful way.

creation of the social model of disability. People with disabilities demanded mandatory accommodation, not cash
benefits or civil rights. They began to somewhat integrate into society where it was reasonable, the US DOT
estimates that 55% to 60% of buses were accessible to wheelchairs by 1993 as opposed to 24% before the passing
of the ADA. However not all accommodation is as simple as a wheelchair ramp (not to mention wheelchair ramps
arent the only thing people in wheelchairs need), some epileptics need accommodation no judge in a capitalist
state would deem reasonable in a workplace, place of commerce, or recreation area. Let us not forget to mention

people with disabilities must inform

their employer of their disability and this may result in the employer
finding some excuse for them to fire or not hire the worker with disabilities.
For a good example of how the ADA has failed to address the
underlying problems with disability, we can look at the social life of
people with disabilities. According to a 94 Harris survey of Americans
with disabilities, half of the respondents claimed that lack of a full
social life was a problem for them. The Harris survey revealed that 70% of those with
that in the case of employment accommodation,

disabilities reported socializing once a week, compared to 85% of people without disabilities, 55% went to a
supermarket compared to 85% without disabilities. Roughly half the percentage of people with disabilities reported
going to a movie, seeing live music, or going to a sporting event at least once a year compared to people without
disabilities. According to a 2009 study by C. Marshall, E. Kendall, M. Banks & R. Gover, children with disabilities are
two to three times more likely to be bullied. The National Autistic Society reported that 40% of children with autism
reported experiencing bullying, and students in special education were told that tattle tailing is bad almost twice as
often as students in traditional education. Although only 3% of students nationwide are enrolled in separate schools
for students with disabilities as of 2009 according to the NCES, that number is much higher for certain groups of
students with disabilities. 8% for people with autism and the hearing impaired, 13% for students with emotional
disturbance, 19% for students who are deaf or blind, and nearly 20% for those with multiple disabilities. Finally
According to a study by Cornell University, 37% of those in jail, 31% of those in state prison, and 23% of those in
federal prison have some sort of disability, only 17% of the general population are people with disabilities.

These programs are almost entirely exclusive to the imperialist

countries of the world; only if you are in an imperialist country will
you get these band-aids. In the exploiter countries, living with a
disability makes you significantly less well off and severely hampers ones
opportunities for employment, but in the exploited countries being disabled is a
complete horror. Many people with disabilities in the exploited
countries do receive some sort of low scale help from the family or charity to help
them get into the workplace if it is easy enough to deal with, or the case is rare enough to warrant international
awe and concern.

But for the vast majority of people with disabilities in the

exploited countries, they are killed by the conditions they live in, are
deeply unsupported and barely get by, or stay with their family their whole life. According to a 1998 UNDP study,

the global literacy rate for adults with disabilities is as low as 3%

and
1% for women with disabilities and, according to DAA, as of 2001 fewer then 2% of children with disabilities are
enrolled in school. According to UNESCO as of 2005 in Africa more than 90% of all children with disabilities have
never attended school; we can compare this to Canada and Australia where more than 40% of children with

the education of
people with disabilities in the imperialist countries is vastly
superior. In India the DINF reported that only 0.15% of people with disabilities in India have jobs in the
disabilities have only completed primary education according to DAA. Clearly

industries, and they only make up 0.4% of the total workforce in India. Compare this to the USA where roughly 35%
of those with disabilities have jobs as of 2004. This data shows that not only is it a higher proportion of people with

an imperialist country with 300+ million people has a

higher amount of people with disabilities working than an exploited
country with at the time of the study, 800 million people. I failed to
find statistics on other aspects of life, but I think it is fair to extend
that with the data on workforce and school inclusion that any data
about other aspects of life would be on the same scale of
magnitude. This is what disability is like in absence of imperial dividends. If you havent caught on already,
there is a fundamental contradiction between capitalism and people
with disabilities. Capitalism has outright failed to integrate people
with disabilities outside transportation or, marginally, employment. Even within the
workforce, people with disabilities are still systematically excluded,
as there is too much short-term investment on the part of the
capitalist to include them, even if society would benefit long-term
from accommodating and training people with disabilities. This investment isnt always
monetary. The US Department of Labor reported that as of 2010, 56% of accommodations for
persons with disabilities in the US workplace cost nothing. These are therefore mainly
social modifications, such as understanding verbal tics that a person with
disabilities, but

tourettes or autism might have, and this makes sense when we consider how capitalism has failed to include them

Capitalism has no need to help the disabled be more

included into society other than making sure they have enough income to
get by and are able to get around or are put out of sight in prisons or other institutions.
Capitalism has enough workers, it almost always has a labor
surplus. Scientific socialism will seek to eliminate disability or at least
reduce the prevalence thereof in the field of employment for obvious reasons, socialist states have
always had labor shortages and thus will always seek to employ
people with disabilities along with all other citizens in full
employment; however I am sure many with disabilities are interested in more than employment.
Socialism will seek the liberation of the disabled from general social
exclusion. Maoists understand that in order to employ people with
disabilities, it must address disability at the root and destroy it;
there must be an active cultural campaign to include the disabled
into all walks of life. Although the social model has succeeded in recognizing disability as a social
construct, the disabled community has failed to understand that we
must transcend capitalism. A more radical demand must be called for by people with disabilities,
into other aspects of life.

scientific socialism. Scientific socialism will strike disability at the root and include people with disabilities in all
walks of life.

The affirmative will get co-opted by the bourgeoisie, Ableism is

a social phenomenon derived from the capitalism reduction of
life to production value. Structural violence towards disabled
bodies is driven by a vampiric combination of corporate profit
motives and aggressive economic expansionism. Class can
include the aff but not vis-versa.
Slorach 11 (Roddy, Jan 4, Marxism and disability, International Socialism,
Issue: 129, http://www.isj.org.uk/?id=702) //AMM

Capitalism in general does not scapegoat disabled people in order to

divide and rule in the way it does with other forms of oppression. Such
discrimination plays a less central ideological role than that of homophobia, womens oppression or racism. Neither
is it generally popular. A recent UK survey, for example, found that 91 percent of people believe disabled people

Disabled people are often the

victims of prejudice and ignorance, but they are rarely targeted solely
because of their impairment. Even where this was true, for example, with the mass murder of
should have the same opportunities as everyone else.62

disabled people in Hitlers gas chambers, this was not central to the Nazi movement in the way that scapegoating
the Jews was. Similarly, bigotry against those with AIDS remains largely linked to anti-gay prejudice.

Disability is fundamentally about neglect and marginalisation. Those

who defend it ultimately do so using a much more central ideology
capitalisms need to extract the maximum profit from labour with
the minimum possible expense. David Camerons government echoes its predecessor in its
approach to equalities with a corporate approach to diversity which projects an inclusive image but in reality
changes little.63 The DRC, before its recent demise, largely portrayed discrimination in terms of unacceptable
attitudes (for example, See the person not the disability advertisements). Many disabled people also see
individual prejudice and social barriers as the central problem. Some believe further progress depends on strategies

If disability is
rooted in the economic organisation of society, real change must
involve a new economic organisation of society. If it is not primarily a
political or ideological construct, the key cannot be to change
attitudes or language, important as these are. Achieving real change requires a power which
disabled people alone do not possess. While the differences may be significant, the experience of
other social movements has shown that the common and fundamental
problem in attempting to unite an oppressed group is the issue of class. The huge struggles
for black liberation turned into demands for black businesses, while
the fight against sexism has been appropriated by raunch culture on the one hand
and concerns about the glass ceiling for a minority of high-achieving women on the
such as cultivating disability pride or urging more people to come out as disabled.

other. For gays and lesbians too, genuine equality, despite (as well as because of) the rise of the pink economy,
remains elusive. Despite legislation outlawing discrimination against these oppressed groups, inequality remains
deeply entrenched within the system. b2. Class and disability Like its counterparts in the US ruling class,

the

Economist complained about the potential costs of antidiscrimination legislation: Everyone agrees that it is desirable to
cater for [disabled peoples] needs. But if those needs are treated

as rights, the obligation to help them could become limitless Rights for
the disabled must be balanced against the goal of a competitive economy.64 After these initial
warnings about its alleged unaffordability, objections to antidiscrimination legislation focused on limiting its provisions,
excluding scroungers (including alcoholics or drug addicts) and fakers deemed
undeserving of rights or benefits. This issue of cost underpins most debates about disability,
as well as those more generally around the social costs of labour.65 British capitalism needs some social
spending in order to compete on the world market. But in recessions this conflicts with demands for reductions in

Disability does not

impact on all individuals equally. The incidence of impairment is
much higher in poorer families.67 In England people living in the
poorest neighbourhoods die on average seven years earlier than those in the
richest. The average difference in impairment-free life expectancy is 17
years. So working class people not only die sooner, but will also spend more of their shorter lives as disabled.68
Secondly, wealthy disabled people can afford to pay for goods and services to
compensate for the effects of oppression, in the same way that rich
women employ nannies or cleaners. The majority of disabled people have
no such option. Their lives are dominated by poverty, poor education and
spending, leading to arguments over what and how much is to be cut.66

housingas is the case for most other workers. As Glynn Vernon once said, [My main problem is] I dont have

The greater visibility of disabled

people in the labour force means they are more likely to be
accepted as workmates, rather than social or economic burdens. In Britain the
enough money, and I dont have enough sex.69

first disability trade union conference (organised by Nalgo, one of Unisons predecessors) took place in Hull in 1988.
Today disabled members sections exist in most British trade unions, with notable efforts to unite able-bodied and
disabled workers. Recent trade union campaigns (for example, the PCSs Public Services Not Private Profit campaign
and Unisons against the Private Finance Initiative/Public Private Partnerships), as well as others such as Keep Our
NHS Public or Defend Council Housing, have brought unions together with service providers and user groups,
including those of disabled people.

Economy
Their reification of market mechanism short circuits political
action. Advocate the alternative to repoliticize the economy.
Zizek 99 (Slavoj, Senior Researcher at the Institute for Social Studies, Ljubljana,
Slovenia, The Ticklish Subject, page 352-355)
The big news of todays post-political age of the end of ideology is thus the
radical depoliticization of the sphere of the economy: the way the economy
functions (the need to cut social welfare, etc.) is accepted as a simple insight into
the objective state of things. However, as long as this fundamental depoliticization
of the economic sphere is accepted, all the talk about active citizenship, about
public discussion leading to responsible collective decisions, and so on, will
remain limited to the cultural issues of religious, sexual, ethnic and other wayof-life differences, without actually encroaching upon the level at which long-term
decisions that affect us all are made. In short, the only way effectively to bring
about a society in which risky long-term decisions would ensue from public
debate involving all concerned is some kind of radical limitation of Capitals
freedom, the subordinated of the process of production to social control the
radical repoliticization of the economy. That is to say: if the problem with todays
post-politics (administration of social affairs) is that it increasingly undermines the
possibility of a proper political act, this undermining is directly due to the
depoliticization of economics, to the common acceptance of Capital and market
mechanisms as neutral tools/procedures to be exploited.

Environment
Presenting nature as fixable presumes a relationship with it
that necessitates its degradation
Swyngedouw 6 (Erik, Department of Geography @ Manchester, Urban and Landscape Perspectives 9, 2,
p.185-205, September, JM)

the barrage of apocalyptic warnings of the pending

catastrophes wrecked by climate change and the need to take urgent remedial
action to engineer a retro-fitted balanced climate are perfect examples of the
tactics and configurations associated with the present post-political conditio n,
primarily in the US and Europe. Indeed, a politics of sustainability, predicated upon a
radically conservative and reactionary view of a singular and ontologically
stable and harmonious Nature is necessarily one that eradicates or evacuates
the political from debates over what to do with natures . The key political question is one
The popular response to Katrina,

that centres on the question of what kind of natures we wish to inhabit, what kinds of natures we which to
preserve, to make, or, if need be, to wipe off the surface of the planet (like the HIV virus, for example), and on

The fantasy of sustainability imagines the possibility of an

originally fundamentally harmonious Nature, one that is now out-of-synch but,
which, if properly managed, we can and have to return to by means of a series
of technological, managerial, and organisational fixes . As suggested above, many, from
how to get there.

different social, cultural, and philosophical positionalities, agree with this dictum. Disagreement is allowed, but
only with respect to the choice of technologies, the mix of organisational fixes, the detail of the managerial

Natures apocalyptic future, if

unheeded, symbolises and nurtures the solidification of the post-political
condition. And the excavation and critical assessment of this post-political condition nurtured and embodied
adjustments, and the urgency of their timing and implementation.

by most of current Western socio-environmental politics is what we shall turn to next.

Feminism
Your focus to narrow the discussion to solely race and failure
to discuss capitalism inflates every other sources of
exploitation, including race discussions - this turns the case
Brown 93 (Wendy, Ph.D. in Political Philosophy from Princeton, Professor of Political Theory &
Philosophy at UC Berkeley Wounded Attachments, Political Theory, Vol. 21.3, August 1993, pp. 393395, JSTOR, KC)

In addition to the formations of identity that may be the complex effects of disciplinary and liberal
modalities of power, I want to suggest one other historical strand relevanto the production of
politicized identity, this one hewn more specifically to recent developments in political culture.
Although sanguine to varying degrees about the phenomenon they are describing, many on the

that identity politics emerges from the

demise of class politics consequent to post-Fordism or pursuant to May
1968. Without adjudicating the precise relationship between the breakup of class politics and the
European and North American Left have argued

proliferation of other sites of political identification, I want to refigure this claim by suggesting that

we have come to call identity politics is partly dependent on the

demise of a critique of capitalism and of bourgeois cultural and economic
values. In a reading that links the new identity claims to a certain relegitimation of capitalism,
identity politics concerned with race, sexuality, and gender will appear not
as a supplement to class politics, not as an expansion of Left categories of
oppression and emancipation, not as an enriching complexification of pro- gressive
what

formulations of power and persons-all of which they also are-but as tethered to a formulation of
justice which, ironically, reinscribes a bour- geois ideal as its measure. If it is this ideal that signifies
educational and vocational opportunity, upward mobility, relative protection against arbitrary
violence, and reward in proportion to effort, and if it is this ideal against which many of the exclusions
and privations of people of color, gays and lesbians, and women are articulated, then the political

American identity politics would seem to be achieved

in part through a certain discursive renaturalization of capitalism that can
be said to have marked progressive discourse since the 1970s.What this
suggests is that identity politics may be partly configured by a peculiarly shaped
and peculiarly disguised form of resentment-class resent- ment without class
consciousness or class analysis. This resentment is displaced onto discourses of
injustice other than class but, like all resent- ments, retains the real or
imagined holdings of its reviled subject -in this case, bourgeois male
privileges-as objects of desire. From this perspective, it would appear that the
articulation of politicized identities through race, gender, and sexuality
require, rather than incidentally produce, a relatively limited identification
through class. They necessarily rather than incidentally abjure a critique of class
power and class norms precisely because the injuries suffered by these identities
are measured by bourgeois norms of social acceptance, legal protection, relative
material comfort, and social indepen- dence. The problem is that when not only
economic stratification but other injuries to body and psyche enacted by
capitalism (alienation, commodifica- tion, exploitation, displacement,
disintegration of sustaining, albeit contra- dictory, social forms such as families and
neighborhoods) are discursively normalized and thus depoliticized , other
markers of social difference may come to bear an inordinate weight.
purchase of contemporary

Absent an articulation of capitalism in the political discourse of identity,

the marked identity bears all the weight of the sufferings produced by
capitalism in addition to that bound to the explicitly politicized marking.

If
there is one class that is politically articulated in late modem U.S. life, it is that which gives itself the
name of the "middle class." This is the "class" that represents the normalization rather than the

the
represen- tation of the ideal of capitalism to provide the good life for all.
politicization of capitalism, the denial of capitalism's power effects in ordering social life,

Poised between the rich and the poor, feeling itself to be protected from the encroachments of neither,

the phantasmatic middle class signifies the natural and the good between
the decadent or the corrupt, on the one side, and the aberrant or the
decaying, on the other. Middle class identity is a conservative identity in
the sense that it semiotically recurs to a phantasmatic past , an idyllic and
uncorrupted historical moment (implicitly located around 1955) when life was good-housing was
affordable, men supported families on single in- comes, and drugs were confined to urban ghettos.

But it is not a reactionary identity in the sense of reacting to an insurgent

politicized identity from below. Rather, it embodies the ideal to which
nonclass identities refer for proof of their exclusion or injury : homosexuals who
lack the protection of marriage, guarantees of child custody or job security, and freedom from
harassment; single women who are strained and impoverished by trying to raise children and hold
paid jobs simultaneously;

people of color dispropor- tionately affected by

unemployment, punishing urban housing costs, inade- quate health care
programs, and disproportionately subjected to unwarranted harassment and
violence, figured as criminals, ignored by cab drivers . The point is not that these
privations are trivial but that without recourse to a white masculine middle class ideal, politicized
identities would forfeit a good deal of their claims to injury and exclusion, their claims to the political

If they thus require this ideal for the potency and

poignancy of their political claims, we might ask to what extent a critique
of capitalism is foreclosed by the current configuration of oppositional
politics and not simply by the "loss of the socialist alternative" or the
ostensible "triumph of liberalism" in the global order . To what extent do identity
signifi- cance of their difference.

politics require a standard internal to existing society against which to pitch their claims, a standard
that not only preserves capitalism from critique but sustains the invisibility and inarticulateness of

Could we have stumbled on one reason why

class is invariably named but rarely theorized or developed in the
multiculturalist mantra, "race, class, gender, sexuality
class, not accidentally, but endemically?

The welfare state creates worse forms of domination of women

by breeding dependency to the system
Folbre 9 (Nancy, Economics professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, PhD in
Economics from the University of Massachusetts, MacArthur Fellowship between 1998-2003, Summer,
Varieties of Patriarchal Capitalism, Muse, KC)

much of the welfare state literature calls attention to the economic

importance of the welfare state. Yet it often presumes that the welfare
state exists primarily to serve the needs and enhance the efficiency of the
market economy. The market is the horse; the welfare state the cart . The
market is the energy source and driving force; the welfare state is simply a device for
storing, transporting, and distributing the surplus it creates. But the private
Obviously,

sector is not the only source of horsepower in our economic system. Mandel and Shalev seem to recognize this. On
page 10, they challengre what they term the economic functionalism of the varieties of capitalism approach. They

also chide David Soskice for suggesting that continental-style housewifery and Scandinavian-style paid
carework are simply two alternative ways in which women serve the business community (16 ).

But they
never directly question the hegemonic importance of that particular
constructthe business community to the larger abstract entity known
as the economy. We continue to measure economic success and
efficiency in terms of the level and growth of goods and services produced
for sale gross domestic product. But we know better. The amount of time
devoted to non-market work in the advanced capitalist economies is
roughly equivalent to the amount of time devoted to market work . It shapes our
living standards and qualities of life (Folbre 2009a Time Use and Inequality in the Household). Wage
earnings have a huge impact on economic welfare. But the distribution of
the costs of caring for dependentsachieved largely through marriage
and the welfare statelargely determines the disposable income that
individuals have to meet their personal needs (Folbre 2006). Investments in human capital
made by parents as well as schools do not show up as investments in our national income accounts. Yet we

devote
considerably more time than men to nonmarket work, including the care of
dependents. Precisely because this work helps pull the cart, societies
devote considerable effort and attention to ways of harnessing and driving
it. Public policies toward family formation, marriage, child care, and elder
care are not merely a byproduct of decisions made regarding wage
employment. Indeed, in welfare state budgets, expenditures on
dependentsexpenditures that essentially replace and supplement those once made within families and
communities far exceed expenditures on job training for adults and social
safety net provisions such as unemployment insurance. In other words,
the welfare state does not simply regulate or mediate capitalist relations
of production; it regulates and mediates family lifethe process of
reproduction. It socializes some forms of family support and privatizes
others; it promotes health and encourages fertility and defines citizenship
and restricts immigration. Its taxes and transfers have implications for gender roles that reach well
know they yield a large social rate of return (Folbre 2009b The Ultimate Growth Industry). Women

beyond differences in female labor force participation.

The capitalist state locks women into roles of producers and

consumers via reproduction, short circuiting rights
Sharp 2k (Lesley A., Department of Anthropology, Barnard College, The Commodification of the
Body and Its Parts, Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 2000. 29:287328,
http://www.barnard.edu/anthro/sharp_comm.pdf, KC)

political-economic approach to reproduction uncovers other conundrums.

Individual nation-states, for example, may insist upon radically different
understandings of the body. Militaries, after all, consistently appropriate
soldiers bodies in a host of spatio-temporal settings; and the
dehumanizing violence wrought upon bodies through torture exposes
nefarious claims upon particularized categories of transgressive bodies
(Axel 2000, Daniel 1997, Das 1997, Green 1998, Scarry 1985). Population programs define yet
another significant arena that reflects an intensified interest in female
bodies. In a host of countries, the poor are common targets of state
policies that hold their bodies culpable, especially where population size is
an issue (Hartmann 1987, OBrien 1981, Yanoshik & Norsigian 1989), a trend that has remained pervasive since
A

the writings of Malthus, two centuries ago [Malthus 1976 (1798)]. In certain contexts, the state may claim collective

for post-Mao
China, the citizen is simultaneously a consuming and a producing
body that defines an open site of state disciplinary practice, when the
nation is plagued by a surfeit of bodies. Within this context, factors that
determine the worth of surplus bodies are complex. Some urban
households, for example, rely on clandestine forms of body trafficking in
their search for brides and children drawn from rural territories; others
may willingly pay state-imposed penalties for additional births . Handwerker
rights to citizens bodies and their reproductive potential. Thus, as Anagnost (1995) argues

(1995), writing of infertility in China, illustrates how both womens fertility and infertility are situated as critical

women remain inescapably culpable, locked

in a double bind of blame and responsibility where (in)fertility locates
their social and political worth in their reproductive capacities.
markers of national progress (p. 377). Here

The class movement sparks new forms of feminism through the

lens of class equality- second wave feminism proves
Blau and Abramovitz 7 (Joel, Professor of Social Policy and Director of the PhD Program at the
School of Social Welfare, Stony Brook University, and Mimi, professor at the Hunter College School of Social Work,
The Dynamics of Social Welfare Policy, pg. 205-7, KC)

Marxists have analyzed gender and race in relation to capitalism

and class conflict. They highlight the ways in which class patterns
in capitalist societies have led to the subordination of women and
people of color and argue that these groups enter social movements
form their role as workers. Socialist feminists depart from an
analysis that focuses exclusively on class issues. Instead, they
define the relations of class, patriarchy, and racial domination as an
independent but interacting structures of power. All three make
social movements both necessary and possible. Gendered
arrangementssex segregation of occupations, the economic
dependence of women on men, womens near exclusive
responsibility for the homeare so deeply embedded in our culture
and social institutions that they often go unnoticed. Nonetheless, because
gender operates as a fundamental principle of social organization, it
has periodically spanned collective action by women seeking equal
rights with men, greater access to societal resources, and economic
justice, if not an actual end to patriarchal power relations . The socialist
Strict

feminist analysis highlights the conflicts arising from the gendered structures of power in society. More specifically,

tensions arise from the power imbalance that enables men

as a group to dominate women as a group. As noted in the discussions of ideology in
chapter 5, socialist feminists conclude that gender inequality rests on
the gender division of labor that assigns men to the market (public
sphere_ and women to the home (private sphere) and to separate
gendered activities within each arena. The resulting exclusion of
women from social, economic, and political centers of power
provided men with the means to control women and ensured that
it argues that

womens place was in the home. The exclusionary practices also led
women to organize on their own behalf. Womens efforts to gain
social, economic, and political inequality in the United States are as
old as the nation itself. However, given their attention to both
capitalism and patriarchy , socialist feminists found that the nature
of womens activism varies by class. Middle-class women have
fought for equal rights with men; poor and working-class women
demanded the opportunity to carry out their gendered obligations,
which involved improving the economic circumstances of their
families and communities at the point of consumption. In 1789, Abigail
Adams urged her husband, John, who was attending the Constitutional Convention, to remember the ladies, or we
are determined to foment a rebellion and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or
representation. In 1848, the rebellion predicted by Abigail Adams sixty years earlier erupted when Lucretia Mott and
Elizabeth Cady Stanton convened the first womens rights convention, attended by three hundred people (including

Held in
Senecca Falls, New York, the conference issued a Declaration of
Independence. The document proclaimed the self evident truth that
all men and women are created equal, and its resolutions
declared that the laws that placed women in a position inferior to
that of men are contrary to the great precept of nature and
therefore of no force or authority. After considerable struggle,
married women gained the right to own their own property (1849),
to keep their wages and inheritance, to make contracts in their own
name, and to have joint custody of their children (1860). But
women did not win the vote until 1919, when Congress ratified the
Nineteenth amendment to the constitution. From 1920 to this day,
sexism (the unequal treatment of women by men) has continued to
spark activism by middle-class women. For much of this time, African
American and Latina women organized separately, first due to the
laws of segregation that separated women racially and then
because of unmatched agendas. Poor and working-class women
mobilized to fulfill their gendered obligations, which required them
to carry out the expectations of women as defined by their
community. Middle-class women rose up to protest that the
democratic promise of equal opportunity for all did not apply to
them; poor and working class women protested that the workings of
the market economy undercut their gendered family maintenance
roles. The lack of family income made it difficult, if not impossible, for them
to effectively carry out their part in the tasks of social reproduction
assigned to the family and linked to womens roles in the home. The
discrepancy between the profit-driven markets ability to produce
enough income and jobs and the resources needed by the family to
maintain themselves fueled activism among low-income women.
They organized to ensure that they would be able to meet their
forty men) sparked by their lack of rights and the exclusion of women from the antislavery movement.

gendered obligations at the point of consumption. For example, during the

depression of the 1830s, working-class housewives organized flour riots. In the early 1900s,
immigrant women on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and in other
cities organized rent strikes to protest rising rents and butcher
store boycotts to protest inflated meat prices. The action quickly spread to other
neighborhoods and was the first of many other price driven protests in cities around the nation in 1905, 1907, 1908,
1910, and 1914. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, housewives around the country who lacked the ability to

They supported strikes by men

in their communities, blocked evictions, and organized consumer
boycotts. One of the largest boycotts took place in 1935, when
housewives targeted butcher shops in many large cities, closing
some forty-five hundred in New York alone. Black working-class
women formed their own housewives leagues and launched Dont
Buy Where You Cant Work campaigns in numerous cities.
Housewife activism peaked in an explosion of protests in the early
1940s after Roosevelt cut social spending in response to
conservative critics. The protests stopped during World War II, but huge price increases in 1946-1947
and 1951 sparked two of the largest consumer strikes in U.S history. During the civil rights
movement, low-income women played key but highly unreported
roles in local communities. During the 1960s, they became active in the war on poverty and the
feed and clothe their families demanded government action.

welfare rights movement, and to this day are involved in local campaigns against toxic waste, for neighborhood

. If the structure and operation of

capitalist institutions, especially economic exploitation, created the
conditions for collective action among workers at the point of
production, so the structure and operation of patriarchal power
relations, especially the gender division of labor, created the
conditions for collective action among women seeking equal rights.
Just as the rise of larger and larger factories concentrated male
workers in one place and exposed conflicts between capital and
labor, so the gender division of labor clustered women into female
enclaves: housewives in neighborhoods, workers in womens jobs,
and clients in social welfare programs. But the capacity of women to
act politically to try to change their circumstances is not automatic.
It depends on the development of consciousness, leadership, and
organizational capacity. In the case of women, the gender division of labor
designed to keep women down and out paradoxically helped to
create the conditions for the emergence of low-income womens
activism and middle-class womens movements. The concentration of women in
safety, and in support of many other community issues

womens places, whether low-p aid jobs or local neighborhoods, made it possible for women to recognize their

As some point, under certain conditions, women

concluded that their problems were not individual but stemmed
from the patriarchal devaluation of women, the differential
treatment of women and men, the exclusion of women from major
economic and political institutions, and womens inability to fulfills
shared oppression.

their gendered obligations. The perceptions of at least some women

turned into a powerful critique of patriarchy, male domination ,
womens condition, and economic injustice. The increased
awareness (i.e., consciousness) that their well-being depended on
jointly resisting their condition eventually led some women to
organize for social change. The gender division of labor also
generated the organizational capacity needed for collective
behavior. Excluded from mainstream institutions and located in womens place in the home and on the job,
women began to form their own clubs, associations, alliance, and organizations. The resulting networks became the
infrastructure for collective action by women. Indeed, feminists point out that the shared experience of women
denied basic rights, deprived of control over their bodies, and excluded from the centers of power fueled the first

The failure of the market to produce

the income needed by low-income families sparked the collective
action of low-income women throughout the twentieth century.
and second wave of feminism in the United states.

Black and women movements have empirically created political

backlash
Piven 95 (Frances Fox Piven, Professor of Political Science and Sociology at The Graduate Center,
City University of New York., Globalizing Capitalism and the Rise of Identity Politics,
http://socialistregister.com/socialistregister.com/files/SR_1995_Piven.pdf, KC)

The new
assertions of Black pride and the political demands that pride fuelled
provoked alarmed and angry reactions from other groups whose own
identities depended on the subordination of blacks. And of course political
elites, especially but not only Republican party operatives, who stood to benefit from the
politics of backlash, worked to sharpen these reactions, making such code
words of race hatred as 'quotas,' or 'law and order,' or 'welfare
dependency,' focal to their popular appeals. Still, the very emergence of farreaching race conflict reflected the fact that subordination had come to be
contested. Blacks were no longer allowing others to define their identity,
repress their interests, and stamp out their aspirations. That was an achievement.
The rise of gender politics followed a similar course. While women do not
have what is recognized as a distinctive language or turf, the
understanding of gender has in other ways been prototypical of the
understanding of group identity. Gender identities are closely similar to
racial identities, because the traits which were thought to be feminine or
masculine, and the social roles to which women and men were consigned,
were always understood as the natural consequence of biological
difference. Necessarily, therefore, the emergence of a liberatory movement among
women was preceded and accompanied by an effort to cast off this
inherited identity and construct new identities that disavowed biological
fatalism or, in some variants, celebrated biological difference. Indeed, Zaretsky writes of
'the profundity and the intensity of the identity impulse among women that emerged in the early seventies.'" The
most salient issues of the women's movement - the struggle for the Equal
Rights Amendment, for reproductive rights, and the campaigns against
rape and sexual harassment - are closely reflective of this effort to
reconstruct the meaning of gender by challenging the biological
underpinnings of traditional meanings. The mounting of such a challenge to the most ancient
However, these achievements set in motion a train of repercussions that were not simple.

of subordinations, and a subordination rooted in understandings of nature itself, is surely a stunning

accomplishment.

Freedom of speech
Attempts to create free communication fundamentally deny
the nature of modern interactions. Communications are not
free, but rather scripted and defined by the socialization of the
market. Capitalism has opened the social to the fullest extents
of its capacity and ruptured all social interactions.
Wark 14 (McKenzie, Professor of Culture and Media in Liberal Studies, The New
School for Social Research, Furious Media,
http://www.publicseminar.org/2014/04/where-next-for-media-theory/#.VaRwoflVikr,
Page 202-203, NKF)

Capitalism is a communicable disease in the form of

a disease of

communication . It puts everything into communication with

everything else . It universalizes the and in the form of (apparently) equal exchange. As such, it is
philosophy made concrete or almost concrete as the endless separation of
the world into exchange values , all equivalent to, and competing with, each
other . Capitalism is a realization of the practice of philosophy itself. Against exchange value, Laruelle hews to use value and its
incommensurability, its immanence.

Labor- power makes , in and with infrastructure, a plethora of

use values, but communication works only one way . Here is no return. Laborpower makes out of the totality something else , which imagines itself to be always and
already separate, and indeed to be what makes the totality out of a dialectic or a diff erence between itself and its other.

But it

is already just inconsistent parts of the One , the Real, the infrastructure, the given
without given- ness. Whatever one calls it, and whatever it is,

it isnt exchangeable, by either

capitalism or philosophy. Where Marx critiqued the nineteenthcentury ideologies of capitalism, Laruelle sets his sights on its
philosophies, both its most ancient and its most contemporary. His
spoil- sport might be particularly useful for retrieving the Furies
from capitalism, from the now widespread belief that the network is
a swarm of benign communicants, of happy busy worker bees.
Through their distributed protocols of decision, it is supposedly
possible to communicate between worlds, and through multiple
portals . His pet swarm that capital hallucinates to replace the spectacle can supposedly reconcile capital and its other, be it
nature, God, or whatever: That which is good, networks; that which networks is good.

Something like J-horror

might point to how capitalism seeks to capitalize on and contain a

more wild version

of the Furies.

The culture industr y becomes the vulture industry,

preying on the carcass of Christianity and philosophy, making a

business of peddling portal s. You too can xenocommunicate for a low monthly fee, no money down! The

snaking path from Epiphanes to Laruelle might rather remind us: no deal.

The immanent sense of the

Real belongs always and already to anyone.

Even heresies and Marxisms are in the end

just fragments of the One become Two, which simply evidence. The One unilaterally without pretending to be negotiating with it. Of
course it is yet to be seen whether Laruelle might not merely renovate the temple of bourgeois philosophy, but perhaps thats no
less honorable a fate than the a empts by Fourier or Vaneigem to escape it. And

it is yet to be seen

whether there can be a connection between that heretical thought

which declares that media is dead, that there is no
xenocommunication, and certain practices of that everyday lifethe
wild boys are my witnesswhich knows it instinctively. It is yet to
be seen whether the age of the Furies has really come, where there
are portals without end to other worlds without endprecisely
because they dont really work as advertised.

Hegemony
Hegemony maintains a system of capital that privileges the
few at risk of extinction
Foster 6

(John Bellamy, Prof of Sociology @ U of Oregon, PhD in Political Science @ York University, The New Geopolitics of
Empire 2006, Monthly Review Vol. 57.8 January JF)

U.S. imperial geopolitics is ultimately aimed at creating a global space for capitalist
development. It is about forming a world dedicated to capital accumulation on behalf of
the U.S. ruling classand to a lesser extent the interlinked ruling classes of the triad powers as a whole (North America,
Europe, and Japan). Despite the end of colonialism and the rise of anti-capitalist new countries, Business Week pronounced
in April 1975, there has always been the umbrella of American power to contain it.[T]he U.S. was able to fashion increasing
prosperity among Western countries, using the tools of more liberal trade, investment, and political power. The rise of the

the U.S.
imperium has benefited those at the top of the center-capitalist nations and not just the
power elite of the United States. Yet, the drive for global hegemony on the part of particular
capitalist nations and their ruling classes, like capital accumulation itself, recognizes no insurmountable
barriers. Writing before September 11, 2001, Istvn Mszros argued in his Socialism or Barbarism that due to unbridled U.S.
imperial ambitions the world was entering what was potentially the most dangerous phase of
imperialism in all history: For what is at stake today is not the control of a particular part
of the planetno matter how largeputting 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 .This
is what the ultimate rationality of globally developed capital requires , in its vain attempt to bring
under control its irreconcilable antagonisms. The trouble is, though, that such rationalityis at the same time
the most extreme form of irrationality in history, including the Nazi conception of world
domination, as far as the conditions required for the survival of humanity are concerned .37
In the present era of naked imperialism, initiated by the sole superpower, the nature of the threat to
the entire planet and its people is there for all to see. According to G. John Ikenberry, Professor of
multinational corporation was the economic expression of this political framework.36 There is no doubt that

Geopolitics and Global Justice at Georgetown University, in his 2002 Foreign Affairs article Americas Imperial Ambition: the
U.S. neoimperial vision is one in which the United States arrogates to itself the global role of setting standards, determining

At present the United States currently enjoys both

economic (though declining) and military primacy. The new goal, he states, is to make these
advantages permanenta fait accompli that will prompt other states to not even try to catch up. Some thinkers have
threats, using force, and meting out justice.

described the strategy as breakout. Yet, such a hard-line imperial grand strategy, according to Ikenberryhimself no

interimperialist rivalry did not end as

is often thought with the rise of U.S. hegemony. Rather it has persisted in Washingtons
drive to unlimited hegemony, which can be traced to the underlying logic of capital in a
world divided into competing nation states. The United States as the remaining superpower is today seeking
final world dominion. The Project for the New American Century stands for an attempt to
create a U.S.-led global imperium geared to extracting as much surplus as possible from
the countries of the periphery, while achieving a breakout strategy with respect to the main rivals (or potential
rivals) to U.S. global supremacy. The fact that such a goal is irrational and impossible to sustain
constitutes the inevitable failure of geopolitics.
opponent of imperialismcould backfire.38 The foregoing suggests that

US hegemony is synonymous with global capitalistic

domination directing the world towards nuclear war and
ecological destruction
Foster 5-Professor of Sociology @ the University of Oregon, Editor of the Monthly Review, PhD in Political Science @ York
University [John, Monthly Review, Naked Imperialism, http://www.monthlyreview.org/0905jbf.htm]

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 administrations 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 MayJune 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 weaponsby the decision of one person, the presidentagainst either a nuclear or nonnuclear enemy whenever

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 readiness to use it whenever it sees fitsetting the whole world on edge. The nation that contributes
we believe it is in our interest to do so.

more to carbon dioxide emissions leading to global warming than any other (representing approximately a quarter of the worlds
total) has become the greatest obstacle to addressing global warming and the worlds 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 Venezuelas Bolivarian Revolution under Hugo Chvez. 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

Terrorist blowback from imperialist wars in the third world is now a wellrecognized 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. The course on which U.S and world capitalism
is now headed points to global barbarismor worse. Yet it is important to remember that nothing in the
development of human history is inevitable. There still remains an alternative paththe global
struggle for a humane, egalitarian, democratic, and sustainable society.
enter the nuclear club.

Identity Politics Generally

Identity politics cant solve cap They rely on obscuring class
consciousness
Herod 7 (James, Student at Graceland College and Columbia University, 35 year
old author on anarchy, May 2007, Getting Free,
http://www.jamesherod.info/Getting_Free.pdf)

The so-called new social movements, based on gender, racial,

sexual, or ethnic identities, cannot destroy capitalism . In general, they
havent even tried . Except for a tiny fringe of radicals in each of them, they have been
attempting to get into the system, not overthrow it . This is true for
women, blacks, homosexuals, and ethnic
other identities B old people,

(including Anative)

groups , as well as many

people with disabilities , mothers on welfare, and so forth. Nothing

has de- railed the anticapitalist struggle during the past quarter
century so thoroughly as have these movements. Sometimes it
seems that identity politics is all that remains of the left . Identity
politics has simply swamped class politics . The mainstream versions of these movements
(the ones fighting to get into the system rather than overthrow it)

have given capitalists a chance to

do a little fine-tuning by eliminating tensions here and there, and

by including token representatives of the excluded groups.
demands of these movements can be easily accommodated. Capit

Many of the

alists can live with boards of

directors exhibiting ethnic, gender, and racial diversity as long as

all the board members are procapitalist. Capitalists can easily
accept a rainbow cabinet as long as the cabinet is pushing the
corporate agenda . So mainstream identity politics has not threatened capitalism at all. The radical wings of the
new social movements, however, are rather more subversive.

These militants realized that it was

necessary to attack the whole social order in order to uproot racism

and sexism B problems that could not be overcome under
capitalism since they are an integral part of it . There is no denying the evils of racism,
sexism, and nationalism, which are major structural supports to ruling-class control. These militants have done whatever they could
to highlight, analyze, and ameliorate these evils. Unfortunately, for the most part,

their voices have been

lost in all the clamor for admittance to the sys- tem by the
majorities in their own movements . There have been gains, of course. The women's movement has
forever changed the world's consciousness about gender. Unpaid housework has been recognized as a key ingredient in the wage
slave system. Reproduction as well as production has been included in our analysis of the system

. Identity politics

in general has underscored just how many people are excluded

while also exposing gaps in previous revolutionary strategies.

Moreover, the demand for real racial and gender equality is itself
inherently revolutionary in that it cannot be met by capitalists,
given that racial and gender discrimination are two of the key
structural mechanisms for keeping wages low and thus making
profits possible.

People are not desriminated against solely based on colorsocial practices contribute to their oppression
Young 6 (Robert Young- British postcolonial theorist, cultural critic, and historian Putting
Materialism back into Race Theory: Toward a Transformative Theory of Race
http://www.redcritique.org/WinterSpring2006/puttingmaterialismbackintoracetheory.htm KC)

"real", does not adequate the "truth", as Collins implies. Collins

she offers
empiricism as the grounds for validating experience . Hence, the validity of experiential
claims is adjudicated by reference to the experience. Not only is her argument circular, but it
also undermines one of her key claims. If race, class, gender, and the
accompanying ideological apparatuses are interlocking systems of
oppression, as Collins suggest, then the experiential is not the site for the
"true" but rather the site for the articulation of dominant ideology. On
what basis then, could the experiential provide grounds for an historical
understanding of the structures that make experience itself possible as
experience? Asante and Collins assume that experience is self-intelligible and in their discourse it functions as
the limit text of the real. However, I believe experience is a highly mediated frame of
understanding. Though it is true that a person of color experiences oppression,
this experience is not self-explanatory and, therefore, it needs to be
situated in relation to other social practices. Experience seems local but it is, like all
cultural and political practices, interrelated to other practices and experiences. Thus its
explanation come from its "outside". Theory, specifically Marxist theory, provides an
explanation of this outside by reading the meaning of all experiences as
determined by the economic realities of class . While Asante's and Collins'
humanism reads the experience of race as a site of "self-presence", the
history of race in the United Statesfrom slavery to Jim Crow to Katrinais written in the
fundamental difference of class. In other words, experience does not speak the real, but rather it is
However, the experiential, the

rejects the "Eurocentric Masculinist Knowlege Validation Process" for its positivism but, in turn,

the site of contradictions and, hence, in need of conceptual elaboration to break from cultural common sense, a
conduit for dominant ideology. It is this outside that has come under attack by black (humanist) scholars through the
invocation of the black (transcendental) subject.

The expansion of capital necessitates identity politics- creates

worse exploitation
Piven 95 (Frances Fox Piven, Professor of Political Science and Sociology at The Graduate Center, City
University of New York., Globalizing Capitalism and the Rise of Identity Politics,
http://socialistregister.com/socialistregister.com/files/SR_1995_Piven.pdf, KC)

Other consequences of capitalist tranformation for the intensification of identity politics are more direct. In a sense,
the old prediction has proved true;

the bourgeoisie is on the move with a series of

universalizing projects which promise utterly to transform the world,
penetrating and homogenizing social life across the globe . But instead of
nourishing a growing proletariat, a missionary capitalism is destroying the
working class formations of the older industrial order, at least in the rich countries of
the West. I do not want to overstate the unifying influence of the labour movement at its peak. I have already
pointed out that worker mobilizations were given by the particularistic divisions of race and ethnicity, and

the promise of the labour movement was that class

solidarity would override particularisms, and even that proletarian
internationalism would override state patriotism. And in instance after
instance, where the successful use of the strike power demanded it,
labour did indeed override the divisions of identity politics, even in the
United States. Now that moderating influence has weakened. The basic lines of capitalist restructuring and the
impact on organized labour are familiar. First, the expansion of global trade, itself
promoted by the internationalizing of markets in finance and production,
as well as by improvements in transportation and communications, has lead to the intensified
exploitation of labour and resources across the globe. From Indonesia to China to
Haiti, previously peripheral peoples and places are being incorporated into
capitalist markets, with the consequence that organized workers in the
mother countries find themselves competing with products made by low
wage workers across the globe, including workers made docile by coercive
authoritarian governments. Second, the power constellations patterning the policies of national
sometimes gender. Nevertheless,

governments have shifted. Organized labour has lost ground dramatically to new supra-national institutions created
by capital. It is true, as Panitch says, that the nation states are major authors of these institutions, and also
continue to serve important functions for internationalizing capital.'" Nevertheless ,

once in existence,
international organizations and networks, including multinational
corporations and international banking organizations, together with their
domestic corporate and financial allies who freely use the threat of
disinvestment as leverage in their dealings with governments, become
major constraints on the policy options of the state . Constraints on the state are also
constraints on the ability of democratic publics, including the organized working class, to exert influence through
electoral-representative arrangements. The trade unions and political parties constructed by organized workers in
the mother countries gained what influence they had through their leverage on governments, where strike power,

If
capitalist internationalism circumscribes what national governments can
do, it inevitably also circumscribes working class political power . Third, as a
consequence of both internationalism and the shifting power
constellations within nations, the economies and polities of the mother
counties of industrial capitalism are being restructured, with dire
consequences for the old working class. This process is most advanced in
England and the United States where unions are weaker and welfare state
protections less adequate. The old mass production industries which created the industrial working
trade union organization and working class voting numbers made them a force with which to be reckoned.

class are being dismantled or reorganized and decentralized, with the consequence that the numbers of blue collar
workers are shrinking. And as communities disperse and the mass media supplants the local pub, the old working

Those who remain have become excruciatingly

vulnerable to the threat power of a mobile capital, unable to resist
shrinking wages and benefits, and the worsening terms of work, including
speedup, and forced overtime for some, and involuntary part-time or
temporary work for others, all of which undermines union organization. At
the same time, capitalists have launched a specifically political project to
dismantle the institutional supports created by working class politics, by
attacking unions, and slashing welfare state income and service
class culture also crumbles.

protections which shielded workers from the market, and by discrediting

Keynesian macro-economic political regulation." Finally, a capitalist class
on th emove has launched an ideological campaign to justify and promote
its expansionary mission. International markets exist, but they have also
been cast as a superordinate order, operating according to a kind of
natural law, penetrating national economies more deeply than they
actually do, and beyond the reach of politics. In fact, this neo-laissez faire doctrine cloaks
the capitalist class with the mantle once claimed by the proletariat. Capital is forging the way to the future, it is the
great force for progress, the hope of humankind. And as with 19th century laissez faire notions to which this
doctrine owes its main tenets, the ideology is touched with fanaticism, with a zealous utopianism that ignores the

Of course, this ideological campaign is

as persuasive as it is because international markets are also real, and the
palpable evidence of capital and goods mobility lends the sweeping
doctrine of neo-laissez faire a certain material reality.
actual needs of the human subjects of any world order.

Capitalism will use their movement to garner political backlash

against oppression and pit movements against one another
Piven 95 (Frances Fox Piven, Professor of Political Science and Sociology at The Graduate Center, City
University of New York., Globalizing Capitalism and the Rise of Identity Politics,
http://socialistregister.com/socialistregister.com/files/SR_1995_Piven.pdf, KC)
In all of these ways a universalizing capitalism has weakened the old industrial
working class as a political force. No wonder unions and labour parties that were the
instrument of this class have also lost their ideological footing. The imagery which gaveworking-class politics is 61an, the idea that the future belonged to the
workers, and that workers acted for all humankind, has collapsed . That
universalizing myth now belongs to a capitalist class on the move. The surge of identity
politics is not just the result of a collapsing central governments or a
receding class politics. It is also the result of the massive dislocations of
people set in motion by capitalist restructuring. More and more people are
being drawn into the orbit of capitalism . Considered abstractly, that process is
universalizing. In the actual experience of people, it has had the effect of
heightening particularistic identities and conflicts. Gellner, writing of an earlier
phase of capitalist transformation and the nationalist furies it helped to set loose, showed how an
'explosive blend of early industrialism (dislocation, mobility, acute inequality not hallowed by time and
custom) seeks out, as it were, all the available nooks and crannies of cultural differentiation, wherever

instead of
wiping out the 'train of ancient and venerable prejudices,' the advance of
global capitalism is whipping ancient prejudices to fever pitch. Identity
politics is pervasive, and probably inevitable. But group conflict is likely to
rise under some conditions, and subside under others. One important source
of disturbance has to do with the large-scale migration of people spurred by
capitalist penetration of subsistence agricultural economies, with the
consequence that conflicts over land escalate, and people no longer able
to survive in agriculture migrate to urban centres." At the same time, the
spread of consumer culture also attracts people from the periphery, while
the development of globe spanning circuits of communication and
transportation facilitates the recruitment of cheap labour to the
metropole.'"Every migration,' says Enzensberger, 'no matter what triggered it, what motive
they be.'16 The pattern is being repeated in the contemporary era. In other words,

underlies it, whether it is voluntary or involuntary, and what scale it assumes, leads to conflicts.'" Or
as Jean Daniel, editor of Le Nouvel Observateur, warns about population movements and the

If
unfamiliar proximity is likely to intensify group consciousness and
fractionalism, this is especially so when outsider groups are seen as
competitors for limited jobs, neighbourhood space, honour and influence .
'unprecedented' mingling of peoples, we should remember that 'Babel . . . was a curse.'"

In his last book, Ralph Miliband wrote that intra-class conflicts among wage-earners involving race or
gender or ethnicity or religion can reasonably be understood as the effort to find scapegoats to
explain insecurity and alienation?' If he was not entirely. right, he was surely at least significantly
right.

Group conflict is far more likely when people feel growing uncertainty
about their own future and as is true in many instances, are experiencing
real declines in living standards. When times get harder, and competition
for scarce resources intensifies, theories about the Other, and how the
Other is to blame for these turns in events, being ubiquitous, are readily
available. And, of course, such interpretations are more likely to be seized upon when alternative
and perhaps more systemic explanations of the troubles people face are not available, or when such
explanations yield no practicable line of action. No wonder there has been a spread of an identity
politics, often a hate-filled identity politics, in the metropole. As Vaclav Have1 says, 'The world of our
experiences seems chaotic, confusing. . . And the fewer answers the era of rational knowledge
provides . . . the more deeply it would seem that people, behind its back as it were, cling to the
ancient certainties of their tribe.'* Finally, as so many times before, the group divisions of identity
politics are being worsened by political elites who seize the opportunity for gaining advantage from

In particular, politicians on the Right - Le Pen's Front National

in France, the Christian Right in the United States, the Freedom Party in
Austria, the Falangists in Spain, the Lombardy League in Italy, or the
Republicans in Germany where half a million immigrants arrived in 1992
alone - work to stoke the anger against outsiders. They draw popular
attention away from the economic transformations underway, and try to
hold or win anxious voters by directing resentment against outsiders. Or, as
popular division.

a retired Russian officer commented to a New York Times reporter about the conflict between the
Tatars and ethnic Russians, 'Half the population is building mosques, the other half is building
churches. And the bosses are building big brick houses for themselves.' Once again, the United States
is at the forefront. Last October, BusinessWeek editorialized about the 'unprecedented widening of the
income gap between winners and losers in the workplace.' BusinessWeek worried that the losers
might ignore its advice that 'Growth is the single most important salve for the high-risk, high gain
society' and seek scapegoats, such as 'elitist big business.' There are of course reasons for
Businessweek's concerns about the resurgence of class politics.

Big business is politically

mobilized as never before, having developed over the past two decades a range of
vehicles to do ideological and policy warfare, from big think tanks, to revived trade associations, to
new associations of peak corporations. Reflecting both these developments and the changed
international economic context in which they have unfolded, enormous changes have taken place in
the American class structure, as the rich have gotten much richer, the poor much poorer, and most
people have gotten poorer as well. National wealth increased, but the vast majority of wage earners
lost ground, with the consequence that more people are working, working longer, and harder. The U. S.
Census reported that beteen 1973 and 1989, the real income of male high school graduates dropped
by a third; the income of those who didn't make it through high school dropped by 40 percent. And the
palpable evidence of economic trauma also grew, in the form of visible poverty and pathology, of
beggars and spreading homeless encampments in all of the major cities. Still, Businessweek needn't
worry, at least not so far. Americans are being led by their political leaders to other scapegoats, and
certain conditions prepare the way. For one thing, organized labour is on its back, its membership at
11 percent of the private sector labour force, down from 30 percent only two decades ago. For

economic changes are not the only shocks to the American psyche.
Cultural changes which undermine the established bases of identity are
contributing to widespread unease. Contested racial boundaries and, not
less important, changing sexual and family mores are eroding a world in
which whites were in command, men were men, women were women, and
the rules for mating and family life were clear. Needless to say, in a society in
another,

which the culture of group identity figures so largely, changes of this sort
generate a distinctive terror. In this sense, the numerous commentators who
blame the black movement and the women's movement for the rightward
shift of the past two decades are not entirely wrong. In a world of identity
politics, mobilization by the Other is always a provocation. Thus economic
and cultural change are combining to generate popular anxiety and anger.
But the economic transformation, its impact on hard-hit groups, the
measures that might moderate the transformation or its impact, do not
figure much in American political discussion, except sometimes in the
speculations of pundits trying to account for electoral discontent. Instead,
public anger has easily been routed into the familiar channels of identity
politics, as issues like immigration, crime, and welfare, all code terms for
Afro-American and Latino minorities, (with welfare a code evoking wanton
women besides) dominate the political discussion. Republican and Democratic
leaders alike are following the precedents of American history. Hemmed in by a politically mobilized
and aggressive capitalist class, party leaders promulgate arguments which account for the felt

Political discourse is dominated by

a narrative in which immigrants, or criminals, or welfare recipients, are
variously pointed to as the source of America's problems.
problems of ordinary people by singling out the Other.

Narratives/Poems
Insider-only identity politics regresses to an infinitely
segmented society that accomplishes nothing
Merton 72 (Robert, former University Professor at Columbia University (since deceased),
Insiders and Outsiders: A Chapter in the Sociology of Knowledge, American Journal of Sociology
78:1, July 1972, JSTOR, KC)

In contrast to this de facto form of Insiderism, an explicitly doctrinal form

has in recent years been put forward most clearly and emphatically by some
black intellectuals. In its strong version, the argument holds that, as a matter of
social epistemology, only black historians can truly under- stand black
history, only black ethnologists can understand black culture, only black
sociologists can understand the social life of blacks, and so on . In the weaker
form of the doctrine, some practical concessions are made. With regard to programs of Black Studies, for example, it
is proposed that some white professors of the relevant subjects might be brought in since there are not yet enough
black scholars to staff all the proliferating programs of study. But as Nathan Hare, the founding publisher of the
Black Scholar, stated several years ago, this is only on temporary and conditional sufferance: "Any white professors
involved in the program would have to be black in spirit in order to last. The same is true for 'Negro' professors."6

the Insider doctrine maintains that there is a

body of black history, black psychology, black ethnology, and black
sociology which can be significantly advanced only by black scholars and
social scientists. In its fundamental character, this represents a major claim in the sociology of knowledge
Apart from this kind of limited concession,

that implies the balkanization of social science, with separate baronies kept exclusively in the hands of Insiders

Generaliz- ing the specific

claim, it would appear to follow that if only black scholars can understand
blacks, then only white scholars can understand whites. Generalizing
further from race to nation, it would then appear, for example, that only
French scholars can understand French society and, of course, that only
Americans, not their external critics, can truly understand Amer- ican
society. Once the basic principle is adopted, the list of Insider claims to a
monopoly of knowledge becomes indefinitely expansible to all manner of
social formations based on ascribed (and, by extension, on some achieved) statuses. It would thus seem to
bearing their credentials in the shape of one or another ascribed status.

follow that only women can understand women-and men, men. On the same principle, youth alone iscapable of
understanding youth just as, presumably, only the middle aged are able to understand their age peers.7

Furthermore, as we shift to the hybrid cases of ascribed and acquired

statuses in varying mix, on the Insider principle, proletarians alone can
understand proletarians and presumably capitalists, capitalists; only
Catholics, Catholics; Jews, Jews, and to halt the inventory of socially atomized claims to knowledge
with a limiting case that on its face would seem to have some merit, it would then plainly follow that only
sociologists are able to understand their fellow sociologists.8 In all these applications,

the doctrine of

extreme Insiderism represents a new credentialism .9 This is the credentialism of ascribed

status, in which understanding becomes accessible only to the fortunate few or many who are to the manner born.
In this respect, it contrasts with the creden- tialism of achieved status that is characteristic of meritocratic

In this form
of solipsism, each group must in the end have a monopoly of knowledge
about itself just as according to the doctrine ofindividual methodological
solipsism each individual has absolute privacy of knowledge about him- or
her-self. The Insider doctrine can be put in the vernacular with no great loss in meaning: you have to be one in
systems.10 Extreme Insiderism moves toward a doctrine of group methodological solipsism.1"

order to understand one. In somewhat less idiomatic language, the doctrine holds that one has monopolistic or
privileged access to knowledge, or is wholly excluded from it, by virtue of one's group membership or social

position. For some, the notion appears in the form of a question-begging pun: Insider as Insighter, one endowed with
special insight into matters necessarily obscure to others, thus possessed of penetrating discernment. Once
adopted, the pun provides a specious solution but the serious In- sider doctrine has its own rationale.

Insider-only doctrine leads to extreme ethnocentrism and total

dismissal of any other viewpoint
Merton 72 (Robert, former University Professor at Columbia University (since deceased),
Insiders and Outsiders: A Chapter in the Sociology of Knowledge, American Journal of Sociology
78:1, July 1972, JSTOR, KC)

the social epistemological doctrine of the Insider links up with what Sumner
(1907, p. 13) long ago defined as ethnocentrism: "the tech- nical name for [the] view
of things in which one's own group is the center of everything, and all
others are scaled and rated with reference to it." Sumner then goes on to include as a
Clearly,

component of ethnocentrism, rather than as a frequent correlate of it (thus robbing his idea of some of its potential
analytical power), the belief that one's group is superior to all cognate groups:
"each group nourishes its own pride and vanity, boasts itself superior, exalts its own divinities, and looks with
contempt on out- siders" (p. 13). For although the practice of seeing one's own group as the center of things is
empirically correlated with a belief in its superiority, centrality and superiority need to be kept analytically distinct
in order to deal with patterns of alienation from one's membership group and contempt for it.13

Supplementing the abundance of historical and ethnological evidence of

the empirical tendency for belief in one's group or collectivity as superior
to all cognate groups or collectivities-whether nation, class, race, region,
or organization-is a recent batch of studies of what Theodore Caplow (1964, pp. 213-16)
has called the aggrandizement effect: the distortion upward of the prestige of
an organization by its members. Caplow ex- amined 33 different kinds of organizations-ranging
from dance studios to Protestant and Catholic churches, from skid row missions to big banks, and from advertising
agencies to university departments-and found that members overestimated the prestige of their organization some
"eight times as often as they underestimated it" (when compared with judgments by Outsiders). More in point for
us, while members tended to disagree with Outsiders about the standing of their own organization, they tended to
agree with them about the prestige of the other organizations in the sameset. These findings can be taken as

the judgments of "Insiders" are

best trusted when they assess groups other than their own; that is, when
members of groups judge as Outsiders rather than as Insiders . Findings of this
something of a sociological parable. In these matters at least,

sort do not testify, of course, that ethnocentrism and its frequent spiritual correlate, xenophobia, fear and hatred of

They do, however, remind us of the widespread tendency to

glorify the ingroup, sometimes to that degree in which it qualifies as
chauvinism: the extreme, blind, and often bellicose extolling of one's
group, status, or collectivity. We need not abandon "chauvinism" as a concept useful to us here
the alien, are incorrigible.

merely because it has lately become adopted as a vogue word, blunted in meaning through indiscriminate use as a
rhetorical weapon in intergroup conflict. Nor need we continue to confine the scope of the concept, as it was in its
origins and later by Lasswell (1937, p. 361) in his short, incisive discussion of it, to the special case of the state or
nation. The concept can be usefully, not tendentiously, extended to desig- nate the extreme glorification of any
social formation

Their belief in universal female experience locks women into

modes of subjugation and deny the experiences of women who
dont resemble the narratives of the 1AC
Brown 5 (Wendy, Class of 1936 First Professor of Political Science at the University of California,
Berkeley Edgework : Critical Essays on Knowledge and Politics, p. 90-92, KC)

attempts at codifying feminist discourses of womens

experience in the unitary and universal discourse of the law. What happens when
Consider, more generally,

legal universalisms silence about women that is, its failure to recognize or remedy the material of womens

is remedied with discourses specifying womens

experience and codifying the category of women through this specification?
subordination

Catharine MacKinnon, for example, expressly aims to write womens experience into law; but as many other
feminists have remarked, this begs the question of which womens experience(s), drawn from which historical

what does it mean to write

historically and culturally circumscribed experience into an
ahistorical discourse, the universalist discourse of law? Is it possible to
do this without rendering experience as ontology and
perspective as Truth, without unifying this ontology and this Truth
in the Subject of Woman, and without encoding them in law as the
basis of womens rights? What if, for example, the identity of women as keyed to sexual violation is
moments, culture, race, and class strata, are to be recorded. Indeed,

an expressly late-twentieth-century and white middle-class construction of femininity, consequent to a radical

deprivatization of sexuality on the one side and the erosion of other elements of compulsory heterosexualitysuch
as a severely gendered division of social labor on the other? Moreover, does a definition of women as sexual
subordinates, and the encoding of this definition in law, work to liberate women from sexual subordination, or does
it, paradoxically, legally reinscribe femaleness as sexual violability? If the law produces the subjects it claims to
protect or emancipate, how might installation of womens experience as sexual violation in the law reiterate rather

might this installation be particularly

unemancipatory for women whose lived experience is not that of
sexual subordination to men but that, for example, of sexual outlaw ?
These questions suggest that in legally codifying a fragment of an insurrectionary
discourse as a timeless truth, interpellating women as unified in
their victimization, and casting the free speech of men as that
which silences and thus subordinates women, MacKinnon not only opposes
than repeal this identity? And

bourgeois liberty to substantive equality but potentially intensifies the regulation of gender and sexuality in the law,
abetting rather than contesting the production of gender identity as sexual. In short, as a regulatory fiction of a
particular identity is deployed to displace the hegemonic fiction of universal personhood, the discourse of rights
converges insidiously with the discourse of disciplinarity to produce a spectacularly potent mode of juridicalregulatory domination.16 This problem is not specific to MacKinnons work nor even to feminist legal reform,

efforts at
bringing subjugated discourses into the law merely constitute examples
of what Foucault identified as the risk of recodification and recolonization of
disinterred knowledges by those unitary discourses, which first
disqualified and then ignored them when they made their
appearance. These efforts suggest how the work of breaking silence can
metamorphose into new techniques of domination, how our truths
can become our rulers rather than our emancipators, how our
confessions become the norms by which we are regulated . Though this kind
although it emerges with particular acuteness in both. Rather, MacKinnons and kindred

of regulatory function is familiar enough to students of legal and bureaucratic discourse, it is less frequently
recognized and perhaps more disquieting in putatively countercultural discourse, when

confessing injury

can become that which attaches us to the injury, paralyzes us within it, and
prevents us from seeking or even desiring a status other than that
of injured. In an age of social identification through attributes marked as culturally significant gender, race,
sexuality, and so forthconfessional discourse, with its truth-bearing status in a postepistemological universe, not
only regulates the confessor in the name of freeing her , as Foucault described
that logic, but extends beyond the confessing individual to constitute a
regulatory truth about the identity group: confessed truths are
assembled and deployed as knowledge about the group. This
phenomenon would seem to undergird a range of recurring troubles
in feminism, from the real woman rejoinder to poststructuralist
deconstructions of her to totalizing descriptions of womens
experience that are the inadvertent effects of various kinds of
survivor stories. Thus, for example, the porn star who feels miserably exploited, violated, and humiliated
in her work invariably monopolizes the feminist truth about sex work, as the girl with math anxieties constitutes the
feminist truth about women and math; eating disorders have become the feminist truth about women and food, as

even
as feminism aims to affirm diversity among women and womens
experiences, confession as the site of production of truth,
converging with feminist suspicion and de-authorization of truth
from other sources, tends to reinstate a unified discourse in which
the story of greatest suffering becomes the true story of woman. (This
sexual abuse and violation occupy the feminist knowledge terrain of women and sexuality. In other words,

may constitute part of the rhetorical purchase of confessional discourse in a postfoundational epistemological era:
confession substitutes for the largely discredited charge of false consciousness, on the one hand, and for generalized
truth claims rooted in science, God, or nature on the other.) Thus, the adult who does not manifestly suffer from her
or his childhood sexual experience, the lesbian who does not feel shame, the woman of color who does not primarily
or correctly identify with her marking as suchthese figures are excluded as bona fide members of the identity
categories that also claim them. Their status within these discourses is that of being in denial, of suffering from
false consciousness, or of being a race traitor. This is the norm-making process in traditions of breaking
silence, which, ironically, silence and exclude the very persons these traditions mean to empower.

The affs use of the debate space and the ballot duplicate the
power structure of patriarchy that they are trying to break
down. The 1acs speech act does nothing and instead turns
case.
Tonn 5 (Mari Boor Tonn, Associate Professor of Communication at the
University of Maryland, Taking Conversation, Dialogue, and Therapy
Public Rhetoric and Public Affairs Vol. 8, No. 3 KC).

recognition that access to public deliberative processes

and the ballot is a baseline of any genuine democracy points to the
This widespread

most curious irony of the conversation movement: portions of its constituency. Numbering among the most fervid

feminists and multiculturalists who represent

groups historically denied both the right to speak in public and the
ballot. Oddly, some feminists who championed the slogan "The
Personal Is Political" to emphasize ways relational power can
dialogic loyalists have been some

oppress tend to ignore similar dangers lurking in the appropriation

of conversation and dialogue in public deliberation. Yet the conversational
model's emphasis on empowerment through intimacy can duplicate the
power networks that traditionally excluded females and nonwhites
and gave rise to numerous, sometimes necessarily uncivil, demands for democratic inclusion. Formalized
participation structures in deliberative processes obviously cannot
ensure the elimination of relational power blocs, but, as Freeman pointed out,
the absence of formal rules leaves relational power unchecked and
potentially capricious. Moreover, the privileging of the self, personal
experiences, and individual perspectives of reality intrinsic in the
conversational paradigm mirrors justifications once used by
dominant groups who used their own lives, beliefs, and interests as
templates for hegemonic social premises to oppress women, the
lower class, and people of color. Paradigms infused with the therapeutic language of
emotional healing and coping likewise flirt with the type of psychological diagnoses once ascribed to disaffected
women. But as Betty Friedan's landmark 1963The Feminist Mystique argued, the cure for female alienation was
neither tranquilizers nor attitude adjustments fostered through psychotherapy but, rather, unrestricted opportunities
The price exacted by promoting approaches to complex public issuesmodels that cast conventional deliberative
processes, including the marshaling of evidence beyond individual subjectivity, as "elitist" or "monologic"can be
steep. Consider comments of an aide to President George W. Bush made before reports concluding Iraq harbored no
weapons of mass destruction, the primary justification for a U.S.-led war costing thousands of lives. Investigative
reporters and other persons sleuthing for hard facts, he claimed, operate "in what we call the reality-based
community." Such people "believe that solutions emerge from [the] judicious study of discernible reality." Then
baldly flexing the muscle afforded by increasingly popular social-constructionist and poststructuralist models for
conflict resolution, he added: "That's not the way the world really works anymore . . . We're an empire now, and when
we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that realityjudiciously, as you willwe'll act again,
creating other new realities."103The recent fascination with public conversation and dialogue most likely is a product
of frustration with the tone of much public, political discourse. Such concerns are neither new nor completely without
merit. Yet, as Burke insightfully pointed out nearly six decades ago, "A perennial embarrassment in liberal
apologetics has arisen from its 'surgical' proclivity: its attempt to outlaw a malfunction by outlawing the function."
The attempt to eliminate flaws in a process by eliminating the entire process, he writes, "is like trying to eliminate

Because public argument and deliberative

processes are the "heart" of true democracy, supplanting those
models with social and therapeutic conversation and dialogue
jeopardizes the very pulse and lifeblood of democracy itself.
heart disease by eliminating hearts." 104

Natives
Cultural imperialism is at the root of Native relationships with
the rest of the country- this leads to a state of oppressive
power relations that culminate in exploitation and a new form
of colonization
Whitt 95 (Laurie Anne, Associate Professor of Philosophy in the Humanities Department at
Michigan Technological University, Cultural Imperialism and the Marketing of Native America, pg. 13940 in Natives and Academics, KC)

Whether peddled by white shamans, plastic medicine men and women,

opportunistic academics, entrepreneurs, or enterprising New Agers, Indian
spirituality-like Indian lands before it-is rapidly being reduced to the
status of a commodity, seized, and sold. Sacred ceremonies and ceremonial objects
can be purchased at weekend medicine conferences or via mail order
catalogs.8 How-to books with veritable recipes for conducting traditional rituals are written and dispensed by
trade publishers? A succession of born-again medicine people have-with greater
or lesser subtlety-set themselves and their services up for hire, ready to
sell their spiritual knowledge and power to anyone willing and able to
meet their price. And a literary cult of Indian identity appropriation known
as white shamanism continues to be practiced. 12 Instead of contributing to the many
native-run organizations devoted to enhancing the lives and prospects of Indian people , New Agers are
regularly enticed into contributing to the continued expropriation and
exploitation of native culture by purchasing an array of items marketed as
means for enhancing their knowledge of Indian spirituality. Recently, the National
Congress of American Indians (an organization not exactly known for radicalism) issued a declaration of war
against non-Indian wannabes, hucksters, cultists, commercial profiteers and self-styled New Age shamans who
have been exploiting sacred knowledge and ritual^.'^ Throughout Indian Country, eloquent, forceful critiques of
these cultural developments have been mounted. Writers, intellectuals, activists, and spiritual leaders14 have
joined in identifying and resisting what has been described as a new growth industry. . . known as American Indian
Spiritualism(henceforth AIS). The phenomena being protested are diverse and include literary, artistic, scholarly,
and commercial products intended for consumption in the markets of popular culture as well as in those of the
cultural elite.16

When the spiritual knowledge, rituals, and objects of

historically subordinated cultures are transformed into commodities,
economic and political power merge to produce cultural imperialism. A
form of oppression exerted by a dominant society upon other cultures,
and typically a source of economic profit, cultural imperialism secures and
deepens the subordinated status of those cultures. In the case of
indigenous cultures, it undermines their integrity and distinctiveness,
assimilating them to the dominant culture by seizing and processing vital
cultural resources, then remaking them in the image and marketplaces of
the dominant culture. Such taking of the essentials of cultural lifeways ,
Geary Hobson observes, is as imperialistic as those simpler forms of theft, such as
the theft of homeland by treaty.

Privacy
Approaching privacy legally and individually instead of socially
as a common good traps it in a paradigm that reinforces
neoliberal subjectivity.
Coll 14 (Sami, Geneva sociology professor, Power, knowledge, and the subjects of
privacy: understanding privacy as the ally of surveillance, Information,
Communication & Society, 17.10, Taylor and Francis)
In following the adaptation of Foucaults model of the dispositive of power to privacy,

companies and

governments should be considered the main actors of the

regulation of a practice of privacy , as medical institutions have been regulating a practice of
sexuality. In a way,

data protection policies

(created by companies or governments)

make

people feel at ease with the spread of the information society now
at the core of modern capitalism, without blocking the economic
market

(Kessous & Rey, 2007). For Regan, it can in fact be alibi on the part of public power wishing to avoid the new

problems brought about by the development of enormous data files (Regan, 1995, p. 219). For example, in the Montreux
Declaration (2005), a reference document produced and used by privacy commissioners and privacy advocates from all over the
world, there is no fundamental critique of the information society. While expressing concerns about surveillance practices, the report
mentions that the development of the information society must not be hindered in any way.

Even though privacy

commissioners have shown an increasing concern about

surveillance practices

(Madrid Privacy Declaration, 2009

), the global direction is still

set to embed privacy within modern informational capitalism . Like the

artistic critique during the 1960s and 1970s (Boltanski & Chiapello, 2005),

privacy as a critique of

information society has been assimilated and reshaped by and in

favour of capitalist structures, notably by being over-individualized .
First a political and literary critique, then defended by non-profit organizations, it is now included in each companys policy
especially Internet giants (Bennett, 2008) to the extent that privacy seems to have become, somehow, a consumer good (Rey,
2012, p. 158). As Kessous (2012, p. 79) suggests, the current sanctuarisation of privacy (our translation) has become conditional to
the well-being of the economy. Indeed,

although it could be approached as a common,

public, and collective value

(see Regan, 1995

), privacy is continuously the

subject of a drive towards individualization, occurring notably

through the so-called individual empowerment that lies at the very
centre of the self-determination principle . With the growth of the information society and its
economical partner-in-crime, relationship marketing, companies will continue collecting massive amounts of data. Data mining has
become more sophisticated and now allows marketers to infer significant knowledge and sensitive data about consumers from
innocuous raw data. This is why the debate on data protection is considered highly relevant and as the main way to protect an
individuals privacy. Even the majority of most critical privacy scholars (see, e.g. Gilliom, 2011; Regan, 2011) agree that facing the
lack of solutions to abuses of personal data use, the regime of privacy (Bennett, 2011a) and its resources already in place must
certainly still be defended. As Stalder (2011, p. 508) argues,

while being very critical of the

concept of privacy , it would be foolish to give up such resources in

exchange for, well, what? . Indeed, the history of privacy policies shows many successes in preventing the
worst surveillance practices from being used (Bennett, 2011b). However, as was also made clear in our study on loyalty
programmes, privacy advocates, reflexive consumers, and consumers experiencing privacy as an everyday life experience do not

share the same perspective. Aside from this empirical study, many authors have already focused on different theoretical aspects of
privacy (Holvast, 2007, p. 738), which leads to different perspectives.

The perception of privacy is

controversial , and any attempt to provide a univocal definition of it must be considered an act of power. Because we
depicted privacy as a tool of governance in the sole context of Swiss loyalty cards and because almost two-thirds of the interviews
were conducted with women,4 some precautions should be taken about the generalizability of our study. However, we think that our
argument demonstrates at the very least that

surveillance issues cannot be simplified any

longer into a duality between ones privacy and surveillance

systems . Broaching surveillance only in terms of privacy threat is
potentially detrimental and can paradoxically reinforce it, since
privacy and surveillance are not antagonistic

(Stalder, 2002);

rather, they

seem to work together in the deployment of the surveillance

society . The more that is said about privacy, the more consumers focus on their individuality, reinforcing the care of the self,
described by Foucault (1986), which shapes them as the subjects of control.

One way to counter this

tendency and to make privacy less easy to grab and control would
be to pursue the work of scholars who have been trying to approach
it as a common good, rather than considering it only as an
individual resource to be protected against potential invasions

(Regan,

1995; Westin, 2003). That might address Tocquevilles early concern expressed in the second volume of Democracy in America
(2004). According to him,

liberal societies place too much importance on

intimacy and individuality, which weakens the public action that

maintains common goods like freedom and democracy . Indeed, if the notion of
privacy remains trapped within an individualistic perspective, it might be related to an inappropriate and over-individualized
conception of freedom. Concretely, compared to the interests of a national economy or to the security of the state, privacy, as a
private value, is likely to be neglected because, as argued by Westin (2003), when society does not accept certain personal
conduct, it is saying this is not a matter of private choice and does not allow a claim of privacy (p. 433).5

Privacy as an

individual resource, which every individual should learn to protect

thanks to the self-determination principle, cannot compete with
political concerns such as the wealth and security of the state.

Only a

conception of privacy oriented in terms of a collective good can possibly balance measures meant to serve these overwhelming
interests. In other words, as argued by Regan (1995, p. 221),

privacy should not only aim to

protect the individual, but also the society and its democratic
values . This study aimed to demonstrate that when privacy policies are reduced to the selfdetermination principle, a risk is
taken to shape it as a tool of power and governance. Privacy and its definition must urgently be understood as a struggle of power
between the promoters of a model of informational capitalism based on surveillance of citizens and consumers, and those who
would prefer to promote privacy as a common good that could lead society to more democracy and freedom. Since Big Data is going
to be a revolution in the way we produce knowledge, make decisions, and govern people through massive data collection and
analysis (Mayer-Schnberger & Cukier, 2013), the normativity of privacy we wanted to discuss in this article must be more than ever
at the centre of the debates.

Race
Race is a construction borne of economicschange in the
definition of whiteness proves
Gans 5 (Herbert J., American sociologist who has taught at Columbia University between 1971 and
2007, Race as Class, Contexts 4:4, November 2005, University of Michigan Libraries KC)

Race became a marker of class and status almost with the first settling of
the United States. The countrys initial holders of cultural and political power were
mostly WASPs (with a smattering of Dutch and Spanish in some parts of what later became the United
States). They thus automatically assumed that their kind of whiteness
marked the top of the class hierarchy. The bottom was assigned to the
most powerless, who at first were Native Americans and slaves. However, even
before the former had been virtually eradicated or pushed to the countrys edges, the skin color and related facial
features of the majority of colonial Americas slaves had become the markers for the lowest class in the colonies.

the distinction
between black and white skin became important in America only with
slavery and was actually established only some decades after the first
importation of black slaves. Originally, slave owners justified their
enslavement of black Africans by their being heathens, not by their skin
color. In fact, early Southern plantation owners could have relied on white
indentured servants to pick tobacco and cotton or purchased the white slaves that were available then,
including the Slavs from whom the term slave is derived . They also had access to enslaved
Native Americans. Blacks, however, were cheaper, more plentiful, more
easily controlled, and physically more able to survive the intense heat and
Although dislike and fear of the dark are as old as the hills and found all over the world,

brutal working conditions of Southern plantations. After slavery ended, blacks became farm laborers and
sharecroppers, de facto indentured servants, really, and thus they remained at the bottom of the class hierarchy.

When the pace of industrialization quickened, the country needed new

sources of cheap labor. Northern industrialists, unable andunwilling to recruit southern African
Americans, brought in very poor European immigrants , mostly peasants. Because these
people were near the bottom of the class hierarchy, they were considered nonwhite and
classified into races. Irish and Italian newcomers were sometimes even
described as black (Italians as guineas), and the eastern and southern European
immigrants were deemed swarthy. However, because skin color is socially
constructed, it can also be reconstructed. Thus, when the descendants of the
European immigrants began to move up economically and socially, their skins
apparently began to look lighter to the whites who had come to America
before them. When enough of these descendents became visibly middle class, their skin was seen
as fully white. The biological skin color of the second and third generations had not
changed, but it was socially blanched or whitened. The process probably began in
earnest just before the Great Depression and resumed after World War II. As the cultural and other differences of the
original European immigrants disappeared, their descendants became known as white ethnics..

Capitalism creates the parameters for the continued expansion

of racism
Selfa 3 (Lance, Senior Research Scientist in the Education and Child Development department at
National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago Slavery and the Origins of Racism,
International Socialist Review, Issue 26, http://www.isreview.org/issues/26/roots_of_racism.shtml, KC)

This antagonism is artificially kept alive and intensified by the press, the
pulpit, the comic papers, in short, by all the means at the disposal of the
ruling classes.This antagonism is the secret of the impotence of the English working class,
despite its organization.29 In his famous passage on the antagonism between English and Irish
workers in Britain in the end of the 19th century, Marx

outlined the main sources of

racism under modem capitalism. By its nature, capitalism fosters
competition between workers. Bosses take advantage of this in two ways: first, to
deliberately stoke divisions between workers; second, to appeal to racist ideology. Capitalism
forces workers to compete for jobs, for affordable housing, for admittance
to schools, for credit, etc. When capitalism restructures , it replaces workers with
machines and higher-paid workers with lower-paid workers. Throughout the late 19th and early 20th
centuries, U.S. bosses used the surplus of cheap labor immigration provided to substitute unskilled
workers for skilled (generally white, native workers), triggering a nativist reaction among craft
workers.30 Today,restructuring

in U.S. industry makes many U.S. workers open

to nationalist appeals to protect their jobs against low-wage
competition from Mexico.Bosses seek to leverage this competition to their advantage. Keep
a variety of laborers, that is different nationalities, and thus prevent any concerted action in case of
strikes, for there are few, if any, cases of Laps, Chinese, and Portuguese entering into a strike as a
unit, advised Hawaiian plantation managers in the early 1900s.31 Here

was a fairly stark

example of the bosses conscious use of racism to divide the workforce.
Today, bosses continue to do the same, as when they hire nonwhite
strikebreakers against a strike of predominantly white workers. And politicians
never stand above playing the race card if it suits them. Racism serves the bosses
interests and bosses foster racism consciously, but these points do not explain why
workers can accept racist explanations for their conditions. The competition between workers that is
an inherent feature of capitalism can be played out as competition (or perceived competition) between
workers of different racial groups.Because

it seems to correspond with some aspect

of reality, racism thus can become part of white workers common
sense. This last point is important because it explains the persistence of
racist ideas. Because racism is woven right into the fabric of capitalism, new forms of racism
arose with changes in capitalism. As the U.S. economy expanded and underpinned
U.S. imperial expansion, imperialist racismwhich asserted that the U.S.
had a right to dominate other peoples, such as Mexicans and Filipinos
developed. As the U.S. economy grew and sucked in millions of immigrant laborers, anti-immigrant
racism developed. But these are both different forms of thesame ideologyof white
supremacy and division of the world into superior and inferior races
that had their origins in slavery.

Racism originated as an economic tool for separation and

profit
Shapira 10 (Harel Shapira, PhD from Columbia University, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute
for Public Knowledge at New York University, Borderline Americans: Racial Division and Labor War in
the Arizona Borderlands, Contemporary Sociology 39:1, January 2010, Sage KC)

Benton-Cohen explores
why some borderline Americansa term she uses to refer to resident noncitizens
with a tenuous claim on whitenessbecame white Americans, while
others did not.Why, she asks, did Eastern and Southern Europeans, one
group of borderline Americans become white, while Mexicans did not ?
Concentrating on the middle of the nineteenth century to the New Deal era,

Borderline Americans can be read as another chapter in Americas history of racial formation, as told by Noel Ignatiev
in How the Irish Became White. What we are presented with here is an effort to explain how the Mexicans became
brown. Benton-Cohens contribution is to show that the conflict between Mexicans and Americans, which today
seems to be timeless and inevitable, was a contingent outcome, motivated in large part by the penetration of
industrial capitalism into southern Arizona. This conflict has a curious history containing moments of cooperation and
not conflict. Unlike the dominant narratives which examine the social construction of race, Benton-Cohen takes us to
the local level and focuses attention not on state actors (although she does not overlook them) but on corporate

capitalism did not eliminate racial difference,

rather it constituted it. The labor process does not suspend difference but
rather articulates it. Class conflict is racial conflict, and racial conflict is
class conflict. The chapters outline the historical transformation of a once undefined line between Mexican
managers. She helps us to understand that

and white American into a sharp border. The first four chapters of the book offer the most compelling reads,

BentonCohen takes us to Tres Alamos and Tombstone, and exposes us to places where
relations between Mexicans and white Americans were characterized , for the
most part, by harmony, equal legal protection, and sense of membership in the
providing engaging portraits of four different communities in Cochise County. In the first two chapters,

same community. In Tres Alamos and Tombstone, Mexicans and whites inhabited a shared world characterized by a
hybrid borderlands culture of the 1880s, when Mexican-Anglo intermarriages and business partnerships still
flourished. Benton-Cohen argues that race, at least the racial antagonism between Mexicans and whites, was not a
central organizing feature of these communities. In this shared world, it was not Mexicans who were the others,
but a range of groups such as Apaches, Chinese immigrants, and Cowboyseach other representing a common
enemy for the Mexicans and white Americans. She attributes the prevailing ecumenical view of whiteness in these
two communities to their agricultural-based economies and the fact that most of the Mexicans residing there were

In contrast, the mining town of Bisbee and its suburb,

race was more
palatable, as a dual-wage system saw Mexicans receiving lower pay , and
members of the landholding elite.

Warren, the subjects of the next two chapters, tell a different story. In these communities,

residential segregation restricted the cosmopolitan interactions which characterized Tres Alamos and Tombstone. As

that the status of race in these towns

is a consequence of economic and class conditions.Unlike Tres Alamos and
Tombstone, Bisbee was dominated by a mining economy and laboring
population. This case is picked up in the remainder of the book, where Benton-Cohen explores how the
divide between Mexicans and whites, indeed the presence of a racial
discourse, is connected to the penetration of industrialized capitalism . As the
with the previous two communities, Benton-Cohen claims

mining boom took hold, corporations redeveloped the geographic and social ecology of Cochise County. Bisbee
expanded and race entered into once unknown places such as Tres Alamos and Tombstone. Along with these
corporations, homesteaders from other parts of America moved in, and brought with them understandings of racial
difference that were foreign to Cochise County. The white labor movement as she names it, gained a strong
influence over Arizona politics, and elected officials who saw Mexicans as racial others. Over time, the four
communities began to resemble each other, as an Anglo/Hispanic color line became a prominent feature of them all.

Race cannot be understood absent an analysis of capital

racism is simply a means of maintaining an economic order
San Juan Jr. 3 (Epifanio , Filipino American literary academic, mentor, cultural reviewer, civic
intellectual, activist, writer, essayist, Marxism and the Race/Class Problematic: A Re-Articulation,
Cultural Logic, http://clogic.eserver.org/2003/sanjuan.html KC)

Racism and nationalism are thus modalities in which class struggles

articulate themselves at strategic points in history. No doubt social conflicts in recent

times have involved not only classes but also national, ethnic, and
religious groups, as well as feminist, ecological, antinuclear social movements (Bottomore 1983). The
concept of "internal colonialism" (popular in the seventies) that subjugates national minorities, as well as the
principle of self-determination for oppressed or "submerged" nations espoused by Lenin, exemplify dialectical
attempts to historicize the collective agency for socialist transformation. Within the framework of the global division

a Marxist program of national

liberation is meant to take into account the extraction of surplus value
from colonized peoples through unequal exchange as well as through
direct colonial exploitation in "Free Trade Zones," illegal traffic in
prostitution, mail-order brides, and contractual domestics (at present, the
Philippines provides the bulk of the latter, about ten million persons and growing). National oppression
has a concrete reality not entirely reducible to class exploitation but
incomprehensible apart from it; that is, it cannot be adequately understood
without the domination of the racialized peoples in the dependent formations by the
of labor between metropolitan center and colonized periphery,

colonizing/imperialist power, with the imperial nation-state acting as the exploiting class, as it were (see San Juan

Racism arose with the creation and expansion of the capitalist

world economy (Wolf 1982; Balibar and Wallerstein, 1991). Solidarities conceived as racial or ethnic groups
1998; 2002). 32.

acquire meaning and value in terms of their place within the social organization of production and reproduction of
the ideological-political order; ideologies of racism as collective social evaluation of solidarities arise to reinforce

Such
patterns of economic and political segmentation mutate in response to the
impact of changing economic and political relationships (Geshwender and Levine
1994). Overall, there is no denying the fact that national-liberation movements
and indigenous groups fighting for sovereignty, together with heterogeneous alliances
and coalitions, cannot be fully understood without a critical analysis of the
production of surplus value and its expropriation by the propertied class -that is, capital accumulation. As John Rex noted, different ethnic groups are placed in relations of
structural constraints which preserve the exploited and oppressed position of these "racial" solidarities.

cooperation, symbiosis or conflict by the fact that as groups they have different economic and political
functions.Within

this changing class order of [colonial societies], the language

of racial difference frequently becomes the means whereby men allocate
each other to different social and economic positions. What the type of analysis used
here suggests is that the exploitation of clearly marked groups in a variety of
different ways is integral to capitalism and that ethnic groups unite and act together because
they have been subjected to distinct and differentiated types of exploitation. Race relations and racial
conflict are necessarily structured by political and economic factors of a more
generalized sort (1983, 403-05, 407). Hence race relations and race conflict are necessarily structured by the larger
totality of the political economy of a given society, as well as by modifications in the structure of the world economy .

Corporate profit-making via class exploitation on an international/globalized scale, at

bottom, still remains the logic of the world system of finance capitalism
based on historically changing structures and retooled practices of
domination and subordination.

Race is a social construction borne of capitalism

Bannerji 5 (Himani, Professor of Sociology at York University, Building from Marx: Reflections
on Class and Race, Social Justice 32:4, 2005 KC)

If we consider "race" to be a connotative, expressionist cluster of social

rela? tions in the terrain of certain historical and economic relations, and class to be an

ensemble of property-oriented social relations with signifying practices, it

is easy to see how they are formatively implicated. From this standpoint, one could say
that modern "race" is a social culture of colonialist and imperialist
capitalism. "Race," therefore, is a collection of discourses of colonialism and
slavery, but firmly rooted in capitalism in its different aspects through time .
As it stands, "race" cannot be disarticulated from "class" any more than milk
can be separated from coffee once they are mixed, or the body divorced from
consciousness in a living person. This inseparability, this formative or figurative relation, is as true for the process of

Economic
participation, the value of labor, social and political participation and
entitlement, and cultural marginalization or inclusion are all part of this
overall social formation
extraction of surplus value in capitalism as it is a commonsense practice at the level of social life.

Class and race are mutually constitutivecapital created the

concept of race for its own ends
Brodkin 2k (Karen, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the University of California Los
Angeles, 998 AES Keynote Address": Global Capitalism: What's Race Got to Do with It?, American
Ethnologist 27:2, May 2000, WILEY KC)

will use the United States as an illustrative caseto

develop further my argument that capitalism is causally and systemically
linked to the construction of race and racism. I will show that relations to the
means of capital- ist production in the United States have been organized in
ways that are consistent with nationalist constructions of national subjects
and internal aliens. The central theoretical point I wish to advance is that race in the United
States has historically been a key relationship to the means of capitalist
production, and gender construc- tions are what has made race corporeal, material, and visible. In Marxist
thought, re- lations to the means of production are class relations. To argue that race is a relationship to the means of production is not to reduce race to class. Rather, it is
to complicate each term, to argue that race and class are mutually
constitutive, two facets of thesame process that apply to both the structure of productive relationships and
In the remainder of this article, I

people's consciousnesses or identities. It is in such socially structured identities that the nation- alist and capitalist

Current interest in identities-especially the conventional threesome of race, class,

and gender-has addressed the cultural content of identities for actors, as well as for the national
hegemonic structures that make them meaningful for people to in- terpret, enact, and embrace. I think it is fair
to say that they are dialectical: State pol- icy, law, and popular discourse
make race and gender matter for one's life chances; people embrace these
categories because they matter, but they do not inhabit them in the ways
projects connect.

hegemonic institutions and discourses construct them; popular enactments in turn reshape hegemonic practices.
Class is often the Cinderella in analyses of this threesome with respect to national projects. That is, it is treated as a
"lifestyle choice of you and your family," as Lillian Robinson (1995:8) puts it when criticizing scholars who treat class

But one could also

challenge the lack of attention to economics in analyses of race in the
same way that Robinson does for class. True, the state, nationalism, and civic discourse have
as if it were a set of cultural choices that are unrelated to economic structures.

gotten a lot of play on the structural side of race. But the organi- zation of production and the racial division of labor,

Thinking theoretically about the ways that

race and ethnicity work as a relationship to the means of capitalist
though well described, are poorly theorized.

production in the United States can help us understand how global

capitalism might feed nationalism even as it seems to erode states.

The concept of race did not exist before capitalracial

divisions are created and maintained to sustain the labor force
Brodkin 2k (Karen, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the University of California Los
Angeles, 998 AES Keynote Address": Global Capitalism: What's Race Got to Do with It?, American
Ethnologist 27:2, May 2000, WILEY KC)

Soon after the reopening of immigration in 1965, a Federal Interagency

Commit- tee was formed to create for the Bureau of the Census a classification of
race and eth- nicity reflective of the nation's new immigration and attentive to the progress of affirmative action. The result was the now-familiar four racial groups : American
Indian/Alaskan Native, Asian/Pacific Islander, black, and white. The committee de- cided that the fifth group,
Hispanic, was an ethnic group but not a race. The govern- mentese term Hispanic emphasizes the Euro-origins of
Spanish speakers from many nations. These "Hispanics" are not exactly white, which they were in the 1960 cen-

although
race was initially invented to justify a brutal regime of slave la- bor that
was profitable to Southern planters, race making has become a key
process by which the United States continues to organize and understand
labor and national belonging.Africans, Europeans, Mexicans, and Asian s
each came to be treated as members of less civilized , less moral, less selfrestrained races only when they were recruited to be the core of the U.S.
capitalist labor force. Such race making depended andcontinues to rest upon
occupational and residential segregation (Massey and Denton 1993). Race making in
turn facilitated the degradation of work itself, its or- ganization as "unskilled," intensely
driven, mass-production work. Race making is class making, just as much as class
making is race making. They are two views of the same thing.
sus. Rather they are modified, not-quite whites, as in Hispanic whites (Wright 1994: 50-51). In sum,

Racism was the most convenient way for capital to divide and
oppress the massesonly undoing capitalism solves racism
GLW 10 (Green Left Weekly, Why capitalism needs racism, GLW Iss. 823, 1/24/10,
http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/43086 KC)

The capitalist social pyramid is black at the base and white at the top . In South
Africa, until apartheid was formally abolished in 1994, this pyramid was legally sanctioned. Elsewhere, while slavery and
segregation have been outlawed, the richest people are still the whitest
and the poorest are the blackest.Racism suits capitalism because it's an
important way of justifying economic discrimination. It's no accident that
wherever you find racism, someone seems to be making money from it . Racist
ideas help capitalism get away with super-exploiting racial and ethnic minorities, and all non-white people. "Those Arabs" or "Those

when unemployment
is on the rise, it's always handy to blame "Asians", or whichever ethnic group is
being demonised at the time, for taking jobs away from "real" Australians. And when
Asians", we're told, "are used to doing dirty, hard work, and they'll be glad to get a job at all." Or

governments in the rich countries impose welfare funding or wage cuts on

working people, they always start by targeting the most vulnerable groups
non-Anglo migrants or indigenous people. International students are often the first to cop attacks on higher education. Racism
fosters the idea that the massive under-development and deprivation
faced by the people of the Third World is "their fault".This leads to
acceptance of the idea that, while rich countries should give some aid orloans, it should be
tied to the recipient government agreeing to terms favourable to the
donor countries, including huge interest charges. Without racist and nationalist ideas
prevalent in the populations of imperialist countries, people would be less likely to accept as
"natural" or "inevitable" the huge inequalities between the First and Third
Worldsor endorse wars on Third World peoples who resist imperialist
domination. In other words, racism is a way for the capitalist class to divide
ordinary people from each other, within and between countries: divide and rule.

Capitalism is the root cause of racial division race is a tool to

divide the working class and preserve capitalism
Hill 9 (Dave teaches at Middlesex University and is Visiting Professor of Critical Education Policy
and Equality Studies at the University of Limerick, Ireland, Culturalist and Materialist Explanations of
Class and "Race", Cultural Logic 2009 http://clogic.eserver.org/2009/Hill.pdf KC)

The capitalist system with a tiny minority of people owning the means of
production oppresses and exploits the working class. This, indeed, constitutes the essence
of capitalism: the extraction of surplus value and profit from workers by capitalist employers. These capitalists may
be white, black, men, women, (high caste) Brahmin, or(untouchable) Dalit. In India as well as in Britain, there
are millionaire men, women, Brahmin, and Dalit capitalists and politicians. Marxist analysis also suggests
that class conflict, which is an essential feature of capitalist society, will result in an overthrow of
capitalism given the right circumstances. There has been considerable
debate, historically, in different countries over whether this can, or will, be
achieved either by revolutionary force or by evolutionary measures and steps
for example through the evolutionary, reformist measures of social democracy). Important examples of such debate- between
protagonists of revolutionary socialism and those of evolutionary socialism/social democracy are the late nineteenth century debates in
Germany over Revisionism associated with the revisionist Eduard Bernstein (e.g., in 1899, his The Prerequisites for Socialism and the
Tasks of Social Democracy see Tudor and Tudor, 1988) on the one hand, and on the other hand, , orthodox revolutionary Marxist critics
of revisionism such as Rosa Luxemburg (for example, in Reform and Revolution, in 1899/1900. Today such debates are carried on
between revolutionary socialists/ Marxists such as the various Trotskyite groups, parties and internationals on the one hand, and social
democratic parties and internationals on the other. As for where the former communist parties stood, a historical transition was made in
the 1970s and 1980s by various communist parties and leaders when they foreswore revolution and adopted gradualist social
democracy. 3 These arguments and conflicts take place within many leftist revolutions. Today, for example, in Venezuela, Trotskyites
argue for a revolutionary rupture with capitalism, while others urge caution, an accommodation with capitalism and capitalists. (See
Gonzalez, 2007; ISG, 2007; Esteban et al, 2008; Fuentes, 2009.) And Trotskyite, revolutionary, anti-capitalist groups and parties have
persistent major problems working within larger left formations, united fronts and popular fronts. Thus PSOL at first joined the PT
government in Brazil but left in 2004 in protest at(Brazilian President) Lulas neoliberal pro-capitalist policies, and in 2007 Sinistra
Critica pulled out of the broader left Rifondazione Comunista. There is considerable current debate within the Trostskyite movement and
internationals over the incompatibility of socialist revolution with social democratic broader parties. (See, for example, Bensaid, 2009.) 4

Historically, and indeed in current times, it is, of course the armed/police

forces of the capitalist state that shoot first and where the local capitalist state is not powerful
enough in the balance of class forces in any particular site, then in come the United States cavalry, acting on behalf of transnational
capital and its national capital on behalf of the international capitalist system itself. (See, for example, Brosio, 1994.) And yet

there are denials, by postmodernists and other theorists of complexity and hybridity and postmodernists
and post-ists of various stripes, that we no longer live in a period of metanarratives,
such as mass capitalism, social class, working class, 7 or, indeed,
woman or black. 5 For many theorists since the 1980s, history is at an

end, the class war is over, and we all exalt in the infinite complexity and
hybridity of subjective individualist consumerism . It is interesting, and rarely remarked upon,
that arguments about the death of class are not advanced regarding the
capitalist class. Despite their horizontal and vertical cleavages (Dumenil and Levy, 2004), they appear to
know very well who they are. Nobody is denying capitalist class
consciousness. Opposition to the rule of capital and its policies (either its wider policies, or
specific policy) is weakened when the working class is divided, by race, caste,
religion, tribe, or by other factors. When I say divided, I am using it here
as an active verb, to mean that the capitalist class divides the working class, for
example by its ideological state apparatuses- its media, its formally or
informally segregated school systems. This is divide and rule. Examples of schooling systems
perpetuating such divisions are in apartheid South Africa, Arab-Jew segregated schooling
in Israel, Protestant-Catholic religiously segregated Northern Ireland , and parts
of the USA in particular its inner cities, and, indeed, parts of Britain, where, in some inner-city working-class schools,
more than 90 percent of the pupils are from minority ethnic groups . 6 In
many of the cities of the USA and Britain the ethnic division is localized. But such
segregation and division is overwhelmingly a class stratification. It is
rarely the millionaire and capitalist minorities who live in the ghetto, or
poor minorities or whites who live in millionaires row.

Statistics flow neg class is the most important factor in

educational accomplishment
Hill 9 (Dave teaches at Middlesex University and is Visiting Professor of Critical Education Policy
and Equality Studies at the University of Limerick, Ireland, Culturalist and Materialist Explanations of
Class and "Race", Cultural Logic 2009 http://clogic.eserver.org/2009/Hill.pdf KC)

Gillborn (2008) is right about underachievement by Blacks (Black Caribbean and Black African school students) in

most of
underachievement is related to class location Black Caribbeans are , with
Bangladeshis, Pakistanis and Traveller/Roma, the most heavily working class of any ethnic
group. When class location as measured by those claiming and in receipt of Free School Meal (FSM)
is accounted, the all minority ethnic groups other than Gypsy Roma/travellers perform better
than whites. Regarding more privileged groups in society, Strand (2008b) points out that (at age 16)
White British pupils from high SEC (Socio-Economic Class) homes are one
of the highest attaining ethnic groups, while White British pupils living in
disadvantaged circumstances are the lowest attaining group (p. 2). Gillborn (e.g.,
England and Wales. However, to repeat the points made above in relation to Dehals data and analysis,
this

pp. 54-56), too, draws attention to this, showing that with regard to non-FSM students (for example at age 16 in
their national GCSE assessments) that white students perform better than (most) other ethnic groups. To repeat,

the poor white working class (as measured by FSM),

being in receipt of free school meals, performs less well than the working class of nearly
all other ethnic groups. Most BME groups do better than whites, once
allowance has been made/controlled for class location as measured by FSM. It seems
that Gillborns own statistics (in Gillborn and Mirza, 2000) and other empirical data I present or refer to in this
paper (see also Independent Working Class Association, 2005) lend compelling support to a
Marxist critique of race salience theories in general (such as, currently, Critical Race
and, as shown by the final Dehal table above,

Theory) offered, for example, by Cole, Maisuria, Miles and Sivanandan, and the Institute of Race Relations that he

In his work on
Critical Race Theory, Gillborn in most cases ignores and in other cases
belittles the class dimension, a class dimension that, ironically, his own statistics of 2000 (Gillborn
founded, in Britain, 15 and in the USA by the Red Critique journal, for example, Young, 2006.

and Mirza, 2000) draw attention to. Gillborn (in his chapter 3, 2008, p. 45) does refer to the relative importance of
and intersections between, inequalities based on race, class, and gender. He does, as have I, following Strand and
Dehal (Dehal, 2006; Strand, 2007, 2008a, b) above, note that economic background is not equally important for all
students. On p. 46 he criticises an exclusive focus on class. On p. 69 Gillborn notes that the data certainly
confirms that social class background is associated with gross inequalities of achievement at the extremes of the
class spectrum. He repeats: However, class does not appear to be equally significant for all groups. He then adds,
importantly for his argument (i.e., an argument that seeks to avoid concentrating on data concerning the poorest
strata in society), the growing emphasis on FSM students projects a view of failing Whites that ignores 5 out of 6

contemporary and recent Marxist work, including

my own work, does not have an exclusive focus on class . As this article, and an
accompanying article (Hill, 2009), I hope, makes clear, we adhere to a notion of raced and
gendered class, in which some (but not all) minority ethnic groups are
racialised or xeno-racialised (explained below) and suffer a race penalty in, for example,
students who do not receive FSM. But

teacher labelling and expectation, treatment by agencies of the state, such as the police, housing, judiciary, health

Gillborn gives specific recognition to the analysis that

social classis raced and gendered (e.g., p. 46), but gives relatively little
in fact very substantially less explicit (other than implicit)recognition that race is
classed (and gendered). While his work is not silent on social class disadvantage and social class based
oppression, his treatment of social class analysis is dismissive and his treatment of
services and in employment.

social class underachievement in education and society, extraordinarily subdued. In Hill(2009), Race and Class in
Britain: a Critique of the 15 statistical basis for Critical Race Theory in Britain: and some political implications, I also
critique what I regard and analyse as the misuse of statistics in arguments put forward by some Critical Race
Theorists in Britain showing that Race trumps Class in terms of underachievement at 16+ exams in England and
Wales. 16 Accepting the urgent need for anti-racist awareness, policy and activism from the classroom to the street
17 I welcome the anti-racism that CRT promulgates and analyses while criticising its over-emphasis on white
supremacy and its statistical misrepresentations.

Racism is rooted in capitalism

Cole 7 (Mike Cole is research professor in education and equality at Bishop Grosseteste University
College Lincoln. His latest book, Marxism and Educational Theory : Origins and Issues, is published by
Routledge- The Heart of the Higher Education Debate- 'Racism' is about more than colour
November 23 2007 http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/311222.article ,KC)

The problem with standard critical race theory is the narrowness of its
remit, says Mike Cole. One of the main tenets of critical race theory is that "white supremacy" is the
norm in societies rather than merely the province of the racist right (the other
major tenet is primacy of "race" over class). There are a number of significant problems with this use of the term
"white supremacy". The first is that it homogenises all white people together in positions of power and privilege.
Writing about the US, critical race theorist Charles Mills acknowledges that not "all whites are better off than all nonwhites, but ... as a statistical generalisation, the objective life chances of whites are significantly better". While this

we should not lose sight of the life chances of millions of

working-class white people.To take poverty as one example, in the US, while it is the case
that the number of black people living below the poverty line is some
three times that of whites, this still leaves more than 16 million "white but
not Hispanic" people living in poverty there. In the UK, there are similar indicators of a
society underpinned by rampant colour-coded racism, with black people twice as poor as
whites, and those of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin more than three
times as poor as whites. Once again, however, this still leaves some 12 million poor white people in the
is, of course, true,

UK. That such statistics are indicative of racism, however, is beyond doubt, and to interpret them it is useful to
employ the concept of "racialisation". Given that there is widespread agreement among geneticists and social

that "race" is a meaningless concept, racialisation describes the

process by which people are falsely categorised into distinct "races".
Statistics such as these are indicative of racialised capitalism rather than
white supremacy. A second problem with "white supremacy" is that it is inherently
unable to explain non-colour-coded racism. In the UK, for example, this form of
racism has been and is directed at the Irish and at gypsy/traveller
communities. There is also a well-documented history of anti-Semitism, too. It is also important to underline
scientists

the fact that Islamophobia is not necessarily triggered by skin colour. It is often sparked by one or more (perceived)

a new form of non- colour-coded racism has

manifested itself recently in the UK. This has all the hallmarks of traditional racism, but it is
directed towards newly arrived groups of people . It has been described by A. Sivanandan,
director of the Institute of Race Relations, as "xeno-racism". It appears that there are some
similarities in the xeno-racialisation of Eastern European migrant workers
and the racialisation of Asian and black workers in the immediate postwar
period, a point I address in my latest book. "White supremacy" is counterproductive as a
political unifier and rallying point against racism . John Preston concluded an article in The
symbols of the Muslim faith. Finally,

Times Higher advocating critical race theory ("All shades of a wide white world", October 19) by citing the US journal

"the
abolition of whiteness is ... not just an optional extra in terms of defeating
capitalism (nor something which will be necessarily abolished postcapitalism) but fundamental to the Marxist educational project as praxis ".
Indeed, for Preston, "the abolition of capitalism and whiteness seem to be
fundamentally connected in the current historical circumstances of
Western capitalist development".From my Marxist perspective, coupling the
"abolition of whiteness" to the "abolition of capitalism" is a worrying
development that, if it gained ground in Marxist theory, would most
certainly further undermine the Marxist project.I am not questioning the sincerity of the
Race Traitor , which seeks the "abolition of the racial category 'white'". Elsewhere, Preston has argued

protagonists of "the abolition of whiteness", nor suggesting in any way that they are anti-white people but merely
questioning its extreme vulnerability to misunderstanding. Anti-racists have made some progress in the UK at least
in making anti- racism a mainstream rallying point, and this is reflected, in part, in legislation. Even if it were a good

the chances of making "the abolition of whiteness" a successful

political unifier and rallying point against racism are virtually nonexistent.The usage of "white supremacy" should be restricted to its
everyday meaning. To describe and analyse contemporary racism we need a wide- ranging and fluid
idea,

conception of racism. Only then can we fully understand its multiple manifestations and work towards its eradication.

Race is rooted in capitalism- they are suppressed by economics

Young 6 (Robert Young- British postcolonial theorist, cultural critic, and historian Putting
Materialism back into Race Theory: Toward a Transformative Theory of Race
http://www.redcritique.org/WinterSpring2006/puttingmaterialismbackintoracetheory.htm KC)

race oppression dialectically

intersects with the exploitative logic of advanced capitalism , a regime which
deploys race in the interest of surplus accumulation. Thus, race operates at the (economic) base
and therefore produces cultural and ideological effects at the
superstructure; in turn, these effectsin very historically specific way
interact with and ideologically justify the operations at the economic base
This essay advances a materialist theory of race. In my view,

race encodes the totality of contemporary capitalist social

relations, which is why race cuts across a range of seemingly disparate
social sites in contemporary US society. For instance, one can mark race
difference and its discriminatory effects in such diverse sites as health care,
housing/real estate, education, law, job market, and many other social sites. However, unlike many
commentators who engage race matters, I do not isolate these social sites
and view race as a local problem, which would lead to reformist measures along the lines of either
[1]. In a sense then,

legal reform or a cultural-ideological battle to win the hearts and minds of people and thus keep the existing socio-

I foreground the relationality of these sites

within the exchange mechanism of multinational capitalism. Consequently, I
believe, the eradication of race oppression also requires a totalizing political
project: the transformation of existing capitalisma system which
produces difference (the racial/gender division of labor) and accompanying ideological
narratives that justify the resulting social inequality . Hence, my project articulates a
economic arrangements intact; instead,

transformative theory of racea theory that reclaims revolutionary class politics in the interests of contributing

the transformation from actually existing

capitalism into socialism constitutes the condition of possibility for a postracist societya society free from racial and all other forms of oppression.
toward a post-racist society. In other words,

By freedom, I do not simply mean a legal or cultural articulation of individual rights as proposed by bourgeois race
theorists. Instead,

I theorize freedom as a material effect of emancipated

economic forms. I foreground my (materialist) understanding of race as a way to contest contemporary
accounts of race, which erase any determinate connection to economics. For instance, humanism and
poststructuralism represent two dominant views on race in the contemporary
academy. Even though they articulate very different theoretical positions, they produce similar
ideological effects: the suppression of economics . They collude in redirecting
attention away from the logic of capitalist exploitation and point us to the
cultural questions of sameness (humanism) or difference (poststructuralism). In developing
my project, I critique the ideological assumptions of some exemplary instances
of humanist and poststructuralist accounts of race, especially those accounts that also
attempt to displace Marxism, and, in doing so, I foreground the historically determinate link between race and

I am calling a transformative theory of

race. The transformation of race from a sign of exploitation to one of
democratic multiculturalism, ultimately, requires the transformation of
capitalism. Within contemporary Black humanist discourses the focus remains on
the subject. Hence, diverse intellectual inquiries such as Afrocentricism (Molefi Kete Asante), Black feminism
exploitation. It is this link that forms the core of what

(Patricia Hill Collins), and neo-conservative culturalism (Shelby Steele), share a philosophical-ideological commitment

What is ultimately at stake in this commitment is, I argue, a class

matter. The philosophico-cultural moveas Asante once put it in a representative formulation, Afrocentricism
to the subject.

presents "the African as subject rather than object" ("Multiculturalism" 270)is in fact part of the positing of a Black
"essence" that can form the basis for a cross-class alliance between black workers and black business, between, that
is, exploited and exploiters.

People are not discriminated against solely based on colorsocial practices contribute to their oppression
Young 6 (Robert Young- British postcolonial theorist, cultural critic, and historian Putting
Materialism back into Race Theory: Toward a Transformative Theory of Race
http://www.redcritique.org/WinterSpring2006/puttingmaterialismbackintoracetheory.htm KC)

"real", does not adequate the "truth", as Collins implies. Collins

rejects the "Eurocentric Masculinist Knowlege Validation Process" for its positivism but, in turn, she offers
empiricism as the grounds for validating experience . Hence, the validity of experiential
claims is adjudicated by reference to the experience. Not only is her argument circular, but it
also undermines one of her key claims. If race, class, gender, and the
accompanying ideological apparatuses are interlocking systems of
oppression, as Collins suggest, then the experiential is not the site for the
"true" but rather the site for the articulation of dominant ideology. On
what basis then, could the experiential provide grounds for an historical
understanding of the structures that make experience itself possible as
experience? Asante and Collins assume that experience is self-intelligible and in their discourse it functions as
the limit text of the real. However, I believe experience is a highly mediated frame of
understanding. Though it is true that a person of color experiences oppression,
this experience is not self-explanatory and, therefore, it needs to be
situated in relation to other social practices. Experience seems local but it is, like all
cultural and political practices, interrelated to other practices and experiences. Thus its
explanation come from its "outside". Theory, specifically Marxist theory, provides an
explanation of this outside by reading the meaning of all experiences as
determined by the economic realities of class . While Asante's and Collins'
humanism reads the experience of race as a site of "self-presence", the
history of race in the United Statesfrom slavery to Jim Crow to Katrinais written in the
fundamental difference of class. In other words, experience does not speak the real, but rather it is
However, the experiential, the

the site of contradictions and, hence, in need of conceptual elaboration to break from cultural common sense, a
conduit for dominant ideology. It is this outside that has come under attack by black (humanist) scholars through the
invocation of the black (transcendental) subject.

Security
The securitization of the 1AC is the bourgeois attempt to push
forward the ultimate capitalist agenda to construct threats in
order to justify conservatism
Neocleous, 8-Professor of Critique of Political Economy @ Brunel University [Mark, Critique of Security,
Brunel University in the Department of Government, Published 2008]

security is intimately associated with the rise of

the modem state. But we also need to note that it is equally
intimately bound up with the rise of bourgeois property rights and a
liberal order-building, and in later chapters we will see the extent of
this intimacy. In this way liberalism's conception of security was
intimately connected to its vision of political subjectivitycentred 1 on the
self-contained and property-owning individual. The reason liberty is wrapped in the
concept of security, then, is because security
is simultaneously wrapped in the question of property, giving us a
triad of concepts which are usually run so close together that they
are almost conflated ('liberty, security, property'), a triad found in Smith, j
We are often and rightly told that

Blackstone, Paine, the French Declaration of the Rights of Man, and in various other formulations elsewhere.' Thus

liberalism generated a new conception of 'the economy' as its

founding political act, a conception which integrated the wealth of
nations, the world market and the labour of the population, its notion of liberty
necessitated a particular vision of security:
the ideological guarantee of the egoism of the independent
and self-interested pursuit of property. It is for this reason Marx calls
security [is] 'the supreme concept of bourgeois society'.' Marx spotted
that as the concept of bourgeois society, security plays a double
role: The progress of social wealth,' says Storch 'begets this useful class of
society . . . which performs the most wearisome, the vilest, the most disgusting functions, which, in a word
as

takes on its shoulders all that is disagreeable and servile in life, and procures thus for other classes leisure, serenity

the actual
advantage is of this capitalist civilization, with its misery and its
degradation of the masses, as compared with barbarism. He can
find only one answer: security! One side of this double role, then,
is that security is the ideological justification for 'civilisation' (that is,
capitalism) as opposed to 'barbarism' (that is, non-capitalist modes
of production); hence Locke's need to move from the 'state of nature' to the state of civil society. The
other side is that security is what the bourgeois class demand once it has
exploited, demoralised and degraded the bulk of humanity. For all
the talk of 'laissez faire', the 'natural' phenomena of
labour, wages and profit have to be policed and secured. Thus security
entails the concept of police, guaranteeing as well as presupposing
that society exists to secure the conservation of a particular kind of
of mind and conventional' (c'est bon, ca) 'dignity of character'. Storch then asks himself what

subjectivity (known as 'persons') and the rights

and property associated with this subjectivity." The non-liberal and non-capitalist
may be 'tolerated' - that other classically liberal concept which also
functions as a regulatory power - but they will also be heavily
policed ... for 'security reasons'? The new form of economic
reason to which liberalism gave birth also gave new content to the
idea of reason of state and thus a new rationale for state action: the
'free economy'. In other words, if security is the supreme concept of
bourgeois society it is equally the supreme concept of liberal
ideology.

Social Movements
New leftist critique the social model is incondusive to mass
class conscience shift apparatuses of surveillance ensure
resistance is stifled THE DRAGON WATCHES THE SHEEP
Eiermann 14 (Eiermann, Martin, PHD Sociology Candidate at UC
Berkeley, BA in History from Harvard University "Its Not (just) about the
NSA ." Martineiermann.com. 14 Feb. 2014. KC)

Let me briefly recap the dominant narrative of the Left. Im undoubtedly riding roughshod over the
subtleties of the argument, but I hope that the exaggeration of differences can help to illuminate

Under the guise of national

security and counter-terrorism agendas, surveillance has been
turned into a seemingly inevitable practice a mode of living, if you will
, and is undermining the liberal state as well as the spirit of digital
openness. It is leading to illiberal regimes at home and illiberal
practices online. It abandoned the idea of privacy while shielding
state practice from oversight. In effect, we are living through a time of
techno-imperialism as states try to bring large amounts of data
under the control for the purposes of surveillance, industrial
espionage, the silencing of dissent, et cetera. Those who attempt to
draw a clean line between Syrias attempts to expose online
activists or restrict internet access and the NSA data crawlers
employ an unfortunate double standard. The real culprit is
excessive state power. Some of the ideas that have come out of this narrative are outright
silly: A European proposal to keep data transmissions within national
borders (and thus to prevent data phishing at overseas hubs) runs
against the basic infrastructure of the internet. Whenever data is
sent over an internet connection, it is broken down into small data
parcels and routed through the best possible connection to its
destination, where the parcels are reassembled. For example, an email sent
important points of contention. The narrative goes like this:

from New York to San Francisco could travel through Frankfurt and Beijing (or simultaneously along

Its a system that is incredibly

efficient and an important safeguard against attempts to balkanize
the open internet. Changing the basic infrastructure would require a
wholesale re-organization of the web, akin to attempts to replace
the human capillary system with an altogether different way of
transporting oxygen to the muscles. Its just not going to happen. So lets agree that
different routes) before returning to US soil.

we are really talking about front-end reforms: About the ways in which the internet is used and
abused, and about the regulation of those behaviors. But what about state control at the front-end

Its a justified fear; governments from Tunisia (monitoring of

activists) to China (restricted website access and content
censorship) to Britain (social media monitoring by police) to the
level?

United States (the NSA) have muscled their way into the digital
realm. The dark web offers some refuge for those who prefer
anonymity (for good or ill), but the average user should fully expect
to be monitored by a wide range of government agencies. However, Im
not entirely convinced by the narrow focus on the state. Historically, our privacy norms
emerged from the interplay of economic forces (the rise of the
modern factory and the separation of work from domestic life),
technological changes (the advent of photography and its use by
the tabloid press), and political agendas (attempts to strike a
balance between the power monopoly of the state and the ideal of
the free individual). But as Jeffrey Rosen recently pointed out in the New York Times, privacy
initiatives only responded to two of three factors: James Madison warned against the abridgment of
freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power, while Louis Brandeis
took the journalists of his time to task and lamented that each crop of unseemly gossip, thus
harvested, becomes the seed of more and, in direct proportion to its circulation, results in the
lowering of social standards and of morality. For more than a century, privacy debates have engaged
with issues of political power and sensationalist culture, but little attention was usually paid to the
third factor the economic context even as Fordist industrialists re-established control over the
lives of their workers by providing housing and entertainment, and thus company oversight outside
the factory gates. Were in a similar position today: We scrutinize the state for its Orwellian ambitions,
but not the context that renders them feasible. Lets turn to two grand masters for guidance. Kevin
Kelly, internet evangelist and founding editor of WIRED Magazine, had this to say when we met in
2011: I

tend to think that technology is not really powerful unless it

can be powerfully abused. In other words: The gathering and
exploitation of private information illustrates the power of digital
technologies rather than the haywire agenda of an intelligence
agency. Its the logical consequence of the power and promise of
the internet. Paradoxically, the open structure of the internet the
Digital Commons explains the meteoric rise as well as the potential for excessive data gathering:

The focus on sharing, the easy compatibility across platforms, the

exponential growth of server and cloud storage, and the open
structure of basic transmission protocols are incredibly well suited
to the rise of a dense global network and the accumulation of digital
information, but are also ripe with opportunities for abusive
exploitation. Just ask any professional spammer: never before could so many people be reached
at marginal costs through automated mass emails. Kellys observation reflects the insights of another
evangelist and newspaper editor of the 19th century: Karl Marx. Writing in Das Kapital, Marx observed

capitalisms rise was predicated on the exploitation of common

land by entrepreneurial elites. Access to precious resources was
privatized and protected through property legislation. The economic
exploitation of the commons was the driving force behind the
accumulation of capital, protected by the re-regulation and redefinition of property relations. The legislative agenda of the
industrial state reflected the economic interests of the early
industrialists, and vice versa. Those two insights about the exploitation of
open structures by powerful interests, and about the alignment of
political and economic interests remain valid today. Despite the
that

outspoken criticism of many internet companies against surveillance

efforts, we are experiencing a peculiar historical period in which the
data interests of the state and of private companies frequently align
(although not always seamlessly), and in which their respective aspirations are
rendered possible through rapid technological progress. Google and the
White House might disagree over the NSAs data collection, but agree on the importance of data
accumulation and exploitation. Their aims are different: Google, Facebook and Co. require vast troves
of data and the ability to analyze them to render their business models viable in the long run.

Governments desire the same troves to combat crime or terrorism,

or to conduct espionage against international competitors. But both
rely on a cultural climate in which people share freely and relinquish
control over their personal data, and in which many traditional legal
guarantees no longer apply. For example, the non-application of the Third Party
Doctrine to digital technologies empowers Google to display personalized ads based on the content
of your emails, and allows the government to conduct vast data sweeps without explicit court
authorization. We can and should distinguish between different aims arguably, better search results

yet we should also

recognize the impossibility of separating the good from the bad. To
return to the metaphor of techno-imperialism: Just as the British
Empire was built on capitalist expansionism rather than military
conquest, the future of the internet is driven by a coalition of
interest groups that defies classification as the State. At a basic
level, were not witnessing the usurpation of the internet by the
state, or the highjacking of Silicon Valley by the security-industrial
complex, but an alignment of interests from both sides. The search
for clear culprits doesnt help the debate: It often leads to cries of outrage
are a desirable thing but the mass monitoring of email traffic is not ,

against the usual suspects (its gratifying to see James Clapper flop before a Congressional
Committee), and exempts the rest from scrutiny. We condemn the mobsters but not the environment

So lets not fool ourselves: the future of the

internet isnt determined by the outcome of the NSA debates or by
policy decisions made in Washington. Does it help to strengthen
within which they can operate.

regulatory bodies? Unequivocally so. Should the export of surveillance

technology be subjected to the same scrutiny as the export of military
weapons technology? Of course. Should Congress reclaim power from the
White House? Probably. The question of power imbalances is of

central importance. But the narrow focus on the state also belies
the realities of the early 21st century. The state was never the only
game in town, and it certainly isnt today. If there is a meta-story to
the last eight months, I think it goes something like this: We can finally
stop to talk about digital technologies as a graven image. They are made

by men, and thus subject to all the hopes and fallibilities of man.
They are sites of contestation and objects of power struggles among
economic, political and cultural forces. And the exposure of
surveillance practices is above all else an opportunity to dig into the
capillaries of power, to map and scrutinize them, and to broaden our
critique beyond concerns about the excesses of the liberal State.

Social movements based around the technology of modernity

are doomed to fail. Big data has begun shaping social relations
beyond the frontier of interaction and now serves to fracture
political movements and suppress dissent.
Wark 14 (McKenzie, Professor of Culture and Media in Liberal Studies, The New
School for Social Research, Where Next for Media Theory?,
http://www.publicseminar.org/2014/04/where-next-for-media-theory/#.VaRwoflVikr,
NKF)
In short:

the point of media theory is

as Lovink suggests

a speculative one. But its

task is not so much to fabulate futures as to describe in concepts what practices of relation, of pasts into presents and toward
futures, could be

. Looking at the excessive arc of new media since the

nineties, I think we won the battle and lost the war. Social
movements around free information and new community broke
through the carapace of old media. We won! And then a new ruling
class of figured out how to commodify our emergent gift economies
at a higher level of abstraction .

We lost! Well, too bad. Time to regroup and try something else.

This moment of defeat includes an inevitable return to the fantasy

of a romance with the outside. Lets leave social media behin d! Lets take
no more selfies! Lets only commune face-to-face while we sup on artisanal kale chips by the fire in our lumberjack shirts, brushing
the crumbs from our flowing beards!

This is the problem with a lot of what I can only

call late critique of media. It hasnt learned a whole lot

from media theory

. It

rests on the old saw of some organic, whole, romantic other that
has been lost and can be restored . But as we have known since Donna Haraway at the latest:
theres no going back.

We are made of media. We are made of technology. The

Turing test always rested on the presumption that we have some

obvious and clear example of the pre-computerized subject against
which to compare the ambiguous exampl e. But we are made by and of
our media, our computers. There no gold standard of the human.
Our subjectivities are all cyborgian collages of flesh with signs and
images , and with past and present tech. Theres no place to retreat to from the digital optic. Another lesson from the old
militants:

trying too hard to keep your communications secret only

attracts the attention of agencies

of surveillance. So by all means be discreet. A little vague,

sometimes, a bit coy, perhaps. But the fantasy of privacy is really just a denial of the sociality of our species-being. Its a way of
reanimating the old bourgeois fantasy of atomistic nomads. By all means be a critic of the dangers of surveillance, but

lets

not assume there was ever all that much of a discrete , secret, separate private
life . Indeed the history of surveillance and repression ought to inform
this. Before the NSAs big data surveillance was the FBI and its taps

and tail s. There was the destruction of the IWW, McCarthyism, the flat-out murder of members of the Black Panthers.
Lets not pretend we have lost our innocence just now. Would it
really surprise anyone if key Occupy activists came in for
administrative harassment right about now?

Structural Violence
Neoliberalism and violence are inextricably intertwined
violence is a reflection and expression of capitalism
Springer 12 (Simon, assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of
Victoria Neoliberalising violence: of the exceptional and the exemplary in coalescing moments, Area
44:2, Royal Geographical Society, 2012, Wiley Online KC)

The existing relationship between neoliberalism and violence is directly

related to the system of rule that neoliberalism constructs, justifies and defends
in advancing its hegemonies of ideology, of policy and programme, of
state form, of governmentality and ultimately of discourse . Neoliberalism
is a context in which the establishment, maintenance and extension of hierarchical
orderings of social relations are re-created, sustained and intensified. Accordingly,
neoliberalisation must be considered as an integral part of the moment of
violence in its capacity to create social divisions within the constellations of
experiences that delineate place and across the stories-so-far of space (Massey 2005). Violence has a

not only may

inequality lead to violence, but so too may violence result in inequality . In
distinctive reciprocity of reinforcement (Iadicola and Shupe 2003, 375), where

this light, we can regard a concern for understanding the causality of violence as being a
consideration that posits where neoliberalism might make its entry into this bolstering systematic

empirical record demonstrates a

marked increase in inequality under neoliberalism (Wade 2003), encouraging
exchange between inequality and violence. The

Harvey (2005) to regard this as neoliberalism's primary substantive achievement. Yet to ask the
particular question does neoliberalism cause violence? is, upon further reflection, somewhat
irrelevant. Inequality alone is about the metrics and measuring of disparity, however qualified, while
the link between inequality and violence is typically treated as an assessment of the validity of a
causal relationship, where the link may or may not be understood to take on multiple dimensions
(including temporally, spatiality, economics, politics, culture, etc.). However ,

the point is that

inequality and violence are mutually constitutive, which is precisely what
Galtung (1969) had in mind when he coined the term structural violence .
Inequality begets violence, and violence produces further inequalities. Therefore, if we want to
disempower the abhorrent and alienating effects of either and rescind the
domination they both encourage, we need to drop the calculative
approaches and consider violence and inequality together as an enclosed
and resonating system, that is, as a particular moment. As Hartsock argues
[t]hinking in terms of moments can allow the theorist to take account of discontinuities and
incommensurabilities without losing sight of the presence of a social system within which these
features are embedded. (2006, 176) Although the enduring phenomenon of violence is riven by

within the current

moment of neoliberalism, violence is all too frequently a reflection of the
turbulent landscapes of globalised capitalism . Capitalism at different moments
tensions, vagaries and vicissitudes as part of its fundamental nature,

creates particular kinds of agents who become capable of certain kinds of violence dependent upon
both their distinctive geohistorical milieu and their situation within its hierarchy. It is in this
distinction that future critical inquiries could productively locate their concerns for understanding the
associations between violence and neoliberalism. By examining the contingent histories and unique
geographies that define individual neoliberalisations, geographers can begin to interpret and dissect
the kaleidoscope of violence that is intercalated within neoliberalism's broader rationality of power.

It

is critically important to recognise and start working through how the

moment of violence and the moment of neoliberalism coalesce , to which I now
turn my attention.

Neoliberalism perpetuates structural violence against

marginalized groupsto remain silent is to be complicit in the
abuse
Springer 12 (Simon, assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of
Victoria Neoliberalising violence: of the exceptional and the exemplary in coalescing moments, Area
44:2, Royal Geographical Society, 2012, Wiley Online KC)

But what is not spoken in Klein's account, nor is it foregrounded in most treatments of neoliberalism in

neoliberalism has gone beyond the boorish phase of our relationship. It

has become so entrenched and comfortable in its place at the head of the table that
neoliberalism has now turned abusive (Bumiller 2008). Abuse is a form of
violence that involves the mistreatment of another (an Other), leading to
physical or emotional injury. It is utilised to exclusively benefit the interests
of the abuser, and is not at all about serving the interests of victims. Put differently, abuse is
related to exercising dominance, which is a course of action that explicitly
jettisons any sort of biopolitical logic concerned with cultivating life . This
is precisely how neoliberalism operates in a disciplinary capacity , employing a
the literature, is that

variety of regulatory, surveillance and policing mechanisms to ensure neoliberal reforms are instituted

Our silence on this

unfolding violent matrimony is what allows this abuser to become more
and more sure in the application of its domination, and increasingly
brazen in the execution of what has become and overtly necropolitical
agenda (Mbembe 2003). To continue to embrace the maligned doctrine of
neoliberalism and the malevolence it unleashes is to stay the course of battery,
exploitation and assault, and to abandon those most embattled by its
exclusions, and most scarred by its exceptional violence (i.e. the poor,
people of colour, the unemployed, women, the lesbian, gay, bisexual and
transgender community, ethnic minorities, the young and old, disabled
peoples, the homeless etc.) to the full fury of its wrath . Thankfully geographers
and locked in, in spite of what the populace might desire (Gill 1995).

have been vocal in their calls for the indictment of neoliberal ideas (England and Ward 2007; Peck

but we are not yet at a point where we can declare a

distinct qualitative break from the past. Even though the legitimacy of neoliberalism
2010; Smith et al. 2008),

has come under intensifying scrutiny since the onset of the most recent financial crisis in late 2008,

and neoliberalism may be dead inasmuch as it has run out of politically

viable ideas (Smith 2008), it nonetheless remains animated by
technocratic forms of muscle memory, deep instincts of self-preservation, and
spasmodic bursts of social violence (Peck et al. 2010, 105). The continuing implications
and exclusions of neoliberalism should call us to action, it should provoke
us to intervene and invigorate our collective strength with a desire to
make right such terrible wrongs. But beyond this imperative for compassion, a politics of
affinity that never takes for granted our shared humanity, lies the danger of complacency, the shadow
of indifference and the menace of detachment among those of us who have not yet been subjected to
our homes being forcibly taken by armed bandits known as police, to our children's curiosity
languishing because a basic education is an expense we cannot shoulder, or to our spouses dying in
our arms having been denied adequate health care.3 What those of us still on the winning side of
neoliberalism do not account for or anticipate and let there be no mistake that this is a system that
most assuredly creates winners and losers is that in this abandonment of Others, we produce a

It is the ascendency of such neoliberal abuse that

aligns it with sovereign power, a configuration that allows us to
conceptualise neoliberalism as a strategy that facilitates the very
structure of the ban in the particular sense outlined by Agamben (1998 2005). An
relation of inclusive-exclusion.

understanding of the functioning of this relation of the ban is imperative to undoing the abusive
moment we currently find ourselves in, precisely because it forces us to recognise that

everyone
(including myself and other academic geographers ) is implicated in the perpetuation of
neoliberalised violence.

Social invisibility causes extinction produces backgrounds of

structural violence that makes conflict and environmental
collapse inevitable
Szentes 8 (Szentes, Tams, Corvinus University professor emeritus "Prospects for Globalisation
and Development." Society, Space and Semiconductors in the Restructuring of the Modern World THE
GLOBALISATION OF HIGH TECHNOLOGY PRODUCTION (2008): 139-53. Print. KC)

It s a common place that human society can survive and develop only in a
lasting real peace. Without peace countries cannot develop. Although since 1945 there has been
no world war, but numerous local wars took place, terrorism has spread all over
the world, undermining security even in the most developed and powerful countries, arms race and
militarisation have not ended with the collapse of the Soviet bloc, but escalated and
continued, extending also to weapons of mass destruction and misusing enormous
resources badly needed for development, many invisible wars Kothari, R. (1987). are suffered
by the poor and oppressed people, manifested in mass misery, poverty, unemployment,
homelessness, starvation and malnutrition, epidemics and poor health conditions, exploitation and oppression, racial

denial or
regular infringement of the democratic rights of citizens , women, youth, ethnic or
religious minorities, etc., and last but not least, in the degradation of human
environment, which means that the war against Nature , i.e. the disturbance of
and other discrimination, physical terror, organised injustice, disguised forms of violence, the

ecological balance, wasteful management of natural resources, and large-scale pollution of our environment, is still

Behind global terrorism and

invisible wars we find striking international and intrasociety inequities
and distorted development patterns, the prevailing patterns of development, originating in the
business environment of the most developed market economies, and motivated
by the business interests of the transnational companies, are generating selfish individualism
versus solidarity, cruel competition versus cooperation, and irrational
consumerism, i.e. spending on luxurious, health- and environmentdamaging items, versus basic needs orientation. , which tend to generate
going on, causing also losses and fatal dangers for human life.

social as well as international tensions, thus paving the way for

unrest and visible wars. It is a commonplace now that peace is not merely the absence of war.
The prerequisites of a lasting peace between and within societies involve not only - though, of course, necessarily demilitarisation, but also a systematic and gradual elimination of the roots of violence, of the causes of invisible
wars, of the structural and institutional bases of large-scale international and intra-society inequalities, exploitation

Peace requires a process of social and national emancipation, a

progressive, democratic transformation of societies and the world
bringing about equal rights and opportunities for all people , sovereign
and oppression.

participation and mutually advantageous co-operation among nations. It further requires a pluralistic democracy on
global level with an appropriate system of proportional representation of the world society, articulation of diverse
interests and their peaceful reconciliation, by non-violent conflict management, and thus also a global governance

Under the contemporary conditions of

accelerating globalisation and deepening global interdependencies in our
world, peace is indivisible in both time and space. It cannot exist if
reduced to a period only after or before war, and cannot be safeguarded in
one part of the world when some others suffer visible or invisible wars . Thus,
with a really global institutional system.

peace requires, indeed, a new, demilitarised and democratic world order, which can provide equal opportunities for
sustainable development. Sustainability of development (both on national and world level) is often interpreted as
an issue of environmental protection only and reduced to the need for preserving the ecological balance and
delivering the next generations not a destroyed Nature with overexhausted resources and polluted environment.

However, no ecological balance can be ensured, unless the deep

international development gap and intra-society inequalities are
substantially reduced. Owing to global interdependencies there may exist hardly any zero-sum-games,
in which one can gain at the expense of others, but, instead, the negative-sum-games tend to predominate, in
which everybody must suffer, later or sooner, directly or indirectly, losses. Therefore, the actual question is not about
sustainability of development but rather about the sustainability of human life, i.e. survival of mankind
because of ecological imbalance and globalised terrorism. When Professor Louk de la Rive Box was the president of
EADI, one day we had an exchange of views on the state and future of development studies. We agreed that
development studies are not any more restricted to the case of underdeveloped countries, as the developed ones (as
well as the former socialist countries) are also facing development problems, such as those of structural and
institutional (and even system-) transformation, requirements of changes in development patterns, and concerns
about natural environment. While all these are true, today I would dare say that besides (or even instead of)

While the monetary,

financial, and debt crises are cyclical, we live in an almost permanent
crisis of the world society, which is multidimensional in nature, involving
not only economic but also socio-psychological, behavioural, cultural and
political aspects. The narrow-minded, election-oriented, selfish behaviour
motivated by thirst for power and wealth, which still characterise the political leadership almost all
over the world, paves the way for the final, last catastrophe. Under the
circumstances provided by rapidly progressing science and technological
revolutions, human society cannot survive unless such profound intrasociety and international inequalities prevailing today are soon eliminated .
Like a single spacecraft, the Earth can no longer afford to have a 'crew' divided into
two parts: the rich, privileged, wellfed, well-educated, on the one hand, and the poor, deprived, starving, sick
and uneducated, on the other. Dangerous 'zero-sum-games' (which mostly prove to be negativesum-games) can hardly be played any more by visible or invisible wars in the
world society. Because of global interdependencies, the apparent winner
becomes also a loser. The real choice for the world society is between negative- and positive-sum-games:
development studies we must speak about and make survival studies.

i.e. between, on the one hand, continuation of visible and invisible wars, as long as this is possible at all, and, on

No ideological or
terminological camouflage can conceal this real dilemma any more, which
is to be faced not in the distant future, by the next generations, but in the
coming years, because of global terrorism soon having nuclear and other
mass destructive weapons, and also due to irreversible changes in natural
environment.
the other, transformation of the world order by demilitarisation and democratization.

Neoliberalism imposes the slow violence of forgetting, blaming

tragedies on the poor and ignoring massive suffering
Nixon 9 (Rob NIxon Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Neoliberalism,
Slow Violence, and the Environmental Picaresque, Modern Fiction Studies 55:3, Fall 2009, MUSE KC)

Looking back at Chernobyl, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Bhopal , Petryna

laments how "many persons who have survived these largescale
technological disasters have been caught in a long-term and vicious
bureaucratic cycle in which they carry the burden of proof of Nixon 461 their physical damage
while experiencing the risk of being delegitimated in legal, welfare, and
medical institutional contexts" (216). Such people, above all the illiterate
poor, are thrust into a labyrinth of self-fashioning as they seek to fit their
bodily stories tothe story lines that dangle hope of recognition , possibly,
though elusively, even recompense . In so doing, the poor face the double
challenge of invisibility and amnesia: numerically they may constitute the
majority, but they remain on the margins in terms of visibility and official
memory. From an environmental perspective, this marginality is perpetuated, in part, by
what Davis terms "the dialectic of ordinary disaster," whereby a calamity is
incorporated into history and rendered forgettably ordinary precisely
because the burden of risk falls unequally on the unsheltered poor ("Los
Angeles" 227). Such disasters are readily dismissed from memory and policy planning by framing them
as accidental, random, and unforeseeable acts of God, without regard for the precautionary measures

At stake here is the

role of neoliberal globalization in exacerbating both uneven economic
development and the uneven development of official memory . What we witness
is a kind of fatal bigotry that operates through the spatializing of time, by
offloading risk onto "backward" communities that are barely visible in the
official media. Contemporary global politics, then, must be recognized "as
a struggle for crude, material dominance, but also (threaded ever closer into that
struggle) as a battle for the control over appearances" (Boal 31). That battle over
that might have prevented the catastrophe or have mitigated its effects.

spectacle becomes especially decisive for public memoryand for the foresight with which public
policy can motivate and execute precautionary measureswhen it comes to the attritional casualties
claimed, as at Bhopal, by the forces of slow violence.

Neoliberalism marginalizes non-economically-useful people

and legitimizes violence against a huge swath of society
Springer 12 (Simon, assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of
Victoria Neoliberalising violence: of the exceptional and the exemplary in coalescing moments, Area
44:2, Royal Geographical Society, 2012, Wiley Online KC)

and the exemplary in coalescing moments, Area 44:2, Royal Geographical Society, 2012, Wiley
Online)//AS
Like violence, neoliberalism is also notoriously difficult to define. Beyond a vision of naturalised
market relations and unobstructed capital mobility, and in spite of variance in doses among regions,

neoliberalism typically seeks to: impede collective initiative

and public expenditure via the privatisation of common assets and the imposition of user
fees; position individualism, competitiveness and economic self-sufficiency
as fundamental virtues; attenuate or nullify all forms of social protections,
welfare and transfer programmes while promoting minimalist taxation and negligible
business regulation; control inflation even at the expense of full employment; and actively push
states and cities,

marginalised peoples into a flexible labour-market regime of low-wage

employment and precarious work (Peck and Tickell 2002). Put bluntly, neoliberalism is a
market-driven disciplinary logic (Gill 1995). Following this introduction, I begin by identifying how

both violence and neoliberalism can be considered as moments. From this

shared conceptualisation of process and fluidity, I argue that it becomes easier to recognise
how neoliberalism and violence actually converge, whereby these two sets of social
relations may be considered inextricably bound. Building upon this conceived coalescence, in the

the hegemony of neoliberalism positions it as an

abuser, which actively facilitates the abandonment of Others who fall
outside of neoliberal normativity, a conceptual category that cuts across
multiple categories of discrimination including class, race, ethnicity,
gender, sex, sexuality, age and ability. I argue that the widespread
banishment of Others under neoliberalism produces a state of
exception, wherein because of its inherently dialectic nature, exceptional violence is
transformed into exemplary violence. This metamorphosis occurs as aversion for alterity
following section I argue that

intensifies under neoliberalism and its associated violence against Others comes to form the rule.

neoliberalisation inasmuch as it claims a global domain

implicates all of humanity in a particular moment, a moment of
abandonment wherein the social relations that afford privilege to the few
and privation to the many are the very same social relations that occasion
violence. To be clear, my approach should be read as a theoretically informed exhortation that
The purpose is to recognise that

condemns the suffering caused by neoliberalised violence. My aim is to provide a diagnosis

concerning the nature of the present (Foucault 1983, 206) that other geographers may employ in
examining the violence that unfolds in various contexts undergoing neoliberalisation, where I hope to
appeal to a common empathy, solidarity and capacity for outrage.

Surveillance
Analysis of the surveillance apparatus misses the boat.
Understanding how corporate power has begun dominating
social relations is key to interpreting the modern metanarrative of invasive surveillance.
Giroux 14 (Henry, Global TV Network Chair Professorship, McMaster University in
the English and Cultural Studies Department, Totalitarian Paranoia in the PostOrwellian Surveillance State, http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/21656totalitarian-paranoia-in-the-post-orwellian-surveillance-state#, NKF)

Privacy is no longer a principled and cherished civil right. On the contrary, it has been
absorbed and transformed within the purview of a celebrity and market-driven
culture in which people publicize themselves and their innermost
secrets to promote and advance their personal brand. Or it is often a principle invoked by
conservatives who claim their rights to privacy have been trampled when confronted with ideas or arguments that unsettle their

privacy has mostly become

synonymous with a form of self-generated, nonstop performance - a type
of public relations in which privacy makes possible the unearthing
of secrets, a cult of commodified confessionals and an infusion of
narcissistic, self-referencing narratives, all of which serve to expand
the pleasure quotient of surveillance while normalizing its
expanding practices and modes of repression that Orwell could never have imagined.
notions of common sense or their worldviews. It is worth repeating that

Where Orwell's characters loathed the intrusion of surveillance, according to Bauman and Lyons, today We seem to experience no
joy in having secrets, unless they are the kinds of secrets likely to enhance our egos by attracting the attention of researchers and

Everything private is
now done, potentially, in public - and is potentially available for public
consumption; and remains available for the duration, till the end of time, as the internet 'can't be made to forget'
anything once recorded on any of its innumerable servers. This erosion of anonymity is a
product of pervasive social media services, cheap cell phone cameras, free photo and video Web hosts,
and perhaps most important of all, a change in people's views about what ought to
be public and what ought to be private.13 Orwell's 1984 looks subdued next to the current parameters, intrusions,
technologies and disciplinary apparatuses wielded by the new corporate-government surveillance state. Surveillance
has not only become more pervasive, intruding into the most private of spaces and activities in
order to collect massive amounts of data, it also permeates and inhabits everyday activities so
as to be taken-for-granted. Surveillance is not simply pervasive, it has become
normalized. Orwell could not have imagined either the intrusive capabilities of the new
high-powered digital technologies of surveillance and display, nor could he have envisioned the growing web of
political, cultural and economic partnerships between modes of
government and corporate sovereignty capable of collecting almost
every form of communication in which human beings engage. What is new in the postOrwellian world is not just the emergence of new and powerful technologies used by governments and corporations to spy on
editors of TV talk shows, tabloid front pages and the....covers of glossy magazines.

people and assess personal information as a way to either attract ready-made customers or to sell information to advertising

the emergence of a widespread culture of surveillance. Intelligence

networks now inhabit the world of Disney as well as the secret domains of the NSA and the
agencies, but

FBI. I think the renowned intellectual historian Quentin Skinner is right in insisting that

surveillance is about

more than the violation of privacy rights, however important. Under the surveillance state,
the greatest threat one faces is not simply the violation of one's right to
privacy, but the fact that the public is subject to the dictates of
arbitrary power it no longer seems interested in contesting. And it is precisely this
existence of unchecked power and the wider culture of political indifference that puts at
risk the broader principles of liberty and freedom, which are
fundamental to democracy itself. According to Skinner, who is worth quoting at length: The
response of those who are worried about surveillance has so far been too
much couched, it seems to me, in terms of the violation of the right to privacy.
Of course it's true that my privacy has been violated if someone is reading my emails without my knowledge. But my point is that

my liberty is also being violated, and not merely by the fact that
someone is reading my emails but also by the fact that someone has
the power to do so should they choose. We have to insist that this in itself takes
away liberty because it leaves us at the mercy of arbitrary power.
It's no use those who have possession of this power promising that
they won't necessarily use it, or will use it only for the common good. What is offensive
to liberty is the very existence of such arbitrary power.14 The dangers of the
surveillance state far exceed the attack on privacy or warrant simply a discussion about balancing security against civil liberties. The

the growth of the surveillance state is connected

to the rise of the punishing state, the militarization of American society,
secret prisons, state-sanctioned torture, a growing culture of
violence, the criminalization of social problems, the depoliticization of public memory,
and one of the largest prison systems in the world, all of which "are only the most
concrete, condensed manifestations of a diffuse security regime in which we are all interned and enlisted."15 The
authoritarian nature of the corporate-state surveillance apparatus
and security system with its "urge to surveill, eavesdrop on, spy on, monitor, record,
and save every communication of any sort on the planet"16 can only
be fully understood when its ubiquitous tentacles are connected to
wider cultures of control and punishment, including securitypatrolled corridors of public schools, the rise in super-max prisons,
the hyper-militarization of local police forces, the rise of the
military-industrial-academic complex, and the increasing labeling of
dissent as an act of terrorism in the United States.17
latter argument fails to address how

The surveillance apparatus is not inexplicably tethered to the

corporate domination of the techno-social. The proletariat has
evolved beyond flesh to that of the cybernetic populous. This
is the evisceration of difference.
Lovink 14 (Geert, Research Professor of Interactive Media, Hogeschool van
Amsterdam, Hermes on the Hudson: Notes on Media Theory after Snowden,
http://www.e-flux.com/journal/hermes-on-the-hudson-notes-on-media-theory-aftersnowden/, NKF)

Enlightenment

not only

promises new knowledge, it also shatters

mythologies . The Snowden revelations in June 2013 mark the symbolic closure of the new media era. The NSA
scandal has taken away the last remains of cyber-naivety and lifted the internet issue to the level of world politics.

The

integration of cybernetics into all aspects of life is a fact. The

values of the internet generation have been dashed to
peer-to-peer,

pieces: decentralization,

rhizomes , networks. Everything you have ever clicked on can and

will be used against you . In 2014, weve come full circle and returned to a world before 1984. That was not
only Orwells year, but also the moment Apple hit the mediascape with the personal computer.

Until 1984, a small

conglomerate of multinationals such as IBM, Honeywell-Bull, and GE

defined the public imagination of computers with their sterile,
corporate mainframes

that processed punch cards. Until then,

used by large bureaucracies to count

off their military origins.

and control

computers had been

populations and had not yet shaken

Now, thirty years later, the computer is once again the

perfect technical instrument of a cold , military s ecurity apparatus that

is out to allocate, identify, selectand ultimately destroythe
Other. The NSA, with the active support of Google , Facebook, Microsoft, and
allied secret services, has achieved total awareness . Precisely at the moment
when the PC is disappearing from our desks, large and

invisible data centers take their place

in the collective techno-imaginary.

The Turkish-American web sociologist Zeynep Tufekci reflects

on the new state of affairs: Resistance and surveillance : The design of todays
digital tools makes the two inseparable. And

how to think about this is a real challenge.

Its said that generals always fight the last war. If so, were like
those generals. Our understanding of the dangers of surveillance is
filtered by our thinking about previous threats
update our nightmares. Lets take this call seriously.

terrifying dreams with

to our freedoms.1 She calls on us to

In what ways can we still read our

(Freudian)

tools based on ancient Greek myths? In

the age of smartphones, archetypal layers have been rewired and

have mutated into a semi-collective techno-subconscious. We never
dream alone. The digital is being pushed into the realm of the
subliminal. The subject-as-user, the one who takes selfies, can
indeed no longer productively distinguish between real and virtual ,
here and there, day and night. What is citizen empowerment in the age of the driverless car?

The affs focus on state based surveillance ignores the looming

and imminent threat of corporate power state reformism is a
placebo that makes the oppression of cloud feudalism invisible
Metahaven 12 (Interview with Benjamin Bratton, Associate Professor of Visual
Arts and Director of The Center for Design and Geopolitics at the University of
California, The Cloud, the State, and the Stack: Metahaven in Conversation with
Benjamin Bratton, Tumblr, 2012/12/16,
http://mthvn.tumblr.com/post/38098461078/thecloudthestateandthestack)
No. It is possible to read that opposition into this, but that doesnt help much when States become more like Networks and Networks
more like States. The geographic-topological distinction between fixed node or fluid edge, central or de-central, could locate States
on either side of the distinction and that amphibiousness is only increasing. I take
jurisdictional structure that

State to mean a kind of formal

absorbs a geographic domain into its purview, that

can assign identity and address, which can control mobility within a
certain field, and which can claim final authority over the legitimacy
of violence within a specific domain . But networks do all those
things too . As said, Google-China is a key example here, but US superjurisdiction is another to be sure. The US
can , it seems, claim a right to inspect any data seemingly remotely
related to a machine on its soil . In fact the limit of US jurisdiction cant be defined by a contiguous land
mass or even a body of law.

Pick your favorite example : drones, the Megaupload

seizure, the monopolies of Visa/Mastercard, ICANN , etc. This tension drawns on

archaic distinctions with very different histories of (the drawing of land vs. the drift of the sea), but, again I am most interested in
how such conflicts can give rise to weird, novel jurisdictional forms. Your Facestate project shows what is menacing and also perhaps
weirdly progressive about certain combinations. We are at an impasse in our geopolitical thinking about what comes next, and I
think speculative design can provide a vocabulary of alternatives.
neither of

I am not a great fan of

States per se, but

markets and corporate gardens , nor particularly faithful in anarchic autopoiesis and

absolute commonwealths. It seems that in practice we perhaps cynically lean on one of these three when the accidents caused by
combinations of the other two become too awful.

States are invoked and tolerated when

markets and commons contradict each other Commons are

championed when states and markets horde and flail, while we turn
to the apparent dynamism of markets when states and
commonwealths cant get it going . A kind of triangulation of bad faith? Instead, I am interested
arent we all?in the accidental design and deliberate composition of alien, alternative platforms of mass sovereignty. MH How
exactly are Clouds de facto States? They can bring together a rather large polity (like the Facebook population, for example

),

but this polity has no rights within that Cloud and does not share
its

(for example)

Facebook citizenship with other Facebook users as their

primary sense of citizenship yet correct? BB I will rely on the characterization of The Stack as a
design brief. You are correct that no private Cloud platform existing today has the full power of a State, and perhaps they never
will.But

Cloud platforms will gain in influence and ubiquity and so may

result in modes of sovereignty that are very different but equally

impactful as those of States. Perhaps your Google ID will mean

more in terms of your effective ability to migrate and trade and

communicate than your passport or State ID. Furthermore, and
equally important States will themselves increasingly become
Cloud-like in various ways. The conversion works both directions.
The curious example of the Google Maps war between Nicaragua
and Costa Rica, where a change in Google Maps almost initiated a
conflict between the two countries, is telling. The naming and
measuring of the ground over which and into which politics might
maneuver used to be a core function of the State.

In this example

, States

defer to Google Maps to draw the nomos . MH A Google ID might

mean more but the protocol of border crossing and/or claiming of
state benefits is still served by the passport. How do Cloud-issued
identity certificates pass the test from soft to hard currency in
this respect? For example, when ones Facebook ID becomes one of
the possible entries into ones digital profile with the state? And
if not, how does something like a Google ID loosen, affect, or
otherwise change the coordinates of passport/national identity
within the context of the Stack?

BB Well, yes, how indeed. We will have to prototype it. There are

thousands of possible routes to and from hard and soft in these cases. Again, I am not making a claim that this has taken place, but
working backwards from an emergent future we can see where this leads. Considering the inroads of gov.googleapps.com with the
local, State, and Federal agencies,

it is not unthinkable that much of the back-end of

the Federal Governments user/citizen management will be partially

sourced to Google

(as opposed to sourcing such tasks to far less competent contractors).

The Feds

have had no end of trouble with Internet ID schemes that would

allow for trusted real identity mechanisms online, such that finally a
reasonable electronic signature could be done once and for all.
Clearly Google+ and Google Wallet are ways to build Google ID into
a macro-identity across purposes and sectors such as banking.
it becomes more politically feasible for the
let that

Feds

Perhaps

to quietly adopt or offer Google ID support for certain important functions, and

absorb the goals of real Internet ID programs . In such a case, my

passport can also buy my plane ticket, book my hotel , etc. But thinking long term,
we could envision competing states/cloud platforms with competing
services and protocol lock-ins . It may be that California offers far better digital identity services than
Arizona and so non-residents choose to be part of that platform, effectively paying taxes to a state other than their own. People
might become more intertwined with the services and content, and political conflicts of California, because

the state

cloud is actually providing them with identity, economy, even

schooling , who knows. Perhaps they choose to live under Californias data laws/ platform even if they are in

Dubai, and

perhaps no one can stop them. Perhaps they dont give up their Dubai passports but it might not matter. Maybe Taiwans services
will be, for whatever reasons, deliberately designed to prevent interoperation with California. So the walled garden problem
becomes one of real competing feifdoms. We can make up scenarios, and its probably well worth doing. I am waiting for California
to set up its own embassy in Brussels. The optimistic scenario is the emergence of new modes of sovereignty that would let
people assemble and connect in ways that better serve their real needs and wants. Perhaps these are not recognizable as states,
platforms, corporations, or commons, but some bizarre hybrid of all four plus three new things we dont know yet. Equally likely is
what we can call

Cloud Feudalism . In this scenario, the walls of some gardens are hard and thick. The

mechanization and routinization of everyday life is amplified

beyond measure and all politics

(including biopolitics)

reduce user-citizens

reduced to mere personnel . Those without means to purchase their

way into a Sky Club Sovereignty are left to the wilderness: no
privacy, poor services, easily curtailed access, highly restricted
channels of online work , etc. Perhaps that is simply to say that Cognitive Capitalism
creates its own bourgeoise, proletariat and lumpen proletariat, and
that the highly centralized nature of Cloud platforms to date
suggests that their architecture is Feudal . Again, the Cloud very well
could evolve into a horrible totalitarian world of inescapable
stupidity . One version of it probably will. But it will also engender its own counter-hegemonic forms. Here in California, the
privilege of drawing up such lunatic schemes is part of the culture. MH Thank you.

Focus on state surveillance activities trades off with critique of

private power specifically it forces you to accept the framing
of the state, destroying the credibility of movements
Frase 14 (Peter, Writer and on editorial board of Jacobin and Ph.D. student in
sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center, 1/21, Jacobin, The Left and the State,
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/01/the-left-and-the-state/)
Wilkinson notes that theoretically, libertarianism is an argument against the possibility of legitimate government. This makes it
clearly incompatible with most socialist or social democratic attempts to democratize the market or expropriate the means of
production. Yet nevertheless,

its crazily illogical to reason that the actually

existing state is justified on liberal terms just because the

libertarian critique of the state is false, and a legitimate liberal
state is possible. Substitute socialist for liberal , and I think the point stands
just as well. He further points out that

mounting a libertarian defense of our current

economic relations depends on a parallel sleight of hand,

confusing our unjustifiably rigged political economy with a very
different laissez faire ideal . But there seems to be an instinct among some on the Left to suppose that
defending the possibility of government requires rejecting any alliance with libertarians who might criticize particularly noxious
aspects of the existing state. Or, to be a bit more subtle, that

any critique that emphasizes

government authoritarianism merely distracts us from the critique

of private power, in particular the power of the boss . I dont think its true that
attacks on NSA surveillance somehow make it harder to bring up corporate privacy abuses or the tyranny of capital in the

workplace. But more than that,

I think that when leftists set themselves up as

defenders of government against libertarian hostility to the state,

they unwittingly accept the Rights framing of the debate in a way
thats neither an accurate representation of reality nor a good
guide to political action.

The Right, in its libertarian formulation, loves to set itself up as the defender of

individual liberty against state power. And thus contemporary capitalism often referred to by that overused buzzword,

neoliberalism is often equated in casual left discourse with the

withdrawal of the state.

But in the works that developed neoliberalism as a category of left political

economy, this is not how things are understood at

all. Neoliberalism is a state project

through and through, and is better understood as a transformation

of the state and a shift in its functions, rather than a quantitative
reduction in its size. In
state

in

his Brief History of Neoliberalism, David Harvey underlines the importance of

the

forcibly creating a good business climate by breaking

down barriers to capital accumulation and repressing dissent . Hence:

Neoliberalism does not make the state or particular institutions of the state (such as the courts and police functions) irrelevant, as
some commentators on both the Right and the Left have argued. There has, however, been a radical reconfiguration of state
institutions and practices (particularly with respect to the balance between coercion and consent, between the powers of capital and
of popular movements, and between executive and judicial power, on the one hand, and powers of representative democracy on the
other).

The growth of the surveillance state , in this formulation, clearly makes up

a central part of the neoliberal turn , and is not something ancillary to it. However ,
the

misrecognition of the specifically

neoliberal state continues to mislead liberals

and leftists , and not only on the topic of the national security state a state, it should be noted, that is inextricably
linked with the nominally private sector, in the form of contractors such as the one that employed Edward Snowden.

neoliberal state moves

in the direction of governing through crime,

As the

it becomes

increasingly important to dismantle the prison-industrial complex, a

joint public-private project of domination, exploitation, and social
control . And yet there is the persistent temptation to invoke the genie of state repression, despite the Lefts documented
inability to make it do its bidding.

That can take the form of humanitarian

warmongering or

what Elizabeth Bernstein has described as

carceral feminism : a vision of

social justice as criminal justice that attempts to deploy the repressive power of the state to protect women who are portrayed as
helpless victims. Or take a very different issue: the recent chemical spill in West Virginia, which has exposed hundreds of thousands
of people to toxic drinking water. The always-acerbic and astute Dean Baker notes the witless habit of referring to this event as a
failure of government regulation and a consequence of free-market fundamentalism.

The real issue , he notes, is

that the state protects the property rights of the rich while allowing
them to profit from befouling our common resources . Baker has, I think, done
some of the best popular writing attacking the fiction that the Right is for free markets while the Left is for government regulation.
As Ive noted elsewhere,

the contest before us in the immediate future is

between different regimes of state-created and -enforced property,

not between the state and the market . One should not have any illusions that critics of the
national security state all share socialist politics. But we should judge these critics by what they say and do and what their political

impact is.

An endless inquisition into hidden beliefs and motives, and

the attempt to unmask a devious libertarian hidden agenda, makes

for a satisfying purity politics for those who want to justify their
own inaction . But it does nothing to contest the predatory fusion of
state and capital that confronts us today, which must be confronted
in the government, the workplace, and many other places besides.

Corporations utilize the apparatus of the surveillance state to

commodify the electronic self the aff abdicates the
responsibility of surveillance by solely focusing on
governmental processes.
Giroux 14 (Henry, Global TV Network Chair Professorship, McMaster University in
the English and Cultural Studies Department, Totalitarian Paranoia in the PostOrwellian Surveillance State, http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/21656totalitarian-paranoia-in-the-post-orwellian-surveillance-state#, NKF)

The democratic ideal rooted in the right to privacy

under the modernist

in which Orwell lived out his political imagination has been

state

transformed and

mutilated , almost beyond recognition . Just as Orwell's fable has morphed

over time

into a

combination of "

realistic novel ," real-life documentary and a form of reality TV , privacy

has been altered radically in an age of permanent, 'nonstop' global

exchange and circulation . So, too, and in the current period of historical amnesia, privacy has
been redefined through the material and ideological registers of a
neoliberal order in which the right to privacy has succumbed to the
seductions of a narcissistic culture and casino capitalism's
unending necessity to turn every relationship into an act of
commerce

and to make all aspects of daily life visible and subject to data manipulation.5

In a world

devoid of care, compassion and protection, privacy is no longer

connected

and resuscitated

through its connection to public life ,

the common good

or a vulnerability born of the recognition of the frailty of human

life. In a world in which the worst excesses of capitalism are
unchecked, privacy is nurtured in a zone of historical amnesia,
indifferent to its transformation and demise under a "broad set of
panoptic practices." 6 Consequently, culture loses its power as the bearer of public memory in a social order
where

a consumerist-driven ethic "makes impossible any shared

recognition of common interests or goals" and furthers the

collective indifference to the growth of the surveillance state.7

Surveillance has become a growing feature of daily life . In fact, it is

more appropriate to analyze the culture of surveillance, rather than
address exclusively the violations committed by the corporatesurveillance state . In this instance, the surveillance and security state is
one that not only listens, watches and gathers massive amounts of
information through data mining necessary for identifying
consumer populations but also acculturates the public into
accepting the intrusion of surveillance technologies and privatized
commodified values into all aspects of their lives. Personal
information is willingly given over to social media and other
corporate-based websites and gathered daily as people move from
one targeted web site to the next across multiple screens and
digital apparatuses .

As Ariel Dorfman points out,

social media users gladly give

up their liberty and privacy, invariably for the most benevolent of

platitudes and reasons, all the while endlessly shopping online

and

texting.7A This collecting of information might be most evident in the video cameras that inhabit every public space from the
streets, commercial establishments and workplaces to the schools our children attend as well as in the myriad scanners placed at
the entry points of airports, stores, sporting events and the like. Yet

the most important

transgression may not only be happening through the unwarranted

watching, listening and

collecting of information but also in a culture that

normalizes surveillance by upping the pleasure quotient and

enticements for consumers who use the new digital technologies
and social networks to simulate false notions of community and to
socialize young people into a culture of security and
commodification in which their identities, values and desires are
inextricably tied to a culture of private addictions , self-help and commodification.
Surveillance feeds on the related notions of fear and delusion.
Authoritarianism in its contemporary manifestations , as evidenced so grippingly
in Orwell's text

, no longer depends on the raw displays of power but

instead has become omniscient in a culture of control

in which the most

cherished notions of agency collapse into unabashed narcissistic exhibitions and confessions of the self, serving as willing fodder for
the spying state.

The self has become not simply the subject of surveillance

but a willing participant

and object.

Operating off the assumption that

some individuals will not willingly turn their private lives over to
the spying state and corporations, the NSA and other intelligence
agencies work hard to create a turnkey authoritarian state in which

the "electronic self" becomes public property. Every space is now

enclosed within the purview of an authoritarian society that
attempts to govern the entirety of social life . As Jonathan Schell points out: Thanks to
Snowden, we also know that unknown volumes of like information are being extracted from Internet and computer companies,
including Microsoft,

Yahoo, Google, Faceboo k, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube and Apple. The first thing to note

about these data is that a mere generation ago, they did not exist.

They are a new power in our

midst, flowing from new technology , waiting to be picked up; and power, as
always, creates temptation, especially for the already powerful . Our
cellphones track our whereabouts.

Our communications pass through centralized

servers and are saved and kept for a potential eternity in storage
banks , from which they can be recovered and examined. Our purchases and contacts and
illnesses and entertainments are tracked and agglomerated. If we
are arrested, even our DNA can be taken and stored by the state .
Today, alongside each one of us, there exists a second, electronic self, created in part by us, in part by others.

This other

self has become de facto public property, owned chiefly by immense

data-crunching corporations, which use it for commercial purposes.
Now government is reaching its hand into those corporations for its
own purposes, creating a brand-new domain of the state-corporate
complex.

The surveillance state is a product of consumerismthe aff is

merely a legitimation project.
Finley 14 (Laura, Barry University sociology and criminology professor, Digital
Blackwater: The National Security Administration, Telecommunications Companies
and State-Corporate Crime, State Criminal Journal, 3.2, proquest)
Although some have expressed concern or even outrage, many Americans remain apathetic about the privacy violations occurring
through the NSA-corporate collusion (Pew Research Center for the People and the Press 2013). One factor that might encourage
large numbers of Americans to simply defer to power and support the intrusion of their privacy has to do with the prevailing culture
of consumerism that characterizes the US society. As has been argued by various critics

decades, the US
which citizens

(and other societies)

, for the last several

are increasingly consumer societies in

(i.e., people with political rights and obligations who are civically engaged and partake in the decisions

and processes that shape society)

have been largely replaced by consumers

Bauman 1998; Giroux 2008). Convincing people

through advertising, the educational

system, popular culture, et c. that their primary role

d

(see, e.g.

in life is that of a consumer

iscourages critical thinking and steers human agency to the trivial

confines of purchasing preferences . Within a consumer society, the rhetoric of commodities

permeates social life (Dore and Weeks 2011). In effect, society becomes little more than a huge marketplace of consumers and
sellers, all of whom are looking after their own commercially defined interests.

This state of affairs , according to

Henry Giroux (2008), undermines critical thinking,

erodes social bonds and fosters apathy . In a

consumer society, happiness, success and fulfilment are typically measured by peoples purchasing power and material possessions
(Durning 1992; Schor 1998). However, because the satisfaction that comes with material consumption is typically short lived,
encouraging people to remain reliable consumers involves constantly enticing them with new products (Bauman 1998).

Through this process of continuous enticement with mostly trivial

commodities, people are discouraged from spending time seriously
questioning the society in which they live.

As a result, many are distracted and ultimately

excluded from the more significant decisions that affect their lives. It is precisely this sort of alienation that pacifies many people
and encourages them to simply fit into the realm of acceptable options dictated by the political and economic elite. These
acceptable options which typically involve things like choosing between various ice-cream flavours, types of cars or political
candidates are ultimately all consumer choices that reflect the prevailing status quo but are nonetheless typically regarded as
indicators of freedom. Considering this association often made between consumer choice and freedom, it is no wonder that
there has been no concerted effort in the US to oppose the fact that most private and public settings have been increasingly turned
into what George Ritzer (2005) has described as sites of consumption. According to Ritzer, in the past several decades, settings
that were traditionally not associated with shopping, such as schools, airports and private homes, have been turned into settings of
consumption. With respect to the latter, Ritzer (2005: x) suggests that

even our homes have become

means of consumption, penetrated by telemarketing, junk mail,

catalogs, home shopping television, and cybershops . Most importantly, the
purpose of this discussion is that the implied invasion of privacy that inevitably comes with these new developments has become
normative. For example, although a Pew study found that most US adults fear identity theft when shopping online, this practice has
become increasingly popular (Horrigan 2008).

What this might also suggest is that many

Americans are willing to accept the risks of having their privacy

invaded in the interest of playing their roles as consumers from the
comfort of their home . The urge to consume, in short, might trump
everything else including the value that many people place on
privacy. This consumerist mindset might thus be partly responsible
for why many Americans support or are indifferent about
surveillance practices . From a consumers point of view, this is simply the cost of
security . In sum, t he NSAs widespread surveillance of US citizens is the
result of the continued neoliberal practice of deregulation and
weakening oversight of government programmes. The ease with
which such programmes can be approved by FISA Court without
public knowledge, the widespread ideology that collecting
metadata will keep the country safe from terrorism and the
willingness the average US citizen has to freely give up their rights
for greater convenience and an alleged sense of security are all key
factors that underscore why the state-corporate collusion has
expanded so rapidly and is in such deep contrast to rights
articulated in international human rights treaties. G iven that corporations are not
subject to even the same weak and problematic oversights as are required for governmental programmes, many have expressed
grave concern about President Obamas recent recommendation that the data collected by the NSA be stored with private
companies

. Rather than eliminating the programmes that violate human

rights, President Obama continued to trump up fear of a terrorist

attack , making nine references to September 11 in his January 2014 speech in which he was to present reforms (Matthews
2014). Instead,

critics assert that the Presidents primary goal was not to

address the problems with widespread surveillance of innocent

people but rather to restore faith in the NSA (Matthews 2014). It
seems that serious change is nowhere in sight.

State action against surveillance normalizes and suppresses

opposition against the personal surveillance that society has
constructed the neoliberal security state is as much cultural
as it is governmental
Giroux 14 (Henry, Global TV Network Chair Professorship, McMaster University in
the English and Cultural Studies Department, Totalitarian Paranoia in the PostOrwellian Surveillance State, http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/21656totalitarian-paranoia-in-the-post-orwellian-surveillance-state#, NKF)

The point of no return in the

apparatus
illegal ways.18 It

emergence of the

corporate-state surveillance

is not strictly confined to the task of archiving immense pools of data collection to be used in a number of

is in creating a culture in which surveillance becomes

trivialized, celebrated, and legitimated as reasonable and

unquestioned behavior . Evidence that diverse forms of public pedagogy are sanctioning the security state is
on full display in post-Orwellian America, obvious in schools that demand that students wear radio chips so they can be tracked.19

Such anti-democratic projects are now also funded by billionaires

Bill Gates

like

who push for the use of biometric bracelets to monitor

students'

attentiveness in classrooms.20

The normalization of surveillance is also

evident in the actions of giant Internet providers who use social

messaging to pry personal information from their users. The reach
of the surveillance culture can also be seen in the use of radio chips
and GPS technologies used to track a person's movements across
time and space . At the same time, cultures of surveillance work hard to
trivialize the importance of a massive surveillance environment by
transforming it into a source of entertainment.

This is evident in the popularity of realty

TV shows such as "Big Brother" or "Undercover Boss ," which turn the
event of constant surveillance into a voyeuristic pleasure .21 The atrophy of
democratic intuitions of culture and governance are evident in popular representations that undermine the meaning of democracy
as a collective ethos that unconditionally stands for social, economic, and political rights.22 One

example can be

found in Hollywood films that glorify hackers such as those in the

Matrix trilogy , or

movies that celebrate professionalized

government agents using

their omniscient

modern spying and the

technological gizmos to fight

terrorists

and other forces of evil.

What is lost in the culture of surveillance is

that spying and the unwarranted collection of personal information

from people who have not broken the law in the name of national
security and for commercial purposes is a procedure often adopted
by totalitarian states. The surveillance state with its immense data
mining capabilities represents a historical rupture from traditional
notions of modernity with its emphasis on enlightenment, reason,
and the social contract.

The older modernity held up the ideals of justice, equality, freedom, and democracy,

however flawed. The investment in public goods was seen as central to a social contract that implied that all citizens should have
access to those provisions, resources, institutions, and benefits that expanded their sense of agency and social responsibility.

The new modernity and its expanding surveillance net subordinates

human needs, public goods, and justice to the demands of
commerce and the accumulation of capital, at all costs. The
contemporary citizen is primarily a consumer and entrepreneur
wedded to the belief that the most desirable features of human
behavior are rooted in a "basic tendency
interested behavior which is the central fact of human social life."23

towards competitive, acquisitive and uniquely self-

Modernity is now driven by the

imperatives of a savage neoliberal political and economic system

that embrace

what Charles Derber and June Sekera call

a "public goods deficit " in which

"budgetary priorities" are relentlessly pushed so as to hollow out the welfare state and drastically reduce social provisions as part of
a larger neoliberal counter revolution to lower the taxes of the rich and mega-corporations while selling off public good to private
interests.

24 Debates about the meaning and purpose of the public and

social good have been co-opted by a politics of fear , relegating notions of the civic
good, public sphere,

and even the very word "public " to the status of a

liability , if not a pathology. 25 Fear has lost its social connotations and no
longer references

fear of social deprivations such as

poverty, homelessness, lack of

health care, and other fundamental conditions of agency . Fear is

now personalized , reduced to an atomized fear that revolves around crime,
safety, apocalypse, and survival . In this instance, as the late Harvard economist John Kenneth
Galbraith once warned, modernity now privileges "a disgraceful combination of 'private opulence and public squalor.' "26 This is not
surprising given the basic elements of neoliberal policy, which as Jeremy Gilbert indicates, include the: privatization of public assets,
contraction and centralization of democratic institutions, deregulation of labor markets, reductions in progressive taxation,
restrictions on labor organization, labor market deregulation, active encouragement of competitive and entrepreneurial modes of
relation across the public and commercial sectors.27

Under the regime of neoliberal

capitalism, the expansion of government and corporate surveillance

measures become synonymous with new forms of governance and
an intensification of material and symbolic violence .28 Rather than
wage a war on terrorists, the neoliberal security state wages a war
on dissent in the interest of consolidating class power. How else to

explain the merging of corporate and state surveillance systems

updated with the most sophisticated shared technologies
years

used in the last few

to engage in illicit counterintelligence operations, participate in

industrial espionage 29 and disrupt and attack pro-democracy

movements such as Occupy

and a range of other nonviolent social movements protesting a myriad of

state and corporate injustices.30 This type of illegal spying in the interest of stealing industrial secrets and closing down dissent by
peaceful protesters has less to do with national security than it has to do with mimicking the abuses and tactics used by the Stasi in
East Germany during the Cold War. How else to explain why many law-abiding citizens "and those with dissenting views within the
law can be singled out for surveillance and placed on wide-ranging watch lists relating to terrorism."3

Terror
The aff utilizes the representations of terrorism as a part of
the culture of fear that seeks to suppress and manipulate the
public to justify surveillance
Giroux 4 (Henry, Professor at Boston University, Miami University, and Penn State
University and a scholar of critical pedagogy theory, Routledge, War on Terror, Vol.
18, Issue 4, http://www.henryagiroux.com/online_articles/Third%20Text%202004war%20on%20terror.pdf)
As militarisation spreads its influence both at home and abroad

, a culture of fear is mobilised in

order to put into place a massive police state intent on controlling

and manipulating public speech while making each individual a
terrorist suspect subject to surveillance, fingerprinting, and other
forms of electronic tattooing . But the increasing danger of
evident in the attempt by

militarisation is also

the corporate/military/ media complex to create those

ideological and pedagogical conditions in which people either

become convinced that the power of the command- ing institutions
of the state should no longer held accountable or believe that they
are powerless to challenge the new reign of state terrorism . And as
militarisation spreads its values and power throughout American society and the globe,

it works to eliminate

those public spaces necessary for imagining an inclusive

democratic global society . Militarisation and the culture of fear
redefined the very nature of the political, and in so doing

that legitimises it have

have devalued speech and agency as

central categories of democratic public life.

And it is precisely as a particular ideology and

cultural politics that militarisation has to be opposed. As the forces of militarisation are ratcheted up within multiple spaces in the
body politic,

they increasingly begin to produce the political currency of

what begins to look like proto-fascism in the United States.

To expose and

resist such an ideology should be one of the primary responsibilities of intellectuals, activists, parents, youth, community members,
and others concerned about the fate of democracy on a global scale. Working both within and outside traditional public spheres,
artists, community activists, writers, and educators can expose the ideology of militarisation in all its diversity and how it risks
turning the United States into a military state while at the same time undermining crucial social programmes, constitutional
liberties, and valuable public spaces. Accord- ing to Arundhati Roy, this new politics of resistance demands:

win back the minds and hearts of people.

institutions and demanding accountability

Fighting to

. . . It means keeping an eagle eye on public

. It means putting your ear to the ground and

listening to the whispering of the truly powerless . It means giving a forum to the
myriad voices from the hundreds of resistance movements across the country which are speaking about real things

about

bonded labor, marital rape, sexual preferences, womens wages,

uranium dumping, unsustainable mining, weavers woes, farmers
suicides . It means fighting displacement and dispossession and the relentless, everyday violence of abject poverty.

Fighting it also means not allowing your newspaper columns and

prime-time TV spots to be hijacked by their spurious passions and
their staged theatrics, which are designed to divert attention from
everything else.42Progressives everywhere have to reinvent the
possibility of an engaged politics and real strategies of resistance .
This suggests not only working through traditional spheres of political contestation, such as elections or union struggles or various
means of education. Collective struggle must combine the tasks of a radical public pedagogy with massive acts of non- violent,
collective disobedience. Such acts can serve to educate, mobilise, and remind people of the importance of struggles that change
both ideas and relations of power. By making militarisation visible through the force of words and peaceful resistance, politics can
become both meaningful and possible as a contested site through which people can challenge both locally and through international
alliances the obscene accumulation of power symptomatic of the increasing militarisation of public space that is spreading both
throughout the US and across the globe. Arundhati Roy is right in her incessant and courageous call to globalise dissent but if
dissent is to work it must have a focus that cuts across empires, nation states, and local spaces, to the heart of a clear and present
danger posed to democracy and social justice.

Challenging militarisation

in all of its expressions

is a

direct strike at the heart of a policy that has exceeded democracy

and now formed a dreadful pact with a creeping and dangerous
authoritarianism. We find ourselves in the midst of a war globally,
not simply a war against terrorism but also a war against
democratic solidarity in which a democratic future both at home
and abroad stands in the balance.

Terrorism is a product of class tensions

Ogunrotifa 12 (Bayo Ogunrotifa, Research Assistant at Edinburgh University,
April 2012 ,PUTTING HISTORICAL MATERIALISM INTO TERRORISM STUDIES ,
International Journal of Current Research, Vol. 4, P.231-232, JF)
Terrorism is an inevitable consequence that will feature more prominently in the
capitalist mode of production because the social contradiction (economic crisis) that
arises out of the conflicts between the social relations and productive forces will
usher a continuous struggle within classes as Karl Marx affirmed. Henk Overbeek (2004) noted
that these social relations of (re-)production are hierarchical and exploitative. They are furthermore
guaranteed by the state: in the era of the dominance of capitalist social relations,
they are guaranteed by the capitalist state10. Capitalism which fosters private property makes
some people to own more than others. In other words, capitalist mode of production fosters
inequality among the classes, and further divides the society into have (rich and super-rich) and have-not
(the poor). In the period of capitalist crisis and contradiction, the class antagonism among the
classes becomes sharper given the extreme polarisation and inequality between the rich and
the poor, while capitalism

cannot continue to guarantee certain social welfare scheme

for employees and the citizenry.

Therefore,

and economic package

the ruling class (Capitalists and Pro-Business political elites in

power) ekes the position of class war by undertaken savage cuts in living standards and harsh
economic reforms, purposely to save capitalism from imminent collapse and negation. The rich and other
members of the ruling class are less likely to be affected by these cut in social spending than the working and
the lumpen classes. Therefore, the gap between the ruling class and the working/lumpen class become wider,
and this will inevitably affects the prevailing social relations within capitalism. Reformist measures such as less
pay (wages) but longer working time, mass sacking of employees, poor working conditions, cut in social spending

and

harsh austerity measures will be implemented Thus triggers social conflicts and class

struggle among the classes. In this situation, there is potential that class struggle that will lead to strikes,
protest and industrial disharmony between the working class and the ruling class. As Alan Wood (2002) noted
that most obvious and painful manifestations of the crisis of capitalism are not only economic but those
phenomena that affect their personal lives at the most sensitive and emotional points: the breakdown of the
family, the epidemic of crime and violence, the collapse of the old values and morality with nothing to put in
their place, the constant outbreak of wars - all of this gives rise to a sense of instability, a lack of faith in the
present or the future11 These contradictions caused by the capitalist mode of production and the inability of the
state (domination of ruling class) to provide for Lumpen class is recipe for anarchy. This stems from that
unemployed and others who cannot understand the series of frustration will be forced to response to the crisis
one way or the other. Frustrated sections of the lumpen class are more likely form criminal gangs, radical Islamic

organisations, who will find more solutions to their plight and social
condition by engaging in anarchism, and other forms of individual terrorist method against
the state. Although, most of these organisations were formed to champion a particular
cause at the initial stage, but became a political force when their ideologies found
an echo and support from a sections of disenchanted and frustrated member of
lumpen class who join these organisations in large numbers. The cause and ideology of
these sectarian organisations comes in direct confrontation with that of the ruling class,
and they engage in individual terrorism first to respond to the series of frustration and
problems they faced, and second, to influence and change the behaviour of the ruling class and the
state. This method of expressing grievances by the lumpen class is more likely to compel the
ruling class and the state to engage in counterterrorist strategies, capable of clamping down
groups, sects, fascist and terrorist

and suppress

these individual terroristic groups, given the instrument of

force and terror at its disposal.

terrorism is a tactic of all classes in class conflict, rather than just a tactic of a
Terrorism is therefore a reflection of social relations among social classes
within modern capitalism (Jonathan, 2011) such that the use of terror can be
perpetrated by any of the classes whenever their interests, rights and priviledges are at stake. It
Therefore,

lumpen class.

must however be noted that the extent to which lumpen class-induced individual terrorism will occur varies from
countries to countries. Individual terrorism by a section of the lumpen class is more likely to occur in developing
countries than in developed one. This is because in the developed countries, tensions among the classes are not
so tense because the state can afford, and ensure that social security benefits; unemployment stipends, single
mother benefits, scholarship and student loans, pension among others are made available to the working class
and the lumpen class. This is possible because there is so much capital (wealth of the state) nurtured by overexploitation of third world countries vis-a-vis taxes and incomes from multinational firms. Therefore, there are
enough resources to soften the antagonism among social classes, and ensure that sections of the lumpen class
are discouraged from forming or joining sectarian groups that will engage in individual terrorism against the state.

Wilderson
Race is a construction of capitalismdifferences can be
overcome after dismantling capitalism
Mullings 5 (Leith, Professor of Anthropology at the City University of New York, Interrogating
Racism: Toward an Antiracist Anthropology, Annual Review of Anthropology 34, 2005, University of
Michigan Libraries, KC)

modern racism emerged in the context of European

expansion. In fact, Wade (1997) suggests that the physical differences that are cues for
contemporary racial distinctions may be seen as social constructions built of
phenotypic variations, which correspond to the geographic encounters of
Europeans in their colonial histories (p. 15). One interesting theme is the mutability and
historical contingency of the meaning of these perceptions and distinctions and how they are organized. English,
French, and Dutch travelers portrayed Pacific Islanders differently at
various points in time depending on prevailing global and regional
agendas. Gailey (1996) notes that their willingness to reduce judgment to skin color
was associated with the rise of capitalist slavery in West Africa and settlement
colonization elsewhere. Hence, the skin color of Pacific Islanders is depicted as
markedly darker over 35 years as colonialism develops (Gailey 1996). Similarly,
Daniel (1996) describes a gradual process of aryanization of the Sinhala
people during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as they appropriated Western racial
categories in the context of colonialism and the spread of scientific racism .
In the recent massacres in Sri Lanka, conflicts were at times framed in the discourse of race. Along with
enslavement, conquest, and colonialism, modern racism is frequently
intertwined with both early and later stages of nation building and the drive for
There is consensus that

national consolidation. Although the variety of racism developed in the West had the greatest impact on the rest of
the world, racial systems are simultaneously national and international projects. Racial projects as they appear in
different parts of the world are constructed, in part, from tools and symbols already existing within local cultural

As states make race, they do so from

beliefs, symbols, practices, and conflicts, transmitted from the past yet
interpreted in new ways.
repertoires as well as from new encounters and conflicts.

Using race to explain history is inaccurate and dangerous

slavery existed before capital but racism did not
Fields 90 (Barbara Jane, professor of American history at Columbia University, Slavery, Race and
Ideology in the United States of America, New Left Review 181, May/June 1990, JSTOR, KC)

Nothing so well illustrates that impossibility as the conviction among otherwise

sensible scholars that race explains historical phenomena; specifically, that it
explains why people of African descent have been set apart for treatment
different from that accorded to others.12 But race is just the name assigned
to the phenomenon, which it no more explains than judicial review explains why the United
States Supreme Court can declare acts of Congress unconstitutional, or than Civil War explains why
Americans fought each other between 1861 and 1865.13 Only if race is defined as

innate and natural prejudice of colour does its invocation as a historical explanation do more than repeat the

since race is not genetically

programmed, racial prejudice cannot be genetically programmed either
but, like race itself, must arise historically. The most sophisticated of those who invoke race
question by way of answer. And there an insurmountable problem arises:

as a historical explanationfor example, George Fredrickson and Winthrop Jordanrecognize the difficulty. The
preferred solution is to suppose that, having arisen historically, race then ceases to be a historical phenomenon and
becomes instead an external motor of history; according to the fatuous but widely repeated formula, it takes on a
life of its own.14 In other words, once historically acquired, race becomes hereditary. The shopworn metaphor thus

Race is not an element of human

biology (like breathing oxygen or reproducing sexually); nor is it even an idea (like the speed of light or the value
of _) that can be plausibly imagined to live an eternal life of its own . Race is not
an idea but an ideology. It came into existence at a discernible historical moment
for rationally understandable historical reasons and is subject to change for similar
offers camouflage for a latter-day version of Lamarckism.

reasons. The revolutionary bicentennials that Americans have celebrated with such unction of independence in
1976 and of the Constitution in 1989can as well serve as the bicentennial of racial ideology, since the birthdays are
not far apart. During the revolutionary era, people who favoured slavery and people who opposed it collaborated in
identifying the racial incapacity of Afro-Americans as the explanation for enslavement.15 American racial ideology is
as original an invention of the Founders as is the United States itself. Those holding liberty to be inalienable and

we ought
to begin by restoring to racethat is, the American version of raceits proper history. As
holding Afro-Americans as slaves were bound to end by holding race to be a self-evident truth. Thus

convenient a place as any to begin a brief summary of that history, along with that of plantation society in British
North America, is in seventeenth-century Virginia. Virginia foundered during its early years and survived only
through the good will and, when the colonists had exhausted that, the extorted tribute of the indigenous Indians. But
during the second decade of the seventeenth century,

Virginia discovered its vocation: the

growing of tobacco. The first boom in what would eventually become the United States took place
during the 1620s, and it rested primarily on the backs of English
indentured servants, not African slaves. Not until late in the century, after the boom had
passed, did landowners begin buying slaves in large numbers , first from the West
Indies and, after 1680, from Africa itself.16 During the high years of the boom it was the free-born Englishman who
became, as one historian put it, a machine to make tobacco for somebody else.17 Indentured servants served
longer terms in Virginia than their English counterparts and enjoyed less dignity and less protection in law and
custom. They could be bought and sold like livestock, kidnapped, stolen, put up as stakes in card games, and
awardedeven before their arrival in Americato the victors in lawsuits. Greedy magnates (if the term is not
redundant) stinted the servants food and cheated them out of their freedom dues, and often out of their freedom
itself, when they had served their time. Servants were beaten, maimed, and even killed with impunity. For expressing
opinions unfavourable to the governor and the governing council, one man had both his arms broken and his tongue
bored through with an awl, while another lost his ear and had to submit to a second seven-year term of servitude
to a member of the council that had judged his case.18 Whatever truths may have appeared self-evident in those
days, neither an inalienable right to life and liberty nor the founding of government on the consent of the governed

Virginia was a profit-seeking venture, and no one stood to

make a profit growing tobacco by democratic methods. Only those who could force
large numbers of people to work tobacco for them stood to get rich during the tobacco boom. Neither white
skin nor English nationality protected servants from the grossest forms of
brutality and exploitation. The only degradation they were spared was
perpetual enslavement along with their issue in perpetuity, the fate that
eventually befell the descendants of Africans.
was among them.

Anti-blackness is a tool of capital to prevent union power

empirically proven
Bonacich 76 (Edna, Professor of Sociology and Ethnic Studies at University of California
Riverside, Ph.D. in sociology from Harvard Advanced Capitalism and Black/White Relations in the
United States: A Split Labor Market Interpretation American Sociological Review Feb. 1976 JStor KC)

The substitution of black labor for white was, in part, accompanied by the
process, described earlier, of division of skills into simpler, assembly line tasks.
Black migrants were largely unskilled while the union movement's
strength lay in controlling access to training in complex skills. A way of
cracking the unions' power was to break down the skills and substitute unskilled
labor. Black labor was not the only source of substitution, but it was an important and
growing element. Returning to Figure I, the efforts to develop the black labor force
aroused the ire of white labor (4) which felt a threat to their efforts to improve
their lot. The antagonism towards black workers was not simply race
prejudice but a fear that blacks, because of their weakness in the labor market, could be
used by capital as a tool to weaken or destroy their organizations or take away their jobs.
As Spero and Harris (l966:l28) state: "The use of Negroes for strike breaking has . . . led the white trade unionist to
regard the black workers as an enemy of the labor movement."

White workers reacted by trying

to exclude black workers or to keep them restricted to certain jobs. (See Bonacich, I972, for a more
thorough discussion of the reasoning behind these reactions.) Black workers came on the
industrial scene unfamiliar, for the most part, with the aspirations of organized
labor. 1'hey were not an easy element to organize to start out with, but whatever potential for
organization was pre- sent was discouraged by white union antipathy and
exclusion (5). Union policies frequently meant that black workers had no alternative but
to turn to strike-breaking as the only means of entering white-dominated lines of work. Sometimes
even strike-breaking did not secure long-term employment as white workers roared back, anxious to see them dis-

Blacks distrusted the unions because they

discriminated, and the unions discriminated because blacks didn't support
them. The circle of antagonism was difficult to break out of. Even if the unions opened their doors, as was not
missed. Interaction 5 was mutually reinforcing.

uncommon, black workers were apt to view the action as self-sewing, to protect the unions from scabbing by blacks.
It would take more than non-discrimination to end the dis- trust, and many white unionists were not willing even to

The policies of the employer fed the

division between black and white workers (6). Employer paternalism led
black workers to feel they had more to gain by allying with capital than
with white labor. Besides, behind it lay a veiled threat: blacks would be hired
and given preference over white workers so long as they remained out of
the unions. Interaction 6 helped sustain interaction 5. Foster (l920:2 I ) vividly makes this point: They know
take the first step of lowering the barriers to membership?

little of the race problem in industry who declare that it can be settled merely by the unions opening their doors to
the Negroes. It is much more complex than that, and will require the best thought that conscientious whites and
blacks can give to it. The Negro has the more difficult part to solve in resisting the insidious efforts of unscrupulous
white employers and misguided intellectuals of his own race to make a professional strike-breaker of him, The
antagonism of the labor movement to black workers weakened still further the latter's position in the labor market

White labor severely restricted the alternatives of black labor by

maintaining control over important lines of work. The perpetuation of the
black labor force in a weak position kept_ them as a target group for
capital's efforts to undermine the union movement . Finally, to close the "system," the
(7).

efforts by capital to utilize black labor to their detriment added to the militance of white workers (8). Strikes were
sometimes called over this very issue, which could unite white workers in a common grievance (Tuttle, 1970a: 107-8).

Alternatives

Historical Materialism Alt

We must engage in a politics of accountability to expose
contradictions
San Juan 6

(Epifanio, Jr., Fulbright Lecturer in American Studies at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium,
Crisis and Contradiction in Globalization
Discoursehttp://www.redcritique.org/WinterSpring2006/crisisandcontradictioninglobalizationdiscourse.htm)

In order to probe and analyze the multilayered contradictions of any

phenomenon, we need to apply the principle of historical totalizing:
connecting spheres of culture, ideology, and politics to the
overarching structure of production and reproduction. This is axiomatic for any
historical-materialist critique. Consequently, the question of cultural identity
cannot be mechanically divorced from the historically determinate
mode of production and attendant social relations of any given
socioeconomic formation. What is the point of eulogizing hybrid, cyborg-esque, nomadic global citizens
even fluid, ambivalent "subject positions" if you likewhen the majority of these postmodernized creatures are dying of hunger,
curable epidemics, diseases and psychosomatic illnesses brought about precisely by the predatory encroachment of globalizing
transnational corporations, mostly based in the U.S. and Western Europe? But it is not just academic postmodernists suffering from
the virus of pragmatist metaphysics who apologize for profit-making globalization. Even a latterly repentant World Bank expert,
Joseph Stiglitz, could submit in his well-known Globalization and Its Discontents, the following ideological plea: "Foreign aid, another
aspect of the globalized world, for all its faults still has brought benefits to millions, often in ways that have almost gone unnoticed:
guerillas in the Philippines were provided jobs by a World Bank financed-project as they laid down their arms" (Stiglitz 420). Any one
slightly familiar with the Cold War policies of Washington vis--vis a neocolony like the Philippines knows that World Bank funds were
then used by the U.S. Pentagon to suppress the Communist Party-led peasant rebellion in the 1950s against the iniquitous semifeudal system and corrupt comprador regime (Doty; Constantino). It is globalization utilized to maintain direct coercive U.S.
domination of the Philippines at a crucial conjuncture when the Korean War was mutating into the Vietnam War, all designed to
contain "World Communism" (China, Soviet Union). Up to now, despite nationalist gains in the last decade, the Philippine
government plays host every year to thousands of U.S. "Special Forces" purportedly training Filipino troops in the war against
"terrorism"that is, against anti-imperialist forces like the Communist Party-led New People's Army and progressive elements of the
Moro Islamic National Liberation Front and the Moro National Liberation Front (International Peace Mission). One needs to repeat
again that the present world system, as Hugo Radice argues, remains "both global and national", a contingent and contradictory
process (4). Globalization dialectically negates and affirms national entitiespseudo-nations as well as those peoples struggling for
various forms of national sovereignty. While a universal "free market" promoted by TNC triumphalism is deemed to be homogenizing
and centralizing in effect, abolishing independent states/nationalities, and creating a global public sphere through juxtaposition,
syncretic amalgamation, and so on, one perceives a counter-current of fragmentation, increasing asymmetry, unbridgeable
inequalities, and particularistic challenges to neoliberal integrationincluding fundamentalist political Islam, eco-terrorism, drugs,
migration, and other movements of "barbarians at the gates" (Schaeffer). Is it a question of mere human rights in representation
and life-style, or actual dignity and justice in the everyday lives of whole populations with singular life-forms? Articulating these
historical contradictions without theorizing the concept of crisis in capital accumulation will only lead to the short-circuiting
transculturalism of Ashcroft and other ideologies waging battle for supremacy/hegemony over "popular common sense" imposing
meaning/order/significance on the whole globalization process (Rupert). Indeed, academic inquirers of globalization are
protagonists in this unfolding drama of universalization under duress. One may pose the following questions as a heuristic
pedagogical maneuver: Can globalized capital truly universalize the world and bring freedom and prosperity to everyone, as its

Globalization as the transnationalized domination of

capital exposes its historical limit in the deepening class inequality
in a polarized, segregated and policed world. While surplus-value
extraction in the international labor market remains basic to the
logic of accumulation, the ideology of neoliberal transnationalism
has evolved into the discourse of war on terrorism ("extremism")
rationalized as "the clash of civilizations". Contradictions and its
temporary resolutions constitute the imperialist project of eliding
the crisis of unilateral globalism. A historical-materialist critique
should seek to highlight the political economy of this recolonizing
strategy operating in the fierce competition of the ruling classes of the
U.S., Japan, and Europe to impose hegemonic control in an increasingly
celebrants claim?

boundary-destroying space and continue the neocolonial oppression

of the rest of the world. What is needed is a radical critique of the
ideology of technological determinism and its associated
apologetics of the "civilizing mission", the evangelism of "preemptive" intervention in the name of Realpolitik "democracy"
against resistance by workers, peasants, women, indigenous communities (in Latin America, Africa, the
Philippines and elsewhere [see Houghton and Bell; San Juan, "U.S. Imperial Terror"]), and all the excluded and
marginalized peoples of the planet. Beyond descriptions and articulations, the controversy culminates on how
change is to be carried out. Reacting to Eric Hobsbawm's historical account of globalization which ignores social movements,
Michael Denning calls for a transnational cultural studies that will "narrate an account of globalization that speaks not just of an
abstract market with buyers and sellers, or even of an abstract commodification with producers and consumers, but of actors" (28).
On the other hand, Teresa Ebert asserts that globalization deals with production and labor, with the "struggle over the structured
inequality in the world economy" (6); thus, the vehicles of change are the producers, creators of value. Where do we situate, for
example, the BangsaMoro (in the Philippines) struggle for dignity and justice in these conceptualizations? (Or the struggles of the
Nepalis led by the Communist Party of Nepal, the Bolivarian revolutionary communities in Venezuela, the guerillas in Colombia, not
to mention the Zapatistas in Mexico and the New People's Army in the Philippines?) I agree with Denning that actors should be
discovered and recognized, but are these actors the prefigurative communities that Jameson had in mind, abstract forms without
content or relational substance? I agree with Ebert on the overarching narrative of globalization as the struggle over structured
inequality manifest in the unequal division of international labor, registering acutely the movement of contradictions in our historical

this narrative of socialist internationalism represents a

"critical universality" of liberation of humans from all forms of
oppression, a universality that unfolds in various specific theaters
and stages around the world, with their concrete historical
specificities (Lowy). One such theater is the Moro revolutionary struggle in the Philippines, a predicament embodying
period. In my view,

global/local antagonisms in which (to modify Jameson) "the truth of experience no longer coincides with the place in which it takes
place" but implicates everyone from the center to the periphery, in various gradations of responsibility ("Cognitive Mapping" 349).

The official representation of the Abu Sayyaf as a terrorist

phenomenon that tarnishes the legitimate struggle of Muslims in
the Philippines for self-determination, for example, functions as a
symptom of the crisis of corporate globalization evidenced in the
current U.S. wars against people of color, a crisis of the capitalist
process of accumulation (exploitation of laboring masses), revealing its irreversible
contradictions and, in the process, intimating where and how the
possibility of its overcoming can be realized. As Arundhati Roy eloquently voiced it early in
this new millennium: what we need to sharpen is a new politics, "not the
politics of governance [as "third way" liberals and reformist NGOs call for], but
the politics of resistance, [] of opposition. The politics of forcing
accountability [] In the present circumstances, I'd say that the only
thing worth globalizing is dissent [] joining hands across the world
and preventing certain destruction" (467).

Historical materialism is an ever-ongoing struggle against the

bourgeois ideology and faade of neutrality of capitalist
institutions
Lukacs 21 (George, Marxist philosopher, literary critic and founder of Western
Marxism, 1921, The Marxism of Rosa Luxemburg, History and Class
Consciousness)

As soon as you
abandon the ground of reality that has been conquered and
reconquered by dialectical materialism, as soon as you decide to
remain on the 'natural' ground of existence, of the empirical in its stark, naked brutality,
you create a gulf between the subject of an action and the milieux
of the 'facts' in which the action unfolds so that they stand opposed to each other as harsh,
irreconcilable principles. It then becomes impossible to impose the subjective
will, wish or decision upon the facts or to discover in them any directive for
action. A situation in which the 'facts' speak out unmistakably for or against a definite course of action has never existed, and
The practical danger of every such dualism shows itself in the loss of any directive for action.

neither can or will exist. The more conscientiously the facts are explored in their isolation, i.e. in their unmediated relationsthe
less com-pellingly will they point in any one direction. It is self-evident that a merely subjective decision will be shattered by the

dialectical materialism is
seen to offer the only approach to reality which can give action a
direction. The self-knowledge, both subjective and objective, of the proletariat at a
given point in its evolution is at the same time knowledge of the
stage of development achieved by the whole society. The facts no
longer appear strange when they are comprehended in their coherent reality, in the relation of all partial
aspects to their inherent, but hitherto unelucidated roots in the whole: we then perceive the
tendencies which strive towards the centre of reality, to what we
are wont to call the ultimate goal. This ultimate goal is not an
abstract ideal opposed to the process, but an aspect of truth and
reality. It is the concrete meaning of each stage reached and an
integral part of the concrete moment. Because of this, to
comprehend it is to recognise the direction taken (unconsciously) by events
and tendencies towards the totality. It is to know the direction that
determines concretely the correct course of action at any given
momentin terms of the interest of the total process, viz. the emancipation of the proletariat. However, the
evolution of society constantly heightens the tension between the
partial aspects and the whole. Just because the inherent meaning of reality shines forth with an ever
pressure of uncomprehended facts acting automatically 'according to laws'. Thus

more resplendent light, the meaning of the process is embedded ever more deeply in day-to-day events, and totality permeates the

. The path to consciousness throughout the

course of history does not become smoother but on the contrary ever more
arduous and exacting. For this reason the task of orthodox Marxism, its victory over Revisionism
and utopianism can never mean the defeat , once and for all, of false tendencies. It is
an ever-renewed struggle against the insidious effects of bourgeois
ideology on the thought of the proletariat. Marxist orthodoxy is no
guardian of traditions, it is the eternally vigilant prophet
proclaiming the relation between the tasks of the immediate
present and the totality of the historical process. Hence the words of the Communist
spatio-temporal character of phenomena

Manifesto on the tasks of orthodoxy and of its representatives, the Communists, have lost neither their relevance nor their value:
"The Communists arc distinguished from the other working-class parties by this only: 1. In the national struggles of the proletarians
of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independent of
nationality. 2. In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass
through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole" <23-24>

Understanding capitalism as totalizing is key to understanding

class relations
Lukacs 21 (George, Marxist philosopher, literary critic and founder of Western
Marxism, 1921, The Marxism of Rosa Luxemburg, History and Class
Consciousness)

point of
departure and the key to the historical understanding of social
relations. All the isolated partial categories can be thought of and
treatedin isolationas something that is always present in every society.
(If it cannot be found in a given society this is put down to *chance* as the exception that proves the rule.) But the
changes to which these individual aspects are subject give no clear
and unambiguous picture of the real differences in the various
stages of the evolution of society. These can really only be
discerned in the context of the total historical process of their
relation to society as a whole. <7-8>
Marx*s dictum: "The relations of production of every society form a whole"" is the methodological

Class consciousness must be the starting point

Lukacs 21 (George, Marxist philosopher, literary critic and founder of Western
Marxism, 1921, The Marxism of Rosa Luxemburg, History and Class
Consciousness)

Class consciousness is the 'ethics* of the proletariat, the unity of its

theory and its practice, the point at which the economic necessity of its
struggle for liberation changes dialectically into freedom. By realising that the party is the historical
embodiment and the active incarnation of class consciousness, we see that it is also the incarnation of the ethics of the fighting

This must determine its politics. Its politics may not always
accord with the empirical reality of the moment; at such times its slogans may be
ignored. But the ineluctable course of history will give it its due. Even more, the moral strength conferred
by the correct class consciousness will bear fruit in terms of
practical politics.17 The true strength of the party is moral: it is fed by
the trust of the spontaneously revolutionary masses whom economic
conditions have forced into revolt. It is nourished by the feeling that the party is the objectification
proletariat.

of their own will (obscure though this may be to themselves), that it is the visible and organised incarnation of their class

Only when the party has fought for this trust and earned it can it
become the leader of the revolution. For only then will the masses
spontaneously and instinctively press forward with all their energies
towards the party and towards their own class consciousness. By
separating the inseparable, the opportunists have barred their own
path to this knowledge, the active self-knowledge of the proletariat. Hence their leaders speak scornfully, in
consciousness.

the authentic tones of the free-thinking petty bourgeoisie of the "religious faith' that is said to lie at the roots of Bolshevism and
revolutionary Marxism. The accusation is a tacit confession of their own impotence. In vain do they disguise their moth-eaten
doubts, by cloaking their negativity in the spendid mantle of a cool and objective 'scientific method'. Every word and gesture
betrays the despair of the best of them and the inner emptiness of the worst: their complete divorce from the proletariat, from its
path and from its vocation.

What they call faith and seek to deprecate by adding the epithet 'religious* is

nothing more nor less than the certainty that capitalism is doomed
and thatultimatelythe proletariat will be victorious. There can be no
'material' guarantee of this certitude. It can be guaranteed
methodologicallyby the dialectical method. And even this must be tested and proved by
action, by the revolution itself, by living and dying for the revolution. A Marxist who cultivates the objectivity of the academic study
is just as reprehensible as the man who believes that the victory of the world revolution can be guaranteed by the 'laws of nature'.

The unity of theory and practice exists not only in theory but also for
practice. We have seen that the proletariat as a class can only
conquer and retain a hold on class consciousness and raise itself to
the level of itsobjectively-givenhistoric task through conflict and action. It is
likewise true that the party and the individual fighter can only really take
possession of their theory if they are able to bring this unity into
their praxis. The so-called religious faith is nothing more than the certitude that regardless of all temporary defeats and
setbacks, the historical process will come to fruition in our deeds and through our deeds. <p42-43>

Reconstructing seemingly objective definitions and claims of

inevitability can disprove assumed limits to alternatives
McNight 10 (Andrew, University of Alabama at Birmingham, A Pragmatic and
pedagogically Minded Revaluation of Historical Materialism, Journal for Critical
Education Policy Studies, volume 8, issue number 2)
Toward a reconstruction of historical materialism, Habermas (1979) adopts many tenets of Marxian theory. Notably, he adopts a

ethical social action can lead to progress, or what he, and Lukacs before
him, term social evolution (130). Habermas, however, renders historical materialism
less ideologically rigid and more interrelated to the pursuit of
concepts like moral-practical insight (120), and the moralization of motives for action [italics
common belief that

omitted] (136). This can easily be described using the familiar terms of freedom to control ones own production, freedom from
oppressive economic dictates, freedom to ones own cultural identity and from cultural violence being visited upon the former, etc.

He views this reconstruction of historical materialism as making

necessary revisions in a theory whose potential for stimulation has still not been exhausted (95).
His revision is still materialist in that it concerns the Marxian
categories of production and reproduction, and historical in that it
seeks to identify causes of social change and potentially new and
more complex forms of social organization toward securing a normatively prescribed
societal identity, a culturally interpreted good or tolerable life (142). Habermas (1979) posits historical materialism not simply as
a heuristic, but, as aforementioned, a theory of social evolution (130) that can be used to solve many of the problems confronting

Progress is, under this historical and materialist rubric, both social and
physical; it represents advances in empirical knowledge and moral-practical insight . . . the
development of productive forces and the maturity of forms of social intercourse (142).
Habermas (1979), however, warns against a retrogression of Marxs general
theory into historical objectivism . . . [where] philosophical questions [are suppressed] in favor of
a scientistic understanding (96). Although suspicious of absolute narratives, he
also takes a different stance from some on the postmodern left that
the instability of social norms is necessarily beneficial to the moral
development of a society. In neo-normative tenor he states, a philosophical ethics not restricted to
metaethical statements is possible today only if we can reconstruct general presuppositions of
communication and procedures for justifying norms and values (97).
the moral development of social life.

These presuppositions set the boundaries for social change as the

ability of the populace at large to analyze social circumstances and
learn their intricacies: a developmental logic [that may explain] the range of variations within which cultural
values, moral representation - can be changed and can find different historical expression (98). Put crudely, the social
learning a given culture can accommodate, and the emotional
capacity of consciousness to conflict with the underlying
contradictions within a given society, is related to the quality and
quantity of direct systemic social change.

Intersectional Alt
Reject the aff in favor of a common critical language of
decolonization
Grosfoguel 2008 (Ramon, Associate Professor in the Department of Ethics Studies
at the University of California, Berkeley, July 4th, Transmodernity, border thinking,
and global coloniality, http://www.humandee.org/spip.php?
page=imprimer&id_article=111)

The need for a common critical language of decolonization requires

a form of universality that is not anymore a monologic, monotopic
imperial global/universal design, from the right or the left, imposed by persuasion
or force to the rest of the world in the name of progress or
civilization. This new form of universality I will call a "radical universal decolonial anticapitalist diversality" as a project of liberation. As
opposed to the abstract universals of Eurocentric epistemologies,
that subsume/dilute the particular into the same, a "radical
universal decolonial anticapitalist diversality" is a concrete
universal that builds a decolonial universal by respecting the
multiples local particularities in the struggles against patriarchy,
capitalism, coloniality and eurocentered modernity from a diversity
of decolonial epistemic/ethical historical projects. This represents a fusion between
Dussels "transmodernity" and Quijanos "socialization of power". Dussels transmodernity lead us to what Walter Mignolo (2000) has characterized as
"diversality as a universal project" to decolonize eurocentered modernity, while Quijanos socialization of power makes a call for a new form of radical

The common
language should be anticapitalist, antipatriarchal,
antiimperialist and against the coloniality of power towards a
world where power is socialized, but open to a diversality of
institutional forms of socialization of power depending on the
different decolonial epistemic/ethical responses of subaltern groups
in the worldsystem. Quijanos call for a socialization of power could become another abstract universal that leads to a global
anticapitalist universal imaginary that decolonizes Marxist/Socialist perspectives from its Eurocentric limits.

design if it is not redefined and reconfigured from a transmodern perspective. The forms of anticapitalist struggles and socialization of power that
emerge in the Islamic world are quite different than the ones that emerge from indigenous peoples in the Americas or Bantu people in West Africa. All
share the decolonial anticapitalist, antipatriarchal and antiimperialist project but providing diverse institutional forms and conceptions to the project
of socialization of power according to their diverse, multiple epistemologies. To reproduce the Eurocentric socialist global designs of the 20th century, that

This is a call
for a universal that is a pluriversal (Mignolo 2000), for a concrete
universal that would include all the epistemic particularities
towards a "transmodern decolonial socialization of power." As the Zapatistas say,
departed from a unilateral eurocentered epistemic centre, would just repeat the mistakes that led the left to a global disaster.

"luchar por un mundo donde otros mundos sean possibles".

Negativity Alt
Our alternative is to vote negative to reject the affirmative as
a refusal to participate in activities which support capitalism.
We must hollow out capitalist structures by refusing to invest
our energy in reforms and rescue operationsavoids transition
wars
Herod 4-Social Activist since 1968, owns an awesome website, Attended Columbia University and spent a year abroad at the
University of Beirut (Lebanon) [James, Getting Free, 2004,
http://site.www.umb.edu/faculty/salzman_g/Strate/GetFre/06.htm]

destroying
capitalism. This strategy, at its most basic, calls for pulling time, energy, and resources
out of capitalist civilization and putting them into building a new civilization. The image then is
one of emptying out capitalist structures, hollowing them out, by draining wealth,
power, and meaning out of them until there is nothing left but shells. This is definitely
It is time to try to describe, at first abstractly and later concretely, a strategy for

an aggressive strategy. It requires great militancy, and constitutes an attack on the existing order. The
strategy clearly recognizes that capitalism is the enemy and must be destroyed, but it is not a frontal
attack aimed at overthrowing the system, but an inside attack aimed at gutting it, while
simultaneously replacing it with something better, something we want. Thus capitalist structures

are not seized so much as simply

abandoned. Capitalist relations are not fought so much as they are simply rejected.
We stop participating in activities that support (finance, condone) the capitalist world
(corporations, governments, banks, schools, etc.)

and start participating in activities that build a new world while simultaneously undermining the old.
We create a new pattern of social relations alongside capitalist relations and then we continually build
and strengthen our new pattern while doing everything we can to weaken capitalist relations. In this

way our new democratic, non-hierarchical, non-commodified relations can eventually

overwhelm the capitalist relations and force them out of existence. This is how it
has to be done. This is a plausible, realistic strategy. To think that we could create a whole
new world of decent social arrangements overnight, in the midst of a crisis, during a so-called
revolution, or during the collapse of capitalism, is foolhardy. Our new social world must grow

in opposition to it, until it is strong enough to dismantle and abolish

capitalist relations. Such a revolution will never happen automatically, blindly, determinably,
because of the inexorable, materialist laws of history. It will happen, and only happen, because
we want it to, and because we know what were doing and know how we want to live, and know
within the old, and

what obstacles have to be overcome before we can live that way, and know how to distinguish
between our social patterns and theirs. But we must not think that the capitalist world can simply be
ignored, in a live and let live attitude, while we try to build new lives elsewhere. (There is no
elsewhere.) There is at least one thing, wage-slavery, that we cant simply stop participating in (but
even here there are ways we can chip away at it). Capitalism must be explicitly refused and
replaced by something else.

This constitutes War, but it is not a war in the traditional sense of

armies and tanks, but a war fought on a daily basis, on the level of everyday life , by
millions of people. It is a war nevertheless because the accumulators of capital will use coercion,
brutality, and murder, as they have always done in the past, to try to block any rejection of the
system. They have always had to force compliance; they will not hesitate to continue doing so.
Nevertheless, there are many concrete ways that individuals, groups, and neighborhoods can gut
capitalism, which I will enumerate shortly. We must always keep in mind how we became slaves;
then we can see more clearly how we can cease being slaves. We were forced into wage-slavery
because the ruling class slowly, systematically, and brutally destroyed our ability to live autonomously.

By driving us off the land, changing the property laws, destroying community rights, destroying our
tools, imposing taxes, destroying our local markets, and so forth, we were forced onto the labor market
in order to survive, our only remaining option being to sell, for a wage, our ability to work. Its quite
clear then how we can overthrow slavery. We must reverse this process. We must begin to reacquire
the ability to live without working for a wage or buying the products made by wage-slaves (that is, we
must get free from the labor market and the way of living based on it), and embed ourselves instead in
cooperative labor and cooperatively produced goods. Another clarification is needed. This strategy

does not call for reforming capitalism, for changing capitalism into something else.
It calls for replacing capitalism, totally , with a new civilization. This is an important distinction,
because capitalism has proved impervious to reforms, as a system. We can
sometimes in some places win certain concessions from it (usually only temporary
ones) and win some (usually short-lived) improvements in our lives as its victims,
but we cannot reform it piecemeal, as a system . Thus our strategy of gutting and
eventually destroying capitalism requires at a minimum a totalizing image, an
awareness that we are attacking an entire way of life and replacing it with another,
and not merely reforming one way of life into something else . Many people may not be
accustomed to thinking about entire systems and social orders, but everyone knows what a lifestyle is,
or a way of life, and that is the way we should approach it. The thing is this: in order for capitalism to
be destroyed millions and millions of people must be dissatisfied with their way of life. They must want
something else and see certain existing things as obstacles to getting what they want. It is not useful
to think of this as a new ideology. It is not merely a belief-system that is needed, like a religion, or like
Marxism, or Anarchism. Rather it is a new prevailing vision, a dominant desire, an overriding need.
What must exist is a pressing desire to live a certain way, and not to live another way. If this

pressing desire were a desire to live free, to be autonomous, to live in

democratically controlled communities, to participate in the self-regulating activities of a
mature people, then capitalism could be destroyed. Otherwise we are doomed to
perpetual slavery and possibly even to extinction.

The struggle against capitalism must be started from

negativity- its the only realistic way to combat the system
Holloway 2 (John, Ph.D in Political Science from the University of Edinburgh, Social Science
Professor at Univ. of Puebla, Change the World Without Taking Power,
http://libcom.org/library/change-world-without-taking-power-john-holloway, KC)

The struggle of the scream is the struggle to liberate power-to from

power-over, the struggle to liberate doing from labour, to liberate
subjectivity from its objectification. In this struggle, it is crucial to see that it is not a
matter of power against power, of like against like. The struggle to liberate
power-to from power-over is the struggle for the reassertion of the social
flow of doing, against its fragmentation and denial. On the one side is the
struggle to re-braid our lives on the basis of mutual recognition of our
participation in the collective flow of doing, on the other side is the
attempt to impose and re-impose the fragmentation of that flow, the
denial of our doing. From the perspective of the scream, the Leninist aphorism that power is a matter of
who-whom is absolutely false, as indeed is the Maoist saying that power comes out of the barrel of a gun: power-over
comes out of the barrel of a gun, but not power-to. The struggle to liberate power-to is not the struggle to construct
a counter-power, but rather an anti-power, something that is radically different from power-over .

Concepts of
revolution that focus on the taking of power are typically centred on the
notion of counter-power. The strategy is to construct a counter-power, a

power that can stand against the ruling power. Often the revolutionary
movement has been constructed as a mirror image of power, army against
army, party against party, with the result that power reproduces itself
within the revolution itself. Anti-power, then, is not counter-power, but something much more
radical: it is the dissolution of power-over, the emancipation of power-to. This is the great, absurd, inevitable
challenge of the communist dream: to create a society free of power relations through the dissolution of power-over.

This project is far more radical than any notion of revolution based on the
conquest of power and at the same time far more realistic. Anti-power is
fundamentally opposed to power-over not only in the sense of being a
radically different project but also in the fact that it exists in constant
conflict with power-over. The attempt to exercise power-to in a way that does not entail the exercise of
power over others, inevitably comes into conflict with power-over. Potentia is not an alternative to
potestas that can simply co-exist peacefully with it. It may appear that we can simply
cultivate our own garden, create our own world of loving relations, refuse to get our hands dirty in the filth of power,

exercise of
power-to in a way that does not focus on value creation can exist only in
antagonism to power-over. This is due not to the character of power-to
(which is not inherently antagonistic) as to the voracious nature, the 'were-wolf hunger'
(Marx 1965, p. 243) of power-over. Power-to, if it does not submerge itself
in power-over, can exist, overtly or latently, only as power-against, as antipower. It is important to stress the anti-ness of power-to under capitalism,
because most mainstream discussions of social theory overlook the
antagonistic nature of developing one's potential. The antagonistic nature
of power is overlooked and it is assumed that capitalist society provides
the opportunity to develop human potential (power-to) to the full. Money, if it is seen as
but this is an illusion. There is no innocence, and this is true with an increasing intensity. The

being relevant at all (and, amazingly, it is generally not mentioned in discussions of power, presumably on the basis
that money is economics and power is sociology), is generally seen in terms of inequality (unequal access to

The
same point can be made in relation to subjectivity. The fact that power-to
can exist only exist as antagonism to power-over (as anti-power) means of
course that, under capitalism, subjectivity can only exist antagonistically,
in opposition to its own objectification. To treat the subject as already
emancipated, as most mainstream theory does, is to endorse the present
objectification of the subject as subjectivity, as freedom . Many of the attacks on
resources, for example), rather than in terms of command. Power-to, it is assumed, is already emancipated.

subjectivity by structuralists or post-modernists can perhaps be understood in this sense, as attacks on a false

To argue here for the

inevitability of taking subjectivity as our starting point is not to argue for
a coherent or autonomous subjectivity. On the contrary, the fact that
subjectivity can exist only in antagonism to its own objectification means
that it is torn apart by that objectification and its struggle against it. This
notion of an emancipated (and hence autonomous and coherent) subjectivity.

book is an exploration of the absurd and shadowy world of anti-power. It is shadowy and absurd simply because the
world of orthodox social science (sociology, political science, economics and so on) is a world in which power is so
completely taken for granted that nothing else is visible. In the social science that seeks to explain the world as it is,
to show how the world works, power is the keystone of all categories, so that, in spite of (indeed, because of) its
proclaimed neutrality, this social science participates actively in the separation of subject and object which is the

To us, power is of interest only in so far as it helps us to

understand the challenge of anti-power: the study of power on its own, in
abstraction from the challenge and project of anti-power, can do nothing
but actively reproduce power.
substance of power.

Our alternative is to SAY NO to the affirmative as a way of

refusing complicity with capitalism our scream against the
control of the system is a starting point for movements against
capital
Holloway 2 (John, Ph.D in Political Science from the University of Edinburgh, Social Science
Professor at Univ. of Puebla, Change the World Without Taking Power,
http://libcom.org/library/change-world-without-taking-power-john-holloway, KC)

In the beginning is the scream. We scream. When we write or when we

read, it is easy to forget that the beginning is not the word, but the
scream. Faced with the mutilation of human lives by capitalism, a scream
of sadness, a scream of horror, a scream of anger, a scream of refusal: NO.
The starting point of theoretical reflection is opposition, negativity, struggle. It is
from rage that thought is born, not from the pose of reason, not from the
reasoned-sitting-back-and-reflecting-on-the-mysteries-of-existence that is
the conventional image of the thinker. We start from negation , from dissonance.
The dissonance can take many shapes. An inarticulate mumble of
discontent, tears of frustration, a scream of rage, a confident roar. An
unease, a confusion, a longing, a critical vibration . Our dissonance comes
from our experience, but that experience varies. Sometimes it is the direct experience of
exploitation in the factory, or of oppression in the home, of stress in the office, of hunger
and poverty, or of state violence or discrimination. Sometimes it is the
less direct experience through television, newspapers or books that
moves us to rage. Millions of children live on the streets of the world. In some cities, street children are
systematically murdered as the only way of enforcing respect for private property. In 1998 the assets of the 200
richest people were more than the total income of 41% of the world's people (two and a half billion). In 1960, the
countries with the wealthiest fifth of the world's people had per capita incomes 30 times that of the poorest fifth: by
1990 the ratio had doubled to 60 to one, and by 1995 it stood at 74 to one. The stock market rises every time there is

Students are imprisoned for struggling for free

education while those who are actively responsible for the misery of
millions are heaped with honours and given titles of distinction, General,
Secretary of Defence, President. The list goes on and on. It is impossible to read a newspaper
without feeling rage, without feeling pain. Dimly perhaps , we feel that these things that anger
us are not isolated phenomena, that there is a connection between them,
that they are all part of a world that is flawed, a world that is wrong in
some fundamental way. We see more and more people begging on the street while the stock markets
break new records and company directors' salaries rise to ever dizzier heights, and we feel that the
wrongs of the world are not chance injustices but part of a system that is
profoundly wrong. Even Hollywood films (surprisingly, perhaps) almost always start from the portrayal of a
an increase in unemployment.

fundamentally unjust worldbefore going on to reassure us (less surprisingly) that justice for the individual can be

Our anger is directed not just against particular happenings but is against
a more general wrongness, a feeling that the world is askew, that the
world is in some way untrue. When we experience something particularly
horrific, we hold up our hands in horror and say 'that cannot be ! it cannot be
true!' We know that it is true, but feel that it is the truth of an untrue world.
What would a true world look like? We may have a vague idea: it would be a world of
justice, a world in which people could relate to each other as people and
not as things, a world in which people would shape their own lives. But we
do not need to have a picture of what a true world would be like in order
to feel that there is something radically wrong with the world that exists.
won through individual effort.

Feeling that the world is wrong does not necessarily mean that we have a picture
of a utopia to put in its place. Nor does it necessarily mean a romantic, some-day-myprince-will-come idea that, although things are wrong now, one day we shall
come to a true world, a promised land, a happy ending. We need no
promise of a happy ending to justify our rejection of a world we feel to be
wrong. That is our starting point: rejection of a world that we feel to be
wrong, negation of a world we feel to be negative. This is what we must
cling to.

Our scream is a starting point for other social movements in

academia
Holloway 2 (John, Ph.D in Political Science from the University of Edinburgh, Social Science
Professor at Univ. of Puebla, Change the World Without Taking Power,
http://libcom.org/library/change-world-without-taking-power-john-holloway, KC)

We scream not because we face certain death

in the spider's web, but because we dream of freeing ourselves. We
scream as we fall over the cliff not because we are resigned to being
dashed on the rocks below but because we still hope that it might be
otherwise. Our scream is a refusal to accept. A refusal to accept that the spider will eat us,
a refusal to accept that we shall be killed on the rocks, a refusal to accept the unacceptable. A refusal to accept the
inevitability of increasing inequality, misery, exploitation and violence. A
refusal to accept the truth of the untrue, a refusal to accept closure. Our
scream is a refusal to wallow in being victims of oppression, a refusal to
immerse ourselves in that 'left-wing melancholy' which is so characteristic
of oppositional thought. It is a refusal to accept the role of Cassandra so readily adopted by left-wing
intellectuals: predicting the downfall of the world while accepting that there is nothing we can do about it . Our
scream is a scream to break windows, a refusal to be contained, an
overflowing, a going beyond the pale, beyond the bounds of polite society.
Our scream is not just a scream of horror.

Our refusal to accept tells us nothing of the future, nor does it depend for its validity on any particular outcome. The
fact that we scream as we fall over the cliff does not give us any guarantee of a safe landing, nor does the legitimacy
of the scream depend on a happy ending. Gone is the certainty of the old revolutionaries that history (or God) was on
our side: such certainty is historically dead and buried, blasted into the grave by the bomb that fell on Hiroshima.
There is certainly no inevitable happy ending, but, even as we plunge downwards, even in the moments of darkest

The scream clings to the

possibility of an opening, refuses to accept the closure of the possibility of
radical otherness. Our scream, then, is two-dimensional: the scream of rage
that arises from present experience carries within itself a hope, a
projection of possible otherness. The scream is ecstatic, in the literal
sense of standing out ahead of itself towards an open future. We who
scream exist ecstatically. We stand out beyond ourselves, we exist in two
dimensions. The scream implies a tension between that which exists and
that which might conceivably exist, between the indicative (that which is) and the subjunctive
despair, we refuse to accept that such a happy ending is impossible.

(that which might be). We live in an unjust society but we wish it were not so: the two parts of the sentence are

The scream does not require to be

justified by the fulfilment of what might be: it is simply the recognition of
the dual dimension of reality. The second part of the sentence (we wish it were not so) is no less real
inseparable and exist in constant tension with each other.

than the first. It is the tension between the two parts of the sentence that gives meaning to the scream. If the
second part of the sentence (the subjunctive wish) is seen as being less real than the first, then the scream too is

What is then seen as real is that we live in an unjust society: what

we might wish for is our private affair, of secondary importance. And since
the adjective 'unjust' really makes sense only in reference to a possible
just society, that too falls away, leaving us with 'we live in a x society'.
And if we scream because we live in a x society, then we must be mad . From
disqualified.

the time of Machiavelli, social theory has been concerned to break the unbreakable sentence in half. Machiavelli lays
the basis for a new realism when he says that he is concerned only with what is, not with what things as we might
wish them to be. Reality refers to the first part of the sentence, to what is. The second part of the sentence, what
ought to be, is clearly distinguished from what is, and is not regarded as part of reality. The 'ought' is not entirely
discarded: it becomes the theme of 'normative' social theory. What is completely broken is the unity of the two parts

Our scream
implies a two-dimensionality which insists on the conjunction of tension
between the two dimensions. We are, but we exist in an arc of tension
towards that which we are not, or are not yet. Society is, but it exists in an
arc of tension towards that which is not, or is not yet. There is identity,
but identity exists in an arc of tension towards non-identity. The double
dimensionality is the antagonistic presence (that is, movement) of the not-yet
within the Is, of non-identity within identity . The scream is an explosion of the tension: the
of the sentence. With that step alone, the scream of rejection-and-longing is disqualified.

explosion of the Not-Yet contained-in-but-bursting-from the Is, the explosion of non-identity contained-in-butbursting-from identity. The scream is an expression of the present existence of that which is denied, the present
existence of the not-yet, of non-identity. The theoretical force of the scream depends not on the future existence of
the not-yet (who knows if there will ever be a society based on the mutual recognition of dignity?) but on its present

To start from the scream is simply to insist on the

centrality of dialectics, which is no more than 'the consistent sense of nonidentity' (Adorno 1990, p. 5). Our scream is a scream of horror-and-hope. If the two sides of the scream are
separated, they become banal. The horror arises from the 'bitterness of history', but
if there is no transcendence of that bitterness, the one-dimensional horror
leads only to political depression and theoretical closure . Similarly, if the hope is not
existence as possibility.

grounded firmly in that same bitterness of history, it becomes just a one-dimensional and silly expression of
optimism. Precisely such a separation of horror and hope is expressed in the oft-quoted Gramscian aphorism,

The challenge is rather to unite

pessimism and optimism, horror and hope, in a theoretical understanding
of the two-dimensionality of the world. Optimism not just of the spirit but
of the intellect is the aim. It is the very horror of the world that obliges us
to learn to hope.
'pessimism of the intelligence, optimism of the will'.

The alternative is a scream of hope- we are a starting point for

actions against the system
Holloway 2 (John, Ph.D in Political Science from the University of Edinburgh, Social Science
Professor at Univ. of Puebla, Change the World Without Taking Power,
http://libcom.org/library/change-world-without-taking-power-john-holloway, KC)
To think of changing the world without taking power, we need to see that the concept of power is intensely

the
scream. It is a scream of hope, not of despair. And the hope is not a hope for
salvation in the form of divine intervention. It is an active hope, a hope
that we can change things, a scream of active refusal, a scream that
points to doing. The scream that does not point to doing, the scream that
turns in upon itself, that remains an eternal scream of despair or, much
more common, an endless cynical grumble, is a scream which betrays
itself: it loses its negative force and goes into an endless loop of selfaffirmation as scream. CynicismI hate the world, but there is nothing that can be doneis the scream
gone sour, the scream that suppresses its own self-negation. The scream implies doing. 'In the
beginning was the deed', says Goethe's Faust. But before the deed comes
the doing. In the beginning was the doing. But before the doing comes the
scream. It is not materialism that comes first, but negativity. It is true that the
scream springs from experience, from a doing or a frustrated doing. But
the doing too springs from the scream. The doing springs from a want, a
contradictory. But to make this argument we need to go back to the beginning. In the beginning, we said, is

lack, a desire, a hunger. Doing changes, negates an existing state of

affairs. Doing goes beyond, transcends. The scream which is our starting
point pushes us towards doing. Our materialism, if that word is relevant at all, is a
materialism rooted in doing, doing-to-negate, negative practice,
projection beyond. Our foundation, if that word is relevant at all, is not an
abstract preference for matter over mind, but the scream, the negation of
what exists. Doing, in other words, is central to our concern not simply because doing is a
material precondition for living but because our central concern is changing the world,
negating that which exists. To think the world from the perspective of the
scream is to think it from the perspective of doing. Saint John is doubly wrong, then,
when he says that 'in the beginning was the Word'. Doubly wrong because, to put it in traditional terms, his
statement is both positive and idealist. The word does not negate, as the scream does. And the word does not imply
doing, as the scream does. The world of the word is a stable world, a sitting-back-in-an-armchair-and-having-a-chat
world, a sitting-at-a-desk-and-writing world, a contented world, far from the scream which would change everything,
far from the doing which negates. In the world of the word, doing is separated from talking and doing, practice is

Theory in the world of the word is the thought of the

Thinker, of someone in restful reflection, chin-on-hand, elbow-on-knee.
'The philosophers', as Marx says in his famous eleventh thesis on
Feuerbach, 'have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point,
however,is to change it.' Marx's thesis does not mean that we should abandon
theory for practice. It means rather that we should understand theory as part
of practice, as part of the struggle to change the world. Both theory and
doing are part of the practical movement of negation. This implies, then, that
doing must be understood in a broad sense, certainly not just as work,
and also not just as physical action, but as the whole movement of
practical negativity. To emphasise the centrality of doing is not to deny
the importance of thought or language but simply to see them as part of
the total movement of practical negativity, of the practical projection
beyond the world that exists towards a radically different world. To focus on
separated from theory.

doing is quite simply to see the world as struggle. It might be argued, with some force, that changing society should
be thought of not in terms of doing but in terms of not-doing, laziness, refusal to work, enjoyment. 'Let us be lazy in
everything, except in loving and drinking, except in being lazy': Lafargue begins his classic The Right to be Lazy with
this quotation (1999, p.3), implying that there is nothing more incompatible with capitalist exploitation than the

Laziness in capitalist society, however, implies

refusal to do, an active assertion of an alternative practice. Doing,
in the sense in which we understand it here, includes laziness and
the pursuit of pleasure, both of which are very much negative
practices in a society based on their negation. Refusal to do, in a
world based on the conversion of doing into work, can be seen as an
effective form of resistance. Human doing implies projection-beyond, and hence the unity of
theory and practice. Projection-beyond is seen by Marx as a distinctive
characteristic of human doing. 'A spider conducts operations that
resemble those of a weaver, and a bee puts to shame many an
architect in the construction of her cells. But what distinguishes the
worst architecture from the best of bees is this, that the architect
raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality . At the
laziness advocated by Lessing.

end of every labour-process, we get a result that already existed in the imagination of the labourer at its
commencement.'(Marx, 1965, p. 178) The imagination of the labourer is ecstatic: at the commencement of the labour
process it projects beyond what is to an otherness that might be. This otherness exists not only when it is created: it
exists already, really, subjunctively, in the projection of the worker, in that which makes her human. The doing of the
architect is negative, not only in its result, but in its whole process: it begins and ends with the negation of what
exists. Even if she is the worst of architects, the doing is a creative doing. Bees, to the best of our knowledge, do not

They do not say 'No! Enough of queens, enough of drones, we

shall create a society which will be shaped by us workers, we shall
scream.

emancipate ourselves!' Their doing is not a doing that negates: it

simply reproduces. We, however, do scream. Our scream is a
projection-beyond, the articulation of an otherness that might be. If
our scream is to be more than a smug look-how-rebellious-I-am
scream (which is no scream at all), then it must involve a projected doing, the
project of doing something to change that which we scream against.
The scream and the doing-which-is-a-going-beyond distinguish humans from animals. Humans, but not animals, are
ecstatic, they exist not only in, but also against-and-beyond themselves.

Pedagogy Alt
The act of rejection creates the fissures necessary to resist
global capitalism
Holloway 05 (John, 8-16, Ph.D Political Science-University of Edinburgh , Can We
Change The World Without Taking Power?,
http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/5616)

On the question of fissures. We often feel helpless because capitalism

weighs so heavily on us. But when we say No we start off with an
appreciation of our own strength. When we rebel we are in fact tearing a
little hole in capitalism. It is very contradictory. By rebelling we are already saying
no to the command of capital. We are creating temporary spaces. Within
that crack, that fissure, it is important that we fight for other social
relations that don't point towards the state, but that they point towards
the sort of society we want to create. At the core of these fissures is the drive to selfdetermination. And then it is a question of working out what does this mean, and how to be organised for selfdetermination. It means being against and beyond the society that exists .

Of expanding the
fissures, how to push these fissures forward structurally. The people who
say we should take control of the state are also talking about cracks. There
is no choice but to start with interstices. The question is how we think of them, because the
state is not the whole world. There are 200 states. If you seize control of one, it is still only a crack in capitalism.
It is a question of how we think about those cracks, those fissures. And if we start off from ourselves, why on
earth should we adopt capitalist, bourgeois forms for developing our struggle? Why should we accept the
template of the concept of the state?

As an intellectual your rejection of capitalism has

emancipatory results- relentless criticism allows capitalism to
be challenged.
Kovel 2 Professor of Social Studies at Bard
(Joel, The Enemy of Nature, p224)

Relentless criticism can delegitimate the system and release people into
struggle. And as struggle develops, victories that are no more than
incremental by their own terms- stopping a meeting stopping the IMF, the
hopes stirred forth by a campaign such as Ralph Naders in 2000 can
have a symbolic effect far greater than their external result, and constitute
points of rupture with capital. This rupture is not a set of facts added to
our knowledge of the world, but a change in our relation to the world. Its
effects are dynamic, not incremental, and like all genuine insights it
changes the balance of forces and can propagate very swiftly. Thus the
release from inertia can trigger a rapid cascade of changes, so that it
could be said that the forces pressing towards radical change need not be
linear and incremental, but can be exponential in character. In this way,

conscientious and radical criticism of the given, even in advance of having

blueprints for an alternative, can be a material force, because it can seize
the mind of the masses of people. There is no greater responsibility for
intellectuals

Impact/Root Cause

Anti-Blackness
Capitalism has allowed for federal manipulation by the private
sector that resulted in slavery
Blackmon 1 . (Douglas, an American writer, journalist and a Pulitzer Prize winner in 2009 for his
book, Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World
War II From Alabama's Past, Capitalism Teamed With Racism to Create Cruel Partnership, The Wall
Street Journal, 7/16/01, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB995228253461746936.html KC)

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. On March 30, 1908, Green Cottenham was arrested by the Shelby County, Ala., sheriff and
charged with vagrancy. After three days in the county jail, the 22-year-old African-American was sentenced to an
unspecified term of hard labor. The next day, he was handed over to a unit of U.S. Steel Corp. and put to work with
hundreds of other convicts in the notorious Pratt Mines complex on the outskirts of Birmingham. Four months later,
he was still at the coal mines when tuberculosis killed him. Born two decades after the end of slavery in America,
Green Cottenham died a slave in all but name. The facts are dutifully entered in the handwritten registry of prisoners

In the early decades of the

20th century, tens of thousands of convicts most of them, like Mr. Cottenham,
indigent black men were snared in a largely forgotten justice system
rooted in racism and nurtured by economic expedience . Until nearly 1930, decades
after most other Southern states had abolished similar programs, Alabama was providing convicts
to businesses hungry for hands to work infarm fields, lumber camps, railroad construction
gangs and, especially in later years, mines. For state and local officials, the incentive was
money; many years, convict leasing was one of Alabamas largest sources of funding. Assault With a Stick
Most of the convicts were charged with minor offenses or violations of "Black Code"
in Shelby County and in other state and local government records.

statutes passed to reassert white control in the aftermath of the Civil War. Mr. Cottenham was one of more than 40
Shelby County men shipped to the Pratt Mines in the winter of 1908, nearly half of them serving time for jumping a
freight train, according to the Shelby County jail log. George Roberson was sent on a conviction for "assault with a

Subjected to squalid
living conditions, poor medical treatment, scant food and frequent
floggings, thousands died. Entries on a typical page from a 1918 state report on causes of death
stick," the log says. Lou William was in for adultery. John Jones for gambling.

among leased convicts include: "Killed by Convict, Asphyxia from Explosion, Tuberculosis, Burned by Gas Explosion,
Pneumonia, Shot by Foreman, Gangrenous Appendicitis, Paralysis." Mr. Cottenham was one of dozens of convicts who
died at the Pratt Mines complex in 1908. This form of government and corporate forced labor ended in 1928 and
slipped into the murk of history, discussed little outside the circles of sociologists and penal historians. But the story
of Alabamas trade in human labor endures in minute detail in tens of thousands of pages of government records
stored in archives, record rooms and courthouses across the state. These documents chronicle another chapter in
the history of corporate involvement in racial abuses of the last century. A $4.5 billion fund set up by German
corporations, after lawsuits and intense diplomatic pressure from the U.S. and others, began making payments last
month to the victims of Nazi slave-labor programs during the 1930s and 1940s. Japanese manufacturers have come
under criticism for their alleged use of forced labor during the same period. Swiss banks agreed in 1998 to a $1.25
billion settlement of claims related to the seizure of Jewish assets during the Holocaust. Traditions of Segregation
In the U.S., many companies real-estate agents that helped maintain rigid housing segregation, insurers and other
financial-services companies that red-lined minority areas as off-limits, employers of all stripes that discriminated in
hiring helped maintain traditions of segregation for a century after the end of the Civil War. But in the U.S.,
recurrent calls for reparations to the descendants of pre-Civil War slaves have made little headway. And there has
been scant debate over compensating victims of 20th century racial abuses involving businesses. The biggest user
of forced labor in Alabama at the turn of the century was Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad Co., the U.S. Steel unit that
owned the mine where Mr. Cottenham died. Dozens ofother companies used convicts, too, many
of them now defunct or absorbed into larger businesses. Executives at some of the corporate descendants say they
shouldnt be asked to bear responsibility for the actions of executives long dead or the practices of businesses

U.S. Steel says it can find no evidence to suggest that the

company ever abused or caused the deaths of convicts in Alabama. U.S. Steel
acquired decades ago.

spokesman Thomas R. Ferrall says that concerns voiced about convict leasing by Elbert H. Gary, the companys
chairman at the time, helped set the stage for "knocking the props out from under" the system. "We think U.S. Steel
proper was a positive player in this history was a force for good," Mr. Ferrall says. The companys early presence
in Alabama is still evident a few miles from downtown Birmingham. There, on a hillside overgrown with brush,
hundreds of sunken graves litter the ground in haphazard rows. A few plots bear stones. No other sign or path marks
the place. Only a muddy scar in the earth the recently filled-in mouth of a spent coal mine suggests that this is
the cemetery of the Pratt Mines complex. "The convicts were buried out there," says Willie Clark, an 82-year-old

retired coal miner. He grew up in a house that overlooked the cemetery and the sprawling mine operation that once

they would beat the convicts with pick

handles. If they didnt like them, they would kill them ." He and other older people
surrounded it. "I heard my daddy talking about how

living in the ramshackle "Pratt City" neighborhood surrounding the old mining site still call the graveyard the "U.S.
Steel cemetery." There are no records of those buried on the hillside. Mr. Cottenham could be among them. When
Mr. Cottenham died in 1908, U.S. Steel was still new to convict leasing. But by then, the system was decades old and
a well-oiled machine. After the Civil War, most Southern states set up similar penal systems, involving tens of
thousands of African-Americans. In those years, the Southern economy was in ruins .

State officials had

few resources, and county governments had even fewer. Leasing prisoners
to private individuals or companies provided revenue and eliminated the
need to build prisons. Forcing convicts to work as part of their punishment was entirely legal; the 13th
amendment to the U.S. Constitution, adopted in 1865, outlaws involuntary servitude except for "duly convicted"
prisoners. Convict leasing in other states never reached the scale of Alabamas program. By the turn of the century,
most states had ended the practice or soon would because of opposition on humanitarian grounds and from
organized labor. Convict leasing also wasnt well-suited to the still largely agrarian economies of most Southern
states. But in Alabama, industrialization was generating a ravenous appetite for the states coal and iron ore.
Production was booming, and unions were attempting to organize free miners. Convicts provided an ideal captive
work force: cheap, usually docile, unable to organize and available when free laborers went on strike. Under the
convict-leasing system, government officials agreed with a company such as Tennessee Coal to provide a specific
number of prisoners for labor. State officials signed contracts to supply companies with large blocks of men often
hundreds at a time who had committed felonies. Companies entered into separate deals with county sheriffs to
obtain thousands more prisoners who had been convicted of misdemeanors. Of the 67 counties in Alabama, 51

The companies built

their own prisons, fed and clothed the convicts, and supplied guards as they saw fit.In Barbour
actively leased their convicts, according to one contemporary newspaper report.

County, in the cotton country of southern Alabama, nearly 700 men were leased between June 1891 and November
1903, most for $6 a month, according to the leatherbound Convict Record still kept in the courthouse basement. Most
were sent to mines operated by Tennessee Coal or Sloss-Sheffield Steel & Iron Co., another major industrial presence

Sheriffs, deputies andsome court officials derived most of their

compensation from feescharged to convicts for each step in their own arrest, conviction and
shipment to a private company. That gave sheriffs an incentive to arrest
and obtain convictions ofas many people as possible. They also had an incentiveto feed the
prisoners as little as possible, since they could pocket the difference between
in Birmingham.

what the state paid them and what they spent to maintain the convicts while in their custody. Some convicts had
enough money to pay the fees themselves and gain their freedom; the many who didnt were instead put to work.
Company lease payments for the convicts time at hard labor then were used to cover the fees.

Feminism
The oppression of women is not the ahistorical products an
abstract system of patriarchy its the historical product of the
emergence of a classed society founded on the logic of surplus
accumulation The shift from necessity to surplus transformed
division of labor into a tool to concentrate wealth and power
over women
Cloud 3 (Dana, Prof. Comm at UT, Marxism and Oppression, Talk for Regional Socialist
Conference, KC)

to challenge oppression, it is important to know where it comes

from. Historians, archaeologists, and anthropologists tell us that in preclass societies such as hunter-gatherer societies, racism and sexism were unheard of.
In order

Because homosexuality was not an identifiable category of such societies, discrimination on that basis

sexism, and homophobia have arisen in

particular kinds of societies, namely class societies. Womens oppression
originated in the first class societies, while racism came into prominence in the early periods
did not occur either. In fact, it is clear that racism,

of capitalism when colonialism and slavery drove the economic system. The prohibition against gays

oppression have in
did not always exist and are not endemic to human nature .
They were created in the interest of ruling classes in society and continue to
and lesbians is a relatively modern phenomenon. But what all forms of
common is that they

benefit the people at the top of society, while dividing and conquering the rest of us so as to weaken
the common fight against the oppressors. The work of Marxs collaborator Friederich Engels on The
Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State in some respects reflects the Victorian times in
which in was written. Engels moralizes about womens sexuality and doesnt even include gay and

anthropologists like the

feminist Rayna Reiter have confirmed his most important and central argument that it was in
the first settled agricultural societies that women became an oppressed
class. In societies where for the first time people could accumulate a surplus of
food and other resources, it was possible for some people to hoard wealth and control
its distribution. The first governments or state structures formed to legitimate an emerging ruling
class. As settled communities grew in size and became more complex social
organizations, and, most importantly, as the surplus grew, the distribution of
wealth became unequaland a small number of men rose above the rest of the population in
wealth and power. In the previous hunter-gatherer societies, there had been a
sexual division of labor, but one without a hierarchy of value . There was no
strict demarcation between the reproductive and productive spheres. All of
that changed with the development of private property in more settled communities.
The earlier division of labor in which men did the heavier work, hunting,
and animal agriculture, became a system of differential control over
resource distribution. The new system required more field workers and
sought to maximize womens reproductive potential. Production shifted
away from the household over time and women became associated with
the reproductive role, losing control over the production and distribution
of the necessities of life. It was not a matter of male sexism, but of economic
priorities of a developing class system. This is why Engels identifies womens oppression as the
first form of systematic class oppression in the world. Marxists since Engels have not
lesbian liberation in his discussion of the oppressive family. However,

dismissed the oppression of women as secondary to other kinds of oppression and

exploitation. To the contrary, womens oppression has a primary place in Marxist
analysis and is a key issue that socialists organize around today. From this history we know that
sexism did not always exist, and that men do not have an inherent interest
in oppressing women as domestic servants or sexual slaves. Instead, womens
oppression always has served a class hierarchy in society. In our society divided by
sexism, ideas about womens nature as domestic caretakers or irrational sexual beings
justify paying women lower wages compared to men, so that employers can pit workers
against one another in competition for the same work. Most women have always had to work outside

women around the world are exploited in

sweatshops where their status as women allows bosses to pay them very little, driving down
the wages of both men and women. At the same time, capitalist society relies on ideas
about women to justify not providing very much in the way of social services that
the home to support their families. Today,

would help provide health care, family leave, unemployment insurance, access to primary and higher

these things are supposed to happen in the private

family, where women are responsible. This lack of social support results in a lower
quality of life for many men as well as women. Finally, contemporary ideologies that pit
men against women encourage us to fight each other rather than
organizing together.
education, and so forthall because

Identity Politics
Identity politics have spurred the worst tragedies in human
history
Piven 95 (Frances Fox Piven, Professor of Political Science and Sociology at The Graduate Center,
City University of New York., Globalizing Capitalism and the Rise of Identity
Politics,http://socialistregister.com/socialistregister.com/files/SR_1995_Piven.pdf, KC)

identity politics is ubiquitous because of what it offers people in protection, comfort and
pride, it has also been a bane upon humankind, the source of unending
tragedy. The fatal flaw in identity politics is easily recognized. Class politics, at least in
principle, promotes vertical cleavages, mobilizing people around axes which
broadly correspond to hierarchies of power, and which promote challenges
to these hierarchies. By contrast, identity politics fosters lateral cleavages
which are unlikely to reflect fundamental conflicts over societal power and
resources and, indeed, may seal popular allegiance' to the ruling classes that
exploit them. This fatal flaw at the very heart of a popular politics based
on identity is in turn regularly exploited by elites . We can see it dramatically, for
example, in the unfolding of the genocidal tribal massacres in Rwanda,
fomented by Hutu governing class which found itself losing a war with
Tutsi rebels. And of course the vulnerability to manipulation resulting from
identity politics is as characteristic of modem societies as tribal societies.
Thus identity politics makes people susceptible to the appeals of modern
nationalism, to the bloody idea of loyalty to state and flag, which is surely
one of the more murderous ideas to beset humankind. State builders cultivate a
sort of race pride to build allegiance to an abstract state, drawing on the ordinary and
human attachments that people form to their group and their locality and
drawing also on the animosity to the Other that is typically the
complement of these attachments. The actual group that people experience, the local
But if

territory that they actually know, comes to be joined with the remote state and its flag, just as the
external enemy of the state comes to be seen as the menacing Other, now depicted as a threat not
only to the group and its locale, but as a threat to the nation state. I hardly need add that this melding
of identity politics with state patriotism can stir people to extraordinary acts of destruction and selfdestruction in the name of mystical abstractions, and the identity politics that energizes them.

Napoleon was able to waste his own men easily in his murdurous march
across Europe because they were quickly replaced with waves of recruits
drawn from a French population enthused by their new attachment to the
French nation. And World War I showed that modem states could extract
even more extraordinary contributions of life and material wellbeing from
their citizenry, as Europeans seized by nationalist passions joined in a
frenzy of destruction and death in the name of state patriotism.' In the
United States, popular politics has always been primarily about race,
ethnicity and religion. Perhaps a population of slaves and immigrants of diverse origins,
captive and free, provided some objective basis for the cultivation of identity politics, constructed by
ordinary people themselves, and of course by political and economic elites who have never been slow
to see that division ensured domination.'"

From the colonial era, public policy

engraved distinctions among whites, blacks and native Americans by
enshrining elaborate racial hierarchies by law, by prohibiting sexual
liaisons across racial lines, and by punishing with particular ferocity the

insurrections in which humble people of different races joined together. The

institutions of the American South, especially the post reconstruction South, are illustrative, for they
can be understood as a vast complex of social arrangements which, by strictly segregating AfroAmercians, and specifying their obligations of deference, made factitious racial differences real.
Similar practices by industrialists had similar if less total consequences in inscribing difference.
Employers deliberately drew from diverse ethnic groups for their workforce, and then artfully
arranged job assignments, wage scales and residential quarters in company towns so as to maintain

Or note the strident emphasis on ethnic, religious,

and later racial identities in the organizations, the mobilizing strategies
and the policy outcomes of big city politics. The labour movement was
riddled by these influences and, if it was sometimes strengthened by the
gender, racial and ethnic solidarities that flourished within it,
particularistic identities also blinded workers to their commonalities,
making them vulnerable to employers who pitted one group against
another, and leading them also to engage in terrible episodes of labour
fratricide. Needless perhaps to add, this history still marks American
politics today.
and underline those differences.

Race
Capitalism is the root cause of slavery and racism
Crawford 5 (Henry Winant. Graduate student @ Queens U studying race theory and critical
whiteness The New Politics of Race: Globalism, Difference, Justice., Canadian Journal of Sociology
Online, March-April 2005, Henry Winnant is a professor of sociology @ UC Berkeley, KC)

The second section of Winants book is dedicated to comparative racial

studies. This section discusses at length the historical transition from
racial domination to racial hegemony, and does so through connecting
the Atlantic slave trade system to capitalism and abolitionism to
democracy. Racism has been essential to the development of modernity as
well as a global capitalist system. Winant argues that it was not racism
that created slavery, but slavery that created racism, and that slavery
became racialized as a practical way to meet labour demands at the time
(p. 84). He extends the argument of slavery as creator to the establishment
of capitalism, and suggests that through resistance to slavery, modern
forms of democracy and culture were made possible. Thus, the Atlantic
slave trade is argued by Winant to represent the first truly multinational
capitalist enterprise , in the same way that abolitionism comes to be represented as the first
multinational social movement (p. 88). As such, Winant argues that abolitionism was an effort to
fulfill the political promise of democracy as well as an extension of the cultural logic of
enlightenment (p. 87). Abolitionism seemed to render notions of democracy and equality, despite the
fact that such notions were not fully materialized, and several emancipatory tasks remain. Democracy

race and racism are viewed as

intricate components of the development of modern forms of democracy.
Winant draws several concrete linkages between the Atlantic slave trade
and the racialized divide between the global North and the global South .
is conceptualized as the opposite of slavery, and as such,

This is perhaps one of the books greatest strengths, insofar as it reminds the reader that, as Winant
writes, the pattern of northern racialized rule has continued unbroken (p. 88). Furthermore, that
what exists now is global apartheid, and this is evidenced in the massive exploitation and endemic
indebtedness of the global South as well as in the global distribution of resources.

Capitalism is the root cause of race and racism their methods

dismiss class as a factor in oppression
Brodkin 98 (professor emeritus Department of Anthropology at UCLA, Ph.D. from the University
of Michigan Global Capitalism: What's Race Got to Do with It? American Ethnologist published May
2000 JStor KC)

nationalistic and xenophobic movements are broadly enmeshed in the

na- tionalist project of subject making. The idea that national subjects and
colonial sub- jects have been historically constructed as races (or ethnicities,
languages, or reli- gions), classes, and styles of manhood and womanhood is well
established (e.g., Kerber et al. 1995; Ong 1996; Stoler 1989; Tamanoi 1998; Williams 1996). There has
been a historic isomorphism (or overdetermination or fit) between the ways states
construct national subjects and the ways capital organizes production and
its labor forces on the basis of gender, race, and ethnicity (recent analyses include
Such

Fikes 1998 and Medina 1998).

Although nation and capitalism are separate projects,

each de- pends on and shapes the other. In the remainder of this article, I will use the United
States as an illustrative case to develop further my argument that capitalism is causally and
systemically linked to the construction of race and racism. I will show that
relations to the means of capital- ist production in the United States have
been organized in ways that are consistent with nationalist constructions
of national subjects and internal aliens. The central theoretical point I wish to advance is that
race in the United States has historically been a key relationship to the
means of capitalist production, and gender construc- tions are what has made race corporeal,
material, and visible. In Marxist thought, re- lations to the means of production are class
relations. To argue that race is a relation- ship to the means of production
is not to reduce race to class. Rather, it is to complicate each term, to
argue that race and class are mutually constitutive, two facets of the 239 same process
that apply to both the structure of productive relationships and people's consciousnesses or identities. It is in
such socially structured identities that the nation- alist and capitalist
projects connect. Current interest in identities-especially the conventional threesome of
race, class, and gender-has addressed the cultural content of identities for actors ,
as well as for the national hegemonic structures that make them meaningful for people to in- terpret, enact, and

I think it is fair to say that they are dialectical: State pol- icy, law,
and popular discourse make race and gender matter for one's life chances ;
people embrace these categories because they matter, but they do not inhabit them in the
ways hegemonic institutions and discourses construct them ; popular enactments in
turn reshape hegemonic practices. Class is often the Cinderella in analyses of this threesome with respect to
national projects. That is, it is treated as a "lifestyle choice of you and your family ," as
embrace.

Lillian Robinson (1995:8) puts it when criticizing scholars who treat class as if it were a set of cultural choices that

one could also challenge the lack of attention

to economics in analyses of race in the same way that Robinson does for class. True, the
state, nationalism, and civic discourse have gotten a lot of play on the
structural side of race. But the organi- zation of production and the racial
division of labor, though well described, are poorly theorized. Thinking
theoretically about the ways that race and ethnicity work as a relationship
to the means of capitalist production in the United States can help us
understand how global capitalism might feed nationalism even as it seems to erode
are unrelated to economic structures. But

states.

Slavery was not initially associated with Africans capitalist

economics, not racism, perpetuated slavery
Drescher 97 (Ph.D @ U of Wisconsin-Madison, Professor of History and Sociology @ U of
Pittsburgh (Seymour, Slavery & Abolition, 18:3, pages 212-213, Slavery and capitalism after fifty
years, 1997, KC)

Perhaps the best point of departure is the collective volume that emerged from the fortieth
anniversary conference on Capitalism and Slavery, held at Bellagio, Italy, and was published in 1987.
The editors, Barbara L. Solow and Stanley L. Engeriran, divided the non-biographical contributions
into three parts, corresponding to three major hypotheses on the relationship between economic
development and slavery in the British empire. We may appropriately test the first hypothesis most
briefly. Williams only briefly broached the subject and his assessment has not been of major

economic
factors rather than racism occupied pride of place in the switch to African
historiographical interest in the subsequent literature. Williams took the position that

labour in the plantation Americas, that slavery 'was not bom of racism' but rather
slavery led to racism. Although some recent interpretations make racial
preferences and inhibitions central to the choice of African labour , Williams's
order of priorities, if not his either-or approach, is supported by a survey of hundreds of
articles. They show virtual unanimity on the primacy of economics in
accounting for the turn toward slave labour. Non-economic factors, such as race or
religion, entered into the development of New World slavery only as a limiting parameter. Such factors
affected the historical sequence by which entire human groups (Christians, Jews, Muslim North
Africans, Native Americans) were excluded from liability to enslavement in the Atlantic system. Since
Williams published his book, the main change in the historiographical context of origins is an increase
in the number and variety of actors brought into the process. That broader context complicates the

From the fifteenth to the

eighteenth centuries, slavery, even the English colonial varieties, was
hardly synonymous with Africans. Nor were Africans synonymous with
slaves. In the African sector of the Atlantic system Europeans were forced
to regard Africans (and Afro-Europeans) as autonomous and even locally
dominant participants in the slave trade. They were often dominant
militarily and were certainly dominant in terms of their massive presence
and limited vulnerability to local diseases. Even in the Americas, Africans did not arrive
role of any exclusively 'African' racial component of the slave trade.

only as captives and deracinated slaves.

Capitalism is the root cause of racial division race is a tool to

divide the working class and preserve capitalism
Hill 9 (Dave teaches at Middlesex University and is Visiting Professor of Critical Education Policy
and Equality Studies at the University of Limerick, Ireland, Culturalist and Materialist Explanations of
Class and "Race", Cultural Logic 2009 http://clogic.eserver.org/2009/Hill.pdf KC)

The capitalist system with a tiny minority of people owning the means of
production oppresses and exploits the working class. This, indeed, constitutes the essence
of capitalism: the extraction of surplus value and profit from workers by capitalist employers. These capitalists may
be white, black, men, women, (high caste) Brahmin, or(untouchable) Dalit. In India as well as in Britain, there
are millionaire men, women, Brahmin, and Dalit capitalists and politicians. Marxist analysis also suggests
that class conflict, which is an essential feature of capitalist society, will result in an overthrow of
capitalism given the right circumstances. There has been considerable
debate, historically, in different countries over whether this can, or will, be
achieved either by revolutionary force or by evolutionary measures and steps
for example through the evolutionary, reformist measures of social democracy). Important examples of such debate- between
protagonists of revolutionary socialism and those of evolutionary socialism/social democracy are the late nineteenth century debates in
Germany over Revisionism associated with the revisionist Eduard Bernstein (e.g., in 1899, his The Prerequisites for Socialism and the
Tasks of Social Democracy see Tudor and Tudor, 1988) on the one hand, and on the other hand, , orthodox revolutionary Marxist critics
of revisionism such as Rosa Luxemburg (for example, in Reform and Revolution, in 1899/1900. Today such debates are carried on
between revolutionary socialists/ Marxists such as the various Trotskyite groups, parties and internationals on the one hand, and social
democratic parties and internationals on the other. As for where the former communist parties stood, a historical transition was made in
the 1970s and 1980s by various communist parties and leaders when they foreswore revolution and adopted gradualist social
democracy. 3 These arguments and conflicts take place within many leftist revolutions. Today, for example, in Venezuela, Trotskyites
argue for a revolutionary rupture with capitalism, while others urge caution, an accommodation with capitalism and capitalists. (See
Gonzalez, 2007; ISG, 2007; Esteban et al, 2008; Fuentes, 2009.) And Trotskyite, revolutionary, anti-capitalist groups and parties have
persistent major problems working within larger left formations, united fronts and popular fronts. Thus PSOL at first joined the PT
government in Brazil but left in 2004 in protest at(Brazilian President) Lulas neoliberal pro-capitalist policies, and in 2007 Sinistra
Critica pulled out of the broader left Rifondazione Comunista. There is considerable current debate within the Trostskyite movement and
internationals over the incompatibility of socialist revolution with social democratic broader parties. (See, for example, Bensaid, 2009.) 4

Historically, and indeed in current times, it is, of course the armed/police

forces of the capitalist state that shoot first and where the local capitalist state is not powerful
enough in the balance of class forces in any particular site, then in come the United States cavalry, acting on behalf of transnational
capital and its national capital on behalf of the international capitalist system itself. (See, for example, Brosio, 1994.) And yet

there are denials, by postmodernists and other theorists of complexity and hybridity and postmodernists
and post-ists of various stripes, that we no longer live in a period of metanarratives,
such as mass capitalism, social class, working class, 7 or, indeed,
woman or black. 5 For many theorists since the 1980s, history is at an
end, the class war is over, and we all exalt in the infinite complexity and
hybridity of subjective individualist consumerism . It is interesting, and rarely remarked upon,
that arguments about the death of class are not advanced regarding the
capitalist class. Despite their horizontal and vertical cleavages (Dumenil and Levy, 2004), they appear to
know very well who they are. Nobody is denying capitalist class
consciousness. Opposition to the rule of capital and its policies (either its wider policies, or
specific policy) is weakened when the working class is divided, by race, caste,
religion, tribe, or by other factors. When I say divided, I am using it here
as an active verb, to mean that the capitalist class divides the working class, for
example by its ideological state apparatuses- its media, its formally or
informally segregated school systems. This is divide and rule. Examples of schooling systems
perpetuating such divisions are in apartheid South Africa, Arab-Jew segregated schooling
in Israel, Protestant-Catholic religiously segregated Northern Ireland , and parts
of the USA in particular its inner cities, and, indeed, parts of Britain, where, in some inner-city working-class schools,
more than 90 percent of the pupils are from minority ethnic groups . 6 In
many of the cities of the USA and Britain the ethnic division is localized. But such
segregation and division is overwhelmingly a class stratification. It is
rarely the millionaire and capitalist minorities who live in the ghetto, or
poor minorities or whites who live in millionaires row.

Racism is rooted in capitalism

Cole 07 (Mike Cole is research professor in education and equality at Bishop Grosseteste
University College Lincoln. His latest book, Marxism and Educational Theory : Origins and Issues, is
published by Routledge- The Heart of the Higher Education Debate- 'Racism' is about more than
colour November 23 2007 http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/311222.article ,KC)

The problem with standard critical race theory is the narrowness of its
remit, says Mike Cole. One of the main tenets of critical race theory is that "white supremacy" is the
norm in societies rather than merely the province of the racist right (the other
major tenet is primacy of "race" over class). There are a number of significant problems with this use of the term
"white supremacy". The first is that it homogenises all white people together in positions of power and privilege.
Writing about the US, critical race theorist Charles Mills acknowledges that not "all whites are better off than all nonwhites, but ... as a statistical generalisation, the objective life chances of whites are significantly better". While this

we should not lose sight of the life chances of millions of

working-class white people.To take poverty as one example, in the US, while it is the case
that the number of black people living below the poverty line is some
three times that of whites, this still leaves more than 16 million "white but
not Hispanic" people living in poverty there. In the UK, there are similar indicators of a
society underpinned by rampant colour-coded racism, with black people twice as poor as
whites, and those of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin more than three
times as poor as whites. Once again, however, this still leaves some 12 million poor white people in the
is, of course, true,

UK. That such statistics are indicative of racism, however, is beyond doubt, and to interpret them it is useful to
employ the concept of "racialisation". Given that there is widespread agreement among geneticists and social

that "race" is a meaningless concept, racialisation describes the

process by which people are falsely categorised into distinct "races".
Statistics such as these are indicative of racialised capitalism rather than
white supremacy. A second problem with "white supremacy" is that it is inherently
unable to explain non-colour-coded racism. In the UK, for example, this form of
racism has been and is directed at the Irish and at gypsy/traveller
communities. There is also a well-documented history of anti-Semitism, too. It is also important to underline
scientists

the fact that Islamophobia is not necessarily triggered by skin colour. It is often sparked by one or more (perceived)

a new form of non- colour-coded racism has

manifested itself recently in the UK. This has all the hallmarks of traditional racism, but it is
directed towards newly arrived groups of people . It has been described by A. Sivanandan,
director of the Institute of Race Relations, as "xeno-racism". It appears that there are some
similarities in the xeno-racialisation of Eastern European migrant workers
and the racialisation of Asian and black workers in the immediate postwar
period, a point I address in my latest book. "White supremacy" is counterproductive as a
political unifier and rallying point against racism . John Preston concluded an article in The
symbols of the Muslim faith. Finally,

Times Higher advocating critical race theory ("All shades of a wide white world", October 19) by citing the US journal

"the
abolition of whiteness is ... not just an optional extra in terms of defeating
capitalism (nor something which will be necessarily abolished postcapitalism) but fundamental to the Marxist educational project as praxis ".
Indeed, for Preston, "the abolition of capitalism and whiteness seem to be
fundamentally connected in the current historical circumstances of
Western capitalist development".From my Marxist perspective, coupling the
"abolition of whiteness" to the "abolition of capitalism" is a worrying
development that, if it gained ground in Marxist theory, would most
certainly further undermine the Marxist project.I am not questioning the sincerity of the
Race Traitor , which seeks the "abolition of the racial category 'white'". Elsewhere, Preston has argued

protagonists of "the abolition of whiteness", nor suggesting in any way that they are anti-white people but merely
questioning its extreme vulnerability to misunderstanding. Anti-racists have made some progress in the UK at least
in making anti- racism a mainstream rallying point, and this is reflected, in part, in legislation. Even if it were a good

the chances of making "the abolition of whiteness" a successful

political unifier and rallying point against racism are virtually nonexistent.The usage of "white supremacy" should be restricted to its
everyday meaning. To describe and analyse contemporary racism we need a wide- ranging and fluid
idea,

conception of racism. Only then can we fully understand its multiple manifestations and work towards its eradication.

Race is rooted in capitalism- they are suppressed by economics

Young 06 (Robert Young- British postcolonial theorist, cultural critic, and historian Putting
Materialism back into Race Theory: Toward a Transformative Theory of Race
http://www.redcritique.org/WinterSpring2006/puttingmaterialismbackintoracetheory.htm KC)

race oppression dialectically

intersects with the exploitative logic of advanced capitalism , a regime which
deploys race in the interest of surplus accumulation. Thus, race operates at the (economic) base
This essay advances a materialist theory of race. In my view,

and therefore produces cultural and ideological effects at the

superstructure; in turn, these effectsin very historically specific way
interact with and ideologically justify the operations at the economic base
[1]. In a sense then, race encodes the totality of contemporary capitalist social
relations, which is why race cuts across a range of seemingly disparate
social sites in contemporary US society. For instance, one can mark race
difference and its discriminatory effects in such diverse sites as health care,
housing/real estate, education, law, job market, and many other social sites. However, unlike many
commentators who engage race matters, I do not isolate these social sites
and view race as a local problem, which would lead to reformist measures along the lines of either
legal reform or a cultural-ideological battle to win the hearts and minds of people and thus keep the existing socio-

I foreground the relationality of these sites

within the exchange mechanism of multinational capitalism. Consequently, I
believe, the eradication of race oppression also requires a totalizing political
project: the transformation of existing capitalisma system which
produces difference (the racial/gender division of labor) and accompanying ideological
narratives that justify the resulting social inequality . Hence, my project articulates a
economic arrangements intact; instead,

transformative theory of racea theory that reclaims revolutionary class politics in the interests of contributing

the transformation from actually existing

capitalism into socialism constitutes the condition of possibility for a postracist societya society free from racial and all other forms of oppression.
toward a post-racist society. In other words,

By freedom, I do not simply mean a legal or cultural articulation of individual rights as proposed by bourgeois race
theorists. Instead,

I theorize freedom as a material effect of emancipated

economic forms. I foreground my (materialist) understanding of race as a way to contest contemporary
accounts of race, which erase any determinate connection to economics. For instance, humanism and
poststructuralism represent two dominant views on race in the contemporary
academy. Even though they articulate very different theoretical positions, they produce similar
ideological effects: the suppression of economics . They collude in redirecting
attention away from the logic of capitalist exploitation and point us to the
cultural questions of sameness (humanism) or difference (poststructuralism). In developing
my project, I critique the ideological assumptions of some exemplary instances
of humanist and poststructuralist accounts of race, especially those accounts that also
attempt to displace Marxism, and, in doing so, I foreground the historically determinate link between race and

I am calling a transformative theory of

race. The transformation of race from a sign of exploitation to one of
democratic multiculturalism, ultimately, requires the transformation of
capitalism. Within contemporary Black humanist discourses the focus remains on
the subject. Hence, diverse intellectual inquiries such as Afrocentricism (Molefi Kete Asante), Black feminism
exploitation. It is this link that forms the core of what

(Patricia Hill Collins), and neo-conservative culturalism (Shelby Steele), share a philosophical-ideological commitment
to the subject.

What is ultimately at stake in this commitment is, I argue, a class

matter. The philosophico-cultural moveas Asante once put it in a representative formulation, Afrocentricism
presents "the African as subject rather than object" ("Multiculturalism" 270)is in fact part of the positing of a Black
"essence" that can form the basis for a cross-class alliance between black workers and black business, between, that
is, exploited and exploiters.

Structural Violence
Cap causes massive Structural violence that outweighs
everything
Abu-Jamal 98-[Mumia, award winning Pennsylvania journalist, quotes James Gilligan, Professor at
Harvard/NYU, A quiet and deadly violence, http://www.flashpoints.net/mQuietDeadlyViolence.html]

The deadliest form of violence is poverty. --Ghandi It has often been observed that
America is a truly violent nation, as shown by the thousands of cases of social and
communal violence that occurs daily in the nation. Every year, some 20,000
people are killed by others, and additional 20,000 folks kill themselves. Add to this
the nonlethal violence that Americans daily inflict on each other, and we begin to
see the tracings of a nation immersed in a fever of violence. But, as remarkable,
and harrowing as this level and degree of violence is, it is, by far, not the most
violent features of living in the midst of the American empire. We live, equally immersed,
and to a deeper degree, in a nation that condones and ignores wide-ranging "structural' violence, of a kind
that destroys human life with a breathtaking ruthlessness . Former Massachusetts prison official
and writer, Dr. James Gilligan observes;

By "structural violence" I mean the increased rates of death and disability

Those
excess deaths (or at least a demonstrably large proportion of them) are a function of the class
structure; and that structure is itself a product of society's collective human choices, concerning
how to distribute the collective wealth of the society. These are not acts of God. I am contrasting
suffered by those who occupy the bottom rungs of society, as contrasted by those who are above them.

"structural" with "behavioral violence" by which I mean the non-natural deaths and injuries that are caused by
specific behavioral actions of individuals against individuals, such as the deaths we attribute to homicide, suicide,
soldiers in warfare, capital punishment, and so on. --(Gilligan, J., MD, Violence: Reflections On a National Epidemic
(New York: Vintage, 1996), 192.) This form of violence, not covered by any of the majoritarian, corporate, rulingclass protected media, is invisible to us and because of its invisibility, all the more insidious. How dangerous is it--

[E]very fifteen years, on the average, as many people die because of

relative poverty as would be killed in a nuclear war that caused 232 million deaths; and
every single year, two to three times as many people die from poverty throughout
the world as were killed by the Nazi genocide of the Jews over a six-year period.
This is, in effect, the equivalent of an ongoing, unending, in fact accelerating, thermonuclear
war, or genocide on the weak and poor every year of every decade, throughout the world.
[Gilligan, p. 196] Worse still, in a thoroughly capitalist society, much of that violence
became internalized, turned back on the Self, because, in a society based on the priority of
wealth, those who own nothing are taught to loathe themselves, as if something is
inherently wrong with themselves, instead of the social order that promotes this
self-loathing. This intense self-hatred was often manifested in familial violence as when the husband beats the
wife, the wife smacks the son, and the kids fight each other. This vicious, circular, and invisible
violence, unacknowledged by the corporate media, uncriticized in substandard
educational systems, and un-understood by the very folks who suffer in its grips,
feeds on the spectacular and more common forms of violence that the system
makes damn sure -that we can recognize and must react to it. This fatal and
systematic violence may be called The War on the Poor. It is found in every country,
really? Gilligan notes:

submerged beneath the sands of history, buried, yet ever present, as omnipotent as death. In the struggles over
the commons in Europe, when the peasants struggled and lost their battles for their commonal lands (a precursor to
similar struggles throughout Africa and the Americas), this violence was sanctified, by church and crown, as the

'Divine Right of Kings' to the spoils of class battle. Scholars Frances Fox-Piven and Richard A Cloward wrote, in The
New Class War (Pantheon, 1982/1985): They did not lose because landowners were immune to burning and
preaching and rioting. They lost because the usurpations of owners were regularly defended by the legal authority
and the armed force of the state. It was the state that imposed increased taxes or enforced the payment of
increased rents, and evicted or jailed those who could not pay the resulting debts. It was the state that made lawful
the appropriation by landowners of the forests, streams, and commons, and imposed terrifying penalties on those
who persisted in claiming the old rights to these resources. It was the state that freed serfs or emancipated
sharecroppers only to leave them landless. (52) The "Law", then, was a tool of the powerful to protect their
interests, then, as now. It was a weapon against the poor and impoverished, then, as now. It punished retail
violence, while turning a blind eye to the wholesale violence daily done by their class masters.

The law

was,

and is, a tool of state power, utilized to protect the status quo, no matter how op pressive
that status was, or is. Systems are essentially ways of doing things that have concretized into tradition, and

No system that causes this kind of harm to

people should be allowed to remain, based solely upon its time in existence.
Systems must serve life, or be discarded as a threat and a danger to life . Such
systems must pass away, so that their great and terrible violence passes away with
them.
custom, without regard to the rightness of those ways.

War
Capitalism makes mass nuclear annihilation inevitable.
Webb, 04

(Sam Webb, National Chairman, Communist Party USA. War, Capitalism, and George W. Bush. 420-04. http://www.pww.org/article/view/ 4967/1/207/O)

Capitalism

came into the world dripping with blood

laying waste to old forms of production and ways of life
in favor of new, more efficient manufacturing. Since then it has combined nearly
uninterrupted transformation of the instruments of production with immense wealth
for a few and unrelieved exploitation, insecurity, misery, and racial and gender
inequality for the many, along with periodic wars, and a vast zone of countries
imprisoned in a seemingly inescapable web of abject poverty. Yet as bad as that
record is, its most destructive effects on our world could still be ahead . Why do I say
that? Because capitalism, with its imperatives of capital accumulation, profit maximization and competition, is
the cause of new global problems that threaten the prospects and lives of billions of
people worldwide, and, more importantly, it is also a formidable barrier to
humankinds ability to solve these problems. Foremost among these , in addition to
ecological degradation, economic crises, population pressures, and endemic diseases, is the threat of
nuclear mass annihilation. With the end of the Cold War, most of us thought that the threat of nuclear
was never a warm, cuddly, stable social system. It

from every pore, as Marx described it,

war would fade and with it the stockpiles of nuclear weapons. But those hopes were dashed. Rather than easing,

the nuclear threat is more palpable in some ways and caches of nuclear weapons
are growing. And our own government possesses the biggest stockpiles by far. Much
like previous administrations, the Bush administration has continued to develop more powerful nuclear weapons,
but with a twist: it insists on its singular right to employ nuclear weapons preemptively in a range of military
situations. This is a major departure from earlier U.S. policy the stated policy of all previous administrations was
that nuclear weapons are weapons of last resort to be used only in circumstances in which our nation is under
severe attack. Meanwhile, todays White House bullies demonize, impose sanctions, and make or threaten war on
states that are considering developing a nuclear weapons capability. Bush tells us that this policy of arming
ourselves while disarming others should cause no anxiety because, he says, his administration desires only peace
and has no imperial ambitions. Not surprisingly, people greet his rhetorical assurances skeptically, especially as it
becomes more and more obvious that his administrations political objective is not world peace, but world
domination, cunningly couched in the language of fighting terrorism. It is well that millions of peace-minded

The hyper-aggressive gang in the Oval Office and Pentagon

and the absolutely lethal nature of modern weapons of mass destruction make for a
highly unstable and explosive situation that could cascade out of control. War has a
logic of its own. But skepticism alone is not enough. It has to be combined with a sustained mobilization of
people distrust Bushs rhetoric.

the world community the other superpower in this unipolar world if the hand of the warmakers in the White
House and Pentagon is to be stayed. A heavy responsibility rests on the American people. For we have the
opportunity to defeat Bush and his counterparts in Congress in the November elections. Such a defeat will be a
body blow to the policies of preemption, regime change, and saber rattling, and a peoples mandate for peace,
disarmament, cooperation, and mutual security. The world will become a safer place. In the longer run, however,

it

is necessary to replace the system of capitalism. With its expansionary logic to

accumulate capital globally and its competitive rivalries, capitalism has an
undeniable structural tendency to militarism and war. This doesnt mean that nuclear war is
inevitable. But it does suggest that nuclear war is a latent, ever-present possibility in a world
in which global capital is king. Whether that occurs depends in large measure on the
outcome of political struggle within and between classes and social movements at
the national and international level.

2NC Blocks

A2 Cap Sustainable
The neoliberal drive for endless growth is profoundly
unsustainable in an environment of limited resources
Peck and Tickell 1994 (Jamie and Adam, Jamie Peck is the Canada Research Chair in
Urban & Regional Political Economy and Professor of Geography at the University of British
Columbia and Adam Tickell is a professor of Geography and the Vice-Principal at the
University of Birmingham, December, Jungle Law Breaks out: Neoliberalism and GlobalLocal Disorder, Royal Geographical Society, volume 26, issue number 4)

an anti-liberal position is not simply a moral but also an economic

one. Neoliberalism, crucially, seems unable to sustain growth. On the
contrary, it tends to fuel further instability. Lipietz (1992) has argued that the
neoliberal model is internally crisis-prone for four reasons. First, it
is associated with a tendency for social polarisation with the
attendant possibility of either disruptive collective action or social
breakdown. Secondly, neoliberalism does not resolve the
contradictions of the Fordist labour process, namely, progressive
alienation from the production process and the collapse of the social
framework around which productivity gains could be shared. Third,
it tends to exacerbate, rather than contain, swings in the business cycle, with
the result that macro-economic crashes (and unsustainable booms)
are a constant threat. Fourth, the neoliberal deregulation of
international trade does not lead unproblematically to structural
adjustment, but to structural imbalances and to forced deflations,
as nation-states respond to global competition by adopting beggarthy-neighbour policies. These pressures, of course, affect rich and poor
countries alike, as so vividly demonstrated by the humiliating withdrawal of sterling from the European Exchange Rate
Such

Mechanism in 1992 (see Leyshon 1993). These contradictory tendencies in neoliberal regulation are already becoming

The
pattern of regionalised growth which is so often held up as the paradigmatic post-Fordist
accumulation dynamic, flexible specialisation, has been shown to be dependent upon a
high-trust regulatory environment, under which there are highlydeveloped co-operative relations between economic actors linked to
extensive utilisation of collective services and institutions (Lorenz 1992). These environments, Hirst and Zeitlin
(1992, 76) argue, are incompatible with a neoliberal regime of unregulated
markets and cut-throat competition '.Although it is often argued that high-trust regulatory practices
manifest, as evidence mounts of the fragility of 1980s growth patterns and/or their incompatibility with neoliberalism.

can be constructed (and maintained) in localised enclaves such as Emilia-Romagna, these regulatory systems are now subject to
erosion as they come into contact with the harshly competitive global environment (Amin and Robins 1990; Peck 1994).

A2 Democracy
Democracy cant solve capitalism
Herod 7 (James, Student at Graceland College and Columbia University, 35 year
old author on anarchy, May 2007, Getting Free,
http://www.jamesherod.info/Getting_Free.pdf)

We cant destroy capitalism by running for office, by gaining control

of the state apparatus through elections . It hasnt been done and it wont be done, even
though numerous governments have been in so- cialist hands in Europe, sometimes for decades. It wont be done be- cause

governments dont

have the last say, they dont

government doesnt control capitalists

government

control society. Capitalists d o. The

; capitalists control the government . Modern

(i.e., the nation-state system)

is an invention of capitalists. It is their

tool, and they know how to use it and keep it from being turned
against the m. Although building worker-controlled political parties, then using those parties to win elections and get
control of governments, and then using those governments to establish socialism seemed like a plausible enough strategy when it
was initiated in the mid-nineteenth century, it's way past time for us to recognize and admit that it simply hasn't worked

Capitalism goes rolling on no matter who controls the government .

True democracy is impossible under capitalism- it just results in
plutocracy
Foster & McChesney 10

(John Bellamy, Prof of Sociology @ U of Oregon, PhD in Political Science @ York

University, and Robert, Research Professor @ U of Illinois, Capitalism, The Absurd System: A View From the United
States Monthly Review Vol. 62.2 June JF)

U.S. politics under todays mature capitalism are not about the welfare of the
people) as envisioned in classical notions of democracy, but rather
about which party can best deliver profitability to investors and corporations . There
Boiled down,

demos (i.e., the

are continuing debates between those who simply want to slash labor costs, taxes, and regulations for the rich,
and those who want to do some of that but also use some regulation and government spending to encourage
higher wages and demand-driven growth.

Both sides, however, accept that making the

economy profitable for the owning class is the sine qua non of successful
administration. Within these constraints, there are occasional important political fights and periodic bones
to throw to the electorate. But, in times of economic stagnation , the bones get smaller and even
disappear. What passes for genuine political debate often tends to be irrelevant
gibberish and blatant manipulation on side issues , or inconsequential nitpicking on minutiae.
The big stuff is off the table. The system is democratic in theory, plutocratic (rule by
the rich) in content. The hollowness of democracy in todays capitalism is evident in
the blatant corruption of governance at all levels in the United States, and the
non-accountability of all the major players . The corruption we are discussing is not about
politicians getting inordinately great seats at the World Series, but the degeneration of the system and the
dominance of a culture of greed that is now pervasive and institutionalized, contaminating all aspects of life.
The manner in which, during the current Great Recession, the dominant institutions and investors were able to
coalesce and demand hundreds of billions, even trillions, of dollars in public money as a blank check to the
largest banksand then shamelessly disperse multimillion-dollar bonuses to individuals at the apex of those
very same corporations now on the public dolewas a striking reminder of the limits of self-government in our

When the Masters of the Universe, as those atop the economic

system have been called, need money, when they need bail-outs, when they
political economy.

need the full power of the state, there is no time for debate or inquiry or
deliberation. There is no time for the setting of conditions. There is only time to
give them exactly what they want. Or else! Egged on by the news media, all responsible
people fall in line or face ostracism. As for education and the social services that mark the good
society, well, they have to wait in line and hope something is left after the capitalist master is fed. In stagnant
times, it is a long wait. Marxs work provides searing insights on how to understand a society that, at the

Marx argued
that a core contradiction built into capitalism was between its ever-increasing
socialization and enhancement of productivity , and its ongoing system of private appropriation
surface, appears to be one thing but, at its deeper productive foundations, is something else.

of profit. In other words, one of the great virtues of capitalism, in comparison to the relatively stagnant societies
that preceded it, is that it is constantly revolutionizing societys productive capacity and the social
interconnections between people within production. But ,

at a certain point, private control over

the economy comes into stark conflict with the vast productive capacities of
social labor that have developed. These means of private control, the dominant
class/property relations, become so many fetters on the further development of
society, of human potential, of even the sustainability of human society. The
fetters must therefore be burst asunder, to allow for new stages of human
development.11

A2 Disease
Capitalism prevents innovation for life-saving medicine
Palecek 9 (Mike, Iowa author, former federal prisoner for peace, and newspaper reporter,
Aug 12, [www.marxist.com/capitalism-versus-science.htm])

The pharmaceutical industry is well known for price gouging and

refusing to distribute medicines to those who cant afford it. The lack
of drugs to combat the AIDS pandemic, particularly in Africa, is enough to
prove capitalisms inability to distribute medicine to those in need.
But what role does the profit motive play in developing new drugs? The big pharmaceuticals
have an equally damning record in the research and development
side of their industry. AIDS patients can pay tens of thousands of dollars per year for the medication
they need to keep them alive. In 2003, when a new drug called Fuzeon was introduced, there was an outcry over
the cost, which would hit patients with a bill of over $20,000 per year. Roche's chairman and chief executive, Franz
Humer tried to justify the price tag, We need to make a decent rate of return on our innovations. This is a major
breakthrough therapy I can't imagine a society that doesn't want that innovation to continue. But the innovation

Drug companies are not motivated by

compassion; they are motivated by cash. To a drug company, a person with AIDS is not
a patient, but a customer. The pharmaceutical industry has a financial
incentive to make sure that these people are repeat-customers,
consequently there is very little research being done to find a cure .
that Mr. Humer speaks of is only half-hearted.

Most research done by the private sector is centered on finding new anti-retroviral drugs - drugs that patients will
have to continue taking for a lifetime. There has been a push to fund research for an AIDS vaccine and, more
recently, an effective microbicide. However, the vast majority of this funding comes from government and nonprofit groups. The pharmaceutical industry simply isnt funding the research to tackle this pandemic. And why would

No company on earth would fund research that is specifically

designed to put them out of business. Similar problems arise in other areas of medical
research. In the cancer field an extremely promising drug was discovered in early 2007. Researchers at
the University of Alberta discovered that a simple molecule DCA can
reactivate mitochondria in cancer cells, allowing them to die like
normal cells. DCA was found to be extremely effective against many
forms of cancer in the laboratory and shows promise for being an
actual cure for cancer. DCA has been used for decades to treat people with mitochondria disorders.
Its effects on the human body are therefore well known, making the development process much simpler. But
clinical trials of DCA have been slowed by funding issues. DCA is not
they?

patented or patentable. Drug companies will not have the ability to make massive profits off the production of this
drug, so they are not interested. Researchers have been forced to raise money themselves to fund their important
work. Initial trials, on a small scale, are now under way and the preliminary results are very encouraging. But it has
been two years since this breakthrough was made and serious study is only just getting underway. The U of As
faculty of medicine has been forced to beg for money from government and non-profit organizations. To date, they
have not received a single cent from a for-profit medical organization.

Super viruses wont cause extinction

(A.) Burnout.
Lafee 2009
Scott, Union-Tribune Staff Writer, Viruses versus hosts: a battle as old as time, May 3 rd,
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2009/may/03/1n3virus01745-viruses-versus-hosts-battle-old-time/?uniontrib

Deadly viruses such as Ebola and

SARS are self-limiting because they kill too effectively and quickly to
spread widely. Flu viruses do kill, but they aren't considered especially deadly. The fatality rate of the
Generally speaking, it's not in a virus's best interest to kill its host.

1918 Spanish flu pandemic was less than 2.5 percent, and most of those deaths are now attributed to secondary

The historic fatality rate for influenza pandemics is less

than 0.1 percent. Humans make imperfect hosts for the nastiest
flu viruses, Sette said. From the point of view of the virus, infecting humans can be a
dead end. We sicken and die too soon.
bacterial infections.

(B.) Genetic diversity.

Sowell 2001
Thomas, Fellow @ Hoover Institution, Jewish World Review, The Dangers of Equality, 3-5,
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell030501.asp

People have different vulnerabilities and resistances to a variety of

diseases. That is why one disease is unlikely to wipe out the human
species, even in one place. An epidemic that sweeps through an area may
leave some people dying like flies while others remain as healthy as horses.

(C.) Co-evolution.
Posner 2005
Richard, Judge, 7th Circuit court of Appeals, Catastrophe: Risk and Response, pg. 22
AIDS illustrates the further point that despite the progress made by modern medicine in the diagnosis and
treatment of diseases, developing a vaccine or cure for a new (or newly recognized or newly virulent) disease may
be difficult, protracted, even impossible. Progress has been made in treating ATDS, but neither a cure nor a vaccine
has yet been developed. And because the virus's mutation rate is high, the treatments may not work in the long
run.7 Rapidly mutating viruses are difficult to vaccinate against, which is why there is no vaccine for the common
cold and why flu vaccines provide only limited protection.8 Paradoxically, a treatment that is neither cure nor
vaccine, but merely reduces the severity of a disease, may accelerate its spread by reducing the benefit from
avoiding becoming infected. This is an important consideration with respect to AIDS, which is spread mainly by
voluntary intimate contact with infected people. Yet the fact that Homo sapiens has managed to survive every
disease to assail it in the 200,000 years or so of its existence is a source of genuine comfort, at least if the focus is
on extinction events. There have been enormously destaictive plagues, such as the Black Death, smallpox, and now

Natural
selection favors germs of limited lethality; they are fitter in an
evolutionary sense because their genes are more likely to be spread
if the germs do not kill their hosts too quickly. The AIDS virus is an example of a
AIDS, but none has come close to destroying the entire human race. There is a biological reason.

lethal virus, wholly natural, that by lying dormant yet infectious in its host for years maximizes its spread. Yet there

The likelihood of a natural

pandemic that would cause the extinction of the human race is
probably even less today than in the past (except in prehistoric times, when people
is no danger that AIDS will destroy the entire human race.

lived in small, scattered bands, which would have limited the spread of disease), despite wider human contacts that
make it more difficult to localize an infectious disease. The reason is improvements in medical science. But the
comfort is a small one. Pandemics can still impose enormous losses and resist prevention and cure: the lesson of
the AIDS pandemic. And there is always a first time.

Alt cause---Most infectious and deadly diseases originate from

animals
Britt 11 (Robert. Editor-in-chief for Live Science. 10 Deadly Diseases That Hopped Across
Species. LiveScience. February 23, 2011. http://www.livescience.com/12951-10-infectious-diseasesebola-plague-influenza.html )

Bacteria and viruses that are deadly to one type of creature can
evolve quickly to infect another. While the swine flu outbreak is the
latest example, a host of infectious and deadly diseases have
hopped from animals to humans and from humans to animals. The
cross-species infection can originate on farms or markets, where conditions foster mixing of
pathogens, giving them opportunities to swap genes and gear up to kill previously
foreign hosts (i.e. you). Or the transfer can occur from such seemingly benign activities as letting a
performance monkey on some Indonesian street corner climb on your head. Microbes of two varieties can even
gather in your gut, do some viral dancing, and evolve to morph you into a deadly, contagious host. Diseases passed

There are more than three dozen we can

catch directly through touch and more than four dozen that result
from bites.
from animals to humans are called zoonoses.

Advances in vaccine technology solve disease extinction

McCullers 2008 (Jonathan, MD, Adjunct faculty at St Jude Childrens Research Hospital, Chair
of the Department of Pediatrics at University of Tennessee, Pediatrician in Chief at Le Bonheur
Childrens Hospital, National Center for Biotechnology Information, January 2008,
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2730064/ )
The discovery of vaccines has led to the near eradication of several important diseases and has had a tremendous impact on health for a relatively low
cost. However, most vaccines in use today were developed by techniques that were pioneered more than 100 years ago and do not represent the full

The introduction of genetic engineering has fueled rapid

advances in vaccine technology and is now leading to the entry of new
products in the marketplace. In the past, options for the utilization of vaccines in the area of managed care had been
potential of the field.

quite limited because of the historically straightforward application of immunizations. The growing number and type of vaccine targets, coupled with
novel, more effective formulations, adjuvants, and routes of delivery for vaccines, will undoubtedly create new challenges. Although progress in vaccine
technology has the potential to prevent illness and reduce the economic burden of diseases in the long term, thereby improving outcomes, ongoing
problems remain in the short term. Who should and will pay for these anticipated improvements in health? How will this period of change be managed?
This article describes the present vaccine revolution and attempts to answer these questions, which are becoming increasingly important in managed

Universal
immunization against certain diseases has led to the eradication of
smallpox and has almost completely eliminated many other infectious
agents in the U.S., including those causing diphtheria, tetanus,
poliomyelitis, measles, mumps, rubella, and Haemophilus influenzae type
care.The advent of vaccines to prevent deadly childhood illnesses was one of the great success stories of the 20th century.

invasive disease.1 However, many other diseases, including the three biggest killershuman immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, tuberculosis, and
malariahave not yet been adequately targeted by a vaccine effective enough to achieve a similar outcome. In addition, some common vaccinepreventable diseases such as influenza and pertussis continue to cause significant morbidity and mortality, primarily in adults, because of the under-

Recent advances in vaccine technology

stemming from the application of genetic engineering are now providing
an opportunity to target new diseases. The previous centurys successes in reducing the primary causes of
utilization or ineffectiveness of available vaccines.2,3

mortality in childhood now include protecting against infectious agents that can result in significant morbidity. Scientific progress and these broadened
applications will no doubt result in improved health-based outcomes, but progress often comes at a significant short-term cost. Although it is true that
improved outcomes are the goal of health care technology and that preventing disease is preferable to treatment, thus reducing overall costs, confusion
persists about the best course going forward. Given the current underutilization of vaccines (even when patients have no copayments) and the expanding
use of vaccines to cover morbidity rather than mortality, managed care organizations (MCOs) are confronted with several questions, particularly in terms
of benefits, reimbursement, and formulary management. To accept the newer vaccine technology, MCOs will require not only improved mortality data but
also cost-efficacy data with long-term proven outcomes accompanied by lower medical and pharmacy expenses. For example, the use of new vaccines for
human papillomavirus (HPV) must result in fewer cases of cervical cancer as well as in reduced cost savings in related medical expenses, such as for Pap
smears and colposcopies. In this way, a manufacturer might be able to differentiate its product from a competing one. For several years, cost efficacy has
been used to evaluate other classes of injectable vaccines, and it is a good method of comparing products when no head-to-head studies have been
conducted. MCOs are beginning to analyze data involving comparisons of outlays for resources for specific outcomes, such as adverse events and

hospitalizations. Most vaccines in use today were developed by one of two classic methods. In the 19th century, Salmon and Smith pioneered the
inactivation of an organism and the injection of immunogenic components.4 The attenuation of live organisms, as first attempted by Louis Pasteur,5 was
adapted to modern vaccine technology by Enders et al. in the 1950s.6 All but three vaccines in the currently recommended immunization schedule in the
U.S.those directed against hepatitis B virus, rotavirus, and HPVare manufactured according to these techniques. In the 1970s, a pair of key discoveries
the expression of proteins in plasmids and the ability to sequence DNAushered in the era of genetic engineering.7,8 A decade later, in 1986, these
techniques were used to develop the first recombinant vaccine, the hepatitis B vaccine.9 Recombinant technology enables the target antigen to be
produced outside the context of the parent organism, such that no live, infectious agents or potentially toxic components of those agents need to be
handled. As a result, the quantity of antigen produced, the vaccines safety, and the purity of the product are improved; efficacy is increased; costs are
reduced; and potential side effects are minimized. Since the advent of the hepatitis B vaccine in 1998, one recombinant vaccine, LYMErix, has been
approved. Although LYMErix was effective against Lyme disease in adults,10 GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) withdrew this product in 2002 because of declining
sales and negative publicity.11 This outcome has dampened enthusiasm for further development of human vaccines against Lyme disease, but it has not
had an adverse impact on the prospects for creating a vaccine that uses a similar strategy of a recombinant protein against other infectious agents. Many
other recombinant vaccines are currently being evaluated in clinical trials to determine their activity against such varied targets as malaria, hookworm,
cytomegalovirus, parvovirus, and anthrax.12 The second major advance in the 1980s was in the area of adjuvantation. Adjuvants are used to improve the
presentation of an antigen to the immune system or to enhance its immunogenicity. The only adjuvants currently approved in the U.S. for the concomitant
use with vaccines are the mineral salts calcium phosphate and alum.13 Mineral salts are still used in some inactivated vaccines, but their effectiveness is
modest at best. For example, aluminum salts were included in early influenza vaccine formulations but were removed when the vaccines showed
comparable immunogenicity in the absence of these salts.14 In 1987, however, the application of conjugation as a method of adjuvantation led to the
approval of a highly effective vaccine against H. influenzae type b, a leading cause of invasive infections, including meningitis, in children.15
Polysaccharide-based vaccines in general are poorly immunogenic, particularly in small children, because of a lack of T-cell help for the B-celldependent
antibody response. Conjugating polysaccharides to a toxoid carrier converts these antigens from T-independent to T-dependent antigens, thus improving
overall immunogenicity and lengthening the period of effectiveness.16 The success of this approach has led to the development of other polysaccharide
conjugate vaccines, including Prevnar (Wyeth), a 7-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine approved in the U.S. in 2000, and Menactra (Sanofi-Pasteur), a
quadrivalent meningococcal vaccine licensed in the U.S. in 2004. A vaccine directed against the serotypes of Salmonella typhi, which is responsible for
typhoid fever, is now being studied.12 The ongoing problem of suboptimal immunogenicity of protein-based vaccines, coupled with the success of
conjugation for polysaccharide-based vaccines, is driving a search for new vaccine adjuvants. We predict that the development of virtually all vaccines

Entire viral genomes can now be

cloned into bacterial or yeast vectors, allowing manipulation of genes
prior to rescue, or regeneration of infectious organisms in culture.
These techniques enable the rapid custom design of organisms for use in
vaccines. Influenza virus vaccines can serve as an example. The surface proteins from circulating strains can be cloned into plasmids and are
licensed from this point forward will involve some form of genetic engineering.

co-expressed with a set of backbone genes responsible for high growth in eggs but attenuation in humans, allowing the production of safe, high-yield
vaccines.17 Undesirable traits, such as the multibasic cleavage site found in the main attachment protein of highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses, can
be edited out at the DNA level before rescue of the virus, further enhancing safety.18 The use of plasmid-based methods also has the potential to hasten
production of reassortant vaccines (i.e., vaccines from viruses created by combining genes from more than one organism or strain). The current process
for making influenza vaccine relies on selecting appropriate vaccine strains from among many candidates generated by chance, whereas molecular
methods allow complete control over the output, eliminating several steps in the generation of seed stocks.17 A variety of virus types, engineered by
these methods to be safe in humans, are being used to express immunogenic foreign proteins outside of the context of the virulent parent organism. As an
example, adenoviruses in which critical virulence genes are deleted have been used to express proteins from HIV19 and are being utilized in clinical trials
for many other pathogens such as the Ebola virus and malaria.12 It may be possible to create vaccine cocktails directed against several different
pathogens by inserting multiple proteins into a single vector or by mixing several vaccines made with the same viral vector but expressing different
proteins.20 It is also possible to deliver the immunogenic proteins without using a replication-competent, live virus. Virus-like particles (VLPs) are selfassembling constructs that express a viral antigen, but they do not contain the necessary material to replicate. This technology was used to develop
Gardasil, Mercks vaccine to protect against HPV, approved in 2006.21 In conjunction with new technology for vaccines, adjuvants are also needed. New
compounds may enhance immunogenicity quantitatively, by increasing the levels of protective immune responses, and qualitatively, by eliciting
responses from different arms of the immune system or by broadening the scope of covered immunogens. This advance has the potential to improve
overall outcomes and achieve cost-savings by allowing lower doses to be used and, possibly, by eliminating or postponing the need for booster injections.
Although no new adjuvants have been approved in the U.S. since the original licensing of the mineral salts, several compounds appear close to being
approved. The squalene-containing, oil-in-water emulsion adjuvant MF59 from Novartis has been approved in Europe for use in influenza vaccines targeted
to the elderly population.22 In a clinical trial in humans, another oil-in-water emulsion from GSK enhanced the immunogenicity of a potential pandemic
influenza vaccine. This vaccine enabled the dose to be reduced, and it induced responses that were cross-reactive in several clades (distinct virus
groupings).23Clinical trials of GSKs VLP-based HPV vaccine Cervarix have shown similar cross-protective responses to subtypes not included in the
vaccine, which might be attributable to the novel adjuvant ASO4.21,24,25 The ability of certain adjuvants to enhance the levels of memory B cells and
antibodies, in some cases to numbers much higher than those seen with natural infection,26 has implications for the longevity of the response as well. In
one study comparing ASO4 plus alum with alum alone against HPV, significantly higher antibody titers were observed when ASO4 was included.26 This
advantage was maintained during long-term follow-up. These dual benefitsextending the time that antibody levels are maintained above the threshold
required for neutralization of the organism and enhancing the capacity of the patient to respond to a booster immunizationare important for future
planning and estimating costs. However, we need to better define the correlates of immunity for specific vaccines. The threshold necessary for
neutralization differs among various organisms; knowing this parameter and other related measures is desirable and sometimes necessary. Advances in
vaccine technology necessitate concomitant advances in vaccine immunology. Considering the rising costs of research and development, another
desirable feature of adjuvants is their ability to be paired with multiple antigens so that they can be included in different vaccines. For example, ASO4 has
been studied in conjunction with both hepatitis B and HPV vaccines.26 This capability can reduce the vaccines developmental costs and the time to
market. With each new adjuvant and each new combination of adjuvant and vaccine, the advantages of increased immunogenicity, longevity, and perhaps
broadened coverage of strains must be balanced with the potential for increased reactogenicity. In this context, reactogenicity refers to the generally
undesirable effects of the vaccine, typically mediated by the immune response to the vaccine rather than by the products direct toxicological effects.
Redness or swelling at an injection site are two common examples. Despite this rapid technical progress, vaccines were not on the radar screen for
managed care before some of the recent product launches. Previously, the extent of managed cares involvement was limited to assisting in acquiring
supplies for some integrated systems, working with quality on Health Plan Employer Data and Information Set (HEDIS) measures, and participating in
clinics and health fairs. However, the advent of newer vaccines that target diseases causing morbidity rather than mortality in the U.S. (e.g., rotavirus or
herpes zoster) is encouraging MCOs to perform more clinical and economic analyses in order to ensure that their investments in vaccination are being
maximized. The entry of the live attenuated influenza vaccine FluMist (MedImmune) into the market in 2004 and the anticipated introduction of a second
HPV vaccine (Cervarix, GSK) present new challenges. These products target essentially the same disease processes as those targeted by vaccines already
approved, but they differ in their approach and, potentially, in their clinical effectiveness. The availability of similar products is relatively new in the world
of vaccines, and MCOs will have to evaluate them closely in terms of their efficacy, safety, and economic impact. For example, the question confronting
MCOs, in view of the HPV vaccine (Gardasil), as well as ASO4, and MF59, is whether the potential of lower reactogenicity from an established adjuvant is
more important than the potential for a stronger and possibly more durable immunogenic response. Ultimately, we might simply derive the answer if we
know which product provides better protection against the HPV types most commonly linked to cervical cancer in a cost-effective manner. These types of
analyses place a greater value on cost-effectiveness, clinical, and budget-impact data for the newer vaccinesdata that have been lacking in the past.
Although short-term benefits offer immediate returns to MCOs, it would be irresponsible for these health plans to focus exclusively on these benefits and
deny coverage of vaccines in an effort to save money. Such restrictions place the broader population at risk, and they may have the unintended
consequence of damaging a companys reputation. Further, a focus on short-term benefits puts health plans at a disadvantage in terms of competing for

participants during enrollment; most plans offer broad vaccine coverage, although there might be restrictions based on product labels, guidelines, or age
limitations. Another way to increase the value of future vaccines would be to quantify both the possible short-term and long-term cost offsets attributable
to the availability of the specific product. Again, because it is crucial that MCOs not waste money, the emphasis should be on outcomes and costeffectiveness. In concert with the advances in vaccine engineering and adjuvantation, novel routes of delivery are also being investigated. Intradermal
delivery directly to an environment rich in antigen-presenting cells (APCs) is considered to be a dose-sparing measure for several vaccines, including those
used for HIV and influenza.27 Needle-free variants of this route, such as trans-dermal patches and electroporation, are also being tested for conditions as
diverse as influenza, travelers diarrhea, and melanoma.12,28,29 Mucosal delivery, which has the advantage of not requiring a needle, is already being
used for several vaccines. The live, attenuated influenza vaccine FluMist is given as a nasal spray, and the rotavirus vaccine, licensed in the U.S in 2006, is
delivered orally.30,31 The mucosal route of delivery may contribute to the heterovariant cross-protection seen with both of these vaccines by inducing
broader immunity, including mucosal immunoglobulin A. Mucosal delivery is also being studied for several other potential vaccines directed against
diseases such as HIV infection and tuberculosis.12 In the past, MCOs tended not to pay a premium for convenience alone. If an alternative (needle-free)
route of delivery is associated with improved outcomes, such a premium might be worth the additional investment. The demand for vaccines by
employers and physicians is also an important consideration. Individual health plan members and small employers might be less willing to cover the cost
of new vaccines because of the possibly significant impact on premiums. Small employers with a pool of healthy young employees might not be interested
in covering vaccines for disease states with poorly documented short-term benefits. With the arrival of many new biologic agents and vaccines, as well as
the future role of genomics, the traditional model of medical coverage may need to evolve. The questions of how these innovations will be funded and who
will fund them may become more fluid. In the past, the question of whether different vaccines created an equivalent reduction in morbidity and mortality
for the same cost was not asked; however, this question needs to be addressed. Many payment and reimbursement structuresranging from universal
coverage, effective from the first dollar, to differing levels of reimbursement, such as a standard coverage (100%) versus a nonstandard benefit (a 20%
plan member copayment)will be analyzed and reviewed by those responsible for funding these advances. Again, documented clinical and financial
outcomes and targeted disease states will be playing a significant role in determining how health plans approach the placement of vaccine products. The
role of activism and the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) guidelines will remain important variables. This is because many health
plans routinely follow the ACIPs recommendations; if this reviewing body begins to cover certain vaccines or populations, many plans will probably follow
those guidelines. The success of vaccines against childhood diseases has created enthusiasm for researching additional targets. Mercks Gardasil was the
first vaccine licensed with a primary indication to prevent cervical cancer. A second HPV vaccine, Cervarix is being considered for licensure in the U.S.
Other preventive cancer vaccines are also in development, many of which are in clinical trials,12 and therapeutic vaccines designed to treat or ameliorate
different types of cancer after it has occurred are also being pursued. Therapeutic vaccines for chronic infectious diseases such as hepatitis B, HIV, and
cytomegalovirus are being studied, as are vaccines designed to halt or reverse the progression of Alzheimers disease.12,32 Even with these new goals
and with the trend of therapeutic vaccines moving toward targeting morbidity rather than mortality, we must still ask: How should efficacy be analyzed?
Although 100% efficacy is rarely seen, products with the greatest clinical impact on the broadest population have been favored. With some of the newer
agents, this criterion might not remain as important. For instance, if a vaccine works in a portion of the population and that segment can be identified, an
MCO might direct the products use to ensure its appropriateness for that segment. If a screening tool or a laboratory value can narrow the pool of patients
to those who are most likely to benefit from a vaccine, an MCO might use controls (e.g., prior authorizations) to ensure that the most appropriate patients
are being targeted with that tool or lab value, thereby resulting in improved success and in protection of the companys financial investment. As more
costly vaccines enter the market, the financial implications for health plans and physicians will become more pronounced. The debate over who will pay
and how much will be paid will only intensify. Vaccines remain the single best investment in health care,33 but the costs associated with the increasing
options are beginning to strain both public and private systems. Most health plans have liberal coverage and reimbursement policies for vaccines, and this
approach is considered to offer a good return on investment. As we mentioned earlier, this traditional approach may be re-examined in some areas, with
many alternative options to be explored. With most of these alternatives, one goal remains: making sure that the best vaccines reach the right patients
with few impediments. For physicians, the introduction of newer vaccines has led to a greater number of nontraditional vaccinators, such as pharmacies
and businesses traditionally outside the health care system that are now becoming acquainted with, and challenged by, the financial implications.
Expectations about reimbursement levels and profitability may need to be addressed to ensure that all parties involvedhealth plans, physicians,
employers, and patientsfeel their contribution is significant. In 2007, the immunization schedule for children was already crowded; 15 different vaccines
were recommended for children from birth to six years of age, and 14 were recommended for older children, seven to 18 years of age. Many of these
vaccines are administered multiple times, and adults may need additional boosters. The development and approval of new vaccines against infectious
diseases, as well as other potential uses for them, are likely to exacerbate this problem. A desire to simplify the regimen is fueling a trend toward
combination vaccines. Although many combined vaccines have been used historically (e.g., diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus), new combinations are
being approved for children (e.g., pentavalent vaccines such as GSKs Pediarix [diphtheria, acellular pertussis, tetanus, hepatitis B, and inactivated polio
vaccine]) and for adults (e.g., GSKs Twinrix for hepatitis A and B). The main challenge will be to balance immunogenicity in the newer formulations while
maintaining their benefits of easier administration and lower costs. In this regard, adherence is likely to be a key issue in the future. If it can be shown that
a product improves compliance and clinical outcomes while reducing costs, that vaccine may benefit from preferential positioning by health plans. For
instance, Happe et al., using data from SelectHealth, retrospectively compared children receiving the HEDIS Combination 2 vaccine series with those
receiving each vaccine series individually.34 By two years of age, children in the combination cohort were more likely to have been fully vaccinated, and
vaccinated within the recommended age ranges, than children receiving each series individually (86.9% vs. 74.1%, P < 0.001; 45.2% vs. 37.5%, P = 0.001
respectively). Additional studies with data indicating improved compliance rates and outcomes support the value of this technological advancement.
Vaccines exemplify the premise behind managed care to promote wellness and prevent disease while also avoiding unnecessary treatment-related costs.
The benefits of childhood vaccines in reducing mortality alone are undeniable.1 However, the costbenefit relationship for the new generation of vaccines
that can target reductions in morbidity or prevent rare and costly illnesses such as cancer is less clear. The promise of a brighter future is motivation up to
a point; eventually, however, as the health care dollar is stretched, proven results, both clinical and financial, will be required. In health care, there is an
increasing awareness of the need to look at the bigger picture and to have less siloing between pharmacy and medical divisions. Most organizations
that practice evidence-based medicine acknowledge that both pharmacy and medical dollars often need to be spent in order to realize improved overall
outcomes and reduced long-term expenses. One obstacle that affects this investment is the phenomenon of continuous enrollment in areas of the
community with high competition for plan enrollees. If one plan invests liberally in vaccine benefits but a competitor does not, is the plan making the
investment placed at a disadvantage in terms of premiums? Community-wide standards, agreed upon by health plans, employers, and physicians, would
need to address this matter and ensure that all parties act in concert through their investments in the short-term and long-term health of the community.

Rapid advances in our understanding of the immune system and our

desire to engineer both preventive and therapeutic vaccines for a wide
spectrum of diseases are fueling changes in medicine and in the managed
care industry. There will be a growing emphasis on providing evidence-based medicine demonstrating tangible, long-term clinical benefits
and cost effectiveness. There will always be a need to balance cost, efficacy, and choice, and our advancements in science will force all parties to alter
their approaches to treatment.

A2 Environment
The efficiency caused by capitalism is increasing the demand,
this causes more emissions which destroys the environmentempirically proven
Foster et al 10 (John Bellamy, is editor of Monthly Review and professor of sociology, University of Oregon,
Brett Clark, assistant professor of sociology, North Carolina State University, Richard York, co-editor of Organization
& Environment and associate professor of sociology, University of Oregon, Monthly Review, Capitalism and the
Curse of Energy Efficiency: The Return of the Jevons Paradox, http://monthlyreview.org/2010/11/01/capitalism-andthe-curse-of-energy-efficiency, July 2, 2012) ALK

optimists have tried to argue that the rebound effect is small, and
therefore environmental problems can be solved largely by technological
innovation alone, with the efficiency gains translating into lower
throughput of energy and materials (dematerialization). Empirical evidence of a
substantial rebound effect is, however, strong. For example, technological
advancements in motor vehicles, which have increased the average m iles p er
Technological

g allon of vehicles by 30 percent in the U nited S tates since 1980, have not
reduced the overall energy used by motor vehicles. Fuel consumption per
vehicle stayed constant while the efficiency gains led to the augmentation ,
not only of the numbers of cars and trucks on the roads (and the miles driven), but also their size and
performance (acceleration rate, cruising speed, etc.)so that SUVs and minivans now dot U.S. highways. At the

even though the U nited S tates has

managed to double its energy efficiency since 1975, its energy consumption
has risen dramatically. Juliet Schor notes that over the last thirty-five years: energy expended
per dollar of GDP has been cut in half. But rather than falling, energy demand has
increased, by roughly 40 percent. Moreover, demand is rising fastest in those sectors that have had the
biggest efficiency gainstransport and residential energy use. Refrigerator efficiency improved
by 10 percent, but the number of refrigerators in use rose by 20 percent.
In aviation, fuel consumption per mile fell by more than 40 percent, but
total fuel use grew by 150 percent because passenger miles rose. Vehicles are a
similar story. And with soaring demand, weve had soaring emissions . Carbon
dioxide from these two sectors has risen 40 percent, twice the rate of the larger economy. Economists and
environmentalists who try to measure the direct effects of efficiency on
the lowering of price and the immediate rebound effect generally tend to
see the rebound effect as relatively small, in the range of 10 to 30 percent in high-energy
consumption areas such as home heating and cooling and cars. But once the indirect effects, apparent
at the macro level, are incorporated, the Jevons Paradox remains extremely significant. It is here
macro level, the Jevons Paradox can be seen in the fact that,

at the macro level that scale effects come to bear: improvements in energy efficiency can lower the effective cost

Ecological
economists Mario Giampietro and Kozo Mayumi argue that the Jevons Paradox can only
be understood in a macro-evolutionary model, where improvements in
efficiency result in changes in the matrices of the economy, such that the
overall effect is to increase scale and tempo of the system as a whole . Most
of various products, propelling the overall economy and expanding overall energy use.31

analyses of the Jevons Paradox remain abstract, based on isolated technological effects, and removed from the

They fail to examine, as Jevons himself did, the character of industrialization.

a realistic understanding of the
accumulation-driven character of capitalist development. An economic
historical process.

Moreover, they are still further removed from

system devoted to profits, accumulation, and economic expansion without

end will tend to use any efficiency gains or cost reductions to expand the
overall scale of production. Technological innovation will therefore be
heavily geared to these same expansive ends. It is no mere coincidence
that each of the epoch-making innovations (namely, the steam engine, the railroad, and the
automobile) that dominated the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries were
characterized by their importance in driving capital accumulation and the
positive feedback they generated with respect to economic growth as a
whole so that the scale effects on the economy arising from their development necessarily overshot
improvements in technological efficiency.33 Conservation in the aggregate is impossible for capitalism, however
much the output/input ratio may be increased in the engineering of a given product. This is because all savings
tend to spur further capital formation (provided that investment outlets are available). This is especially the case
where core industrial resourceswhat Jevons called central materials or staple productsare concerned. The
Fallacy of Dematerialization The Jevons Paradox is the product of a capitalist economic system that is unable to
conserve on a macro scale, geared, as it is, to maximizing the throughput of energy and materials from resource
tap to final waste sink. Energy savings in such a system tend to be used as a means for further development of the
economic order, generating what Alfred Lotka called the maximum energy flux, rather than minimum energy
production.34 The de-emphasis on absolute (as opposed to relative) energy conservation is built into the nature and
logic of capitalism as a system unreservedly devoted to the gods of production and profit. As Marx put it:

Seen in the context of a capitalist

society, the Jevons Paradox therefore demonstrates the fallacy of current notions
that the environmental problems facing society can be solved by purely
technological means. Mainstream environmental economists often refer to dematerialization, or the
Accumulate, accumulate! That is Moses and the prophets!35

decoupling of economic growth, from consumption of greater energy and resources. Growth in energy efficiency is
often taken as a concrete indication that the environmental problem is being solved. Yet savings in materials and
energy, in the context of a given process of production, as we have seen, are nothing new; they are part of the
everyday history of capitalist development.36 Each new steam engine, as Jevons emphasized, was more efficient
than the one before. Raw materials-savings processes, environmental sociologist Stephen Bunker noted, are
older than the Industrial Revolution, and they have been dynamic throughout the history of capitalism. Any notion
that reduction in material throughput, per unit of national income, is a new phenomenon is therefore profoundly
ahistorical.37 What is neglected, then, in simplistic notions that increased energy efficiency normally leads to
increased energy savings overall, is the reality of the Jevons Paradox relationshipthrough which energy savings
are used to promote new capital formation and the proliferation of commodities, demanding ever greater resources.
Rather than an anomaly, the rule that efficiency increases energy and material use is integral to the regime of
capital itself.38 As stated in The Weight of Nations, an important empirical study of material outflows in recent
decades in five industrial nations (Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, the United States, and Japan): Efficiency
gains brought by technology and new management practices have been offset by [increases in] the scale of
economic growth.39 The result is the production of mountains upon mountains of commodities, cheapening unit
costs and leading to greater squandering of material resources. Under monopoly capitalism, moreover, such
commodities increasingly take the form of artificial use values, promoted by a vast marketing system and designed
to instill ever more demand for commodities and the exchange values they represent as a substitute for the

Unnecessary, wasteful goods are produced by

useless toil to enhance purely economic values at the expense of the
environment. Any slowdown in this process of ecological destruction, under the present system, spells
fulfillment of genuine human needs.

economic disaster. In Jevonss eyes, the momentous choice raised by a continuation of business as usual was
simply between brief but true [national] greatness and longer continued mediocrity. He opted for the former the
maximum energy flux. A century and a half later, in our much bigger, more globalbut no less expansive

it is no longer simply national supremacy that is at stake, but the

fate of the planet itself. To be sure, there are those who maintain that we should live high now and let
the future take care of itself. To choose this course, though, is to court planetary disaster. The only real
answer for humanity (including future generations) and the earth as a whole is to alter the
social relations of production, to create a system in which efficiency is no longer a
cursea higher system in which equality, human development, community, and sustainability are the explicit
economy,

goals.

A2 Framework
Government controls education and people through
surveillance
Giroux 6 (Henry, Professor at Boston University, Miami University, and Penn State
University and a scholar of critical pedagogy theory, America on the Edge: Henry
Giroux on Politics, Culture, and Education, April 1, https://books.google.com/books?
hl=en&lr=&id=rV7HAAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=henry+giroux+
%22surveillance
%22&ots=7GAuAhT7Bh&sig=Ca47k8ljKf3SDxhvHSxRW8lIvN8#v=onepage&q&f=fal
se)

As a politics of fear undermines any feasible attempt to reclaim

democratic values
of war and

conducive to producing and legitimating shared civic responsibilities

the militarization of public life both legitimate the rise of

, the ideology

the military-industrial-

prison-educational-entertainment complex

and

put into play forms of

masculinity in which aggression, violence, and a hyped-up bravado

set the tone for what it means to be a "real" man in America . Within this
climate of degraded mas-culinity, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger does not appear troubled using the term "girlie men" to
disparage his allegedly liberal counterparts in California who called attention to the consequences of Bush's economic doctrine.

Nor is the military unset-tled about producing video games, such as

America's Army, which link masculinity to killing and hunting
"foreign" enemies , and are distributed primarily as recruiting tools to get young men and women to join in the
"adventure" taking place in Iraq and Afghanistan.54

The influence of militaristic values,

social relations, and ideology now permeates American culture . For

example, major universities aggressively court the military establishment for Defense Department grants and, in doing so, become
less open to either academic subjects or programs that encourage rigorous debate, dialogue, and critical thinking. In fact, as higher
education is pressured by both the Bush administration and its jingoistic supporters to serve the needs of the military-industrial
complex, universities increasingly deepen their connections to the national security state in ways that are boldly celebrated. For
example, Penn State University, the University of Pennsylvania, Carnegie Mellon University, and a number of other universities have
recently created the National Security Higher Education Advisory Board charged with creating a link between major research
universities and the FBI. The president of Penn State, Graham Spanier, has been appointed head of the board and claims, in a
statement pregnant with irony, that the purpose of the board is "to foster outreach and to promote understanding between higher
education and the nation's national security, law enforcement and intelligence agencies.... It will also assist in the development of
research, degree programs, course work, internships, opportunities for graduates and consulting opportunities for faculty related to
national security."55 This reads like a page out of George Orwell's novel, 1984, and appears to counter every decent and democratic
value that defines higher education as a democratic public sphere. Unfortunately, public schools are faring no better.

Public

schools not only have more military recruiters; they also have more
military personnel teaching in the classrooms. In addition, schools
now adopt the logic of "tough love" by implementing zero tolerance
policies that effectively model urban public schools after prisons,
just as students' rights increasingly diminish under the onslaught of
a military-style discipline . Students in many schools, especially those in poor urban areas, are routinely
searched, frisked, subjected to involuntary drug tests, maced, and carted off to jail. The not-so-hidden curriculum here is that kids
can't be trusted; their actions need to be regulated preemptively; and their rights are not worth protecting. But children and schools
are not the only victims of a growing militarization of American society.

The civil rights of people of

color and immigrants, especially Arabs and Muslims, are being

violated, often resulting in either imprison-ment, or deportment, or
government harassment. Similarly, black and brown youth and
adults are being incarcerated at record levels as prison
construction outstrips the construction of schools, hospitals, and
other life-preserving institutions.
average public school teacher.

In California, beginning correctional officers earn more than the

All of this is happening in the name of antiterrorism

laws that are increasingly being used by the Bush administration to

justify abusive military cam-paigns abroad and to stifle dissent at
home . Measures to combat terrorism are now used by the
government to support an arms budget that is larger than that of
all the other major industrialized countries combined . As the state increasingly
functions largely in its capacity to expand the forces of domestic militarization, surveillance, and control, it appears that the Bush
administration is waging a war against democracy itself.

Militarism has become a new public

pedagogy , and one of its consequences is a growing authoritarianism that encourages profit-hungry monopolies, the
ideology of faith-based certainty, and the undermining of any
vestige of critical education, dissent, and dialogue . Education is either severely
narrowed and trivialized in the media as a form of entertainment or converted into training and character reform in the schools.
Within higher educa-tion, democracy appears as an excess, if not a pathology, as right-wing ideologues and corporate wannabe
administrators increasingly police what faculty say, teach, and do in their courses on the grounds that their teaching and research is
either insufficiently patriotic or politically biased. And it is going to get worse. If George W. Bush's first term appeared as an
aberration due to "an electoral quirk, the fruit of a Florida fiasco, the arcane algebra of the U.S. electoral system, and a split decision
of the supreme court,"56 his reelection in 2004 appears as a dangerous turn-ing point in American history. Not only did he receive
slightly more than 50 percent of the popular vote, but he also garnered a mandate for a mode of leadership and set of domestic and
foreign policies that bring the United States close to the edge of a totalitarian regime. George W. Bush's reelection is tantamount to
a revolution aimed at rolling back most of the democratic gains of the last century. Paul Krugman is right in arguing that "Bush isn't
a conservative. He's a radicalthe leader of a coalition that deeply dislikes America as it is. Part of that coalition wants to tear down
the legacy of Franklin Roosevelt, eviscerating Social Security and, eventually, Medicare. Another part wants to break down the
barriers between church and state."57 Under Bush's first term as president, growing appeals to fear and insecurity coupled with a
growing militarism, authoritarianism, and culture of cynicism became the most powerful values and forces shaping public life.
Hence, it is not surprising that Karl Rove, Bush's chief strategist, most admires the Gilded Age under the presidency of William
McKinley (1896-1901), a period when robber barons and strikebreakers ruled, and the government and economy were controlled by
a cabal that was rich, powerful, and ruthless. Given that Bush's second campaign was run by "dividing the country along (the) fault
lines of fear, intolerance, ignorance and religious rule,"" the future dots not look bright for democracy. Critical race theorist

David Theo Goldberg got it right in arguing that the message of the
2004 election was: don't get ill, lose your job, or retire; don't
breathe, swim in the ocean, travel, or think critical thoughts; invest
your life-savings in the stock market even though you will likely
lose it all; go to community college for two years of technical
training rather than to four-year universities where your mind will
be turned to liberal mush; support tax cuts for the wealthy, and
military service for the poor. If you step out of line, remember the
Patriot Act is there to police you at home and a loaded B52 bomber
hovers overhead abroad."

In opposition to this deeply reactionary revolution being waged by political

extrem-ists, Christian fundamentalists, and free-market evangelicals, cultural workersincluding composition theorists, critical

educators, artists, and others need to try to connect to the energies of a deep democratic tradition extending from Horace Mann to
W. E. B. Du Bois to John Dewey. Such a critical tradition is both moving and theoretically useful because it not only examines the long
legacy of the struggle for democracy in the schools, but also argues for struggling over public and higher education as one of the
few public spaces left where democracy can actually be taught, experienced, and defended. Educators, students, and others need to
make clear that politics as it is being practiced in Washington, D.C. is no longer about democracy, the public good, public
participation, or critical citizenship. What needs to be recognized is that under the auspices of a diverse group of extremists,
including political, religious, and market fundamentalists, political and educational culture is being transformed by the discourses of
privatization, consumerism, and market-based choice, the spectacle of celebrity, and the revived ethics of social Darwinism.
Abstracted from the ideal of public commitment,

the new authoritarianism represents a

political and economic practice and form of militarism that loosen

the connections among substantive democracy, critical agency, and
critical education. In response to the rising tide of authoritarianism,
educators must make a case for linking learning to social change,
pluralizing and critically engaging the diverse sites where public
pedagogy takes place, and must make clear that every sphere of
social life is open to political contestation and comprises a crucial
site of political, social, and cultural struggle in the attempt to forge
the knowledge, identifications, affective investments, and social
relations that constitute a political subject and social agent capable
of energizing and spreading the basis of a global democracy.
Educators need to develop a new discourse

whose aim is to foster a democratic politics and

pedagogy that embody the legacy and principles of social justice, equality, freedom, and rights associated with the democratic
concerns of history, space, plurality, power, discourse, identities, morality, and the future.

Any move to methodologically bracket out our discussion

cannot be viewed as value neutral, it is the worst form of
conservatism favoring the established order at the expense of
the oppressed.
Meszaros 89 (Istvan, Professor at the University of Sussex, The Power of
Ideology, p 232-234) //AMM
Nowhere is the myth of ideological neutrality the self-proclaimed Wertfreiheit or value neutrality of so-called

we are often presented

with the claim that the adoption of the advocated methodological
framework would automatically exempt one from all controversy
about values, since they are adequate method itself, thereby saving
one from unnecessary complications and securing the desired objectivity and
uncontestable outcome. Claims and procedures of this kind are, of course, extremely
problematical. For they circularly assume that their enthusiasm for the
virtues of methodological neutrality is bound to yield value
neutral solutions with regard to highly contested issues , without first
rigorous social science stronger than in the field of methodology. Indeed,

examining the all-important question as to the conditions of possibility or otherwise of the postulated systematic

The unchallengeable validity of the

recommended procedure is supposed to be self-evident on account
of its purely methodological character. In reality, of course, this approach
neutrality at the plans of methodology itself.

to methodology is heavily loaded with a conservative ideological

substance. Since, however, the plane of methodology (and meta-theory) is said
to be in principle separated from that of the substantive issues, the
methodological circle can be conveniently closed . Whereupon the mere insistence
on the purely methodological character of the criteria laid down is supposed to establish the claim according to
which the approach in question is neutral because everybody can adopt it as the common frame of reference of
rational discourse. Yet, curiously enough, the proposed methodological tenets are so defined that vast areas of

The
effect of circumscribing in this way the scope of the one and only
admissible approach is that it automatically disqualifies in the name
of methodology itself, all those who do not fit into the stipulated
framework of discourse. As a result, the propounders of the right method are spared the
vital social concern are a priori excluded from their rational discourse metaphysical, ideological, etc.

difficulties that go with acknowledging the real divisions and incompatibilities as they necessarily arise from the
contending social interests at the roots of alternative approaches and the rival sets of values associated with them.

far from
offering an adequate scope for critical enquiry the advocated
general adoption of the allegedly neutral methodological framework
is equivalent, in fact, to consenting not even to raise the issues that
really matter. Instead, the stipulated common methodological procedure succeeds in transforming the
This is where we can see more clearly the social orientation implicit in the whole procedure. For

enterprise of rational discourse into the dubious practice of producing methodology for the sake of methodology: a
tendency more pronounced in the twentieth century than ever before. This practice consists in sharpening the
recommended methodological knife until nothing but the bare handle is left, at which point the new knife is adopted
for the same purpose. For the ideal methodological knife is not meant for cutting, only for sharpening, thereby
interposing itself between the critical intent and the real objects of criticism which it can obliterate for as long as
the pseudo-critical activity of knife-sharpening for tits own sake continues to be pursued. And that happens to be
precisely its inherent ideological purpose. Naturally, to speak of a common methodological framework in which
one can resolve the problems of a society torn by irreconcilable social interests and pursuing antagonistic

notwithstanding all talk about ideal

communication communities. But to define the methodological tenets of all rational discourse
by way of transubstantiating into ideal types (or by putting into methodological
brackets) the discussion of contending social values reveals the
ideological colour as well as the extreme fallaciousness of the
claimed rationality. For such treatment of the major areas of conflict, under a great variety
confrontations

is

delusory,

at

best,

of forms from the Viennese version of logical positivism to Wittgensteins famous ladder that must be thrown
away at the point of confronting the question of values, and from the advocacy of the Popperian principle of little

inevitably always favours the established

order. And it does so by declaring the fundamental structural parameters
of the given society of of bounds to the potential contestants , in the
by little in the emotivist theory of value

authority of the ideally common methodology. However, even on a cursory inspection of the issues at stake it out

to consent not to question the fundamental structural

framework of the established order is radically different according
to whether one does so as the beneficiary of the order or from the
standpoint of those who find themselves at the receiving end,
exploited and oppressed by the overall determinations (and not just by some
limited and more or less easily corrigible detail) of that order. Consequently, to establish the common
to be fairly obvious that

identity of the two, opposed sides of a structurally safeguarded hierarchical order by means of the reduction of
the people belong to the contending social forces into fictitious rational interlocutors, extracted from their divided
real world and transplanted into a beneficially shared universe of ideal discourse would be nothing sort of
methodological miracle. Contrary to the wishful thinking hypostatized a s a timeless and socially unspecified

the elementary condition of a truly rational discourse

would be to acknowledge the legitimacy of contesting the given
order of society in substantive terms . This would imply the articulation of
the relevant problems not on the plane of self-referential articulation of the relevant problems not on
the plane of self-referential theory and methodology, but as inherently practical issues
whose conditions of solution point towards the necessity of radical
structural changes. In other words, it would require the explicit rejection of
all fiction of methodological and meta-theoretical neutrality. But, of course,
rational community,

this would be far too much to expect precisely because the society in which we live is a deeply divided society. This
is why through the dichotomies of fact and value, theory and practice, formal and substantive rationality, etc.
The conflict-transcending methodological miracle is constantly stipulated as the necessary regulative framework of
the ruling ideology. What makes this approach particularly difficult to challenge is that its value-commitments are
mediated by methodological precepts to such a degree that it is virtually impossible to bring them into the focus of
discussion without openly contesting the framework as a whole. For the conservative sets of values at the roots of
such orientation remain several steps removed from the ostensible subject of dispute as defined in

who would suspect of

ideological bias the impeccable methodologically sanctioned
credentials of procedural rules, models and paradigms? Once,
though, such rules and paradigms are adopted as the common frame of
reference of what may or may not be allowed to considered the
legitimate subject of debate, everything that enters into the
accepted parameters is necessarily constrained not only by the
scope of the overall framework, but simultaneously also by the
inexplicit ideological assumptions upon the basis of which the
methodological principles themselves were in the first place
constitution. This why the allegedly non-ideological ideologies which so
successfully conceal and exercise their apologetic function in the guise of
neutral methodology are doubly mystifying. Twentieth-century currents of thought are dominated by
logico/methodological, formal/structural, and semantic/analytical terms. And

approaches that lend to articulate the social interests and values of the ruling order through complicated at times
completely bewildering mediations, on the methodological plane. Thus, more than ever before, the task of
ideological demystification is inseparable from the investigation of the complex dialectical relationship between
methods and values which no social theory or philosophy can escape.

The War on Terror is a Tool Used by Conservative Ideologues to

Dominate Higher Education and Force an Agenda of
Colonialism Onto Liberal Educators
Giroux 6, Henry. Global TV Network Chair Professorship at McMaster University in the English and Cultural Studies Department.
Academic Freedom Under Fire: The Case for Critical Pedagogy Page 7-8

The events of September 11, 2001, strengthened many of the

conservative forces already in place in American society and provided a new dynamism for the right-wing attack machine
and pedagogical infrastructure. Individuals and groups who opposed Bush's foreign
and domestic policies were put on the defensivesome overtly harassedas
right-wing pundits, groups, and foundations repeatedly labeled them as traitors
and unAmerican. In some cases, conservative accusations that seemed
disturbing, if not disturbed, before the events of 9/11 now appeared
perfectly acceptable, especially to the dominant media, when

aligned with a culture of fear and insecurity (im)mobilized by the call for
patriotism and national security. For instance, prior to September 11, there was a growing concern that the
university was too removed from public life, too secular in its concerns, and too markedly embrace in its embrace of cosmopolitan modernity.
After the events of 9/11, the nature of the

conservative acrimony was marked by a new

language but the goal was largely the same: to remove from the
university all vestiges of dissent and to reconstruct it as an
increasingly privatized sphere for reproducing the interests of the
corporations and the national security statewhile assuming a
front-line position in the war against terror. In short, criticisms of Israeli government policy were
labeled as anti-Semitic; universities were castigated as hot-beds of left-wing
radicalism; conservative students alleged that they were being humiliated and discriminated against in college and university
classrooms all across the country; Ward Churchill became the poster boy standing in for all faculty left of BiU O'Reilly; McCarthylike black lists were posted on the Internet by right-wing groups such as
Campus Watch, ACTA, Target of Opportunity (see www.targetofopportunity.com/enemy_targets.htm), and DiscovertheNetworks.org

attempting to both out and politically shame allegedly radical

professors who were giving aid and comfort to the enemy because of their refusal to provide unqualified support of the Bush
administration. Traditional right-wing complaints were now coded as part of
the discourse calling for academic freedom, balance, and individual
rights. Professors were no longer elitist; they were now accused of being both too liberal and un-American. Universities
were accused of not giving equal weight to conservative concerns
such as the teaching of a consensus-based view of American history, the celebration of Western
civilization, and a notion of science mediated less through the
presentation of argument, logic, and evidence than through an
appeal to a religious and ideological grid of conservative moral
values. Academic balance was now invoked as a way to promote a form of affirmative action for hiring conservative faculty, while
academic freedom was redefined through the prism of student rights and as a legitimating referent for dismantling professional academic
standards and imposing outside political oversight of the classroom. But if the strategy and project of conservative ideologues became more bold
and persistent after 9/11, it

is also fair to say that right-wing efforts and demands to

reform higher education have within the last few years taken a
dangerous turn that far exceeds the threat posed by the previous
"cultural wars."

Modern Conservative Think Tanks Serve as a Santas

Workshop of Anti-Liberal Propaganda Whose Sole Purpose is
the Destruction of Critical Thought and the Destruction of
Basic Democratic Tenants
Giroux 6, Henry. Global TV Network Chair Professorship at McMaster University in the English and Cultural Studies Department.
Academic Freedom Under Fire: The Case for Critical Pedagogy Page 6-7

The most powerful members of this group included Joseph Coors in Denver, Richard Mellon
Scaife in Pittsburgh, John Olin in New York City, David and Charles Koch in Wichita, the Smith Richardson family in North Carolina and Harry
Bradley in Milwaukeeall

of whom agreed to finance a number of right-wing

think tanks, which over the past thirty years have come to include the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the Koch Foundation,
the Castle Rock Foundation, and the Sarah Scaife Foundation, This formidable alliance of far rightwing foundations deployed their resources in building and

strategically linking "an impressive array of almost 500 think tanks,

centers, institutes and concerned citizens groups both within and
outside of the academy,,,, A small sampling of these entities includes
the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, the Manhattan
Institute, the Hoover Institution, the Claremont Institute, the American Council ofTrustees and Alumni, Middle East Forum, Accuracy in Media,
and the National Association of Scholars, as well as [David] Horowitz's Center for the Study of Popular Culture" (Jones 2006), For several
decades, right-wing

extremists have labored to put into place an ultraconservative re-education machinean apparatus for producing and
disseminating a public pedagogy in which everything tainted with
the stamp of liberal origin and the word "public" would be contested and destroyed. Commenting on the rise of
this vast right-wing propaganda machine organized to promote the
idea that democracy needs less critical thought and more citizens
whose only role is to consume, noted author Lewis Lapham writes: The quickening
construction of Santa's workshops outside the walls of government and the academy resulted in the
increased production of pamphlets, histories, monographs, and background briefings intended to bring about the
ruin of the liberal idea in all its institutionalized formsthe
demonization of the liberal press, the disparagement of liberal sentiment, the
destruction of liberal educationand by the time Ronald Reagan
arrived in triumph at the White House in 1980 the assembly lines
were operated at full capacity. (Lapham 2004, 38)

Right-Wing Attacks on Critical Pedagogy Reside in Anti-Leftist

Philosophy and a Lust for Corporate Domination of the Political
Sphere
Giroux 6, Henry. Global TV Network Chair Professorship at McMaster University in the English and Cultural Studies Department.
Academic Freedom Under Fire: The Case for Critical Pedagogy Page 3

Criticisms of the university as a bastion of dissent have a long and

inglorious history in the United States, extending from attacks in the nineteenth century by
religious fundamentalists to anti-communist witch-hunts conducted in the 1920s,
1930s, and again in the 1950s, during the infamous era of McCarthyism. The 1951 publication o(God and Man at Yale, in which ultra
conservative William F. Buckley railed against secularism at Yale University and called for the firing of socialist professors was but a precursor to
the present era of politicized and paranoid academic assaults. Several

of these efforts shared a

commitment to the notion that the university and its dissenting
intellectuals posed a threat to government power and to its entry into World War I,
committed acts of treason by sympathizing with the Russian
Revolution, and exhibited a vile form of anti-Americanism in their
criticism of unbridled corporate power and capitalism more generally. These
attacks, often launched by government committees, cast a dark cloud over the exercise of
academic freedom and were largely aimed at specific individuals who were condemned either
for their alleged communist fervor and left-wing affiliations or for political
activities outside of the classroom. The most notorious of these attacks occurred during the 1950s when
Senator Joe McCarthy of Wisconsin spearheaded a government witch-hunt that resulted in the blacklisting and firing of many dissident
intellectuals both in and out of the university (Schrecker 1988a, 1988b). During that period, many faculty members were not only fired, but
untold others, especially non-tenured junior faculty, "censored themselves and eschewed political dissent" (Schrecker 2005,103-04). Harkening
back to the infamous McCarthy era, a

newly reinvigorated war is currently being waged

by Christian nationalists, reactionary neoconservatives, and corporate

fundamentalists against the autonomy and integrity of all those
independent institutions that foster social responsibility, critical
thought, and critical citizenshipwhile the attack is being waged on numerous fronts, the
universities are where the major skirmishes are taking place.

The Conservative Assault on Critical Pedagogy Is Rooted in The

Pursuit of Global Domination, Racism, Sexism, Religious
Fundamentalism, and Totalitarianism
Giroux 6, Henry. Global TV Network Chair Professorship at McMaster University in the English and Cultural Studies Department.
Academic Freedom Under Fire: The Case for Critical Pedagogy Page 8-9
What is new about the current condemnation of the university is that a right-wing ideological coalition of Christian evangelicals, militant
nationalists, market fundamentalists, and neoconservatives, among others, now control the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of
government, the top civilian ranks of the Pentagon, and most of the intelligence services. In the midst of such power, the

Right has
ample political, cultural, and economic resources to attempt to
exercise total control over all aspects of public life and to
implement a political agenda consistent with the goals of
maintaining uncontested U.S. military and economic dominance
globally. Beshara Doumani argues that it is crucial to understand the current
campaign to discipline the academy unleashed after 9/11 as part of a sustained
effort to shift public discourse in favor of four major agendas in foreign and
domestic policies: dominating the globe through the doctrine of preemptive
military intervention with special focus on the Middle East, dismantling the New Deal
society, reversing the gains of the various civil rights and
environmental movements, and blurring the line between the
church and state. (Doumani 2006,15-16) Central to implementing this project is
the desperate attempt by right-wing forces to try "to neutralize two institutions
where there is some minimal commitment to free and open inquiry
the media and university system" (Libal 2005). Right-wing efforts to roll back the gains of the
welfare state and dismantle all institutions that serve the public
good attest to the exercise of a logic of total control that is
characteristic not only of all political movements with a totalitarian
bent, but also symptomatic of a growing authoritarianism in the
United States (Giroux 2005c).

A2 Link Turn
No link turncircumvention is guaranteed in a capitalist
society
Gill 1995 (Stephen, Research Professor of Political Science, Communications and
Culture at York University, Jan-Mar, The Global Panopticon? The Neoliberal State,
Economic Life, and Democratic Surveillance, Alternatives: Global, Local, Political,
volume 20, no 1, p.1-49)

information technology in general, and sur-veillance capabilities

in particular, in the context of the growing influence of neoliberal discourses, is often influenced by and
may favor internationally mobile fractions of capital, especially
corporate capital and financial services firms. The tendency of these fractions of capital is
The introduction of

to deepen their activity within civil society and the economy as well as to internationalize as they seek to maximize profits and
offset risks. The use of surveillance and sorting techniques for maximizing knowledge about and influence over workers, savers, and

when surveillance and information

technologies are introduced in the workplace and in the wider
society they tend to provoke both resistance (e.g., neo-Luddism) and nihilism (e.g., computer
hackers using Pentagon computers to store pornography). These technologies also offer some
democratic potential if used with appropriate process of
accountability and in the context of democratic controls. Another
key impetus for the widening use of surveillance techniques is the
internal and external response of certain political elements within
state apparatuses to problems associated with economic
globalization and interstate rivalry, and in particular to the perception
of the loss of control, regulatory effectiveness, or indeed authority over
economic activity within national boundaries. Whereas mobile capital is associated within
the interdependence (or capitalist) principle of world order, the territorial and political logic of
state surveillance is often associated with the reinforcement or persistence
of nationalist blocs and security complexes. Such blocs may seek to
restrict or to channel the freedom and mobility of such capital for reasons of national security.
consumers appears to be growing. At the same time,

A2 Permutation
Praxis DA- They strip all of the conceptual theory that allows
us to understand the world
Tumino 1 (Stephen, Professor of Philosophy in English at the University of Pittsburg,
remainder of date, What is Orthodox Marxism and Why it Matters Now More than
Ever, Red Critique, Spring 2001)

Orthodox Marxism has become a test-case of the "radical" today.

Yet, what passes for orthodoxy on the leftwhether like Smith and Zizek they claim to
support it, or, like Butler and Rorty they want to "achieve our country" by excluding it from "U.S. Intellectual life" ("On Left

is a parody of orthodoxy which hybridizes its central concepts and

renders them into flexodox simulations. Yet, even in its very textuality, however, the orthodox
Conservatism"),

is a resistance to the flexodox. Contrary to the common-sensical view of "orthodox" as "traditional" or "conformist" "opinions," is its
other meaning: ortho-doxy not as flexodox "hybridity," but as "original" "ideas." "Original," not in the sense of epistemic "event,"
"authorial" originality and so forth, but, as in chemistry, in its opposition to "para," "meta," "post" and other ludic hybridities: thus
"ortho" as resistance to the annotations that mystify the original ideas of Marxism and hybridize it for the "special interests" of
various groups. The "original" ideas of Marxism are inseparable from their effect as "demystification" of ideologyfor example the

Class is thus an
"original idea" of Marxism in the sense that it cuts through the hype
of cultural agency under capitalism and reveals how culture and
consumption are tied to labor, the everyday determined by the
workday: how the amount of time workers spend engaging in surplus-labor determines the amount of time they get for
reproducing and cultivating their needs. Without changing this division of labor social
change is impossible. Orthodoxy is a rejection of the ideological annotations: hence, on the one hand, the
deployment of "class" that allows a demystification of daily life from the haze of consumption.

resistance to orthodoxy as "rigid" and "dogmatic" "determinism," and, on the other, its hybridization by the flexodox as the result of

it has become almost impossible today to read the original ideas

of Marxism, such as "exploitation"; "surplus-value"; "class"; "class antagonism"; "class struggle"; "revolution"; "science"
(i.e., objective knowledge); "ideology" (as "false consciousness"). Yet, it is these ideas alone that
clarify the elemental truths through which theory ceases to be a
gray activism of tropes, desire and affect, and becomes, instead, a red,
revolutionary guide to praxis for a new society freed from
exploitation and injustice. Marx's original scientific discovery was his labor theory of value. Marx's labor
which

theory of value is an elemental truth of Orthodox Marxism that is rejected by the flexodox left as the central dogmatism of a
"totalitarian" Marxism. It is only Marx's labor theory of value, however, that exposes the mystification of the wages system that
disguises exploitation as a "fair exchange" between capital and labor and reveals the truth about this relation as one of exploitation.

Only Orthodox Marxism explains how what the workers sell to the
capitalist is not labor, a commodity like any other whose price is determined by fluctuations in supply and
demand, but their labor-powertheir ability to labor in a system which has systematically "freed" them from
the means of production so they are forced to work or starvewhose value is determined by the amount of time socially necessary
to reproduce it daily. The value of labor-power is equivalent to the value of wages workers consume daily in the form of commodities
that keep them alive to be exploited tomorrow. Given the technical composition of production today this amount of time is a slight
fraction of the workday the majority of which workers spend producing surplus-value over and above their needs. The surplus-value
is what is pocketed by the capitalists in the form of profit when the commodities are sold. Class is the antagonistic division thus
established between the exploited and their exploiters. Without Marx's labor theory of value one could only contest the after effects

The flexodox
rejection of the labor theory of value as the "dogmatic" core of a
totalitarian Marxism therefore is a not so subtle rejection of the principled defense of the
(scientific) knowledge workers need for their emancipation from exploitation
because only the labor theory of value exposes the opportunism of
of this outright theft of social labor-power rather than its cause lying in the private ownership of production.

knowledges (ideology) that occult this exploitation. Without the labor theory of value
socialism would only be a moral dogma that appeals to the sentiments of "fairness" and "equality" for a "just" distribution of the
social wealth that does the work of capital by naturalizing the exploitation of labor under capitalism giving it an acceptable "human
face."

Complete rethinking of socioeconomic structures required- no

perm solvency
Hudis 1997 (Peter, Professor of Humanities and Philosophy, Conceptualizing an
Emancipatory Alternative: Istvan Meszaross Beyond Capital, Socialism and
Democracy, volume 11, issue number 1)
Mszros's book consists not of a delineation of the specific content of such a "theory of transition" as much as a critique of the
conceptual barriers standing in the way of its development. The bulk of it consists of a series of extended critiques of those who
either pose the capital-form as an immutable law of human history or fail to conceptualize a pathway to its transcendence. Of the

Mszros develops a devastating critique of figures such as von Hayek and Weber, while of the latter he sharply
attacks the limitations of Social Democracy and Stalinism. He takes special aim at the tendency of
Marxists, going as far back as the Second International, to assume that the material
conditions of capitalism can be directly utilized to bring forth a noncapital-producing society. Marx of course said many times that capitalism
engenders the material conditions for its dissolution. The Marxists of the
Second International took this to mean, however, that the centralization of capital
and socialization of labor under capitalism would bring forth
socialism in quasi-automatic fashion. All that was required was a
Party large and strong enough to pick up the pieces once capitalism
collapsed. They therefore felt no responsibility to articulate a vision of a socialist future, using Marx's strictures against
utopianism as a "pillow for intellectual sloth." Mszros stresses that most Marxists failed
to see that capitalism's material conditions cannot be directly
utilized to create a new society, since they are afflicted with
hierarchies of class, gender, and race. Though the material
conditions engender the forms necessary for a reconstruction of
society, the actual creation of these forms hinges, not on historical necessity, but
on the conscious articulation and implementation of human
relations which dispense with the capitalist law of value. Though evolutionist
former,

confidence in the direct applicability of capitalism's material conditions for building socialism seemed to suffer a setback with the
collapse of the Second International in 1914, it obtained a new lease on life with the transformation of the Russian Revolution into a
totalitarian society in the Stalin period. The emergence of statified property as a veritable fetish in Stalin's Russia and Mao's China
convinced even those opposed to Stalinism (such as the Trotskyists) that the abolition of the market and private property
represented an advance upon private capitalism. Marxists dung to the assumption mat the centralization of capital and socialization
of labor, even under a totalitarian regime, proved that history was moving inexorably in the direction of socialism. Burdened by this
assumption, they felt little need to address the question, "what happens after the revolution?" The world which underlay these
assumptions came crashing down by 1989. The 1980s proved without a shadow of a doubt that the centralization of capital and
socialization of labor when held within the integument of the capital-form did not bring humanity closer to a socialist future, but

Mszros shows that the

nature of contemporary capitalism makes it more problematic than
ever to presume that the existing material conditions can be
directly appropriated for building a non-capital-producing society .
For the reproduction of capital today requires a level of
destructiveness of environmental resources and human creativity
unprecedented in human history. Given its inherent social and
natural destructiveness, it would be the height of foolishness to
instead dovetailed with the prerequisites of high-tech "free market" capitalism.

presume that a post-revolutionary society can base itself on the

social productivity of capital. Utilizing the existing material
conditions through a mere change of property forms, redistribution
of income, or elimination of the personifications of capital can in no
way lead to improved conditions of life. The very internal dynamic
and social hierarchies which constitute the domination of labor by
capital must begin to be broken down in the immediate aftermath of
a revolutionary seizure of power; otherwise, not even the most
minimal progress can be recorded. As Mszros argues, Unless some viable
strategies of transition succeed in breaking the vicious circle of the by
now catastrophic social embeddedness of capitalist technology , the
'productivity' of capital will continue to cast its dark shadow as a
constant and acute threat to survival, rather than being that accomplishment of 'the material conditions of
emancipation' which Marx often greeted with praise.f...] [I]n light of the 20th century historical experience and the failure of all

radical
negation can only be defined as a subordinate moment of the
positive project of labor's hegemonic alternative to capital itself
past attempts to overcome the dehumanizing constraints and contradictions of capitalism, the meaning of

(432,793)

Perm failstransition must leave no sector of society

untouched
Hudis 1997 (Peter, Professor of Humanities and Philosophy, Conceptualizing an
Emancipatory Alternative: Istvan Meszaross Beyond Capital, Socialism and
Democracy, volume 11, issue number 1)

Mszaros does not provide crucial insights concerning the

overall direction for. such a theory of transition. Of special
importance is his discussion of women's liberation. Mszaros is fully
aware that the value-form of mediation cannot be stripped away so
long as hierarchical and sexist attitudes and practices toward
women persist. Precisely because the capital-form does not emerge
from whole-cloth, but incorporates hierarchies of gender, class and
race which precede capitalism, it can only be broken down through
a comprehensive revolutionary uprooting which leaves no sector of
society untouched. As Mszaros notes, "so long as the vital
relationship between women and men is not freely and
spontaneously regulated by the individuals themselves..., there can
be no question of emancipating society from the crippling impact of
alienation" (187). Yet while such insights make this work more than worth the effort of exploring, one is still left with the
This is not to say that

impression that Mszaros has done a much better job arguing for the need of a theory of transition than actually supplying one. It is
of course hardly possible to expect any one thinker, even in a book of this length, to supply a worked-out answer to the question of

Mszaros
is quite right that achieving this is a formidable task which requires
marshaling the fullest energies of today's socialist theorists and
activists. The question, however, is whether Mszros's move away from an Hegelian-centered Marxism leaves him with too
how to ensure that the revolutionary seizure of political power ultimately leads to the abolition of capital itself.

narrow a philosophic base from which to work out the question of "what happens after the revolution" which so concerns him. As
noted earlier, Marx's 1844 projection of a "thoroughgoing Naturalism or Humanism" which transcends both capitalism and what he
called "vulgar communism" was achieved by being deeply rooted in the Hegelian concept of self-movement through "the negation of
the negation." For Marx, the Hegelian notion that the transcendence of alienation proceeds through second negativity was no
metaphysical abstraction, as it .was for Feuerbach; on the contrary, Marx held that insofar as the idea of second negativity is
embodied in forces of revolution like the proletariat, it expresses "the actual movement of history." Given this legacy, can we really
meet the need of projecting a total alternative to capital today if we turn our backs on the Hegelian Marxist legacy? Is it really
possible to work out a comprehensive theory of a post-revolutionary society without the benefit such crucial philosophic concepts as
"the negation of the negation?" And can Marx's legacy truly be recaptured for our time if the relationship between philosophy and
revolution is not reformulated and reconcretized anew? There is no doubt that Mszros's turn away from a philosophic Marxism in
favor of an emphasis on a "theory of transition" rooted in "a strategic view of the social complex" flows from his recognition of the
limitations of the Hegelian Marxist tradition as exemplified in the work of Georg Lukcs. Cogent as much of his critique of Lukcs is,
however, it is important not to throw out the Hegelian baby with the bath water. While many Hegelian Marxists failed in the end- to
meet the historic test of projecting a concept of liberation that points to the transcendence, not just of capitalist private property,
but of capital itself, there remain crucial dimensions of this tradition that we would reject at our peril. I am especially referring to the
development of Marxist-Humanism in the U.S., which emerged from a direct effort to break down the meaning of Hegel's Absolutes
for the contemporary freedom struggles. From the early 1950s through the 1980s, Dunayevskaya sought to achieve continuity with
Marx's unchaining of the dialectic by elucidating the concept of "absolute negativity as new beginning" for today's ideological and
social realities. In discerning the movements from practice of our era as embodying a quest for totally new human relations, she
called for a new movement from theory to make this reaching for the "negation of the negation" explicit and real. Today it may
well be hard to see how forces of revolt embody the idea of second negativity. The failures of actual revolutions are so glaring, the
collapse of revolutionary movements so obvious, and the crisis in projecting a philosophic expression of the working classes' quest
for universality so overwhelming, that the presence of absolute negativity in today's freedom struggles has been obscured.

This

does not mean, however, that the task of reconstituting

revolutionary Marxism on the basis of a philosophic projection of
absolute negativity has come to an end. At a moment when the selfdetermination of the idea is not hearing itself speak, subsumed as it is under the
mire of half-way houses ranging from electoral compromises to Million Man Marches, such philosophic
projection becomes all the more imperative. In a period of
retrogression such as our own, a comprehensive philosophy is
needed to help elicit the drive for absolute negativity which lies
concealed under the semblance of existing contingencies.

Single Issue reforms fail

Herod 7 (James, Student at Graceland College and Columbia University, 35 year
old author on anarchy, May 2007, Getting Free,
http://www.jamesherod.info/Getting_Free.pdf)

We cannot destroy capitalism with single-issue campaigns , yet the great bulk
of radicals energy is spent on these campaigns.

There are dozens of them : campaigns to defend abortion

rights, maintain rent control, halt whaling, prohibit toxic dumping,

stop the war on drugs, stop

police brutality, stop union busting , abolish the death penalty, stop the logging of redwoods ,
outlaw the baby seal kill , ban geneti- cally modified foods, stop the World Bank and
the World Trade Or- ganization, stop global warming, and on and
on.

What

we are

doing

is spending our lives trying to fix a system that

generates evils faster than we can ever eradicate them . Although some of these
campaigns use direct action (e.g., spikes in the trees to stop the chain saws or Greenpeace boats in front of the whaling ships to
block the harpoons), for the most part the

campaigns are aimed at passing legislation in

Congress to correct the problem . Unfortunately, reforms that are

won in one decade, after endless agi- tation, can be easily wiped off

the books the following decade,

after the protesters have gone home or a new administration comes

to power. These struggles all have value and are needed. Could anyone think that the campaigns against global warming, to free
Leonard Peltier, or to aid the East Timorese ought to be abandoned? Single-issue cam- paigns keep us aware of what's wrong and
sometimes even win gains. But in and of themselves,

they cannot destroy capitalism, and

thus cannot really fix things . It is utopian to believe that we can

reform capitalism . Most of these evils can only be eradicated for
good if we destroy capitalism itself and create a new civilization.
cannot af- ford to aim for anything less. Our very survival is at stake.

We

There is one single-issue

campaign I can wholeheartedly endorse: the total and permanent

eradication of capitalism . Many millions of us, though, are rootless and quite alienated from a particular
place or local community. We are part of the vast mass of atomized individuals brought into being by the market for commodi- fied
labor. Our political activities tend to reflect this. We tend to act as free-floating protesters. But we could start to change this.

We

could begin to root ourselves in our local communities . This will be more possible
for some than for others, of course. There can be no hard- and-fast rule.

Yet many of us could start

establishing free associations at work, at home, and in the

neighborhood . In this way, our fights to stop what we don't like through single-issue campaigns could be com- bined
with what we do want. Plus, we would have a lot more power to stop what we don't like. Our single-issue campaigns might prove to
be more successful. What is missing is free association, free assemblies, on the local level. If we added these into the mix, we would
start getting some- where.

We could attack the ruling class on all fronts . There are mil-

lions of us, plenty of us to do everything, but everything must include fights on the local level, especially at the three strategic sites
men- tioned earlier.

Reformism is a nave strategy that can never result in the

destruction of capitalism
Herod 7 (James, Student at Graceland College and Columbia University, 35 year
old author on anarchy, May 2007, Getting Free,
http://www.jamesherod.info/Getting_Free.pdf)
The picture here, then, is one of masses of people organized into special-purpose organizations and single-issue campaigns who
network on a global scale, and thus supposedly acquire the power to impose changes on the existing ruling-class institutions. "The
movement's unifying goal," the authors claim, "is to bring about sufficient democ- ratic control over states, markets, and
corporations to permit people and the planet to survive and begin to shape a viable future." They argue that "the principal strategy
of the movement for globalization from below has been to identify the violation of generally held norms, demand that power actors
conform to those norms, and threaten the bases of consent on which they depend if they fail to do so."

It is fool- ish

to think that the State Department, General Electric, or the World

Bank can be democratized . What is not part of this picture is any
thought of dismantling states, markets, or corporations and
replacing them with authentically democratic social arrangements .
(Thankfully, dismantling states, markets, and corporations is, however, in the pic ture for a significant minority of today's protesters
against corporate globalization, although this doesn't seem to have been noticed by these authors.) This is a startlingly reformist
book, and as with

most reformism, is deeply naive . The authors do not fully perceive or understand

the true nature of the enemy we face. Having failed to take into considera- tion the imperatives of a system based on profit taking

they fail to realize that many of the reforms they seek to impose
are incompatible with that system , or that in its current phase, the system is

incapable of accommodating these reforms without selfdestructing, and conse- quently, contemporary capitalists will
fanatically fight these reforms because it is a matter of survival for
them . These theorists of globalization from below, however, do not per- ceive this. They think these
reforms can be imposed, through protests and the withdrawal of
consent. This is where their use of mainstream sociological
categories has gotten in the way . Although they use the term
capital

occasionally,

global

they are not really aware of capital- ism as a

historical system , but are rather merely talking abstractly about "established institutions" and "the power of the
powerful." They claim that such power "is based on the active cooperation of some people and the consent and/or acquiescence of
others."

They believe that this power can be challenged by the

withdrawal of consent . "So- cial movements can be understood as the collective withdrawal of con- sent to
established institutions." This may be true on an abstract level and in the long run (although apartheid in South Africa survived for
half a century after the vast majority hated it).

But

in the here and now, since

they lack any concrete

knowledge of what the actual im- peratives of contemporary

capitalists are

(for their continued survival as capitalists), our theorists are led to make wildly romantic demands. Long

lists of these demands are presented in their "Draft of a Global Program.@ They want to "end global debt slavery"; "invest in
sustainable development"; "reestablish national full employment poli- cies"; "end the despoiling of natural resources for export";
"end the domination of politics by big money"; "democratize international trade and financial institutions"; "establish a >hot money
tax"; "encourage development, not austerity"; "make global markets work for develop- ing economies"; "establish a Global Economy
Truth Commission"; and on and on. All this is going to be accomplished by a global net- work of autonomous groupings and NGOs,
working through existing governments, corporations, markets, and international financial insti- tutions. I don't think so. An NGO
swarm cannot reconstitute society.

Nor can it nix capitalism , or even fix it B which is really all it seems to be

aiming for. Globalization from below, as described by Brecher, Costello, and Smith, is a badly flawed conceptualization of the struggle for liberation.

Reformism failswe must absolutely reject capitalism

Herod 7 (James, Student at Graceland College and Columbia University, 35 year
old author on anarchy, May 2007, Getting Free,
http://www.jamesherod.info/Getting_Free.pdf)
But

we must not think that the capitalist world can simply be

ignored , in a live-and-let-live attitude, while we try to build new lives elsewhere. (As mentioned earlier, there is no
elsewhere.) There is at least one thing, wage slavery, that we cant simply stop participating in (but even here there are ways
we can chip away at it).

Capitalism must be explicitly refused and replaced

by something else . This constitutes war, but it is not a war in the traditional sense of armies and tanks; it is a
war fought on a daily basis, on the level of everyday life, by millions of people. It is a war nevertheless because the
accumulators of capital will use coercion, brutality, and murder, as they have always done in the past, to try to block any
rejection of the system. They have always had to force compliance; they will not hesitate to continue to do so. Still, there are
many concrete ways that individuals, groups, and neighborhoods can gut capitalism, which I will enumerate shortly.

We

must always keep in mind how we became slaves ; then we can see more clearly
how we can cease being slaves.

We were forced into wage slavery because the

ruling class slowly, systematically, and brutally destroyed our

ability to live autonomously.

By driving us off the land, changing the property laws, dismantling

community rights, destroying our tools, imposing taxes, gutting our local markets, and so forth, we were forced onto the labor

market in order to survive, our only remaining option being to sell our ability to work for a wage. Its quite clear, then, how we
can overthrow slavery:

we must reverse this process . We must begin to reacquire the ability to live

without working for a wage or buying the products made by wage slaves (that is, we must free ourselves from the labor market
and the way of living based on it), and embed ourselves instead in cooperative labor and cooperatively produced goods. Another
clarification is needed.

This strategy does not call for reforming capitalism,

for changing capitalism into something else. It calls for totally

replacing capitalism with a new civilization . This is an important distinction because
capitalism has proved impervious to reforms as a system . We can
sometimes, in some places, win certain concessions from it (usually only temporary ones) and some (usually short-lived)
improvements in our lives as its victims, but

we cannot reform it piecemea l. Hence, our

strategy of gutting and eventually destroying capitalism requires

at a minimum a totalizing image, an awareness that we are
attacking an entire way of life and replacing it with another, and
not merely reforming one way of life into something else.

Many people

may not be accustomed to thinking about entire systems and social orders, but everyone knows what a lifestyle is, or a way of
life, and that is the way we should approach it.

Social reform is just a guise to continue the domination of

capitalism
Luxemburg 86 (Rosa, Marxist Theoriest and founder of the Communist Party of
Germany, Reform or Revolution, Militant Publications,
http://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1900/reform-revolution/ch08.htm)
The fate of democracy is bound up, we have seen, with the fate of the labour movement. But does the development of democracy
render superfluous or impossible a proletarian revolution, that is, the conquest of political power by the workers? Bernstein settles
the question by weighing minutely the good and bad sides of social reform and social revolution. He does it almost in the same
manner in which cinnamon or pepper is weighed out in a consumers co-operative store. He sees the legislative course of historic
development as the action of intelligence, while the revolutionary course of historic development is for him the action of feeling.

Reformist activity , he recognises as a slow method of historic progress , revolution

as a rapid method of progress. In legislation he sees a methodical force; in revolution, a spontaneous force. We have known for a
long time that the petty-bourgeoisie reformer finds good and bad sides in everything. He nibbles a bit at all grasses. But the real
course of events is little affected by such combination. The carefully gathered little pile of the good sides of all things possible
collapses at the first filip of history. Historically,

legislative reform and the revolutionary

method function in accordance with

consideration of

influences that are much more profound than the

the advantages or inconveniences of one method or

another . In the history of bourgeois society, legislative reform served to strengthen

progressively the rising class till the latter was sufficiently strong
to seize political power, to suppress the existing juridical system
and to construct itself a new one . Bernstein, thundering against the conquest of political power as a
theory of Blanquist violence, has the misfortune of labelling as a Blanquist error that which has always been the pivot and the
motive force of human history. From the first appearance of class societies having the class struggle as the essential content of their
history

, the conquest of political power has been the aim of all rising

classes . Here is the starting point and end of every historic period. This can be seen in the long struggle of the Latin
peasantry against the financiers and nobility of ancient Rome, in the struggle of the medieval nobility against the bishops and in the
struggle of the artisans against the nobles, in the cities of the Middle Ages. In modern times, we see it in the struggle of the
bourgeoisie against feudalism

. Legislative reform and revolution are not different

methods of historic development that can be picked out at the

pleasure from the counter of history,

just as one chooses hot or cold sausages. Legislative reform

and revolution are different factors in the development of class society. They condition and complement each other, and are at the
same time reciprocally exclusive, as are the north and south poles, the bourgeoisie and proletariat.

Every legal

constitution is the product of a revolution . In the history of classes, revolution is the act of
political creation, while

legislation is the political expression of the life of a

society that has already come into being . Work for reform does not
contain its own force

independent from revolution. During every historic period,

work for

reforms is carried on only in the direction given to it by the impetus

of the last revolution and continues as long as the impulsion from
the last revolution continues to make itself felt . Or, to put it more concretely, in each
historic period work for reforms is carried on only in the framework of the social form created by the last revolution. Here is the
kernel of the problem. It is contrary to history to represent work for reforms as a long-drawn out revolution and revolution as a
condensed series of reforms. A social transformation and a legislative reform do not differ according to their duration but according
to their content. The secret of historic change through the utilisation of political power resides precisely in the transformation of
simple quantitative modification into a new quality, or to speak more concretely, in the passage of an historic period from one given
form of society to another. That is why people who pronounce themselves in favour of the method of legislative reform in place and
in contradistinction to the conquest of political power and social revolution, do not really choose a more tranquil, calmer and slower
road to the same goal, but a different goal.

Instead of taking a stand for the

establishment of a new society they take a stand for surface

modifications of the old society . If we follow the political conceptions of revisionism, we arrive at the
same conclusion that is reached when we follow the economic theories of revisionism.
not the realisation of socialism, but

Our program becomes

the reform of capitalism ; not the suppression of the wage labour system

but the diminution of exploitation, that is,

the suppression of the abuses of capitalism

instead of suppression of capitalism itself . Does the reciprocal role of legislative reform and
revolution apply only to the class struggle of the past? It is possible that now, as a result of the development of the bourgeois
juridical system, the function of moving society from one historic phase to another belongs to legislative reform and that the
conquest of State power by the proletariat has really become an empty phrase, as Bernstein puts it? The very opposite is true.
What distinguishes bourgeois society from other class societies from ancient society and from the social order of the Middle Ages?
Precisely the fact that class domination does not rest on acquired rights but on real economic relations the fact that

wage

labour is not a juridical relation, but purely an economic relation . In

our juridical system there is not a single legal formula for the class
domination of today . The few remaining traces of such formulae of class domination are (as that concerning
servants), survivals of feudal society. How can wage slavery be suppressed the legislative way, if wage slavery is not expressed
the laws? Bernstein, who would do away with capitalism by means of legislative reforms, finds himself in the same situation s
Uspenskys Russian policeman who said:

Quickly I seized the rascal by the collar! But

what do I see? The confounded fellow has no collar ! And that is precisely
Bernsteins difficulty.

All previous societies were based on an antagonism

between an oppressing class and an oppressed class (Communist Manifesto). But

in the preceding phases of modern society, this antagonism was expressed in distinctly determined juridical relations and could,
especially because of that, accord, to a certain extent, a place to new relations within the framework of the old. In the midst of
serfdom, the serf raised himself to the rank of a member of the town community (Communist Manifesto). How was that made
possible? It was made possible by the progressive of all feudal privileges in the environs of the city: the corve, the right to special
dress, the inheritance tax, the lords claim to the best cattle, the personal levy, marriage under duress, the right to succession, etc.,
which all together constituted serfdom. In the same way, the small bourgeoisie of the Middle Ages succeeded in raising itself, while
it was still under the yoke of feudal absolutism, to the rank of bourgeoisie (Communist Manifesto). By what means? By means of the

formal partial suppression or complete loosening of the corporative bonds, by the progressive transformation of the fiscal
administration and of the army. Consequently, when we consider the question from the abstract viewpoint, not from the historic
viewpoint, we can imagine (in view of the former class relations) a legal passage, according to the reformist method, from feudal
society to bourgeois society. But what do we see in reality? In reality, we see that

legal reforms not only do

not obviate the seizure of political power by the bourgeoisie but

have, on the contrary, prepared for it and led to it . A formal social-political
transformation was indispensable for the abolition of slavery as well as for the complete suppression of feudalism. But the situation
is entirely different now.

No law obliges the proletariat to submit itself to the

yoke of capitalism.

Poverty, the lack of means of production, obliges the proletariat to submit itself to the yoke of

capitalism. And no law in the world can give to the proletariat the means of production while it remains in the framework of
bourgeois society, for not laws but economic development have torn the means of production from the producers possession. And
neither is the exploitation inside the system of wage labour based on laws.

fixed by legislation

The level of wages is not

but by economic factors. The phenomenon of capitalist exploitation does not rest on a legal

disposition but on the purely economic fact that labour power plays in this exploitation the role of a merchandise possessing, among
other characteristics, the agreeable quality of producing value more than the value it consumes in the form of the labourers
means of subsistence. In short, the fundamental relations of the domination of the capitalist class cannot be transformed by means
of legislative reforms, on the basis of capitalist society, because these relations have not been introduced by bourgeois laws, nor
have they received the form of such laws. Apparently, Bernstein is not aware of this for he speaks of socialist reforms. On the
other hand, he seems to express implicit recognition of this when he writes, on page 10 of his book, the economic motive acts
freely today, while formerly it was masked by all kinds of relations of domination by all sorts of ideology. It is one of the peculiarities
of the capitalist order that within it all the elements of the future society first assume, in their development, a form not approaching
socialism but, on the contrary, a form moving more and more away from socialism. Production takes on a progressively increasing
social character. But under what form is the social character of capitalist production expressed? It is expressed in the form of the
large enterprise, in the form of the shareholding concern, the cartel, within which the capitalist antagonisms, capitalist exploitation,
the oppression of labour-power, are augmented to the extreme. In the army, capitalist development leads to the extension of
obligatory military service to the reduction of the time of service and consequently to a material approach to a popular militia. But
all of this takes place under the form of modern militarism in which the domination of the people by the militarist State and the class
character of the State manifest themselves most clearly. In the field of political relations, the development of democracy brings in
the measure that it finds a favourable soil the participation of all popular strata in political life and, consequently, some sort of
peoples State. But this participation takes the form of bourgeois parliamentarism, in which class antagonisms and class
domination are not done away with, but are, on the contrary, displayed in the open. Exactly because capitalist development moves
through these contradictions, it is necessary to extract the kernel of socialist society from its capitalist shell. Exactly for this reason
must the proletariat seize political power and suppress completely the capitalist system. Of course, Bernstein draws other
conclusions. If the development of democracy leads to the aggravation and not to the lessening of capitalist antagonisms,

the

Social-Democracy , he answers us, in order not to render its task more difficult , must by all
means try to stop social reforms and the extension of democratic
institutions , (page 71). Indeed, that would be the right thing to do if the Social-Democracy found to its taste, in the
petty-bourgeois manner, the futile task of picking for itself all the good sides of history and rejecting the bad sides of history.
However, in that case, it should at the same time try to stop capitalism in general, for there is not doubt that latter is the rascal
placing all these obstacles in the way of socialism. But capitalism furnishes besides the obstacles also the only possibilities of
realising the socialist programme. The same can be said about democracy.

superfluous
working class.

or annoying

If democracy has become

to the bourgeoisie , it is on the contrary necessary and indispensable to the

It is necessary to the working class because it creates the

political forms

(autonomous administration, electoral rights, etc.) which will serve the proletariat as fulcrums in its

task of transforming bourgeois society. Democracy is indispensable to the working class because only through the exercise of its
democratic rights, in the struggle for democracy, can the proletariat become aware of its class interests and its historic task.

Even when single reforms succeed, they distract the public

from the deficiencies of the neoliberal system allowing
capitalism to regenerate itself
Giroux 6 (Henry, Professor at Boston University, Miami University, and Penn State
University and a scholar of critical pedagogy theory, Challenging Neoliberalisms

New World Order: The Promise of Critical Pedagogy, Sage Publications, Volume 6,
Issue 21, http://people.ufpr.br/~clarissa/pdfs/CPChallengeNeoLiber_Giroux.pdf)
Central to

neoliberal ideology

right-wing politicians

and its implementation by the Bush administra- tion is the ongoing attempt by

to view government as the enemy of freedom

big business) and discount it as a guard- ian of the public interest

(except when it aids

. The call to eliminate big

government is neoliberal- isms grand unifying idea and has broad

popular appeal in the United States because it is a principle deeply
embedded in the countrys history and tangled up with its notion of
political freedom not to mention the endless appeal of its clarion call to cut taxes. And yet, the right-wing
appropriation of this tradi- tion is racked with contradictions,

as they outspend their democratic

rivals, drive up deficits, and expandnot shrinkthe largely

repressive arm of big governments counter-terrorism-militarysurveillance-intelligence complex.
what they call big government

Indeed,

neoliberals have attacked

when it has provided crucial safety nets for the poor and dispossessed,

but they have no qualms about using the government to bail out
the airline industry after the economic nosedive
George W. Bush

that followed the 2000 election of

and the events of 9/11 . Nor are there any expressions of outrage from free market cheer-

leaders when the state engages in promoting various forms of corporate welfare by providing billions of dollars in direct and indirect
subsidies to multinational corporations. In short,

the current government responds not to

citizens, but citizens with money , bearing no obligation for the

swelling ranks of the poor or for the collective future of young
people . The liberal democratic lexicon of rights, entitlements, social provisions, community, social responsibility, living wage,
job security, equality, and justice seem oddly out of place in a country where
and the institutions necessary for its survival over generations

the promise of democracy

have been gutted , replaced by

casino capitalism , a winner-take-all philosophy suited to lotto players and day traders alike. As
corporate culture extends even deeper
buttressed daily by a culture industry in the hands of a few media giants,

into the basic institutions of civil and political society,

free market ideology is

reinforced even further by the pervasive fear and insecurity of the

public, who have little accessibility to countervailing ideas and
believe that the future holds nothing beyond a watered-down
version of the present . As the prevailing discourse of neoliberalism seizes the public imagination, there
is no vocabulary for progres- sive social change , democratically inspired visions, critical
notions of social agency, or the kinds of institutions that expand the meaning and purpose of democratic public life. In the vacuum
left by diminishing democracy, a new kind of authoritarianism steeped in

religious zealotry, cultural

chauvinism, xenophobia, and racism has become the dominant

trope of neoconservatives and other extremist groups eager to take

advantage of the growing insecurity, fear, and anxiety that result

from increased joblessness, the war on terror, and the unraveling of
communities . As a result of the consolidated corporate attack on public life, the mainte- nance of democratic public
spheres from which to launch a moral vision or to engage in a viable struggle over institutions and political vision loses all credibility
as well as monetary support. As the alleged wisdom and common sense of neoliberal ideology remains largely unchallenged
within dominant pseudo-public spheres, individual critique and collective political struggles become more difficult.1 Dominated by
extremists, the Bush administration is driven by an arrogance of power and inflated sense of moral righteousness mediated largely
by a show of certitude and neverending posture of triumphal- ism. As George Soros (2004) points out,

this rigid

ideology driven by mission- ary zeal allows the Bush administration

to believe that because we are stronger than others, we must
know better and we must have right on our side. This is where
religious fundamentalism comes together with market
fundamentalism to form the ideology of American supremacy

(p. 1).

Reform fails
Sinha 2005 (Subir, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Development Studies at
SOAS, University of London, Neoliberalism and Civil Society: Project and
Possibilities, Neoliberalism: A Critical Reader)

neoliberalism also destroys its own conditions of existence. Its

persistent failure to deliver sustained economic growth and rising
living standards exhausts the tolerance of the majority and lays
bare the web of spin in which neoliberalism clouds the debate and legitimates
its destructive outcomes. The endless mantra of reforms which
systematically fail to deliver their promised efficiency gains
delegitimises the neoliberal states, their discourse and their
mouthpieces. The explosion of consumer credit that has supported the improve- ment of living standards in the centre,
However,

given the growing fiscal constrains upon the state, limits the scope for interest-rate manipulation the most important neoliberal

popular movements have emerged and

successfully challenged the neoliberal hegemony. Whatever their lim- itations, as
Chapter 19 argues, the recent social explosions in Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador,
as well as more limited social movements elsewhere, show that
neolib- eralism is not invulnerable. This book details and substantiates these claims, and points
economic policy tool. Most importantly,

toward an agenda of reflection, critique and struggle.

Abandoning totalizing critique dooms the alt

Lukacs 21 (George, Marxist philosopher, literary critic and founder of Western
Marxism, 1921, The Marxism of Rosa Luxemburg, History and Class
Consciousness)
Rosa Luxemburg's major work The Accumulation of Capital takes up the problem at this juncture after decades of vulgarised
Marxism. The trivialisation of Marxism and its deflection into a bourgeois 'science' was expressed first, most clearly and frankly in
Bernstein's Premises of Socialism. It is anything but an accident that the chapter in this book which begins with an onslaught on the

because
the moment you abandon the point of view of totality, you must also
jettison the starting point and the goal, the assumptions and the
dialectical method in the name of exact 'science' should end by branding Marx as a Blanquist. It is no accident

requirements of the dialectical method. When this happens

revolution will be understood not as part of a process but as an
isolated act cut off from the general course of events. If that is so it must
inevitably seem as if the revolutionary aspects of Marx are really just a relapse into the primitive period of the workers' movement,

The whole system of Marxism stands and falls with the

principle that revolution is the product of a point of view in which
the category of totality is dominant. Even in its opportunism Bernstein's criticism is much too
i.e. Blanquism.

opportunistic for all the implications of this position to emerge clearly.9 But even though the opportunists sought above all to
eradicate the notion of the dialectical course of history from Marxism, they could not evade its ineluctable consequences. The
economic development of the imperialist age had made it progressively more difficult to believe in their pseudo-attacks on the
capitalist system and in the 'scientific' analysis of isolated phenomena in the name of the 'objective and exact sciences'. It was not

One
had to choose: either to regard the whole history of society from a
Marxist point of view, i.e. as a totality, and hence to come to grips
with the phenomenon of imperialism in theory and practice. Or else
to evade this confrontation by confining oneself to the analysis of
isolated aspects in one or other of the special disciplines. The attitude that
enough to declare a political commitment for or against capitalism. One had to declare ones theoretical commitment also.

inspires monographs is the best way to place a screen before the problem the very sight of which strikes terror into the heart of a
Social-Democratic movement turned opportunist. By discovering 'exact' descriptions for isolated areas and 'eternally valid laws' for
specific cases they have blurred the differences separating imperialism from the preceding age. They found themselves in a
capitalist society 'in general'and its existence seemed to them to correspond to the nature of human reason, and the 'laws of
nature' every bit as much as it had seemed to Ricardo and his successors, the bourgeois vulgar economists. <29-30>

Grounding political contestation outside of analysis of class

relations only attempts to cover up capitalisms problems
Tumino 1 (Stephen, Professor of Philosophy in English at the University of Pittsburg,
remainder of date, What is Orthodox Marxism and Why it Matters Now More than
Ever, Red Critique, Spring 2001)

Any effective political theory will have to do at least two things: it will have to offer an
integrated understanding of social practices and, based on such an interrelated knowledge, offer a
guideline for praxis. My main argument here is that among all contesting social theories now, only Orthodox
Marxism has been able to produce an integrated knowledge of the existing social totality and provide lines of praxis that will lead to
building a society free from necessity. But first I must clarify what I mean by Orthodox Marxism. Like all other modes and forms of
political theory, the very theoretical identity of Orthodox Marxism is itself contestednot just from non-and anti-Marxists who
question the very "real" (by which they mean the "practical" as under free-market criteria) existence of any kind of Marxism now
but, perhaps more tellingly, from within the Marxist tradition itself. I will, therefore, first say what I regard to be the distinguishing
marks of Orthodox Marxism and then outline a short polemical map of contestation over Orthodox Marxism within the Marxist
theories now. I will end by arguing for its effectivity in bringing about a new society based not on human rights but on freedom from
necessity. I will argue that to know contemporary societyand to be able to act on such knowledgeone has to first of all know

the dominant social totality is based on

inequalitynot just inequality of power but inequality of economic
access (which then determines access to health care, education, housing, diet, transportation, . . . ). This systematic inequality
cannot be explained by gender, race, sexuality, disability, ethnicity, or nationality. These are all secondary
contradictions and are all determined by the fundamental
contradiction of capitalism which is inscribed in the relation of capital and labor. All modes of Marxism now
what makes the existing social totality. I will argue that

explain social inequalities primarily on the basis of these secondary contradictions and in doing soand this is my main argument
legitimate capitalism. Why? Because such arguments authorize capitalism without gender, race, discrimination and thus accept
economic inequality as an integral part of human societies. They accept a sunny capitalisma capitalism beyond capitalism. Such a
society,

based on cultural equality but economic inequality, has always been the notwhether it has been called "new left,"

so-hidden agenda of the bourgeois left

"postmarxism," or "radical democracy." This is, by the way, the main reason for its popularity in
the culture industryfrom the academy (Jameson, Harvey, Haraway, Butler,. . . ) to daily politics (Michael Harrington, Ralph Nader,
Jesse Jackson,. . . ) to. . . . For all, capitalism is here to stay and the best that can be done is to make its cruelties more tolerable,

more humane. This humanization (not eradication) of capitalism is

the sole goal of ALL contemporary lefts (marxism, feminism, anti-racism, queeries, . . . ). Such
an understanding of social inequality is based on the fundamental understanding that the source of wealth is
human knowledge and not human labor. That is, wealth is produced by the human mind and is thus free
from the actual objective conditions that shape the historical
relations of labor and capital. Only Orthodox Marxism recognizes the historicity of labor and its primacy
as the source of all human wealth. In this paper I argue that any emancipatory theory has to be founded on recognition of the
priority of Marx's labor theory of value and not repeat the technological determinism of
corporate theory ("knowledge work") that masquerades as social theory.

Capitalism cannot be reformed, must be eliminated to achieve

pure democracy
Keeley 13 (John Keeley is from Folkestone Left Unity, a party that
supports the campaigns and struggles of ordinary people, for public
services, for equality, and for real democracy, 6-11-13, 1, Why
capitalism cannot be reformed, Left Unity, http://leftunity.org/whycapitalism-cannot-be-reformed/, KR)
capitalism has crises of overproduction

Unlike any other historical systems of production,

. Too
many commodities get produced relative to the commodity that acts as money, historically gold. This overproduction occurs due to
credit money. Banks can create money by lending out more than they have in their vaults. People & organisation purchase
commodities on credit & have debts. This allows aggregate prices to exceed aggregate values. Recorded profit rates are inflated by
this credit money. But once debt-saturation is reached & lenders realise they may not get all their money back, panic takes hold,
theres a credit-crunch as no-one wants to lend to anyone else & when the defaults start they set off a chain-reaction that
threatens the solvency of the financial system & capitalism itself. This is what the world experienced in 2007-08, that has been
temporarily patched-up with yet more debt, this time from governments in the form of so-called quantitative-easing (buying back
the government debt already sold to the financial institutions) & the purchase of other bank bad debts. If ever there was a clear
example of how governments & capitalism are joined at the hip, this is it. But this is not the full story of the current crisis. It is
actually much worse than this. For behind the excessive credit/debt lies the falling rate of profit. (Remember the rate of profit is
everything to capitalists they only produce for profit, not for need. It doesnt matter how hungry or in need of shelter you are, if
you dont have enough money your needs will not be met). Amongst Marxists the falling rate of profit theory is a source of much
heated debate. In Volume III of Capital, Marx appears to be offering a basis for the economic cycle of boom & bust in the falling rate
of profit consequent upon the growth in so-called constant capital (machines, factories & the like) being faster than the growth in

). Hence many Marxists have attempted to

explain just about all of capitalisms crises with this theory, whilst
other Marxists have emphasised the role of excessive credit/debt.
This is the falling rate of profit v underconsumption debate. From what I can
labour employed (referred to as variable capital

grasp this polarisation neglects the fact that behind the excessive issue of credit can lie the problem of the falling rate of profit. It
doesnt have to lie behind all crises & may work on a longer time basis. It may explain the first Great Depression of the 1870s, the
second one of the 1930s, & todays crisis, but not every economic downturn. This longer cycle is often referred to as the Kondratieff
cycle, or as Ernest Mandel termed it a wave. Mandels argument was that it wasnt a natural cycle as there could be no guarantee
of an upturn, but there was a guarantee of a downturn in the form of the falling rate of profit as more constant capital replaced
profit-producing labour. The upturns depended upon historical factors. The recovery in the late-Victorian era was arguably due to the
introduction of railways, the telegraph, etc., & the post-war boom, as already stated, by the harnessing of the new energy sources of

There is no guarantee of a new more productive

basis for todays economy even if it were to shed its huge debt
problem. It would need something like cold-fusion to stimulate
productivity whilst permitting capitalists to steal an even greater
amount of the value created by labour whilst leaving the labourer
still materially better off than before (what essentially happened in
oil & gas & the resultant automation.

the post-war period). It is unlikely. This is why I believe we now

have the material conditions for the end of capitalism. Capitalism
can offer the workers nothing but repression. One way or another the workers will need to
find a way to socialism. The creation of a society based upon the social/common
ownership of the means of production. It is for us to offer this
vision. There isnt a single blueprint & there is not a single route.
These are up for debate & discussion. But what we should be clear
about is capitalism cannot be reformed. Its time has passed.

Various problems with capitalism and leads to no reform

Blumenfeld 4 (Yorick Blumenfeld is an American writer and
futurologist living in Cambridge, England. He has written or edited 25
books, including the best-selling novel Jenny, and more than 2,000
published articles and essays, 2004, 1, Capitalism Cant Be Reformed,
Try the Incentive Economy, Foundation Earth,
http://www.fdnearth.org/essays/capitalism-cant-be-reformed-try-theincentive-economy/, KR)
Capitalism erodes and corrupts democracy: Capitalism is
fundamentally antidemocratic. Money controls Washington DC, not the other way around.
Corporate money tends to buy key political parties. They use their money and purchased power to write and
engineer favorable legislation. The pressures of the sugar lobby control our diets. The highest bidder corporations
buys democracy. Bottom feeding:

Capitalism pits small countries, states, and

counties against each other seeking special tax breaks and
subsidies in highly wasteful corporate welfare programs.
Capitalism seeks the lowest level, cheap labor, and cheap
regulations. It drives off accountability: Corporate managers are shielded from accountability to
shareholders while shareholders are protected from personal liability of damage done by the corporation.

Capitalism cheats control. Multinationals are responsible to no

electorate and no governments. Capitalisms values are insufficient: Capitalism
doesnt foster many things we value such as controlling child labor,
imposing strict health and safety standards, limiting the number of
working hours, or guaranteeing a day off per week. The market
economy has failed to focus on durability and ecologically
sustainable products and services. It fails to serve the poor: This model underserves over
three billion people. Two hundred plus years of capitalism have not brought
about global prosperity or environmental balance. Capitalism has a stability and
debt accumulation problem: The supply of money is dependent on people and firms relying on loans and
perpetually increasing their debt. Interest requires endless economic growth, which is neither in the national nor in
the global interest. Witness the never-ending economic bubble bursts. Corporations are subsidized and
unaccountable:

Capitalist companies are often heavily subsidized

(including subsidized by nature by failing to internalize pollution
externalities) and structurally capable of avoiding accountability. For
instance, corporations avoid taxes that support infrastructure fundamental to their expansion. They use shell
companies, tax havens, and modern electronic transfers to shuffle capital around and evade responsibility.

Globalized export-oriented high-tech

capitalism undercuts national and regional self-reliance in key
commodities. [Heavy dependence on global supply lines for items such as food and energy creates a
Globalized capitalism creates local vulnerability:

fragile and dangerous situation.] Countries may not be able to feed themselves in the near future. Capitalism
undercuts diversity and threatens groups: It favors cultural homogenization as well as the homogenization of goods
and services to advance market control. By pushing Western secular consumerism and materialism and crushing all
other value systems, some would argue that capitalism inspires terrorism. Capitalism ignores and destroys natures
life support systems:

Capitalism has denied that the biosphere has carrying

capacity limits. By failing to internalize environmental/pollution
externalities and purposefully misleading people, corporations drive
a process that radically reduces planetary carrying capacity. [Massive
erosion of topsoil via industrial agriculture is one example.] Endless expansion of growth [of the material
throughput] is destined to cause overshoot and collapse. [Codfish is one example. They are not expected to recover
from industrial overfishing.] The invisible hand has failed in important ways. Moral outrage is too mild an
expression for the deep levels of corruption at work here. Capitalism will amount to global suicide.

A2 Space
The search for outer spatial fixes to capitalism causes Star
Wars
Dickens and Ormrod 7 (Peter, Affiliated Lecturer in the Department of Sociology, Faculty
of Politics, Psychology, Sociology and International Studies , U of Cambridge, and J.S., Senior
Lecturer of Applied Social Science @ U of Brighton, "Cosmic society: towards a sociology of
the universe," book, p. 63-64)

Outer spatial fixes: for war or peace? These fixes could easily become the basis
for a new global war, one in which a militarized outer space would
be an important part. This is because there is a potential and actual
contradiction between regional fixes such as those attempted by
China, India and Japan and the demands for capital to find new
sources of accumulation. A regional fix is often made autarchic: a zone that, on account of active
state intervention, allows limited trade with the outside world. As Harvey (2006) suggests, this may not
be a problem so long as there are sufficient resources of capital and labour in
the region in question for local capital to continue accu- mulation . But, if this is
not the case, capital will inevitably move elsewhere. In the process, however, it
confronts other capitalist enterprises over access to labour and resources. Nationally based private
enterprises therefore finish up competing for shrinking
opportunities for accumulation and this indeed is a recipe for
potential armed conflict. As the next chapter discusses in more detail, China, Japan and
India are amongst the countries now attempting to secure military
presences in outer space. If Harveys theory is correct, these are means of protecting regional
interests by ensuring that capital in these regions will have ready access to resources and labour beyond their own

Regional investments in outer space could thereby form an

important form of future wars over resources, hostilities which
could even include confrontations with the military might of the
United States. Initially these conflicts might be land-based with satellites engaged in surveillance and the
guid- ing of Earth-based weapons, but later they could easily be of a star wars type
with hostilities taking place in outer space. As Harvey points out, war can be
seen as the ultimate and most catastrophic form of devaluation:
one in which whole societies are obliterated and the prospects for a new round of
limits.

investment and accumulation may be started.

Technology costs make colonization impossible

Loder 3 (Theodore C., ex-professor Emeritus at the University of New Hampshire, is known
for his work to end the energy crisis, 2/5/03, The Orion Project, Implications of Outside-TheBox Technologies on Future Space Exploration and Colonization, EBSCO,
http://www.theorionproject.org/en/documents/STAIF03Loder.pdf)

Human exploration and, ultimately, colonization of low earth orbit, the

moon, asteroids, and other planets will never "get off the ground
with the present costs of technology. At present the United States' only

public human lift capability is the nearly two-decade-old shuttle

fleet, which is expensive to maintain and limited in turn-around
flight capability. Recent projected estimates by NASA for more than the
next decade plan for about eight flights per year at a cost of
approximately $300 million per flight with lower costs for two more flights (NASA, 2002).
With only five flights per year considered to be a "safe" number and
ten flights per year considered the maximum number, it is obvious
that almost any kind of human exploration and colonization is nearly
out the question in the foreseeable future. Even the less expensive Russian launch
costs are still prohibitive for significant advances in space exploration and colonization.

Asteroids arent a threat

Sagan and Duncan 94 (Carl Sagan, David Duncan, Professor of Astronomy and Space
Sciences and Director of the Laboratory for Planetary Studies at Cornell University, 1994,
Pale Blue Dot, p. 313)

Civilization-threatening impacts require bodies several hundred

meters across, or more. (A meter is about a yard; 100 meters is roughly the length of a football
field.) They arrive something like once every 200,000 years. Our
civilization is only about 10,000 years old, so we should have no
institutional memory of the last such impact. Nor do we.

A2 State Solves
Movements focused on the state are inevitably co-opted by
capital or become corrupt- we must move beyond a state of
power relations- this is the only way to beat power
Holloway 2 (John, Ph.D in Political Science from the University of Edinburgh, Social Science
Professor at Univ. of Puebla, Change the World Without Taking Power,
http://libcom.org/library/change-world-without-taking-power-john-holloway, KC)

At first sight it would appear obvious that winning control of the state is the key to bringing about social change.

The state claims to be sovereign, to exercise power within its frontiers.

This is central to the common notion of democracy: a government is
elected in order to carry out the will of the people by exerting power in
the territory of the state. This notion is the basis of the social democratic
claim that radical change can be achieved through constitutional mean s. The
argument against this is that the constitutional view isolates the state from its social environment: it attributes to
the state an autonomy of action that it just does not have. In reality, what the state does is limited and shaped by
the fact that it exists as just one node in a web of social relations. Crucially, this web of social relations centres on

The fact that work is organised on a capitalist basis

means that what the state does and can do is limited and shaped by the
need to maintain the system of capitalist organisation of which it is a part.
Concretely, this means that any government that takes significant action
directed against the interests of capital will find that an economic crisis
will result and that capital will flee from the state territory. Revolutionary
movements inspired by Marxism have always been aware of the capitalist
nature of the state. Why then have they focused on winning state power as the means of changing
the way in which work is organised.

society? One answer is that these movements have often had an instrumental view of the capitalist nature of the
state. They have typically seen the state as being the instrument of the capitalist class. T he

notion of an
'instrument' implies that the relation between the state and the capitalist
class is an external one: like a hammer, the state is now wielded by the
capitalist class in their own interests, after the revolution it will be
wielded by the working class in their interests . Such a view reproduces, unconsciously
perhaps, the isolation or autonomisation of the state from its social environment, the critique of which is the starting
point of revolutionary politics. To borrow a concept to be developed later, this view fetishises the state: it abstracts it
from the web of power relations in which it is embedded .

The difficulty which revolutionary

governments have experienced in wielding the state in the interests of the
working class suggests that the embedding of the state in the web of
capitalist social relations is far stronger and more subtle than the notion
of instrumentality would suggest. The mistake of Marxist revolutionary movements has been, not
to deny the capitalist nature of the state, but to underestimate the degree of integration of the state into the
network of capitalist social relations. An important aspect of this underestimation is the extent to which
revolutionary (and, even more so, reformist) movements have tended to assume that 'society' can be understood as

If society is understood as being British, Russian

or Mexican society, this obviously gives weight to the view that the state
can be the centre point of social transformation. Such an assumption,
however, presupposes a prior abstraction of state and society from their
spatial surroundings, a conceptual snipping of social relations at the
frontiers of the state. The world, in this view, is made up of so many national societies, each with its own
a national (that is, state-bound) society.

state, each one maintaining relations with all the others in a network of inter-national relations. Each state is then
the centre of its own world and it becomes possible to conceive of a national revolution and to see the state as the
motor of radical change in 'its' society. The problem with such a view is that social relations have never coincided

The current discussions of 'globalisation' merely highlight

what has always been true: capitalist social relations, by their nature,
have always gone beyond territorial limitations. Whereas the relation
between feudal lord and serf was always a territorial relation, the
distinctive feature of capitalism was that it freed exploitation from such
territorial limitations, by virtue of the fact that the relation between
capitalist and worker was now mediated through money. The mediation of
social relations through money means a complete de-territorialisation of
those relations: there is no reason why employer and employee, producer
and consumer, or workers who combine in the same process of production,
should be within the same territory. Capitalist social relations have never
been limited by state frontiers, so that it has always been mistaken to
think of the capitalist world as being the sum of different national
societies. The web of social relations in which the particular national states are embedded is (and has been
with national frontiers.

since the beginning of capitalism) a global web. The focusing of revolution on the winning of state power thus
involves the abstraction of the state from the social relations of which it is part. Conceptually, the state is cut out
from the clutter of social relations that surround it and made to stand up with all the appearance of being an
autonomous actor.

Autonomy is attributed to the state, if not in the absolute

sense of reformist (or liberal) theory, then at least in the sense that the
state is seen as being potentially autonomous from the capitalist social
relations that surround it. But, it might be objected, this is a crude
misrepresentation of revolutionary strategy. Revolutionary movements
inspired by Marxism have generally seen the winning of state power as
just one element in a broader process of social transformation. This is
certainly true, but it has generally been seen as a particularly important
element, a focal point in the process of social change, one which demands
a focussing of the energies devoted to social transformation. The focusing
inevitably privileges the state as a site of power. Whether the winning of
state power is seen as being the exclusive path for changing society or
just as a focus for action, there is inevitably a channelling of revolt. The
fervour of those who fight for a different society is taken up and pointed in
a particular direction: towards the winning of state power. 'If we can only
conquer the state (whether by electoral or by military means), then we
shall be able to change society. First, therefore, we must concentrate on
the central goalconquering state power'. So the argument goes, and the young are inducted
into what it means to conquer state power: they are trained either as soldiers or as bureaucrats, depending on how
the conquest of state power is understood. 'First build the army, first build the party, that is how to get rid of the
power that oppresses us'. The party-building (or army-building) comes to eclipse all else .

What was
initially negative (the rejection of capitalism) is converted into something
positive (institution-building, power-building). The induction into the
conquest of power inevitably becomes an induction into power itself. The
initiates learn the language, logic and calculations of power; they learn to
wield the categories of a social science which has been entirely shaped by
its obsession with power. Differences within the organization become
struggles for power. Manipulation and maneuvering for power become a
way of life. Nationalism is an inevitable complement of the logic of power.
The idea that the state is the site of power involves the abstraction of the
particular state from the global context of power relations. Inevitably, no

matter how much the revolutionary inspiration is guided by the notion of

world revolution, the focus on a particular state as the site for bringing
about radical social change implies giving priority to the part of the world
encompassed by that state over other parts of the world. Even the most
internationalist of revolutions oriented towards state power have rarely succeeded in avoiding the nationalist
privileging of 'their' state over others, or indeed the overt manipulation of national sentiment in order to defend the
revolution. The notion of changing society through the state rests on the idea that the state is, or should be,
sovereign. State sovereignty is a prerequisite for changing society through the state, so the struggle for social
change becomes transformed into the struggle for the defence of state sovereignty. The struggle against capital then
becomes an anti-imperialist struggle against domination by foreigners, in which nationalism and anti-capitalism are

Self-determination and state sovereignty become confused, when in

fact the very existence of the state as a form of social relations is the very
antithesis of self-determination. No matter how much lip service is paid to
the movement and its importance, the goal of the conquest of power
inevitably involves an instrumentalisation of struggle. The struggle has an
aim: to conquer political power. The struggle is a means to achieve that
aim. Those elements of struggle which do not contribute to the
achievement of that aim are either given a secondary importance or must
be suppressed altogether: a hierarchy of struggles is established. The
instrumentalisation/ hierarchisation is at the same time an
impoverishment of struggle. So many struggles, so many ways of
expressing our rejection of capitalism, so many ways of fighting for our
dream of a different society are simply filtered out, simply remain unseen
when the world is seen through the prism of the conquest of power. We
learn to suppress them, and thus to suppress ourselves. At the top of the
hierarchy we learn to place that part of our activity that contributes to
'building the revolution', at the bottom come frivolous personal things like
affective relations, sensuality, playing, laughing, loving. Class struggle
becomes puritanical: frivolity must be suppressed because it does not
contribute to the goal. The hierarchisation of struggle is a hierarchisation
of our lives and thus a hierarchisation of ourselves. The party is the organisational form which most
blended.

clearly expresses this hierarchisation. The form of the party, whether vanguardist or parliamentary, presupposes an
orientation towards the state and makes little sense without it. The party is in fact the form of disciplining class
struggle, of subordinating the myriad forms of class struggle to the over-riding aim of gaining control of the state.
The fixing of a hierarchy of struggles is usually expressed in the form of the party programme. This instrumentalist
impoverishment of struggle is not characteristic just of particular parties or currents (Stalinism, Trotskyism and so
on): it is inherent in the idea that the goal of the movement is to conquer political power. The struggle is lost from
the beginning, long before the victorious party or army conquers state power and 'betrays' its promises. It is lost
once power itself seeps into the struggle, once the logic of power becomes the logic of the revolutionary process,
once the negative of refusal is converted into the positive of power-building. And usually those involved do not see
it: the initiates in power do not even see how far they have been drawn into the reasoning and habits of power.

They do not see that if we revolt against capitalism, it is not because we

want a different system of power, it is because we want a society in which
power relations are dissolved. You cannot build a society of non-power
relations by conquering power. Once the logic of power is adopted, the
struggle against power is already lost. The idea of changing society
through the conquest of power thus ends up achieving the opposite of
what it sets out to achieve. Instead of the conquest of power being a step
towards the abolition of power relations, the attempt to conquer power
involves the extension of the field of power relations into the struggle
against power. What starts as a scream of protest against power, against
the dehumanization of people, against the treatment of humans as means

rather than ends, becomes converted into its opposite, into the
assumption of the logic, habits and discourse of power into the very heart
of the struggle against power. For what is at issue in the revolutionary transformation of the world is
not whose power but the very existence of power. What is at issue is not who exercises
power, but how to create a world based on the mutual recognition of
human dignity, on the formation of social relations which are not power
relations.

A2 Sustainability
Capitalisms contradictions make its collapse inevitable
Dickens 9 (Peter, Affiliated Lecturer in the Department of Sociology, Faculty of
Politics, Psychology, Sociology and International Studies at the University of
Cambridge May 2009, The cosmos as capitalisms outside, The Sociological
Review, Vol. 57 Issue Supplement S1, p. 68-82) //AMM
Can capitalism go on expanding forever? It is a question many people have asked for many
years. It is also a relevant question when considering the prospect of capitalisms
potentially infinite expansion into the cosmos. In the early decades of the 20th century
Rosa Luxemburg suggested that capitalism always needs an outside, a zone of noncapitalism in which people would buy goods made in capitalist societies (Luxemburg
2004). To continue expanding, capitalism needs to continue placing a large part of its
surplus into the means of production, machines and technology. Imperialism, according to
Luxemburg, is the competitive struggle between capitalist nations for what remains of the noncapitalist outside. And yet, Luxemburg also argued, there is a fundamental contradiction,

one ultimately leading to capitalisms collapse . As it increasingly draws its outside

into itself capitalism also destroys the very demand it needs for its products . The
surplus value produced by capitalism simply cannot be absorbed . This is not the
place to assess in detail Luxemburgs arguments or the debates she has generated. Suffice to note
that many Marxists now argue that, while crises of underconsumption are important , crises

stemming from over-accumulation of capital and the need for outside regions in
which to invest are even more significant as regards the further expansion of capitalism
(Brewer 1990, Harvey 2003). Luxemburg was nevertheless the first attempt to explicitly raise the
question of how capitalism relates to a non-capitalist outside and whether capitalism can, in
principle, last forever as it colonises its outside. The question of capitalisms outside is

asked again, albeit in a rather different form. Hardt and Negri, in their influential text
is no more outside. They state that in the passage from modern to
postmodern, from Imperialism to Empire, there is progressively less distinction between
inside and outside (2000:187). They make this case in relation to the economy,
politics and militarism in todays form of globalisation . As regards economics, Hardt and
Negri admit that the capitalist market has always run counter to any division
between inside and outside. It has been constantly expanded globally and yet
encountered barriers. But at the same time it has also thrived on overcoming such barriers,
reorganising itself to overcome these limits . But now the global market is so
dominant that it is even more difficult to envisage a distinction between an inside
and an outside market waiting to be subjugated, made part of the capitalist market and in
due course reorganised as a site of capitalist production. There is no outside left and
capital is reduced to re-engaging in a form of primitive accumulation ; privatising
now being

Empire, tell us that there

publicly-owned assets, making them into commodities to be bought and sold

A2 Transition Wars
The crackdown wont happen, capital cant afford to attack its
labor and it would only increase the success of the transition
away from the status quo
Meszaros 95 (Istvan, Professor at the University of Sussex, Beyond Capital, p.
725-727) //AMM

Another argument which is often used in favour of permanent

accommodation is the threat of extreme authoritarian measures
that must be faced by a socialist revolutionary movement . This
argument is backed up by emphasizing both the immense destructive power at capital's disposal and the
undeniable historical fact that no ruling order ever cedes willingly its position of command over society, using if
need be even the most violent form of repression to retain its rule. The weakness of this argument is twofold,

it disregards that the

antagonistic confrontation between capital and labour is not a
political/military one in which one of the antagonists could be
slaughtered on the battlefield or riveted to chains. Inasmuch as
there can be chains in this confrontation, labour is wearing them
already, in that the only type of chains compatible with the system must be 'flexible'
enough to enable the class of labour to produce and be exploited .
despite the factual circumstances which would seem to support it. First,

Nor can one imagine that the authoritarian might of capital is likely to be used only against a revolutionary
socialist movement. The repressive anti-labour measures of the last two decades not to mention many
instances of past historical emergency characterized by the use of violence under the capital system give a
foretaste of worse things to come in the event of extreme confrontations. But this is not a matter of either/or,
with some sort of apriori guarantee of a 'fair' and benevolent treatment in the event of labour's willing
accommodation and submission. The matter hinges on the gravity of the crisis and on the circumstances under

one of
the heaviest chains which labour has to wear today is that it is
tied to capital for its continued survival, for as long as it does not
succeed in making a strategic break in the direction of a
transition to a radically different social metabolic order. But that
is even more true of capital, with the qualitative difference that
capital cannot make any break towards the establishment of a
different social order. For capital, truly, 'there is no alternative'
and there can never be to its exploitative structural
dependency on labour. If nothing else, this fact sets well marked limits to
capital's ability to permanently subdue labour by violence,
compelling it to use, instead, the earlier mentioned 'flexible chains'
against the class of labour. It can use violence with success
selectively, against limited groups of labour, but not against the
socialist movement organized as a revolutionary mass movement.
which the antagonistic confrontations unfold. Uncomfortable as this truth may sound to socialists,

A2 XLR8
Sustainable development has been commodified and
greenwashed by the corporate elite whose main concern is
profits we control the root cause of environmental
degradation, the quickest route to extinction, and a loss of
value to life
Cock 13 (Jacklyn, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, 6/20, Helen Suzman
Foundation, Green Capitalism or Environmental Justice? A Critique of the
Sustainability Discourse, http://hsf.org.za/resource-centre/focus/focus-63/Jacklyn
%20Cock.pdf) //AMM
The

sustainability discourse has been appropriated by neo-liberal

capitalism . It is driving a key feature of capitals response to the ecological crisis: the
commodification of nature. This involves the transformation of nature
and all social relations into economic relations, subordinated to the
logic of the market and the imperatives of profit. The immediate
outcome is the deepening of both social and environmental
injustice. Green capitalism The ecological crisis is not some future and indeterminate event. It is now
generally acknowledged that we are in the first stages of ecological
collapse. Capitals response to the ecological crisis is that the
system can continue to expand by creating a new sustainable or
green capitalism, bringing the efficiency of the market to bear on nature and its reproduction.
These visions amount to little more than a renewed strategy for
profiting from planetary destruction1. The business of sustainability , in this
is simply a new frontier for accumulation in which carbon
trading is the model scheme 2. The two pillars on which green capitalism rests are
view,

technological innovation and expanding markets while keeping the existing institutions of capitalism intact. This is
Thomas Friedmans green revolution which relies on linking the two. As he insists, green technology represents
the mother of all markets3. More specifically, green capitalism involves: appeals to nature (and even the crisis)
as a marketing tool; developing largely untested clean coal technology through Carbon Capture and Storage,
which involves installing equipment that captures carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases and then pumping
the gas underground; the development of new sources of energy such as solar, nuclear and wind, thereby
creating new markets; the massive development of biofuels, which involves diverting land from food production;

Many of these strategies put the

onus of solving climate change on changing individual life styles.
This individualizing is illustrated by Al Gores documentary An Inconvenient Truth and relies
heavily on manipulative advertising - greenwash - to persuade us
of the efficacy of these strategies. Greenwash is also evident in
much corporate sustainability reporting as part of their
presentation of a benign image of themselves. Sustainability: the
the carbon trading regime enshrined in the Kyoto Protocols.

ideological anchor of green capitalism. In South Africa, as elsewhere, there has been a
steep growth in the number of companies producing sustainability reports, and in the
emergence of various corporate indicators and guidelines. Media coverage is growing with, in

2010 alone, a Financial Times Special Report on Sustainability, the publication of the quarterly Trialogue
Sustainability Review as a supplement to the Financial Mail, and the Earth supplement to the daily newspaper,

The current emphasis is on how sustainability can increase

profitability or, in the sanitized language of capital, can add value
to a company. In 2004, the Johannesburg Stock Exchange introduced the Socially
Responsible Investment Index (SRI) to help crystallize good triplebottom line and governance policy and practices. Companies apply to be listed Business Day.

in 2008, 61 companies made it onto the index, from 105 companies that were reviewed for inclusion4. According to
an asset manager, Very

important is that [social responsibility] should not

mean lower returns. In fact it should sometimes mean higher returns as the profile of some of these
investments can be higher risk and lower liquidity5. Chris Laszios Sustainable Value: How the worlds leading
companies are doing well by doing good emphasizes the importance of a companys reputation, goodwill and
stakeholder relationships. Based on this assumption, Laszio develops a strong business case for taking a systematic
approach to building stakeholder value, including shareholder value, through the integration of sustainability in all
aspects of a business6. The cynicism involved is also illustrated by a statement from a Santam executive, Even if
you dont believe in climate change, it makes financial sense. In similar terms it has been claimed that

the

climate crisis represents a lucrative entrepreneurial

opportunity7.This is congruent with the treatment of disasters
(often ecological) as exciting market opportunities, described by
Klein as disaster capitalism8. Similarly, for the JSE, [I]nvesting in sustainability makes
sense9. From July 2010 all companies listed on the JSE are required to publish an integrated sustainability report.

the worst corporate polluters in South Africa all now produce lengthy
sustainability reports. ArcelorMittal SAs 2009 sustainability report claims that [o]ver the last year,
Thus

we made an even greater commitment to engagement with all stakeholder groups by accelerating interactions with
communities, employees, regulators, government and advocacy groups. This claim, however, is hotly disputed by

major polluters show

a total neglect of environmental factors in their definition of
sustainable development. For example, BHP Billiton, the worlds leading diversified natural
Phineas Malapela, the chair of the Vaal Environmental Justice Alliance10. Other

resources company, describes the companys vision of Sustainable Development as follows: to be the company
of choice - creating sustainable value for shareholders, employees, contractors, suppliers, customers, business

The main concern of the corporations remains

profitability: the awareness that shrinking natural resources could
damage it, while measures such as energy efficiency could reduce
costs, reduce risks and enhance a companys public image. The
former CEO of Walmart recently described sustainability as the
single biggest business opportunity of the 21st century and the next main
source of competitive advantage12. Hence the opening claim: the sustainability discourse
has been appropriated by neo-liberal capitalism. Joel Kovel stresses that the
cause of the ecological crisis is the expansionist logic of the
capitalist system, and in similar terms, Vandana Shiva stresses, the same corporate
interests that have created the crisis try to offer the disease as the
cure - more fossil fuel based chemical fertilizers15. If capitalism continues, the
future looks grim. If capitalism remains the dominant social order we can
expect unbearable climate conditions, an intensification of social
and ecological crises and, as Ian Angus writes, the spread of the most
barbaric forms of class rule, as the imperialist powers fight among
themselves and with the global south for continued control of the
partners and host communities.11

worlds diminishing resources. At worst human life may not

survive16. But - at least in the short run - as ecological breakdown accelerates,
the dominant classes will survive, living in protected enclaves in what Foster calls a fortress
world. Fortress World is a planetary apartheid system, gated and maintained by force, in which the gap
between global rich and global poor constantly widens and the
differential access to environmental resources and amenities
increases sharply. It consists of bubbles of privilege amidst oceans
of misery17. This retreat into fortified enclaves already exists in South Africa - now the most unequal society
in the world - as the powerful and the privileged move into the growing number of gated communities and golf
estates. However, the argument that the discourse of sustainability is the ideological anchor of green capitalism

the immediate challenge is to

reclaim the notion of sustainability by linking it to considerations of
justice. Critique of the concept of sustainable development When the concept of sustainable
development was launched at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de
does not mean we should throw the baby out with the bathwater:

Janeiro, 1992, it held out great potential. By the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002,

had become vacuous and was largely about sustaining

economic growth at virtually any ecological cost. The concept of sustainable
the concept

development says nothing about justice and has been extensively criticised for the vagueness which has enabled it

It allows environmentalism to be voided

of political content and be defined as a public concern with
environmental deterioration - a concern, not necessarily the object
of a social struggle, a cause without conflict18. Giddens writes,
Sustainable development is more of a slogan than an analytical
concept19 and dismisses it as something of an oxymoron20. The discourse of
sustainable development is, of course, an advance on earlier
protectionist models of environmentalism in that it is concerned
with human needs. But it is generally marked by technicist,
to be incorporated into neo-liberal approaches.

pragmatic and reformist attempts to bring environmental

externalities into the marketplace through ecological
modernisation . The discourse of environmental justice provides a radical alternative. As the leading US
anti-toxics activist, Louis Gibbs, has argued, the growing environmental justice movement asks the question, What
is morally correct? instead of What is legally, scientifically and pragmatically possible? This is very relevant for us

environmentalism effectively operated as

a conservation strategy that neglected social needs. The notion of
environmental justice represents an important shift away from this
traditional authoritarian concept of environmentalism which was
mainly concerned with the conservation of threatened plants,
animals and wilderness areas, to include urban, health, labour and
development issues21. Environmental justice is linked to social
justice as an all-encompassing notion that affirms the value of life all forms of life - against the interests of wealth, power and
technology. Linking this broadened notion of justice to sustainability means that we have to
rethink the notion of economic growth. Growth has come to mean
in South Africa. During the apartheid regime,

primarily growth in profits and wealth for a relative few22. A transition to

sustainability poses profound challenges to capital. There are simply not enough
resources for all to enjoy the intensely consumerist and wastecreating lifestyles of the advanced industrial nations. As George Monbiot
writes, The continuous growth prescribed by modern economics, whether informed by Marx or Keynes or
Hayek, depends on the notion that the planet has an infinite capacity
to supply us with wealth and absorb our pollution. In a finite world
this is impossible. Pull this rug from under the dominant economic
theories and the whole system of thought collapses23. The key concern of
ecological sustainability is not only to protect limited resources but to ensure that resources are used for the benefit
of all, not the privileged few. This means linking sustainability to justice. However, the post-apartheid states overall

commitment to neo-liberal principles means the prioritizing of

sustainability and efficiency over justice, and a preoccupation with
cost-recovery over high levels of cross-subsidisation and equity. Water
Domestic consumption makes up about 12% of South Africas water usage. More than half of this goes to the largely
white, affluent suburbs with their gardens, swimming pools and golf courses. Meanwhile, in the name of
sustainability and cost recovery, pre-paid water meters have been installed in many South African townships. The
logic of these technological tools is to restrain use in the context of scarcity. The basic need for water (a right in
terms of our post-apartheid constitution) becomes a commodity to be bought and sold. They have had devastating
impacts on the poor. The basic allocation of 6,000 litres of free water monthly works out at 25 litres per person per
day in an 8 person household, enough to flush the toilet twice. The amount should be compared to the average
household consumption of45 - 60,000 litres in the predominantly white suburbs24. The growing numbers of golf
courses use an average of one million litres of water a day. For example, the Pecanwood Golf Estate near
Johannesburg uses the average amount of 1.5 million litres of water a day25. A sight visit in 2009 confirmed that
some of the Pecanwood workers, who live in a nearby informal settlement, have to walk 5 km to buy water at R3 for
20 litres. The township residents with pre-paid water meters are fortunate by comparison. Linking justice and
sustainability would involve a higher free component funded through a sharply rising block tariff - in other words, a
much higher level of cross-subsidisation from the wealthy to the poor. Energy In South Africa almost a quarter of
households lack adequate access to electricity, either due to the lack of infrastructure or unaffordable pre-paid
meters. They have to rely on dangerous paraffin stoves and candles, or the time consuming collection of firewood.
The outcome is shack fires that sweep through informal settlements in South Africa almost every weekend. These
are fires in which the poorest of the poor lose all their possessions and sometimes even their lives. Justice demands
the provision of affordable energy for all. Instead, the post-apartheid state is prioritising corporate interests: thus
the revelation the parastatal, Eskom, has been supplying electricity to multinationals such as BHP Billiton at 12c a
kilowatt hour - below the cost of electricity production. Meanwhile, the free allowance of 70 kilowatt hours per
household per month is grossly inadequate. Linking justice and sustainability demands that energy takes the form
of not only affordable but clean and safe energy - which means renewable energy. Access to both energy and water
should involve linking sustainability and justice. The problem is the logic of commodification in the form of the cost
recovery policies that constitute the foundation of neo-liberal capitalism. The outcome for the poor is deprivation
either in the form of the harsh restrictions imposed by pre-paid meters or the service disconnections for the many

our relationship
to nature is being dramatically transformed through this process of
commodification. More and more of nature is being framed in terms
of exchange value and mediated through the market. According to Burawoy
this commodification of nature is the central feature of the
contemporary period of third wave marketisation or neo-liberal
capitalism26. The outcome is a world in which billions are chronically
malnourished, lacking access to clean water and electricity. This is surely
not a world we want to sustain. For all these reasons, Joel Kovel prefers the term sufficiency. Sufficiency
makes more sense, building a world where nobody is hungry or cold
or lacks health care or succor in old age... Sufficiency is a better term than...
households that have fallen into arrears. Conclusion We are living in a period when

sustainability, as the latter leaves ambiguous the question of whether what is to be sustained is the existing system

ecological collapse means that there is an urgent

need for debate and, at least, a questioning of the appropriation of the
sustainability discourse by capital, as well as the economistic bias
which ignores how the emphasis on growth furthers negative
distributional and environmental impacts. This involves challenging what Jane Goodall
or not.27 The threat of

has termed the dark forces, particularly the vested interests involved in the fossil fuel industry28. The
paradigmatic dark force at the moment is BP. This is what the prince of darkness, the CEO of BP, had to say
recently about the transition to a low carbon economy: .we have before us a period of economic transition as great
as, if not greater than, the Industrial Revolution29.

Our survival depends on how we act

now.

Their will to mastery makes environmental destruction

inevitable
Kateb 97 (George, Professor of Politics @ Princeton, "Technology and Philosophy,"
Social Research, Fall, Vol 64, No 3, p. ebscohost) //AMM
Heidegger means to show that Western metaphysics -- and metaphysics includes theology -- is a continuously if
sometimes covertly reiterated Platonism. By his method of exegesis, Heidegger tries to persuade us that Platonic
metaphysics converts the world into a picture for the mind's eye, and by doing that, prepares Western humanity to

Metaphysics
inveterately reduces the world. The purpose of the reduction is to
lose sight of the mere fact of existence, the unsummoned thereness of reality, of the given.

make the world intelligible and hence manageable , fit to be worked on, and
made ready to have practical order imposed on it. The world, as given, is disliked; it is
disliked in large part just because it is given; the dislike engenders anger, and from anger comes rebellion. Western
humanity is and has always been at war with given reality, to a much greater degree than the rest of humanity, and

Technology is the most spectacular campaign in

the great war waged by Western humanity against nature or reality
as given. To repeat: the deepest cause of that war is not scarcity, not the
failure of nature to make better provision for a necessitous
humanity, but, instead, a Western willfulness, a will to power, to
mastery, an overflow of energy that wants to shake the world to pieces
in a remarkably distinct manner.

and make it over. The craving is either to put the human stamp on reality or at least to rescue nature from
the absence of any honestly detectable stamp, any detectable natural purpose or intention. As Nietzsche says:
humanity, in its asceticism, "wants to become master not over something in life but over life itself, over its most
profound, powerful, and basic conditions" (Nietzsche, 1969, sec. 11, pp. 117-18). Western humanity cannot let
things be on their own terms or coax gently from them their own best potentiality; it is so far unable to practice
what Heidegger calls Gelassenheit. Western metaphysics is the sponsor of anger and hence of repeated violence
towards nature.

AFF Capitalism Answers

Link Turn Surveillance Bad

Link turn Surveillance furthers capitalism
Giroux 14 (Henry, Global TV Network Chair Professorship, McMaster University in
the English and Cultural Studies Department, Totalitarian Paranoia in the PostOrwellian Surveillance State, http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/21656totalitarian-paranoia-in-the-post-orwellian-surveillance-state#, NKF)

the homogenizing force of the market, a growing

culture of repression and an emerging police state have produced more
sophisticated methods for surveillance and the mass suppression of
the most essential tools for dissent and democracy: "the press, political activists,
civil rights advocates and conscientious insiders who blow the whistle on corporate malfeasance and government abuse."38 The
neoliberal authoritarian culture of modernity also has created a
social order in which surveillance becomes self-generated, aided by
a public pedagogy produced and circulated through a machinery of
consumption that encourages transforming dreams into data bits. Such
The dynamic of neoliberal modernity,

bits then move from the sphere of entertainment to the deadly serious and integrated spheres of capital accumulation and policing
as they are collected and sold to business and government agencies who track the populace for either commercial purposes or for

Absorbed in privatized
orbits of consumption, commodification and display, Americans
vicariously participate in the toxic pleasures of consumer culture,
relentlessly entertained by the spectacle of violence in which, as David
Graeber, suggests, the police become the almost obsessive objects of
imaginative identification in popular culture watching movies or
viewing TV shows that invite them to look at the world from a police
point of view."39 It is worth repeating that Orwell's vision of surveillance and the totalitarian state
looks tame next to the emergence of a corporate-private-state surveillance
system that wants to tap into every conceivable mode of
communication, collect endless amounts of metadata to be stored in vast intelligence storage sites
around the country and use those data to repress any vestige of dissent .40
Whistle-blowers are not only punished by the government; their lives
are turned upside down in the process by private surveillance
agencies and major corporations who increasingly work in tandem. These
institutions share information with the government and do their
own spying and damage control. For instance, Bank of America
assembled 15 to 20 bank officials and retained the law firm of
Hunton & Williams to devise various schemes to attack WikiLeaks and
Glenn Greenwald, who they thought was about to release damaging
information about the bank.41 Some of the most dreadful
consequences of neoliberal modernity and cultures of surveillance
include the elimination of those public spheres capable of educating
the public to hold power accountable, and the dissolution of all
social bonds that entail a sense of responsibility toward others. In this instance,
fear of a possible threat to the social order and its established institutions of power.

politics has not only become dysfunctional and corrupt in the face of massive
inequalities in wealth and power, it also has been emptied of any substantive
meaning. Government not only has fallen into the hands of the elite and right-wing extremists, it has embraced a mode of
lawlessness evident in forms of foreign and domestic terrorism that undercuts the obligations of citizenship, justice and morality. As

surveillance and fear become a constant condition of American

society, there is a growing indifference, if not distaste, for politics among large
segments of the population. This distaste is purposely manufactured by the ongoing
operations of political repression against intellectuals, artists, nonviolent protesters and
journalists on the left and right. Increasingly, as such populations engage in dissent and the free flow of ideas,
whether online or offline, they are considered dangerous to the state and
become subject to the mechanizations of a massive security
apparatuses designed to monitor, control and punish dissenting populations. For
instance, in England, the new head of MI5, the British intelligence service, mimicking the US government's distrust of journalists,
stated that the stories The Guardian published about Snowden's revelations "were a gift to terrorists," reinforcing the notion that
whistle-blowers and journalists might be considered terrorists.42 Similar comments about Snowden have been made in the United
States by members of Congress who have labeled Snowden a traitor, including Sens. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat; John
McCain, an Arizona Republican; Saxby Chambliss, a Georgia Republican; and House Speaker John Boehner, as well as former Vice
President Dick Cheney.43 Greenwald, one of the first journalists to divulge Snowden's revelations about the NSA's secret
"unaccountable system of pervasive surveillance"44 has been accused by Rep. Peter King of New York along with others of being a
terrorist.45 More ominously, "Snowden told German TV ... about reports that U.S. government officials want to assassinate him for

As the line collapses

between authoritarian power and democratic governance, state and
corporate repression intensifies and increasingly engulfs the nation in a
toxic climate of fear and self-censorship in which free speech, if not critical thought, itself is viewed as too
dangerous in which to engage. The NSA, alone, has become what Scott Shane has called an
"electronic omnivore of staggering capabilities, eavesdropping and
hacking its way around the world to strip governments and other
targets of their secrets, all while enforcing the utmost secrecy about its own operations. It spies routinely on
friends as well as foes."47 Intelligence benefits are far outweighed by the illegal
use of the Internet, telecommunication companies and stealth
malware for data collection and government interventions that
erode civil liberties and target individuals and groups that pose no
threat whatsoever to national security. New technologies that range from webcams and
leaking secret documents about the NSA's collection of telephone records and emails."46

spycams to biometrics and Internet drilling reinforce not only the fear of being watched, monitored and investigated but also a
propensity toward confessing one's intimate thoughts and sharing the most personal of information. What is profoundly disturbing
and worth repeating in this case is the new intimacy between digital technologies and cultures of surveillance in which there exists a
profound an unseen intimate connection into the most personal and private areas as subjects publish and document their interests,

Surveillance propped up as the new

face of intimacy becomes the order of the day, eradicating free
expression and, to some degree, even thinking itself. In the age of
the self-absorbed self and its mirror image, the selfie, intimacy
becomes its opposite and the exit from privacy becomes
symptomatic of a society that gave up on the social and historical
memory.
identities, hopes and fears online in massive quantities.48

Surveillance helps monitor businesses and help maintain a

positive outcome for them
Fuchs 12 (Christian Fuchs attended Uppsala University in Sweden, 42-12, 7-9, Political Economy and Surveillance Theory, Fuchs.com,
http://fuchs.uti.at/wp-content/MarxSurveillance.pdf, KR)
The following table discusses the role of surveillance in the capital accumulation process. Six different forms of

surveillance is a central method of

control and discipline in the capital accumulation process.
Corporations systematically gather data about applicants,
employees, the labour process, private property, consumers and
competitors in order to minimize economic risks, discipline workers,
increase productivity, circumvent theft, sabotage and protests,
control consumers through advertising, and adapt to changing
conditions of competition. The overall aim of multiple surveillance
methods and technologies is the maximization of profit and the
increased exploitation of labour in order to increase the amount of
produced surplus value. Capital employs surveillance to control the
production and circulation process, and control and discipline the
workforce. Economic surveillance helps minimize the risk of making
losses and maximizes opportunities for profits. Businesses do
this by identifying individuals, who, by virtue of their profiles,
ratings or comparative scores, should probably be ignored, avoided
or treated with the utmost deference and respect (Gandy, 2003: 30). Applicant
surveillance are suggested. Table 1 shows that

surveillance takes place in the capital cycle at the stage M = >C (labour power), where invested money capital buys
labour power as a commodity on the labour market. A legally binding relation between a specific employer and a
specific employee is established in the form of a labour contract. Applicant surveillance is the collection of data
about potential employees that aims at ensuring that a candidate has made correct and complete statements about
his/her life and work, that s/he fits the companys interests and will continuously and efficiently create surplus
value. Applicant surveillance sorts job applicants into groups of suited and unsuited candidates by collecting data
about their lives and work career. The applicants are frequently not aware of this surveillance. The Californian
company Social Intelligence sells applicant surveillance as a specialized service commodity to companies and
performs applicant surveillance on social media for employers. The companys description says: Social

Intelligence Hiring is a background screening service that enables

employers to navigate the complicated landscape of social media
with clear, consistent, and insightful results. Using a combination of automated and
manual review processes, Social Intelligence Hiring empowers human resources
personnel to make informed hiring decisions without the associated
risks.1 Social Intelligence Corp solely generates reports based on employer predefined criteria, both positive
and negative. Negative examples include racist remarks or activities, sexually explicit photos or videos, and illegal
activity such as drug use. Positive examples include charitable or volunteer efforts, participation in industry blogs,
and external recognition.2 Notice the use of categories like navigation, informed hiring decisions and generating
reports to describe surveillance processes; the negatively connoted term surveillance that people tend to
associate with totalitarian visions like Big Brother is explicitly avoided. Workplace surveillance, related to the
production process P of capital accumulation, is the surveillance of the spaces where work is conducted to ensure

Workplace surveillance aims

at ensuring that employees do not use work time as idle time, but
as surplus value generating activity. Workforce surveillance is surveillance of the activities
that workers conduct the duties that have been assigned to them.

of employees. It includes performance measurement and activity assessment, and aims at creating data for making
the work process more efficient, i.e. producing more surplus value in less time. Both forms can either be known or
unknown to the employees. Known workplace and workforce surveillance makes employees discipline their own
activities. Unknown workplace surveillance aims at detecting employees that are considered to be unproductive or
it acts as a data foundation to make organizational changes (such as promotion of the most loyal and efficient
employees, lay-off of employees that are considered not productive enough) that remain unknown or become
known only later to employees

Link Answers K Affs

Disability
No link-- There is a distinct social model between Disabilities
and capitalism
McNulty 12 (McNulty, Noreen. "A Social Theory of Disability." A Social Theory of
Disability. 2012. Web. 14 July 2015. http://isreview.org/issue/90/social-theorydisability KC)

a social theory of disability to

challenge the medical and psychological dominance of theories
about disability. Such a theory cannot be produced until the
various academic disciplines begin to take both the issue of
disability and the experiences of disabled people seriously. Oliver put
forth that disablement is not a problem located in the individual, but an
institutional problem, shaped by economic, political, and ideological
forces. In 1990, Oliver was optimistic that the movement would continue to improve conditions for people with
In light of this progress, in the first edition, Oliver called for

disabilities. Since then, more than thirty colleges and universities offer undergraduate or graduate degrees in
disability studies in the United States. Governments across the globe have passed legislation and created offices or
departments for people with disabilities. Countless nonprofit organizations have sprung up to provide services and
advocate for people with disabilities.These developments have certainly improved the lives of some with

Yet, twenty-plus years on, most people living with disabilities

have not witnessed a significant change in their standard of living.
Many people with disabilities remain segregated in schools,
housing, and employment. The current economic crisis has led to
drastic cuts to social services, and privatization of services is
lowering or threatening to lower the standard of living for most,
including those with disabilities who rely on the state for services. In
disabilities.

this new edition, The New Politics of Disablement, Oliver and Barnes not only update the previous edition; they
survey the theories and origins of disablement and the ways in which disability is represented in society at large.
They put forth a perspective of why the disability rights movement has failed to bring about significant change, and
offer a critique of the dominant postmodernist/poststructuralist theories in disability studies today. This 2012 edition
is also written in the context of a global capitalist crisis, and is written in the spirit of bringing transformative
change for people with disabilities, as well as all oppressed people. Oliver and Barnes offer a historical materialist
approach for describing how the category and meaning of disability arose with the rise of capital, and how the
meaning has changed as capitalisms needs change. The authors open with a survey of definitions of disability, the
origin of disability studies, and the origin of disability itself. They start with the movements of the 1960s that began
to challenge long-held assumptions and theories based in seeing disablement as a personal tragedy and an

Through
struggle, they recognized common characteristics of their
experience of disability. Their [activists] aim was to shift public
and policy attention away from established orthodoxy toward the
role of disabling economic, political and cultural barriers that
prevented people with disabilities from participating in mainstream
society as equal citizens. Oliver is often cited as coining the term social model of disability in
1981, and Oliver and Barnes respond to critiques of the model in this edition. They explain, The social
model breaks the causal link between impairment and disability. The
reality of impairment is not denied but is not the cause of disabled
individual medical issue, explained through a persons functional limitations or deficits.

peoples economic and social disadvantage. They go on to point out that the
social model was not intended to be a social theory but rather to be
used as a tool to bring about political change, allowing for collective
organization, and as an alternative to the individual/medical mode l.
They acknowledge that the social model is a simple view of a complex issue,
despite the fact that many other writers have used it in their own
social theories. Presenting a survey of the anthropological and sociological research on disability, the
authors summarize the range of views of disability and impairment in different cultures and the various ways in
which cultures have responded to difference and disability. They provide a useful materialist view of how
disablement as a social problem or category came to be. Here the authors pull from a Marxist, materialist view of

In pre-industrial times, disabled

people were not excluded from making economic contributions,
although they may have been viewed at the bottom of the social
ladder. With changes in the mode of production and social relations
that industrial capitalism brought, people with certain impairments
were not able to work or were not seen as desirable. In addition, as
the unit of production moved from the household to individual wage
earners in the workplace, it became more difficult for those with
impairments to find work or for the family to support them in the
home. Urbanization, segregation, and changing ideology all
contribute to the rise of disablement as a social problem. In turn, the
rise of early capitalism was related to subsequent changes in
ideology and the way of thinking about people with disabilities,
resulting in a shift from a religious understanding (i.e., disability as a result of
sin) to a scientific or medical understanding. The authors survey the development of an
ideology of individualism under capitalism and the rise of the medicalization of disability. Conditions or
impairments viewed as moral or social problems previously became
the subject of medical intervention. This period also saw the rise of
the institutions as a way to deal with the social problem of
disability, provision of care outside the family, and as a way of social
control of the poor. Seen as a personal tragedy, disability is seen as an
individual problem to be solved by meeting personal needs, which in
turn creates dependency, rather than viewing the problem as
located in the way that work is organized and calling for a change in
fundamental economic structures. The final section, Agendas and Actions is rooted in a
human history, drawing from a number of authors.

discussion of the current economic crisis and the response to disability in the context of capitalist crisis. Throughout
the book, the authors follow the twists and turns of capitalist development and its effect on how disability is defined
and how capitalism responds to it, including the recent global crisis. One response of the market is in the
privatization of services and the rise of charitable organizations, neither of which lead to self determination for
people with disabilities. Drastic cuts to state services in an age of austerity also threaten day-to-day survival and
quality of life. Another response is in rights-based solutions to discrimination. The authors challenge this solution

Focusing on a rights route to emancipation as an end

in itself rather than as a means to an end was always likely to be
counterproductive . . . having legal rights does not mean they will
be enforced, and even if they are, that enforcement will achieve the
and see its limitations:

desired aims. Issues of genetic testing and modification, euthanasia, and biotechnology are raised.
Citing Disabled Peoples International, societies spend millions on genetic research to eradicate disease and
impairment but refuse to meet our needs to live dignified and independent lives. This sort of response, Oliver and
Barnes argue, undermines changes that would support and indeed celebrate the reality of human diversity,
difference and frailty. They warn such an approach fits snugly into the social and economic relations of capitalism
in seeking to eradicate the abnormal and those who become, or even might become, an economic burden. The
New Politics of Disability offers a useful critique of the decline of the disabled peoples movement of previous

Capitalism adapts to and envelops new ideas, such as the

absorption of parts, to the movement into nonprofit organizations
or offices in the government. They write, indeed, there are concerns among
some disability activists that the assimilation of disability politics
into mainstream political agendas will undermine the more radical
aims and political struggles by disabled people and their
organizations for social justice. The authors also note the limitations of identity politics,
decades.

which, they argue, tends to neglect the economic and material bases of inequality as well as the goal of politicaleconomic redistribution. A clear vision of how to move disability struggles forward is lacking, note the authors. But
this is not surprising, given the current state of disability rights activism and the global crisis of capitalism.

Countries are seeking to fix the crisis on the backs of workers,

students, and peoplesuch as those with disabilitieswho rely on
government services. The decline of Marxism and historical
materialism in the social sciences and its impact on theory, the fall
of the Soviet Union, dominance of the global market, the decline of
labor unionism, and the disappearance of the working class are all
offered as reasons for why the current movement lacks this clear
vision. Oliver and Barnes note their waning optimism since the first edition, which outlined hope for
the future of the disability rights movement. While they note these
challenges and offer little prospect of transforming capitalism in
the foreseeable future, they conclude, We still believe that the
only long-term political strategy for disabled people is to be part of
a far wider struggle to create a better society for all. They foresee
an end to disability oppression only when the oppression of all is
overcome and that will only happen with major structural,
economic, political, and cultural transformation as well as
resistance.

Identity Politics
Reformism DA Marxs analysis requires a focus on the body
because its the base of the capitalist superstructure. Failure
to analyze the divisions that mark bodies as justification for
labor means the neg can only analyze the superstructure, not
the base. The affs historical analysis of the body is thus more
totalizing and material than they are.
Levin 85 (DAVID MICHAEL LEVIN, THE BODY POLITIC: POLITICAL ECONOMY AND THE HUMAN
BODY, Department of Philosophy, Northwestern University, Evanston, ILA, KC)

In the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, and therefore at a very early stage of his thinking, Marx
introduced the question of embodiment, and undertook to articulate, in terms that not only initiated the discourse,
but still continue to define its direction, its 237 reach and range, virtually all the principal points that need to be
addressed by radical social theory (Fromm, 1961, pp. 131-135). In a very bold way, Marx successfully staked out the
territory for critical thought: so successfully, in fact, that even today, we can make use of those stakes to lay out for

Marx formulated
the most central goal: to "humanize" or spiritualize" the senses, and bodily life in
general, as part of the process of self-development and self realization .
What is more, he understood the historicity of this process: he understood,
and consequently helps us to understand, that human embodiment manifests a great
potential for human being, that this potential requires careful and thoughtful
cultivation, that the body and the body politic, an inseparable
existential unit, reflect one another in a perpetual dialectical drama,
and that, for this reason, corresponding and fundamental changes in our
political economy must take place if this essential cultivation of our
potential as bodily beings is to be facilitated. Marx even located the
problem of embodiment within a field of cultural meanings deeply
conflicted: the body he describes is, for example, drawn and quartered in a field
of philosophical texts sharply polarized by "internal contradictions":
subjectivism vs. objectivism, spiritualism vs. materialism, myself vs. others, activity vs. passivity. He therefore
formulated the body problematic as an historical task for critical
social theory and revolutionary political praxis. The 1844 Manuscripts (especially,
ourselves the ground to be covered. With remarkable awareness and understanding,

perhaps, the Third) focus on the aesthetic and spiritual development of the senses: deepening sensory awareness,

integrating the different sense

modalities, and making full use of the whole range of our corporeal energies, capabilities,
and inborn skills. The German Ideology translates this early vision into a powerful critique of the
technological economy that begins to dominate the world with the
emergence of moden capitalism. Here Marx examines the effects on the
body wrought by a mode of production that requires the division and
routinization of labor and turns the human being into an objective
commodity-body whose sole value lies in its instrumental functions
its calculable fitness for productive activity with optimal efficiency
extending felt communication, cultivating sensibility,

(Fromm, 1961, p. 206). Over against this, Marx dreams of a body politic which would enable a man, as he puts it so
charmingly, "to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, and debate after dinner." Marx

never ceased to think the "nature" and "potential" of human embodiment, never 238 ceased to call the body politic
into question from the standpoint of the well-being of the human body. Even much later, in Capital, for example, he
followed out the implications of his earlier thinking; and he argued for a world so organized that the

productive "work" we would do could always be something that "gives play" to "our
bodily and mental powers" (Marx, 1906, pp. 197-198).

Even if imperfect, identity politics is the only and most

effective means for minority groups to gain a voice
Ross 2k [Marlon B. Ross, University of Michigan, Professor of English Language and Literature & African and
African American Studies, New Literary History, Vol. 31, No. 4, Is There Life after Identity Politics? (Autumn, 2000),
pp. 827-850, Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20057638, KC)

individuals sometimes identify as a group in order to

struggle for a share of power against others with whom they
disagree and to whom they are subordinated. Black women, for instance,
vote in a higher percentage and more consistently than any other
identity group for the Democratic Party. They do not do so in order merely to
assert a different perspective as an identity group; they do so instead because they
understand how their interests, as a collective group, place them in
peril if they do otherwise. Their group identity is the most effective
means for them to take sides in an ongoing argument in which
others constantly attempt to distort and diminish their share of
political, economic, and social resources. If they do not see how
their collective interests pivot on asserting their collective identity,
then they shall not be able to see the argument before them, much less
the ideology operating to buttress that argument. Their collective identity
clarifies which side of the argument they have to be on in order to
have a political voice. On the other hand, sometimes groups exploit a rational
On the one hand,

disagreement, creating oversimplified bilateral sides in order to em power themselves as a group by

subordinating others as a group. Every time politicians attack "welfare mothers," they manufacture a
bilateral argument of us against them, sometimes a very rationalist one, just to enhance their own
political power within the status quo. The interplay between opinion and identity is neither either/or
nor both/and but all at once.

Rational arguments can be used to mask

ideology, and contrarily they can be used to bring it to light, just as
the appeal to identity can be exploited to reveal a true difference of opinion or
exploited to fabricate a rational disagreement in order to win the upper hand in a competition among

limiting ideology to a rational disagreement of opinion

seems to cover over the naked reality of what it means to take sides
in any argument not purely defined by rationality , which no argument can be.
Such words as "side" and "stance," exploited by Professor Michaels because they are
inescapable in our deliberative discourses, again remind us that "left" and "right"
groups. Finally,

are oblique references to the human body, and I would suggest, as such, they are also references not
to just individual stray bodies, but to collectivities of bodies comprising the body politic.

People

take stancesthey take sidesbecause they stand somewhere, and where they always stand
in taking a side is in some identity-formation, assumed or affirmed,
normalized or marginalized, politic or politicized, covered or

exposed by the supposed reasonableness of the side they choose to take. If

politics were a forum among equals, like the relative equality of colleagues at some academic
conference, the attractiveness of Professor Michaels's argument would be undeniable. Politics,
however, is a struggle exactly because inequality exists among individuals constituted as groups.7

Ideology is not just the content or substance that thought takes in

politics, defined as the struggle for power; it is moreover the form
(including point of view) and direction (including point of view) that thought takes as
it structures and is structured by politics. Contrary to Professor Michaels's
assertions, therefore, point of view is not extrinsic to an argument; instead it
is an intrinsic facet of an argument as it helps to shape that argument's form, direction, and
content. Although it is much more than this, " identity politics" is, to some extent,
about what point of view is available to (and is occupied by) those engaged
in a struggle for power, and about how that power will be exercised. It is
a matter not just of what is being said, but also who is saying it about whom, and directed toward
whose individual and collective benefit and/or detriment.

We must act within identity politics as the only effective

method to coalesce against oppression
Ross 2k [Marlon B. Ross, University of Michigan, Professor of English Language and Literature & African and
African American Studies, New Literary History, Vol. 31, No. 4, Is There Life after Identity Politics? (Autumn, 2000),
pp. 827-850, Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20057638, KC)

Another reason we may be restless inside identity theory is because, according to

the institutional expectations of academe, we hunger for a new,
attention-grabbing paradigm to market at the moment that the sexiness of a new
method seems to wear off. Anti-identity advocates can smell that moment
approaching and are eager to capitalize on it to demote race, gender, and sexuality
and the identity groups that these categories supposedly represent. This sort of academic
restlessness is a bit underhanded, given that we have been studying solely the
intellectual identity of Aristotle for nigh 2400 years, and yet there is no movement to clamp down on
those who take pleasure in the study of Aristotelian physics, metaphysics, posterior analytics, ethics,

This kind
of academic restlessness can also take place within such an identity
discipline like feminism or queer studies. As Wiegman suggests, certain feminists
and poetics, even though these have ceased to provide a living paradigm for modernity.

are anxious to return to a universal woman because they have grown tired of others' "identity

Otherwise instructive queer theorists like Freeman in her contribution

here or Lauren Berlant10 strive to make family or church automatic signifiers
of unqueer conservatism blocking the progress of queer theory and
politics. This has the effect of dismissing a strong tendency among
Black lesbians, gays, and bisexuals to identify with church and
family as sites of transformation, actual and potential, central to their
sexual identity as Blacks and to their racial identity as men-loving
men and women-loving women. Such restlessness within an identity discipline
frequently tends also to assume that stigma, marginality, and typing
politics."

mobilized as key terms in Palumbo-Liu's contribution must

dominate the study of the

representation of intersecting identities, such that it becomes impossible to

understand, for instance, the pleasures of identification that enable Black sexual minorities to find in
the Black church and the Black family, not only in particular cases but also as institutions, magnets for
progressive "identity politics," rather than a common enemy that can unite queers across race, class,

Instead of assuming that something is astray with anyone

who identifies with these "reproductive" institutions, we need to
investigate and theorize the economies of pleasure operating in
such familial and familiar identity attractions. If we abandon the
study of identity "inside" academe in the clamor for a new paradigm, "out there" identity
politics and pleasures will continue and probably intensify. The more
self-consciously pleased and disturbed that we become in our
affirmed and enforced identities, the more restless we become
"inside" them. Even intensified self-consciousness, however, does not seem to get us closer to
and gender.

the dance of identification as we experience it pleasurably and disturbingly "inside" and "across" our
bodies' persons, individually and collectively considered. Our recourse to more externalized structures
like the sides of an argument or the solidity of economic classespromises some reprieve, but we
grow no less restless "outside" our personal and collective selves, as though individuals and their
dis/affectionate affiliations are emptied of their identity, mere meanings and patterns bereft of that
inner motivating vitality. As "identity politics" is not dead, is in fact thriving, so I'd
suggest we get on with making its theory and practice thrive in our intellectual institutions,
accompanied by less nervousness and as much pleasure as possible .

Nealon's examination
of "affect" as queer reception history is a good instance of this.11 By
insisting on pleasure as a face/t of identification, I realize that I risk
others' diminishing the political struggle at stake in the disciplining
of identity forms. I would not sacrifice one to the other. If identity is
always political, the economies of pleasure at work in identification
also cannot escape the play for power, in shared or monopolistic versions. In fact, it
is the activity of pleasure on and across subjects of identity that
makes identity such a forceful vehicle for oppressive politics, and
likewise this pleasure functions in collective assaults against
oppression. The pleasures of thinking that one belongs to a superior white race must be
reckoned as interfused with the obligations, confusions, fears, and privileges afforded by such a

the pleasure in identifying against

dominance cannot be delimited by acts of domination. Belonging to
a group formed through others' domination and one's own
subordination paradoxically affords its own peculiar pleasures
aimed at upsetting the norms of power. These are the potentially
liberating pleasures of identification that the domineering cannot
rescind, however much they may practice to outlaw or outpace them. Of identity's politics
and pleasures there is no end, and as for the "identity politics"
besetting us at the present time, we are only now beginning to
learn the rudimentary steps of the dance.
sweep ing, compelling identity. Fortunately for us,

Direct confrontation with issues of race is a precondition to

movements against capitalismthis is also a pre-req
Taylor 11 (Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, on the editorial board of the International
Socialist Review and a doctoral student in African American Studies at Northwestern
University; Race, class and Marxism, SocialistWorker.org,
http://socialistworker.org/2011/01/04/race-class-and-marxism, KC)

Marxists believe that the potential for that kind of unity is dependent on battles and struggles against

Without a commitment by revolutionary organizations in the

here and now to the fight against racism, working-class unity will never be
achieved and the revolutionary potential of the working class will never be
realized. Yet despite all the evidence of this commitment to fighting racism over many decades,
racism today.

Marxism has been maligned as, at best, "blind" to combating racism and, at worst, "incapable" of it.
For example, in an article published last summer, popular commentator and self-described "anti-racist"
Tim Wise summarized the critique of "left activists" that he later defines as Marxists. He writes:
[L]eft

activists often marginalize people of color by operating from a

framework of extreme class reductionism, which holds that the "real" issue is class,
not race, that "the only color that matters is green," and that issues like racism are mere "identity
politics," which should take a backseat to promoting class-based universalism and programs to help

This reductionism, by ignoring the way that even middle class

and affluent people of color face racism and color-based discrimination (and
working people.

by presuming that low-income folks of color and low-income whites are equally oppressed, despite a

reinforces white denial, privileges white

perspectivism and dismisses the lived reality of people of color. Even more, as
wealth of evidence to the contrary)

we'll see, it ignores perhaps the most important political lesson regarding the interplay of race and

the biggest reason why there is so little working-class

consciousness and unity in the Untied States (and thus, why class-based programs to uplift
all in need are so much weaker here than in the rest of the industrialized world), is precisely
because of racism and the way that white racism has been deliberately
inculcated among white working folks. Only by confronting that directly
(rather than sidestepping it as class reductionists seek to do) can we ever hope to build
cross-racial, class based coalitions. In other words, for the policies favored by the class
reductionist to work--be they social democrats or Marxists--or even to come into being, racism and
white supremacy must be challenged directly.
class: namely, that

A focus on traditional capitalism critiques marginalizes

cultural discussions of sexuality and gender, rendering the
affirmative useless and recreating our impacts
Butler, 98 (Judith, Judith Butler is an American philosopher and gender theorist
whose work has influenced political philosophy, ethics and the fields of feminist,
queer and literary theory,
MERELY CULTURAL, New Left Review I/227, January-February 1998,
http://newleftreview.org/I/227/judith-butler-merely-cultural, KC)

the result of parody is paradoxical: the gleeful sense of triumph

indulged by the avatars of an ostensibly more serious Marxism
about their moment in the cultural limelight exemplifies and
symptomatizes precisely the cultural object of critique they oppose;
Thus,

the sense of triumph over this enemy, which cannot take place without in some eerie way taking the very place of

raises the question of whether the aims and goals of this

more serious Marxism have not become hopelessly displaced onto a
cultural domain, producing a transient object of media attention in the place of a more systematic
analysis of economic and social relations. This sense of triumph reinscribes a
fractionalization with-in the Left at the very moment in which
welfare rights are being abolished in this country, class differentials
are intensifying across the globe, and the right wing in this country
has successfully gained the ground of the middle effectively
making the Left itself invisible within the media. When does it appear on the front
the enemy,

page of the New York Times, except on that rare occasion in which one part of the Left swipes at another, producing
a spectacle of the Left for mainstream liberal and conservative press consumption which is all too happy to discount
every and any faction of the Left within the political process, much less honour the Left of any kind as a strong force

Is the attempt to separate Marxism from the

study of culture and to rescue critical knowledge from the shoals of
cultural specificity simply a turf war between left cultural studies
and more orthodox forms of Marxism? How is this attempted separation related to the
claim that new social movements have split the Left, deprived us of common ideals, factionalized the
field of knowledge and political activism, reducing political activism
to the mere assertion and affirmation of cultural identity? The charge that
in the service of radical social change?

new social movements are merely cultural, that a unified and progressive Marxism must return to a materialism
based in an objective analysis of class, itself presumes that the distinction between material and cultural life is a
stable one. And this recourse to an apparently stable distinction between material and cultural life is clearly the
resurgence of a theoretical anachronism, one that discounts the contributions to Marxist theory since Althussers
displacement of the base-superstructure model, as well as various forms of cultural materialismfor instance,
Raymond Williams, Stuart Hall and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Indeed, the untimely resurgence of that distinction
is in the service of a tactic which seeks to identify new social movements with the merely cultural, and the cultural
with the derivative and secondary, thus embracing an anachronistic materialism as the banner for a new orthodoxy.

This resurgence of left orthodoxy calls for a unity that

would, paradoxi-cally, redivide the Left in precisely the way that orthodoxy
purports to lament. Indeed, one way of producing this division becomes clear when we ask which
Orthodox Unity

movements, and for what reasons, get relegated to the sphere of the merely cultural, and how that very division
between the material and the cultural becomes tactically invoked for the purposes of marginalizing certain forms of

And how does the new orthodoxy on the Left work in

tandem with a social and sexual conservativism that seeks to make
questions of race and sexuality secondary to the real business of
politics, producing a new and eerie political formation of neoconservative Marxisms . On what principles of exclusion or
subordination has this ostensible unity been erected? How quickly we forget
political activism?

that new social movements based on democratic principles became articulated against a hegemonic Left as well as

Have the historical reasons for

the development of semi-autonomous new social movements ever
really been taken into account by those who now lament their
a complicitous liberal centre and a truly threatening right wing?

emergence and credit them with narrow identitarian interests? Is this

situation not simply reproduced in the recent efforts to restore the universal through fiat, whether through the
imaginary finesse of Habermasian rationality or notions of the common good that prioritize a racially cleansed
notion of class? Is the point of the new rhetorics of unity not simply to include through domestication and
subordination precisely those movements that formed in part in opposition to such domestication and
subordination, showing that the proponents of the common good have failed to read the history that has made this
conflict possible? What the resurgent orthodoxy may resent about new social movements is precisely the vitality

Paradoxically, the very movements that

continue to keep the Left alive are credited with its paralysis. Although I
that such movement are enjoying.

would agree that a narrowly identitarian construal of such movements leads to a narrowing of the political field,

The
problem of unity or, more modestly, of solidarity cannot be resolved
through the transcendence or obliteration of this field, and certainly
not through the vain promise of retrieving a unity wrought through
exclusions, one that reinstitutes subordination as the condition of
its own possibility. The only possible unity will not be the synthesis of a set of conflicts, but will be a
there is no reason to assume that such social movements are reducible to their identitarian formations.

mode of sustaining conflict in politically productive ways, practice of contestation that demands that these
movements articulate their goals under the pressure of each other without therefore exactly becoming each other.

Feminism
Marxism cannot solve the alternative because it leaves the
public/private dichotomy and leaves the masculine worldview
in tact
Pandey 6 (Anupam, thesis submitted to faculty of graduate studies and research in partial
fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of doctorate of philosophy department of political
science Carleton university, forgin bonds with women, nature and the third world: an ecofeminist
critique of international relations, proquest, KC)

ecofeminism values the significant contribution of

Marxist/Socialist Feminism for being able to analyze the position of
women at the intersection of patriarchy and capitalism and developing a
historical and materialist analysis of the same as well as that of a
gendered division of labor. Yet, it parts company with Marxist feminist thought
because it leaves the masculine world and world-view and the publicprivate divide unchallenged. Also, its anti-ecological stance is
unacceptable from an ecofeminist perspective because not only does it
translate into violence against nature but conceptually, it leaves the
category of the other intact. Finally, ecofeminism takes issue with the
unwillingness of Marxist feminists to acknowledge the existence of the
body and a sexual division of labor which is undeniable in practice. To
negate it is a clear message to undermine the feminine principle as well
as existence and embracing the male as norm. Marxist feminists regard
human beings to be socially constructed and while that fact is perfectly
acceptable to ecofeminists, their stance on the issue is clear; human
beings are both socially and biologically constructed. <57-58>
To recapitulate,

Marxism operates from a starting point that ignores sexual

difference and footnotes any feminist struggle
Hartmann, 6

(Heidi Hartmann is a feminist economist and the founder of the Institute for
Women's Policy Research, a scientific research organization formed to meet the need for womencentered, public policy research, The Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism: Towards a More
Progressive Union, HEIDI I. HARTMANN, United States 1945- . Economist. Founding Director of the
Institute for Women's Policy Research (1987). Capitalism and Women's Work in the Home, 1900-1930
(1976), Women's Work, Aden's Work: Sex Segregation on the Job (1981), Comparable Worth: New
Directions for Research (1985), Women, Work, and Poverty: Woman-Centered Research for Policy
Change (2006) KC).

The

"marriage" of marxism and feminism has been like the marriage

husband and wife depicted in English common law: marxism and feminism
are one, and that one is Marxism. Recent attempts to integrate marxism
and feminism are unsatisfactory to us as feminists because they subsume
the feminist struggle into the "larger" struggle against capi tal. To continue our
simile further, either we need a healthier marriage or we need a divorce. The inequalities in this
marriage, like most social phenomena, are no accident.

Many marxists typically argue

that feminism is at best less important than class conflict and at worst
divisive of the working class. This political stance produces an analysis
that absorbs feminism into the class struggle . Moreover, the analytic power
of marxism with respect to capital has obscured its limitations with
respect to sexism. We will argue here that while marxist analysis provides essential insight into
the laws of historical development, and those of capital in particular, the categories of
marxism are sex-blind. Only a specifically feminist analysis reveals the
systemic character of relations between men and women. Yet feminist analysis
by itself is inadequate because it has been blind to history and insufficiency materialist. Both
Marxist analysis, particularly its historical and materialist method, and
feminist analysis, especially the identification of patriarchy as a social and
historical structure, must be drawn upon if we are to understand the
development of western capitalist societies and the predicament of
women within them. In this essay we suggest a new direction for marxist feminist analysis. I
MARXISM AND THE WOMAN QUESTION The woman question has never been the "feminist question."

The feminist question is directed at the causes of sexual inequality

between women and men, of male dominance over women. Most marxist
analyses of women's position take as their question the relationship of
women to the economic system, rather than that of women to men,
apparently assuming the latter will be explained in their discussion of the
former. Marxist analysis of the woman question has taken three main forms. All see
women's oppression .in our connection (or lack of it) to production, Defining
women as part of the working class, these analyses consistently subsume
women's relation to men under worker's relation to capital . First, early marxists,
including Marx, Engels, Kautsky, and Lenin, saw capitalism drawing, all women into the wage labor
force, and saw this process destroying the sexual division, of labor. Second, contemporary marxists
have incorporated, women into an analysis of evervdav life in capitalism. In this view, all aspects of
our lives are seen to reproduce the capitalist system and we are all workers in the system. And third,,
marxist feminists have focused on housework and its relation to capital, some arguing that housework
produces surplus value and that houseworkers work directly for capitalists. . . . While the approach of
the early marxists ignored housework and stressed women's labor force participation, the two more
recent approaches emphasize housework to such an extent they ignore women's current role in the

all three attempt to include women in the category

working class and to understand women's oppression as another aspect of
class oppression. In doing so all give short shrift to the object of feminist
analysis, the relations between women and men. While our "problems"
have been elegantly analyzed, they have been misunderstood . The focus of
labor market. Nevertheless,

Marxist analysis has been class relations; the object of marxist analysis has been understanding the
laws of motion of capitalist society. While we believe marxist methodology can be used to formulate
feminist strategy, these marxist feminist approaches discussed above clearly do not do so; their
marxism clearly dominates their feminism. Marxism enables us to understand many aspects of
capitalist societies: the structure of production, the generation of a particular occupational structure,

Marx's theory of the development of

capitalism is a theory of the development of "empty places." Marx predicted, for
and the nature of the dominant ideology.

example, the growth of the proletariat and the demise of the petit bourgeoisie. More precisely and in
more detail, Braverman among others has explained the creation of the "places" clerical worker and

Just as capital creates these places

indifferent to the individuals who fill them, the cat egories of marxist
analysis, class, reserve army of labor, wage laborer, do not explain why
particular people, fill particular places. They give no clues about why
women are subordinate to men inside and outside the family and why it is
service worker in advanced capitalist societies.2

not the other way around. Marxist categories, like capital itself, are sexblind. The categories of Marxism cannot tell us who will fill the empty
places. Marxist analysis of the woman question has suffered from this
basic problem.

The alternative refuses to address sexualities which leads to

repression and widespread violence
Ellison, 96 (Marvin, completed his doctoral studies at Union Theological
Seminary in 1981 and taught Christian social ethics at Bangor Theological
Seminary, Sexuality and the Sacred: Sources for Theological Reflection, edited by
Marvin Mahan Ellison, Kelly Brown Douglas
http://tinyurl.com/qehqq7u, KC)

An ethic of erotic justice, therefore, does not lower but raises moral
expectations. lt teaches us to demand for ourselves (and others)
what we deserve, namely, to be whole persons to each other and to
be deeply, respectfully loved. A gmcious, liberating ethic will teach us to claim our right to
erotic justice and also to invest in creating a more just and equitable world. ln our late-capitalist
culture, desire has been commodified to sell goods. ln that process
of commodification, desire has been narrowly sexualized and
privatized, so much so that liar many people erotic desire now denotes only desire of a genital sort.
More specifically desire has been truncated to mean taking pleasure
in possession. Possessiveness is a primary virtue in a capitalist
political economy. Pleasure has become the pleasure of owning
consumer goods and status objects, as well as exercising monopoly
control over another person as my man" or my woman." lt is a
major challenge I enlarge the meaning I desire I ineoolate once again a sense I being free-spirited, full I
joy in being alive non-possessed," throughout ones life. This expanded notion 'desire can
be a mighty, though tender, spark from within I, enlivening our desire - a more ethical world.
Erotic power can stir I I engage in a full-bodied wav in Creating My suspicion is that the
pervasive fear of sex and passion, rampant in all patriarchal religious traditions, is deeply
implicated in the difficulty for many people have in sustaining I interest in, much less a passion for, social justice. By

even liberal Christians either regard patriarchal control as

socially necessary or dismiss sexuality as a rather indifferent matter
that bears little consequence compared to larger more
legitimate social issues. For many people, the link between sexuality is muddled at best. By not
and large,

paving attention to sexual oppression, people fail I grasp how a multiplicity of interconnected social oppressions
operate in the small and large places their lives, in and on their bodies and the body politic. These injustices
diminish human lov- ing. When people are willing I accept power as control in their intimate lives, they are also
likely to acquiesce to other oppressive structures that control them. They fail to see that sexual oppression is
intimately bound up with race, gender, - class oppression. People fail, therefore, to connect their personal pain with
larger systemic patterns injustice. White, middle-strata Christians are deeply hurting but have few clues about the
sources of their suffering.

They project their fear and pain onto more

vulnerable groups, including feminist women, people of color, and

gay/ lesbian/ bisexual persons. Out touch with their own bodies (and feelings), they are also
distanced from the beauty and moral value of other body-selves,
especially among the culturally despised." They are at a loss about how to reclaim
their personal power and zest for life. Tragically when people are cut off from genu- ine community and when their

they tend to become more

repressive about sex more judgemental about differences, and more
unforgiving toward themselves and others. In the process they become dangerous.
They turn their repressed anger and rage on the very people they
ought to be listening to and learning from, the ones most insistent
about the goodness of every body.
physical emotional needs are not being ade- quately met,

Narratives/Poems
Totalizing analysis of capitalism just fragments resistance- our
approach is better
Gibson-Graham, 96 (J.K. Gibson-Graham, Professor of Human Geography at the
Australian National University and Professor of Geosciences at the University of Massachusates,
Amherst, 1996, The End of Capitalism As We Know It, KC)

Capitalism has become the

intimate enemy. We have uncloaked the ideologically-clothed, obscure monster,
but we have installed a naked and visible monster in its place. In return for our
labors of creation, the monster has robbed us of all force. We hear and find it easy to believe that the
left is in disarray. Part of what produces the disarray of the left is the vision of what the left is arrayed against. When capitalism is
represented as a unified system coextensive with the nation or even the world,
when it is portrayed as crowding out all other economic forms, when it is allowed
to define entire societies, it becomes something that can only be defeated and
replaced by a mass collective movement (or by a process of systemic dissolution that such a movement might assist).
The revolutionary task of replacing capitalism now seems outmoded and
unrealistic, yet we do not seem to have an alternative conception of class
transformation to take its place. The old political economic systems and structures that call forth a vision of revolution as
One of our goals as Marxists has been to produce a knowledge of capitalism. Yet as that which is known,

systemic replacement still seem to be dominant in the Marxist political imagination. The New World Order is often represented as political fragmentation founded
upon economic unification. In this vision the economy appears as the last stronghold of unity and singularity in a world of diversity and plurality. But why cant the
economy be fragmented too? If we theorized it as fragmented in the United States, we could being to see a huge state sector (incorporating a variety of forms of
appropriation of surplus labor), a very large sector of self-employed and family-based producers (most noncapitalist), a huge household sector (again, quite various
in terms of forms of exploitation, with some households moving towards communal or collective appropriation and others operating in a traditional mode in which

If capitalism takes up the available

social space, theres no room for anything else. If capitalism cannot coexist,
theres no possibility of anything else. If capitalism functions as a unity, it cannot
be partially or locally replaced. My intent is to help create the discursive
conception under which socialist or other noncapitalist construction becomes
realistic present activity rather than a ludicrous or utopian goal. To achieve this
I must smash Capitalism and see it in a thousand pieces . I must make its unity a fantasy, visible as a denial
one adult appropriates surplus labor from another). None of these things is easy to see.

of diversity and change.

Resistance to capitalism will fail without confronting the way

the capitalism de-spiritualizes society, our argument is that
our voices will no longer be exchangeable, the reason that
people can be reduced to economic units under capitalism is
because they are seen as soulless, because our spiritual
connection to each other is lost in a world of capitalism where
people are only defined in terms of labor and production we
ARE the alternative to capitalism, only our centering provides
an alternative way to create a stable community.
Brentlinger 2k (John. Revolutionizing Spirituality: Reflections on Marxism and Religion
Science & Society, Vol. 64, No. 2 (Summer, 2000), pp. 171-193, KC)

Efforts toward dialog between Marxists and religiously identified progressives are certainly essential,
and might lead to a common social agenda. But I want to argue for more. My deeper concern is that,

Marxists and secular leftists have failed to

see or respect the value of spirituality, as the positive source of their own
religious traditions and much progressive politics. Spirituality constitutes a broad
basis for unity among all progressives, in spite of ideological
differences, and needs to become a necessary component of a
transformative politics. I have argued elsewhere that spirituality and the sacred can be
plausibly defined within a materialist framework (Brentlinger, 1995, 347364). Spirituality, in
broad, inclusive terms, is the capacity to feel deeply bonded with all
beings on this earth; to acknowledge the deep, ultimate value of
life and community, among ourselves and with nature. It is
expressed by love and a sense of responsibility for others. A spiritual
ignited by enlightenment rationalism,

perspective values all beings as intrinsically good and acknowledges and respects the parts they play
positively or unfortunately negatively in the same creative, evolutionary process of life and
liberation. Two points about this conception of spirituality need to be under lined. TheoreticaLly, it is
compatible with both materialism and other worldly idealism. These alternative ideologies
conceptualize the range of spiritual relationships differently, but both arise from a common basis of
what might be called a sense of deep connectedness and an affirmation of being. This basis unites
believers and non-believers in spite of ideological or metaphysical differences. Practically, a similar
contrast applies: spirituality can take apolitical or progressive forms. It can be self-centered and
naive, rigidly reactionary, or even fascistic; or it can express itself with great fullness when guided by

socialism
without spirituality can be as empty and cruel as capitalism. The
worldwide expansion of capitalism has undermined the his torical
foundations of spirituality by scattering families, destroying
established communities, replacing traditions with consumerism,
and alienating our relationship to nature. Marxists need to take
seriously the de-spiritualization of society, and themselves, under
capitalism.3 Marxists have theorized the devastating spiritual
effects of capi talism, through the secular concept of alienation,
defined as disconnection from self, others, and nature (see especially
Olhnan, 1976). But within Marxist theory there is presently no
corresponding positive concept; we have only the doubly negative
conception of non-alienated relationships. One might try to communicate the
a progressive political vision. A third point, for which we have only too much evidence:

concept of a non-alienated relationship Lt a non-Marxist public; to a people with strong religious

traditions, among whom presently in the United States, after 300 years of Enlightenment-inspired
science, 69% are members of religious congregations, and 43% almost half the population
attend services weekly (USBC, 1997,70). The theoreti cal aspect of religious belief and its antiscientific leanings may have diminished in influence with us, yet the social and political role of
religion, and its importance in community, family, and personal life, look to be greater than ever.

We

Marxists can explain better than anyone the main sources of social and
psychological dysfunction in this society; we can offer real options
on the level of political economy; we must also acknowledge the
need to restore the foundations of spiritual relationships, in
families, communities, traditions, and with nature. To do this we must join
with, and learn from, communities of faith. This is not to advocate a theoretical cop-out for political
expediency. Quite the contrary, it needs to be remembered that Marxism came into the world with a
new definition of materialism, one that incorporated the conception of creative activity. Marx
redefined, or relocated, the hitherto idealist notion of creative potential as a natu ral fact. n the
first Thesis on Feuerbach

Marx wrote: The chief defect of all hitherto

existing materialism . . . is that reality.. . is conceived only in the

form of object.. . not as human sensuous activity, practice, not
subjectively. Hence it happened that the active side, in contradistinction to materialism, was
developed by idealism but only abstractly, since, of course, idealism does not know real, sensuous
activity as such. . . (Marx, 1845b, 143.) As this statement shows, Marxian materialism is not
opposed to idealism as classical materialisms are: rather, it takes the core idea or reality which
idealism recognizes, creative activity, Hegels concept of spirit (geist), and gives it its true status as
natural sensuous activity. My argument concerning spirituality is analogous: to grasp the core
meaning of a spiritual relation, prominent in religious and non religious struggles for a good society,
and to acknowledge its pres ence and importance in real life activity, values, and goals. So con-

spirituality does not imply a supreme spirit, a spiritual realm

separate from the real world, oppose our human nature, or lead to
a self-concerned feel-better lifestyle: on the contrary, it is a
phenomenon of nature, of the behavior of animals and people,
manifest in activities that are other-affirming, and so highly valued
that people throughout history have described a spiritual attitude
as above this world.4 Marxist literature has been pervasively oppositional. The
immediate impulses of most Marxists, accordingly, is to see
spirituality as a reactionary tendency incompatible with Marxism.
ceived,

This is amply sup ported by the capitalist media: look in any bookstore for the head ing Spirituality
for a range of apolitical, pseudo-political, or re actionary panaceas that accommodate people to

people want more than

accommodation: and what they need is revolutionary politics with a
spiritual dimension.
capitalist reality and values. Yet obviously

Queer Link Turn

Link turn- Because in some instances capitalism has made
queerness more visible, it is the perfect time to use queer
Marxist feminism to challenge capitalisms totalizing stance
Sears 5 (Alan, Professor at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology of
University of Windsor, January 2005, Queer Anti-Capitalism: What's Left of Lesbian
and Gay Liberation,
Science & Society, Vol. 96, No. 1, January 2005, 92-112,
http://academic.evergreen.edu/curricular/pesm/QueerAntiCap.pdf , KC)

the fact that advanced capitalism has opened up certain spaces

for open lesbian and gay existence should not mute our anti-capital
ism. Indeed, queer marxist feminism provides tools for understanding
the ways that the commodification of public lesbian and gay life has
distorted our communities. The nature of market relations is that access to goods or services is
Yet

based not on need or desire, but on the ability to pay. A community structured around commodified public spaces is
economically exclusive. Not everyone has the money, or the class-based taste, to outlit themselves with the right

Women are less

likely to have access to a public commercial lesbian scene as a
result of the dominant gendered division of labor that tends to offer
women lower economic standing and a greater likelihood of having
private domestic responsibilities. Men with limited incomes are not likely to find their
clothes, hair- cuts and accessories or to pay the price of socializing at the in places.

way in.

Perm do both solves: A combination of queer and feminist

theory with Marxism can solve the complicated nuances and
intersections of class and sexuality and their relationship to
the capitalist system
Sears 5 (Alan, Professor at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology of University of
Windsor, January 2005, Queer Anti-Capitalism: What's Left of Lesbian and Gay Liberation,
Science & Society, Vol. 96, No. 1, January 2005, 92-112,
http://academic.evergreen.edu/curricular/pesm/QueerAntiCap.pdf, KC)

I refer specifically to a queer marxist feminism to argue that marxist feminism as it has emerged since the 1960s is
a necessary but not suf- ficient tool for the of contemporary lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered politics.

The distinguishing feature of marxist-feminist theories is the

insistence that the dynamics of class, gender, race and sexuality are
internally related yet not reducible to one another. The historical
materialist analysis of capitalist reproduction must examine the
ways that the different dimensions of structured inequality are

present in each other (see Banneiji, 1995). An adequate understand- ing of class
formation must therefore be based on a rich analysis of the ways class
relations are gendered, racialized and sexualized, just as an
examination of sexualities must attend to the ways that sexual and
intimate relations are classed, gendered and racialized. Marxist
feminism thus rejects both dual (or multi) systems theo- ries that see class,
gender, race/ ethnicity and sexuality as separate spheres that intersect, on the one
hand; and the reductionist marxism that seeks to capture all of social reality through the single lens of class
exploitation as examined in the works of classical marxism, on the other! Marxist feminism expanded the
parameters of marxist analysis by seriously rethinking in the light of the challenge of an emerging social movement

Marxist feminists neither rejected the key

premises of marxism nor argued that all important questions had
already been answered in the received versions of so-called
classical marxism.
(in this case, second-wave feminism).5

Perm queer the alternative- we need a queer version of

Marxist thought in order to solve for the problems of exploitive
capitalism and solves for the gaps in queer analysis now
Sears 5 (Alan, Professor at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology of
University of Windsor, January 2005, Queer Anti-Capitalism: What's Left of Lesbian
and Gay Liberation,
Science & Society, Vol. 96, No. 1, January 2005, 92-112,
http://academic.evergreen.edu/curricular/pesm/QueerAntiCap.pdf, KC)

A queer marxist feminism builds on this conception of social reproduction by relating it to the indigenous politics of sexual
emancipation developed in the lesbian and gay liberation
movement. I believe a queer marxist feminism can contribute to a
revival of some of the most emancipatory aspects of lesbian and gay
liberation by explaining how the limits and contradictions in the gains we have made since 1969 are tied to
the specific dynamics of racialized, gendered and sexualized capitalist reproduction. This is not a
departure from marxist feminism, but an expansion of it in light of
the politics of queer liberation. In the first section of this article I briefly map the politics that
emerged out of the lesbian and gay liberation movement. I believe that a critical encounter with
these indigenous politics is a crucial feature of a queer marxistfeminist analysis. In the second section, I work to- wards the development of a queer marxist-feminist
analysis that sheds light on the current moment in sexual politics. It is my contention that this kind of analysis
provides insight into aspects of queer existence that are not
examined in the postmodern queer theories or liberal accounts that
tend to dominate theoretical work in this area.

Race

Focus on capitalism fails to recognize Americas legacy of

racism which has materialized violently in the status quo in the
form of police brutality, prisons systems and the extreme
poverty that people of color experience
Ervin, 2k (Lorenzo, American writer, activist, and black anarchist. He is a former
member of the Black Panther Party, originally written in 2000 posted online on July
29 2005, It's Racism Stupid! libcom, https://libcom.org/library/its-racism-stupidlorenzo-ervin)--CRG

In speaking about any class issues in the United States, an understanding

of white supremacy and economic inequality must go hand-in-hand .
Most white "radicals" want to neatly put "race issues" over in one
neat category, and then "class issues" in another. We'll call this "vulgar
radicalism" because it is totally not based on any social or political understanding of the problem. The US
working class has never been monolithic, there has always been a
dual tier economy of poor oppressed workers of color on the bottom ,
and better paid and treated whites standing on top of and benefitting from their misery. I don't just mean the
bosses either, as many so-called "radicals" like to claim, when they talk mythically about some so-called

In a country with a history of racial genocide, racial

slavery, and other forms of racialized oppression, it is chauvinism and
political opportunism of the worst sort to call for peoples of color to blindly follow
behind some corrupt white dominated political or social movement
to liberate themselves. This has been a problem for Labor, Socialist, Anarchist, and other radical
movements for decades. They have a White, middle class understanding of
this race and class oppression as mere "prejudice", and see the
problem as a simple matter of making "those Blacks" see that they
should just "follow us". This idea of the "white working class hero" is
really dangerous and delusional, sliding into racism itself . With an
epidemic of police crimes, and now that the prison system is being used to confine
huge number of poor Black and non-white peoples, it is treachery and
escapism to refuse to acknowledge that this is happening because of
America's legacy of racism, and because this capitalism political and economic system is
"aristocracy of labor."

deteriorating. It is funny how in the United States, most whites have an obliterated consciousness when it comes to
racism, they see it as an adjunct to something else, whether economic theory or religious dogma. The questions of
internal power dynamic (of which racism is a part) are reduced to a group of Wall Street economic overlords or
owners of industry, to which we are all *equally* disposed and exploited. Again, any economic analysis cannot be
based on the white European experience alone, rather than the United States America as a nation-state. To me, this
is part of where they always go wrong...using mechanical analysis to explain everything. I ain't buying it, the cops
ain't stopping the cars of Black folks cause they are just oppressing "everybody alike". It's racism, stupid, get your
head out of your butt!

Wilderson
They have it backwards- capitalism began because of the
violent exploitation of the black body
Wilderson, 5 (Frank, Full professor of Drama and African American studies at the
University of California, Irvine, January 27 2005, Gramscis Black Marx: Whither the
Slave in Civil Society?,
http://bmorereadinggroup.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/frank_gramsci.pdf, KC)

Capital was kick-started by the rape of the African continent. This

phenomenon is central to neither Gramsci nor Marx. The theoretical importance
of emphasizing this in the early 21st century is two-fold: First, the socio-political order of the
New World (Spillers 1987: 67) was kick-started by approaching a particular
body (a Black body) with direct relations of force, not by
approaching a White body with variable capital. Thus, one could say that
slavery-the accumulation of Black bodies regardless of their utility as laborers (Hartrnan; Johnson) through
an idiom of despotic power (Patterson)-is closer to capital's primal desire than is
waged oppression-the exploitation of unraced bodies (Marx, Lenin, Gramsci) that labor through an
idiom of rational/symbolic (the wage) power: A relation of terror as opposed to a
relation of hegemony? Secondly, today, late capital is imposing a
renaissance of this original desire, direct relations of force (the prison
industrial complex), the despotism of the unwaged relation: and this
Renaissance of slavery has, once again, as its structuring image in
libidinal economy, and its primary target in political economy, the
Black body.

Perm do both- classical Marxism doesnt take into account the

category of the slave. A combination of both allows the
potential of a Black subject to challenge capitalism
Wilderson, 5 (Frank, Full professor of Drama and African American studies at the
University of California, Irvine, January 27 2005, Gramscis Black Marx: Whither the
Slave in Civil Society?,
http://bmorereadinggroup.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/frank_gramsci.pdf, KC)

The value of reintroducing the unthought category of the slave , by way

of noting the absence of the Black subject, lies in the Black subjects potential for
extending the demand placed on state/capital formations because
its re- introduction into the discourse expands the intensity of the
antagonism. In other words, the slave makes a demand, which is in excess of the demand made by the
worker. The worker demands that productivity be fair and democratic (Gramsci's new hegemony, Lenins
dictatorship of the proletariat),

the slave, on the other hand, demands that

production stop; stop without recourse to its ultimate

democratization. Work is not an organic principle for the slave. The absence of Black
subjectivity from the crux of marxist discourse is symptomatic of
the discourse's inability to cope with the possibility that the
generative subject of capitalism, the Black body of the 15th and 16th centuries, and the
generative subject that resolves late-capital's over-accumulation
crisis, the Black (incarcerated) body of the 20th and 21st centuries, do not reify the basic categories which
structure marxist conflict: the categories of work, production, exploitation,
historical self-awareness and, above all, hegemony.

The negative fails to disrupt white supremacy and we have

better access to their impacts because the position of the
affirmative itself disrupts the notions of productivity that
capitalism thrives on
Wilderson, 5 (Frank, Full professor of Drama and African American studies at the
University of California, Irvine, January 27 2005, Gramscis Black Marx: Whither the
Slave in Civil Society?,
http://bmorereadinggroup.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/frank_gramsci.pdf, KC)

the Black subject position in America is an antagonism, a demand

that can not be satisfied through a transfer of
ownership/organization of existing rubrics; whereas the Gramscian subject, the
worker, represents a demand that can indeed be satisfied by way of
a successful War of Position, which brings about the end of exploitation. The worker calls
into question the legitimacy of productive practices, the slave calls
into question the legitimacy of productivity itself. From the positionality
Thus,

of the worker the question, What does it mean to be free? is raised. But the question
hides the process by which the discourse assumes a hidden grammar which has
already posed and answered the question, What does it mean to suffer? And

that grammar is organized around the categories of exploitation

(unfair labor relations or wage slavery). Thus, exploitation (wage
slavery) is the only category of oppression which concerns Gramsci:
society, Westem society, thrives on the exploitation of the Gramscian subject. Full
stop. Again, this is inadequate, because it would call White supremacy

"racism" and articulate it as a derivative phenomenon of the

capitalist matrix, rather than incorporating White supremacy as a
matrix constituent to the base, if not the base itself.

The alternative ignores the libidinal economy of White

supremacy and recreates the affs impacts
Wilderson, 5 (Frank, Full professor of Drama and African American studies at the
University of California, Irvine, January 27 2005, Gramscis Black Marx: Whither the
Slave in Civil Society?,
http://bmorereadinggroup.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/frank_gramsci.pdf, KC)

a violence which kills, rather

than merely exploits, the object, that the concept might live. West's
interventions help us see how marxism can only come to grips with Americas
structuring rationality -- what it calls capitalism, or political economy; but cannot
come to grips with America's structuring irrationality: the libidinal
economy of White supremacy, and its hyper-discursive violence
which kills the Black subject that the concept, civil society, may live.
And it is well known that a metaphor comes into being through

In other words, from the incoherence of Black death, America generates the coherence of White life. This is
important when thinking the Gramscian paradigm (and its progenitors in the world of U.S. social movements today)

struggles over
hegemony are seldom, if ever, asignifying-at some point they
require coherence, they require categories for the record-which
means they contain the seeds of anti-Blackness.
which is so dependent on the empirical status of hegemony and civil society:

The negative has the wrong starting point- their discourse

assumes a country based upon capital, not one based upon
white supremacy
Wilderson, 5 (Frank, Full professor of Drama and African American studies at the
University of California, Irvine, January 27 2005, Gramscis Black Marx: Whither the
Slave in Civil Society?,
http://bmorereadinggroup.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/frank_gramsci.pdf, KC)

Any serious consideration of the question of antagonistic identity

formation-a formation, the mass mobilization of which can precipitate a crisis in the
institutions and assumptive logic which undergird the United States of
America-must come to grips with the limitations of marxist
discourse in the face of the Black subject. This is because the United States is
constructed at the intersection of both a capitalist and white
supremacist matrix. And the privileged subject of marxist discourse is a subaltern who is approached
by variable capital-a wage. In other words, Marxism assumes a subaltern structured
by capital, not by white supremacy. In this scenario, racism is read off the base, as it were,
as being derivative of political economy. This is not an adequate subalternity from
which to think the elaboration of antagonistic identity formation;
not if we are truly committed to elaborating a theory of crisis-crisis
at the crux of Americas institutional and discursive strategies.

Their kritik ignores the black body and the exploitation of

slavery, meaning they can never solve the affirmative
Wilderson, 5 (Frank, Full professor of Drama and African American studies at the
University of California, Irvine, January 27 2005, Gramscis Black Marx: Whither the
Slave in Civil Society?,
http://bmorereadinggroup.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/frank_gramsci.pdf, KC)

the Black American subject imposes a radical incoherence upon

the assumptive logic of Gramscian discourse. In other words, s/he implies a scandal.
Secondly, the Black subject reveals marxisms inability to think White
supremacy as the base and, in so doing, calls into question marxisms
claim to elaborate a comprehensive, or in the words of Antonio Gramsci, decisive
antagonism. Stated another way: Gramscian Marxism is able to imagine the
subject which transforms her/himself into a mass of antagonistic
identity formations, formations which can precipitate a crisis in
wage slavery, exploitation, and/for hegemony, but it is asleep at the wheel when asked to provide
enabling antagonisrns toward unwaged slavery, despotism, and/or terror. Finally, we begin to see how
Marxism suffers lrom a kind of conceptual anxiety: a desire for
socialism on the other side of crisis -- a society which does away not
with the category of worker, but with the imposition workers suffer
under the approach of variable capital: in other words, the mark of its conceptual anxiety
First,

is in its desire to democratize work and thus help keep in place, insure the coherence to; Reformation and
Enlightenment foundational values of productivity and progress. This is a crowding-out scenario for other postrevolutionary possibilities, i.e. idleness.

The K erases the concept of White privilege and positionalitymeans it can never solve our imapcts
Wilderson, 5 (Frank, Full professor of Drama and African American studies at the
University of California, Irvine, January 27 2005, Gramscis Black Marx: Whither the
Slave in Civil Society?,
http://bmorereadinggroup.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/frank_gramsci.pdf, KC)
It is true that Gramsci acknowledges no organic division between political
society and civil society. He makes the division for methodological purposes. There
is one organism, the modern bourgeois-liberal state (Buttigieg 28),
but there are two qualitatively different kinds of apparatuses: on the one hand, the

ensemble of so-called private associations and ideological

invitations to participate in a wide and varied play of consensus
making strategies, civil society, and on the other hand, a set of
enforcement structures which kick in when that ensemble is

regressive or can no longer lead, political society. But Gramsci would

have us believe not that White positionality emerges and is
elaborated on the terrain of civil society and encounters coercion
when civil society is not expansive enough to embrace the idea of
freedom for all, but that all positionalities emerge and are
elaborated on the terrain of civil society. Gramsci does not racialize this
birth, elaboration, and stlmting, or re-emergence, of human subjectivity-because
civil society, supposedly, elaborates all subjectivity and so there is no need for such
specificity.

The negative ignores the gratuitous violence perpetuated

against the black body- reject the team
Wilderson, 5 (Frank, Full professor of Drama and African American studies at the
University of California, Irvine, January 27 2005, Gramscis Black Marx: Whither the
Slave in Civil Society?,
http://bmorereadinggroup.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/frank_gramsci.pdf, KC)
Anglo-American

Gramscians like Buttigieg and Sassoon, and U.S. activists in the

anti-globalization movement whose unspoken grammar is
predicated on Gramscis assumptive logic continue this tradition of
unraced positionality which allows them to posit the valency of Wars
of Position for Blacks and Whites alike. They assume that all subjects are positioned in
such a Way as to have their consent solicited and to, furthermore, be able to extend their consent spontaneously.

This is profoundly problematic if only-leaving revolution aside for

the moment-at the level of analysis; for it assumes that hegemony
with its three constituent elements (influence, leadership, consent) is the
modality which must be either inculcated or breached, if one is to
either avoid or incur, respectively, the violence of the State. However, one
of the primary claims of this essay is that, whereas the consent of Black people may
seem to be called upon, its withdrawal does not precipitate a crisis
in authority. Put another Way, the transformation of Black peoples
acquiescent common sense into revolutionary good sense is an
extenuating circumstance, but not the catalyst, of State violence
against Black people. State violence against the Black body , as Martinot
and Sexton suggest in their introduction, is not contingent, it is structural and, above
all, gratuitous .

Alt Fails

Intersectionality Key
The alt misrecognizes violence as purely capitalist. This denial of
the complexity of violence means the alt will fail. The alt treats all
violence as essentially the same and stemming from the same
capitalist impulse. Instead we should understand violence as a
continuum so that we may see the symptoms of the capacity of
ordinary people to commit atrocious acts.

Scheper-Hughes and Bourgois 4

(Prof of Anthropology @ Cal-Berkeley; Prof of

Anthropology @ UPenn Nancy and Philippe, Introduction: Making Sense of Violence, in Violence in War
and Peace, pg. 19-22)

Under the violence continuum we include, therefore, all expressions

of radical social exclusion, dehumanization, depersonalization,
pseudo speciation, and reification which normalize atrocious
behavior and violence toward others. A constant self-mobilization
for alarm, a state of constant hyper arousal is, perhaps, a
reasonable response to Benjamins view of late modern history as a
chronic state of emergency (Taussig, Chapter 31). We are trying to recover here the classic
anagogic thinking that enabled Erving Goffman, Jules Henry, C. Wright Mills, and Franco Basaglia among other midtwentieth-century radically critical thinkers, to perceive the symbolic and structural relations, i.e., between inmates
and patients, between concentration camps, prisons, mental hospitals, nursing homes, and other total institutions.

Making that decisive move to recognize the continuum of violence

allows us to see the capacity and the willingness - if not enthusiasm
- of ordinary people, the practical technicians of the social
consensus, to enforce genocidal-like crimes against categories of
rubbish people. There is no primary impulse out of which mass
violence and genocide are born, it is ingrained in the common sense
of everyday social life. The mad, the differently abled, the mentally
vulnerable have often fallen into this category of the unworthy
living, as have the very old and infirm, the sick-poor, and, of course,
the despised racial, religious, sexual, and ethnic groups of the
moment. Erik Erikson referred to pseudo- speciation as the human tendency to classify some individuals or
social groups as less than fully human - a prerequisite to genocide and one that is carefully honed during the

.
Collective denial and misrecognition are prerequisites for mass
violence and genocide. But so are formal bureaucratic structures and professional roles. The
unremark- able peacetimes that precede the sudden, seemingly unintelligible outbreaks of mass violence

practical technicians of everyday violence in the backlands of Northeast Brazil (Scheper-Hughes, Chapter 33), for
example, include the clinic doctors who prescribe powerful tranquilizers to fretful and frightfully hungry babies, the
Catholic priests who celebrate the death of angel-babies, and the municipal bureaucrats who dispense free baby

Everyday violence encompasses the implicit,

legitimate, and routinized forms of violence inherent in particular
social, economic, and political formations. It is close to what Bourdieu (1977, 1996)
coffins but no food to hungry families.

means by symbolic violence, the violence that is often nus-recognized for something else, usually something
good. Everyday violence is similar to what Taussig (1989) calls terror as usual. All these terms are meant to reveal
a public secret - the hidden links between violence in war and violence in peace, and between war crimes and
peace-time crimes. Bourdieu (1977) finds domination and violence in the least likely places - in courtship and
marriage, in the exchange of gifts, in systems of classification, in style, art, and culinary taste- the various uses of
culture. Violence, Bourdieu insists, is everywhere in social practice. It is misrecognized because its very
everydayness and its familiarity render it invisible. Lacan identifies rneconnaissance as the prerequisite of the

social. The exploitation of bachelor sons, robbing them of autonomy, independence, and progeny, within the
structures of family farming in the European countryside that Bourdieu escaped is a case in point (Bourdieu, Chapter
42; see also Scheper-Hughes, 2000b; Favret-Saada, 1989). Following Gramsci, Foucault, Sartre, Arendt, and other
modern theorists of power-vio- lence, Bourdieu treats direct aggression and physical violence as a crude,
uneconomical mode of domination; it is less efficient and, according to Arendt (1969), it is certainly less legitimate.
While power and symbolic domination are not to be equated with violence - and Arendt argues persuasively that
violence is to be understood as a failure of power - violence, as we are presenting it here, is more than simply the
expression of illegitimate physical force against a person or group of persons. Rather, we need to understand
violence as encompassing all forms of controlling processes (Nader 1997b) that assault basic human freedoms and
individual or collective survival. Our task is to recognize these gray zones of violence which are, by definition, not
obvious. Once again, the point of bringing into the discourses on genocide everyday, normative experiences of
reification, depersonalization, institutional confinement, and acceptable death is to help answer the question: What

that mass violence is

part of a continuum, and that it is socially incremental and often
experienced by perpetrators, collaborators, bystanders - and even
by victims themselves - as expected, routine, even justified. The
makes mass violence and genocide possible? In this volume we are suggesting

preparations for mass killing can be found in social sentiments and institutions from the family, to schools, churches,

They harbor the early warning signs (Charney 1991), the priming
(as Hinton, ed., 2002 calls it), or the genocidal continuum (as we call it) that push social
consensus toward devaluing certain forms of human life and lifeways from
hospitals, and the military.

the refusal of social support and humane care to vulnerable social parasites (the nursing home elderly, welfare
queens, undocumented immigrants, drug addicts) to the militarization of everyday life (super-maximum-security
prisons, capital punishment; the technologies of heightened personal security, including the house gun and gated
communities; and reversed feelings of victimization

A2: Historical Materialism

Historical materialism implies human consciousness is
overdetermined by the current political economy, making
change impossible
Westman 13 [Lucas; studies and writes about philosophy, theology, and economics; An
Examination of Karl Marx's Theory of Alienation and Communism - Part II The Analytical Economist;
Jun 28, 2013; JL]

Lastly, Marx invents his own philosophy of history, which is

grounded in a metaphysical materialism that attempts to move us
past the tradition of thinking of man [humanity] in the classic
philosophical sense.[9] Since this is how Marx desires to proceed in our study of man [humanity] he
claims that consciousness is not a unique product of man [humanity]
as rational animal or essential to our being, but a derivative
attribute acquired when existing in a political economy. [10] This is a problem
for Marx because we cannot study man [humanity] characterized as being productive without him first having
rational intention, which Marx himself recognizes in some degree.[11] Human action and production is unique
specifically because man [people] acts and produces with rational intention but Marx cannot permit this because it

If we study history on
purely materialistic grounds we cannot study man [humanity]
accurately unless we first understand that man [humanity] is a
species possessing within his nature rationality as an essential
attribute of his being; thus, making him man [person] qua acting man [person]. If man
[people] were purely material and his consciousness were derived
from his [their] activity in society he [they] would not be
phenomenologically conscious nor epistemologically aware that
there is a possibility to advance in stature specifically because his [their]
existing political economy inhibits this from taking place. Therefore, he [They]
would not desire to move toward a newer and better epoch where he can
actualize more of his species being. Simply put, if man [people]s
consciousness were derived from his economic and social state of existence
he would not consider the notion that there is a better way for man
[people] to exist. His consciousness is grounded in his economic epoch and only this existing epoch can afford
man [humanity] his consciousness; man [ humanity], in Marxs view, is imprisoned
would cause too many problems with his historical materialism.[12]

by his class. This is problematic for Marxs theory because

for Marx, man

[humanity]s consciousness changes as the political economy changes around him as technological advancement

advancement cannot take place if man [humanity]s

consciousness is only a derivative of his current political economy.
For a political economy to change and introduce an entirely new epoch, man
[humanity] must possess an essentially rational and independently
conscious nature. If this is not the case, technological advancement is impossible. Consider Murray
occurs, but technological

Rothbards critique, The first grave fallacy in this farrago is right at the beginning: where does this technology come

how do technologies change or improve? Who puts them into

effect? A key to the tissue of fallacies that constitute the Marxian system is that Marx never
from? And

attempts to provide an answer. Indeed he cannot, since if he attributes the state of

technology or technological change to the actions of man [humanity], of
individual men, his whole system falls apart. For human consciousness , and
individual consciousness at that, would then be determining material productive
forces rather than the other way around. (Classic Economics, Pg. 373)

It is a baseless theory Engels agrees

Al-Islam

[Criticism of Historical Materialism; http://www.al-islam.org/al-tawhid/vol1n4/sociology-quran-part-ii-ayatullah-murtadha-mutahhari/criticism-historical; JL]

The first objection is that this view is not more than a mere `theory' without any proofs. A philosophical theory of

history ought to be based upon observation of contemporary events and

historical facts, and should be applicable to other times also. Either it should be formulated
on the basis of historical evidence, being in addition applicable to events of the present and the
future, or it should have been deduced and inferred from a priori premises based upon a
series of scientific, philosophical, and logical principles. The theory of historical materialism does not fulfill the

Neither the historical events of the times

of Marx and Engels can be explained on its basis ( as Engels himself has
admitted. Engels says that he and Marx made a mistake in emphasizing the
importance of the economic factor in some of their works. But, he adds, they were saved
from this error in case of their analysis of contemporary events where they were
conditions of any of the above mentioned methods.

confronted with historical reality itself), nor the historical events that occurred during thousands of years of human
history confirm this theory. It is amazing to read the writings of some followers of Marxism who dogmatically try to
explain the past history in the light of historical materialism, and read their master's opinions into the pages of
history, for instance in the book History of the Ancient world.2

The alternative is an unrevised revision of Marx and Engels

fully developed beliefs

Al-Islam2

[Criticism of Historical Materialism; http://www.al-islam.org/al-tawhid/vol1n4/sociology-quran-part-ii-ayatullah-murtadha-mutahhari/criticism-historical; JL]

Marx, in many of his writings, has raised another issue on the basis of dialectical logic, which may
as a revision of his view and also a kind of departure from absolute historical
materialism. That issue is related to the problem of reciprocal causation. According to the
principle of reciprocal causation, the cause-effect relationship should not be regarded as a
But

be regarded

one-sided process. If `A' is the cause of change in `B', in the same way `B' also in its turn becomes the cause of `A'.

there is a kind of reciprocal causal relation between all parts

of nature and all parts of society. For the time being I am not concerned here with the validity or invalidity of
According to this principle,

this dialectical principle interpreted in this form. But we may say that, according to this principle, the suggestion of
priority of one thing over the other is meaningless with regard to causal relation between two things like matter and
spirit, or action and thought, or economic base and all other social institutions. Because if two things are
interrelated and dependent upon each other for their existence, and the existence of one is conditioned by that of
the other, the question as to which is prior or fundamental, is meaningless. Marx, in some of his statements,
considers all social processes, essential or nonessential, as based upon economic factors, and has not suggested
the effect of superstructure on the infrastructure, as referred to earlier. However, in some of his statements he
accepts a reciprocal cause-and-effect relationship between the infrastructure and the superstructure, but maintains
that the basic and ultimate role is played by the base. In the book Revisionism from Marx to Mao, two works of
Marx, The Capital and The Critique of Political Economy, are compared. The author, while stating that in both the
works Marx regards the economic base as unilaterally determining the entire social structure, says: In spite of this,
Marx, consciously or unconsciously, has added a new dimension to this definition by stating that superstructures,
despite primacy of the base over superstructures, can play an essential role in society. 3 The author further asks:
What is the difference between the predominant function or `determining role' that the economic infrastructure
always plays and the `essential role' played by the superstructures? It means that if the superstructure occasionally
plays the essential role, it becomes the main determining and governing factor. In such cases, it may even be said

that what we call the superstructure is not a superstructure but is really the infrastructure or the base, and what we
call the infrastructure is the superstructure. Engels, in a letter written in his later years to one Joseph Bloch,
writes: ....According to the materialist conception of history, ultimately determining element in history is the
production and reproduction of real life.4 More than this neither Marx nor I have ever asserted. Hence if somebody
twists this into saying that the economic element is the only determining one, he transforms that proposition into a
meaningless, abstract, senseless phrase.5 The economic situation is the basis, but the various elements of the
superstructure: political forms of the class struggle and its results, to wit: constitutions established by the victorious
class after a successful battle, etc., juridical forms, and then even the reflexes of all these actual struggles in the
brains of the participants, political, juristic, philosophical theories, religious views and their further development into
systems of dogmas, also exercise their influence upon the course of historical struggles and in many cases preponderate in determining their form. There is an interaction of all these elements in which, amid all the endless host of
accidents the economic movement finally asserts itself as necessary.6 Strangely enough, if the view that the
economic element is the only determining one is a meaningless, abstract, and senseless phrase, this phrase has
been uttered by no other person than Marx himself. Moreover, if the elements of superstructure in many cases
preponderate in determining historical struggles, it means that the determining and decisive element is not the
economic one. After saying this, there is no need to believe that the economic movement, amid all the host of
accidents, asserts itself as necessary. It is more amazing that Engels, in the later part of the same letter, accepts
that he himself and Marx may be held responsible for this mistake (or in his own words, twist). He says: Marx and I
are ourselves partly to blame for the fact that the younger people sometimes lay more stress on the economic side
than is due to it. We had to emphasize the main principle vis-a-vis our adversaries, who denied it, and we had not
always the time, the place or opportunity to allow the other elements involved in the interaction to come into light.
7 But some other people offer quite the opposite explanation of this excessive emphasis by Marx and Engels on the
economic elements. They say, this overemphasis is not meant for their opponents in the other camp, but aimed at
disarming the rival supporters of this view in their own camp. In the book Revisionism from Marx to Mao, the author,
after-pointing out that in the Critique of Political Economy Marx has emphasized the unilateral role of the economic
factors more than in any other work-and I have already quoted the well-known passage from the preface to that
book-explains Marx's reasons for compiling the Critique: Another cause of writing the Critique of Political Economy,
was the publication of a book by Proudhon, Manuel du Speculateur de la Bourse, and another book by Darimon, the
follower of Proudhon. When Marx saw that his rivals in the camp of Proudhon from one side, and the followers of
Lassalle from the other side were relying upon the economic element in a reformative (not revolutionary) way, he
endeavored to seize this weapon from their hands and used it for the purpose of revolution. This necessitated a

historical
materialism and economic base according to the requirements of Chinese conditions. His new interpretation
rigidity suited to the purpose of popularizing his beliefs.8 Mao has reinterpreted the, meanings of

was aimed to explain his own role as the leader of the Chinese Revolution also. His interpretation of historical
materialism reaches a point that one finds this theory and its emphasis on the economic base, and as a

reduced to mere
play of words and nothing else. Mao, in his treatise on contradiction, under the title, The Principal
consequence the so-called scientific socialism whose basis is historical materialism,

Contradiction and the Principal Aspect of Contradiction, says: ....The principal and the non-principal aspects of a
contradiction transform themselves into each other and quality of a thing changes accordingly. In a certain process
or at a certain stage in the development of a contradiction, the principal aspect is A and the non-principal aspect is
B, at another stage of development or in another process of development, the roles are reversed change
determined by the extent of the increase or decrease in the strength with which each of the two aspects struggle
against the other in the development of a thing.9 He further says: Some people think that this is not the case with
certain contradictions. For example in the contradiction between productive forces and the relations of production,
the productive forces are the principal aspect; ... in the contradiction between the economic foundation arid its
superstructure, the economic foundation is the principal aspect and there is no change in their respective positions.
This is the view of mechanistic materialism. True, the productive forces, practice, and the economic foundation
generally manifest themselves in the principal and decisive roles; whoever denies this is not a materialist. But
under certain conditions, such aspects as the relations of production, theory, and superstructure in turn manifest
themselves in the principal and decisive role; this must also be admitted. When the productive forces cannot be
developed unless the relations of production are changed, the change in the relations of production10 plays the
principal and decisive role. As Lenin put it, without a revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement.
The creation and advocacy of the revolutionary theory plays the principal and decisive role.... When the
superstructure (politics, culture and so on) hinders the development of economic foundation, political and cultural
reforms become the principal and decisive factors. By saying this, are we running counter to materialism? No. The

while we recognize that in the development of history as a whole it is the

material essence of things that determines spiritual things, and social
existence that determines social consciousness, at the same time we also recognize
and must recognize the reaction of spiritual things and social consciousness
on social existence, and the reaction of superstructure on economic
reason is that

foundation. This is not running counter to materialism; this is precisely avoiding mechanistic materialism and
firmly upholding dialectical materialism.11 Whatever Mao says contradicts historical materialism. When he says, if
the relations of production hinder development and progress of the productive force, or when he says a
revolutionary movement requires a revolutionary theory, or when he says, the superstructure hinders the
development of economic foundation, he asserts something which can and should occur always. But

according to historical materialism, the development of the productive

force necessarily transforms the relations of production, and revolutionary theory
necessarily emerges spontaneously. As a result, the superstructure is necessarily transformed with change in the

But Marx has emphatically stated in his preface to the Critique of Political Economy: At a
certain stage of their development, the material productive forces of
society come in conflict with the existing relations of production ; or-what is but
base.

a legal expression for the same thing-with the property relations within which they have been at work hitherto.
From forms of development of the productive forces, these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an epoch of
social revolution, with the change of economic foundation, the entire immense superstructure is more or less
rapidly transformed.12 Such notions as the change in relations of production prior to the development of productive
forces in order to pave the way for the progress of productive forces, the formulation of revolutionary theories prior
to spontaneous birth of revolutionary ideas, the notion that transformation of superstructure transforms the base-all
imply priority of thought over action and priority of spirit over matter. They imply the essentiality and independence
of political and intellectual aspects with respect to the economic aspect, and this contradicts historical materialism.
Mao's statement that if the process of effect and action is accepted to be one-sided, dialectical materialism is
negated is correct. But what is to be done if the basis of so-called scientific socialism rests upon this very principle
of unilateral effect, and contradicts dialectical logic, i.e. the doctrine of unity of opposites, which is one of the laws
of dialectics? We are forced to discard either the so-called scientific socialism and reject dialectical logic, or we
have to uphold dialectical logic and reject `scientific' socialism and historical materialism, upon which it is based. In
addition to this, what does Mao mean when he says ... we recognize that in the development of history as a whole
it is the material essence of things that determines spiritual things, and social existence that determines social
consciousness? Doesn't his own admission that superstructure can reciprocally act on the base, imply that
sometimes productive forces determine relations of production and sometimes vice versa, .i.e. the process is
reversed? Sometimes revolutionary movement produces revolutionary theories and sometimes vice versa? Sometimes politics, culture, power, religion, etc. are the factors responsible for bringing about a change in the economic
foundation of society and sometimes the process is reversed? sometimes, it happens that material things decide
spiritual matters and social existence determines social consciousness, and sometimes the process is quite
reversed? Actually, Mao's statement that the principal and non-principal aspects of a contradiction transform
themselves into each other is made to justify his Maoist viewpoint-which practically goes against Marxist historical
materialism-not to explain the Marxist theory of historical materialism, despite the claim that he does so. Mao too,
like Marx, has practically demonstrated that he is too intelligent to remain a Marxist forever. The Chinese Revolution
under Mao's leadership practically violated scientific socialism and historical materialism, and, consequently,
Marxism. Under the leadership of Mao, China overthrew the feudal regime of old China by means of an agricultural

according to the theory of scientific socialism

and historical materialism a country that is at the stage of feudalism should
first pass through industrialization and capitalism. When industrialization reaches its
climax, it can proceed towards the goal of socialism. According to historical materialism, as an embryo
cannot pass through two stages within one leap, similarly a society also
cannot enter into the final stage without passing through the inter mediate
successive stages. But Mao has practically demonstrated that he is one of those midwives who can bring
revolution to establish a socialist regime in its place. Though

forth a four-month old embryo in healthy and sound condition.

There is a contradiction in the necessary correspondence

between base and superstructure

Al-Islam3

[Criticism of Historical Materialism; http://www.al-islam.org/al-tawhid/vol1n4/sociology-quran-part-ii-ayatullah-murtadha-mutahhari/criticism-historical; JL]

According to the theory of historical materialism there is always a sort of

correspondence between superstructure and base in societies , to the extent that
one can identify the base by means of the superstructure and one can know the superstructure by knowing the
base.

Whenever the base is changed, the correspondence between the base

and the superstructure is affected, disturbing the social equilibrium and

giving rise to crisis, followed sooner or later by a necessary deterioration of the
superstructure. And if the base remains in its original state, the superstructure also necessarily remains
permanent and unchanged. Contemporary historical events have practically disproved
this Marxian thesis. Taking into consideration a series of economic crises from 1827 to 1847 accompanied with
a series of social and political revolutions, Marx and Engels concluded that the social
revolutions were necessary and inevitable consequences of economic
crises. But, in the words of the author of Rivisionism from Marx to Mao: It is the irony of history that there
has not been any economic crisis accompanied with a revolution in
industrialized countries since 1848. In the very lifetime of Marx before his
death four times forces of production rebelled against relations of
production without bringing about any revolution... later, some economists like Joseph
Schumpeter have gone to the extent of naming these crises caused by technical innovation as `gales of creative
destruction,' and as safety valves for reestablishing economic equilibrium and economic growth. Countries like
England, Germany, France, and America have made great industrial advancement taking capitalism to its peak; but
contrary to Marx's prophecy that these countries would be the first and foremost to experience the workers'
revolution and to be converted into socialist states, they have not changed politically, legally, religiously or in other
aspects which are termed as constituents of superstructure. The baby whose birth Marx was awaiting has not been
delivered despite the lapse of more than ninety years, and there is little hope of it in the future. Of course, these
regimes shall sooner or later be overthrown, but the revolution that is expected can never be the revolution brought
about by the working class and the Marxist theory of history shall not be realized. The regimes of so-called socialist
countries of today shall also be overthrown, and would not remain as they are now. But the future regime will
certainly be not a capitalist one. On the other hand the countries of East Europe, Asia, and South America have
become socialist despite the fact that they have not yet attained the stage of giving birth to a socialist state. We
see that there are certain countries quite similar in respect to the (economic) base, but different from one another
regarding their superstructure. Two superpowers, U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R., are the best example of this phenomenon.
America and Japan also have the same type of economic regime (capitalistic) but with regard to such aspects as
politics, religion, morality, etiquette, manners, and art they are quite different. In the same way certain countries
having similar superstructure, i.e. political regime, religion, etc., are different in respect of economic base. All these

the notion of necessary correspondence between

superstructure and base as upheld by historical materialism is nothing but a mere illusion.
cases conclusively prove that

Historical Materialism Contradicts itself

The alternative is an unrevised revision of Marx and Engels
fully developed beliefs

Al-Islam4

[Criticism of Historical Materialism; http://www.al-islam.org/al-tawhid/vol1n4/sociology-quran-part-ii-ayatullah-murtadha-mutahhari/criticism-historical; JL]

According to historical materialism, all thought, all philosophical and

scientific theories, and all ethical systems represent certain material and
economic conditions, and are inseparably connected with their own
specific objective conditions. Hence their value and validity are not absolute,
but dependent upon a specific period. With the lapse of a particular period and changes in the
material, economic, and social conditions, which are necessary and inevitable, every idea or thought, every
philosophical or scientific theory or ethical system is invalidated and is ultimately bound to be replaced by a

According to this principle, historical materialism, too,

is subject to this universal law. Because if it is not subject to this universal
law and is an exception, it would mean that there are some scientific and
philosophical laws which are fundamental and independent of any kind of
economic base; and if historical materialism is subject to the general law,
its value and validity are confined to one period and it is applicable to that
period alone which has given rise to it. It is not relevant to an earlier or later period. Thus, in
different idea, thought or theory.

as a theory, as
a philosophical point of view or as a part of superstructure, either applies to itself or it doesn't . If
both cases, historical materialism is contradicted by itself. It means that historical materialism

it does not apply to itself, it contradicts itself. If it is governed by itself, it is valid for a limited period only; it cannot
be applied to other periods from which it excludes itself. This objection is also valid in the case of dialectical
materialism, which considers the principle of dialectical movement and the principle of unity of opposites applicable
to the whole reality including scientific and philosophical laws. In the Principles of Philosophy and the Method of
Realism (Vol I, II) I have dealt with these problems. But it is clear that the claim that the universe is the playground
of the forces of dialectical materialism and society that of historical materialism is absolutely baseless. Certain
other objections are also valid against historical materialism. For the time being we refrain from mentioning them.
But I cannot conceal my amazement as to how such a baseless and unscientific theory could become famous as a
scientific theory. The art of propaganda is indeed capable of working wonders!

A2: Revolutions
Revolution (syndicalism) cant solve capitalism
Herod 7 (James, Student at Graceland College and Columbia University, 35 year
old author on anarchy, May 2007, Getting Free,
http://www.jamesherod.info/Getting_Free.pdf)

We cannot destroy capitalism by seizing and occupying the factorie s

and the farms, at least not in the way this has been tried so far. Nevertheless, of all the strategies that have failed, syndicalism (federations of peasant, worker, and soldier councils) is the only one that had a ghost of a chance, and the only one that even came
close to cre- ating a new world. It came close in the great Spanish Revolution in the 1930s. Unfortunately, that magnificent
revolution was defeated. In fact, all syndicalist revolutions have failed so far. I believe

inherent in the strategy itself . For one thing, the

there are serious flaws

syndicalist

strategy ignores

households , as if households werent part of the means of production. Thus, it excludes millions of
homemakers from active participation in the revolution . Homemakers can only
serve in a supporting role

. It also excludes old people, young people, sick

people, prisoners, students, welfare recipients, and mil- lions of

unemployed workers.

To think that a revolution can be made only by those people who hold jobs is the sheerest

folly. Perhaps im- mediately after syndicalists seize the factories and make a revolution, this exclusion could be overcome by having
everyone join a council at home or in school, but this is no help beforehand, during the revolu- tion itself. The whole image is badly
skewed. Moreover, syndicalists have never specified clearly enough how all the various councils are going to function together to
make deci- sions and set policy, defend themselves, and launch a new civilization. In the near revolution in Germany in 1918, the
worker and soldier councils were for a few months the only organized power. They could have won. But

they were

confused about what to do . They couldnt see how to get from their
separate councils to the establishment of overall power and the
defeat of capitalism . In the massive general strike in Poland in 1980, factory, office, mining, and farm councils
were set up all over the country. But these councils didnt know how to coalesce into an alternative social ar- rangement capable of
replacing the existing power structure. They even mistakenly refrained from attacking ruling-class power with the intent of
destroying it. Instead, the councils merely wanted to coexist in some kind of uneasy dual structure (perhaps because they were
afraid of a Soviet invasion; but a strategy that has not taken external armies into account is badly flawed). Workplace associations
would have to be permanent assemblies, with years of experience under their belts, before they could have a chance of success.

They cannot be new forms suddenly thrown up in the depths of a

crisis or the middle of a general strike, with a strong government
still waiting in the wings, supported by its fully opera- tional
military forces . It is no wonder that syndicalist-style revolts have gone down to defeat. Finally, syndicalists
have not worked out the relations between the councils and the
community at large , and to assume that workers in a factory have the final say over the allocation of those
resources (or whether the factory should even exist) rather than the community at large, simply wont do. Nor have syndicalists
worked out intercom- munity relations.

Syndicalism, in short, is a half-baked strategy

that has not been capable of destroying capitalism , although it has been headed in
the right direction.

Rejection Bad
Stepping out of the system cant solve capitalism
Herod 7 (James, Student at Graceland College and Columbia University, 35 year
old author on anarchy, May 2007, Getting Free,
http://www.jamesherod.info/Getting_Free.pdf)

We cannot destroy capitalism by dropping out, either as an individual, a small group, or a community. Its been tried over and over,
and it fails every time. There is no escaping capitalism; there is nowhere left to go. The only escape from capitalism is to destroy it . Then
we could be free (if we try). In fact,

capitalists love it when we drop out . They dont need us. They

have plenty of suckers already. What do they care if we live under bridges, beg for meals, and die young? I havent seen the ruling
class rushing to help the homeless.

Even more illusory

than the idea that an individual can drop

out is

the notion that a whole community can withdraw from the system
and build its own little new world somewhere else . This was tried repeat- edly by
utopian communities throughout the nineteenth century. The strategy was revived in the 1960s as thousands of new left radicals
retired to remote rural communes to groove on togetherness (and dope). The strategy is once again surfacing in the new age
movement as dozens of communities are being established all over the country.

These movements all

suffer from the mistaken idea that they dont have to attack
capitalism and destroy it but can simply withdraw from it, to live
their own lives separately and independently. It is a vast il- lusion.
Capitalists rule the world. Until they are defeated, there will be no
freedom for anyone.

No alt to capitalism only cap can feasibly plan economies

Roberts 13 [Paul; American economist and a columnist for Creators Syndicate. He served as an Assistant
Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration and was noted as a co-founder of Reaganomics; Book
Review of From Marx to Mises: Post-Capitalist Society and the Challenge of Economic Calculation La Salle, Open
Court Publishing Co.; 1992, 424 pp.; JL]
But as Steele shows in his book, all

arguments against capitalism fail unless

there is some feasible alternative which can do better. The Marxists and socialists
acted out of conviction alone. Steele argues that this conviction was based on
misconceptions, misinterpretations, and a general lack of depth in
thinking. For example, he shows how central planning seemed inescapable to people who believed that
capitalism could not last because the number of firms must become ever smaller until the whole economy became

kind of thinking prevented socialists from

realizing that it was the anarchy of production that solved the
economic calculation problem, something that conscious planning
was never able to do. As F. A. Hayek, the student of Ludwig von Mises, who launched the calculation
debate in 1920, stressed, information is decentralized in society, and Marxist
attempts to eliminate anarchy made economic calculation
a single dominant firm. That same

impossible. Steeles revisit of the debate sets out the issues in it and shows how each one was avoided or
fuzzed over in order to escape the conclusion that there was not even a theoretical
alternative to the market for a modern society. A primitive native
tribe might operate without com- modity production (production for
market), but not an industrial society. The possible combinations of
inputs and outputs are simply too large to be controlled by anything
but market demand. Steeles book would have gained in interest by suggesting why so many scholars
gave socialism and the Soviet economy the benefit of the doubt while they wrote theoretical articles about The

Market economies do not use more valuable inputs

to produce less valuable outputs, but Soviet gross output planning did,
Economists should have instantly perceived the inherent failure of
the Marxist approach. I remember from my graduate school days that when one left
microeconomic topics and took up Soviet economics or comparative
economic systems, the standards of evidence and argument changed
dramatically. In the latter classes, emotion-based standards of truth
existed. It was an intellectual arena in which truth rested upon
images and feelings and not on knowledge born of experience. The attitude
was that if socialism did not exist, we would have to invent it
because capitalism was so awful. The socialist debate was a politically correct one, Those
Anatomy of Market Failure.

critical of socialism in theory or practice demonstrated a moral backwardness that was unwelcome on academic
faculties. The study of

alt ernative economic system s became an inbred activity

producing fantasy . Consequently, the experts were not prepared for the sudden collapse of
communism. In May 1981, President Reagan at Notre Dame University dismissed communism as a sad, bizarre
chapter in human history whose last pages are even now being written. The experts went berserk. Columbia
University professor Seweryn Bialer, for example, confidently contra- dicted Reagan in Foreign Affairs: The Soviet
Union is not now nor will it be during the next decade in the throes of a true systemic crisis, for it boasts enormous
unused reserves of political and social stability that suffice to endure the deepest difficulties. Openness to
argument, Steele writes, is a wonderful virtue, but it did not characterize the academic study of socialism.

Rejecting capitalism altogether wont solve the issues related

to it
Jensen 14 (Robert Jensen is a professor in the School of Journalism at
the University of Texas at Austin and board member of the Third Coast
Activist Resource Center in Austin, 2-4-14, 1, Beyond Capitalism,
Counter-Punch, http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/02/04/beyondcapitalism/, KR)
The main argument of the book is that capitalism is constituted by a
varied of different practices, and so challenging capitalism needs to
be about a variety of struggles. I draw on the important work of J.K. Gibson-Graham, who
argues that we should model anti-capitalist struggle on feminist struggles. Second-wave feminists didnt look for an
overthrow of patriarchy. Instead, they analyzed what they were up against and fought it in all of its varied

One of the problems with traditional anti-capitalist

thought is that it defines capitalism as a totality, which encourages
manifestations.

us to imagine another totality, socialism, which we can try to

replace it with. This totalizing perspective has colonized the
imagination of anti-capitalism and left us waiting for a revolution we
can never have. In the book I argue that we see ourselves as inhabiting a
complex social world that has some capitalist things going on in it
as well as some socialist ones, some communist ones, and many
where economics are not separated out of the broader fabric of life
(such as sharing and gift giving, and mutual support). The way we get past capitalism is by building on the healthy
non-capitalist aspects of our world while we also do pitched battle with the capitalist ones that we have a fair
chance of winning against. In that way we build a better world and shrink the destructive capitalist practices that
are part of the social fabric.

Full rejection of capitalism leads to no progressive action

towards fixing current issues
Oga 15 (Toru Oga attended Kyoto University and has a variety of
experience writing 88 pieces of public literature on a variety of
subjects, 5-5-15, 256, Asianization and Rediscovering "Regionness ":
from Interstate Relations to Regional Identity, toruoga.net,
http://toruoga.net/pdf/performance/2011_256-283.pdf, KR)
By opposing the two different interpretations-namely,
universalization and particularization-this chapter suggests a third
alternative: mediation. Universalization and particularization are not completely Inaccurate in
describing the globalization in today's world, as they focus on just one side of the proverbial coin. The "real world
found itself with a combination of universalization and particularization; the best example of this is a series of
movements that together are sometimes called Asianization, I where in there are globalizing aspects on one hand,
and national and regional cohesion on the other. Asianization is neither a clear departure from globalization nor

The movement, On one level,

constitutes a resentful response to globalization, while maintaining
global political economic ties on another; lt provides different
interpretations of, and adjustments to, global capitalism, rather
than a full rejection of it.
nostalgia for reg10nalism, but a flexible articulation of both.

Overthrowing and completing rejection capitalism leaves

unanswered questions, full rejection is NOT the answer
Wolfe 15 (John Wolfe is a writer behind popular posts involving
capitalism on sites like BAMF, 6-21-15, 1, Bernie Sanders Sucks
Now Love Him, BAMF: Badass Marxist Feminist,
http://www.badassmarxistfeminist.com/, KR)
Kathi Weeks's The Problem with Work: Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics, and Postwork Imaginaries (2011) is a
well-written, insightful text that caused me to critically examine my position on productivity and the Protestant (and
laborist) work ethic; it provoked me--just as Weeks intends--into reflecting on and questioning my own post-

Never had it occurred to me that there would come a day

after the fall of capitalism during which we could simply not work.
Don't mistake me: I understand the refusal of work as a political
strategy under capital to display the power of the working class,*
capitalism vision.

but I had always conceived these displays as having the end goal of
less or better work, not no work. Weeks accurately highlights that
Marxian post-capitalism is heavy on pull-your-own weight rhetoric,
even though I suspect one would be substantially less alienated
from that weight under socialism than one is under capitalism.
Although I would likely gain great personal satisfaction from a full
rejection of the Protestant work ethic, I'm not prepared to entirely
disavow the necessity of work, as a practice or as a concept. The concept
of "work" allows us to appeal to a wide swath of the population, a swath that takes great pride in its work ethic,
whether as the long-suffering earthly worker awaiting that heavenly reward or as the blue collar laborer who pulled
him/herself up by the bootstraps. In other words, organizing around the axiom of "work" allows a wide sampling of
individuals to relate to our struggle for control of the means of production, for only when we control those can we
begin to truly allocate work equitably, resulting in far less and better work for all. The value of Weeks's text as an
effective challenge to one's worldview aside, upon finishing it, I had the distinct feeling that someone with an

Weeks
chastises the reader for failing to imagine a satisfactory post-work,
post-capitalism future. When her admonishments are not quite adequate, she invokes Jameson to
illogical vested interest in me had been deeply disappointed: I felt as though I had just visited my father.

further chide us (212). Weeks reminds us--as the reader reaches an unprecedented level of self-loathing for our
utter failure to envision a proper post-capitalism utopia--that it is much more important that we imagine than what
we imagine (207). Despite her condescending tone, Weeks's point is well taken: Marxists have not been imaginative
enough, and we should spend more time thinking about the potential of a post-work world, not limiting ourselves to
imagining one that involves different, better or less work. After all, I frequently daydream about winning the lottery,
and the starting point for those musings is always quitting my job. Admittedly, my post-work fantasy isn't very
exciting: beach house on the West Coast, condo in Caracas, apartment in Paris, travel to Laos with the Wolfe,
buying off a bunch of folks' student debt via Rolling Jubilee. Yawn. Kathi Weeks is right: my revolution and my
socialism involve work. But not some uncritical, blindly accepted glorification of work, but necessary drudgery

Who will do the cleaning? Robots can only do so much. Maybe

we should all become slobs and shake off the shackles of bourgeois
notions of cleanliness. After all, we undeniably clean and groom more than is necessary for health
and hygiene, some of us shouldering more of the burden than others. It is interesting to watch
even the brightest men make arguments about creased slacks and
ironed collars, but can I speak for everyone I know? Of course we
won't be ironing under socialism. But the tubs will still need
scrubbing. Sure, if someone devises a better way to take out the trash, re-shelve the books, unload the
dishwasher, de-ice the streets, and weed the garden, I'll take it. In the meantime, there is
much work to be done to overthrow capitalism, as well as to install
a society based on full equality. Let's get busy.
based on material conditions.

Cap Inevitable
Evolution means we are all selfish
Thayer 2k [Bradley; Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, Associate
Professor of Defense & Strategic Study, Missouri State University, International Security; "Bringing in
Darwin: Evolutionary Theory, Realism, and International Politics", Vol. 25, Issue 2; JL]
Evolutionary theory offers two sufficient explanations for the trait of egoism. The

first

is a classic Darwinian

In a hostile environment where resources are scarce and thus survival

precarious, organisms typically satisfy their own physiological needs for food, shelter,
and so on before assisting others.[41] In times of danger or great stress, an organism
usually places its life its survival--before that of other members of its group, be it
pack, herd, or tribe. For these reasons, egoistic behavior contributes to fitness.
argument:

Evolutionary theorist Richard Dawkins's selfish gene theory provides the second sufficient explanation for egoism. A
conceptual shift is required here because Dawkins's level of analysis is the gene, not the organism. As Dawkins
explains, at one time there were no organisms, just chemicals in a primordial "soup."[42] At first, different types of
molecules started forming by accident, including some that could reproduce by using the constituents of the soup-carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen. Because these constituents were in limited supply, molecules competed
for them as they replicated. From this competition, the most efficient copy makers emerged. The process, however,
was never perfect. Sometimes mistakes were made during replication, and occasionally these accidents resulted in
more efficient replication or made some other contribution to fitness. One such mistake might have been the
formation of a thin membrane that held the contents of the molecule together--a primitive cell. A second might
have involved the division of the primitive cell into ever larger components, organs, and so on to create what
Dawkins calls "survival machines." He explains, "The first survival machines probably consisted of nothing more
than a protective coat. But making a living got steadily harder as new rivals arose with better and more effective

Survival machines got bigger and more elaborate, and the

process was cumulative and progressive."[43] From a genetic perspective, there is no intentionality
survival machines.

in this process, but it continued nonetheless because of evolution. Dawkins makes clear, however, that the interests
of the gene and the organism need not coincide at different stages in an organism's life, particularly after

the selfishness of the gene increases its

fitness, and so the behavior spreads.
reproduction.[44] In general, however,

Humans inevitably seek power over others the alternative to

cap is militarism and violence
Wilson 97 [James; professor of Government at Harvard; The morality of capitalism; JL]
Critics of capitalism argue that wealth confers power, and indeed it does, up to
a point. Show people the road to wealth, status, or power, and they
will rush down that road, and many will do some rather unattractive things along the way. But
this is not a decisive criticism unless one supposes, fancifully, that there is
some way to arrange human affairs so that the desire for advantage
vanishes. The real choice is between becoming wealthy by first
acquiring political or military power, or getting money directly without
bothering with conquest or domination. If it is in mans [human] nature
to seek domination over other men, there are really only two ways
to make that domination work. One is military power, and that is the principle
upon which domination existed from the beginning of mans time on this earth to down about two hundred years
ago, when it began to be set aside by

wealth.

another principle,

namely

the accumulation of

Now you may feel that men should not try to dominate other men although I do not see how you
could believe this in Australia given the importance attached to sports. You may like to replace mans desire to

dominate other men, and in a few cases it is prevented by religious conversion or a decent temperament. But as

if you choose to compete

economically you will reduce the extent to which one group of men will
tyrannise over another by the use of military might or political power.
long as the instinct persists, you only have two choices, and

Transition War
A transition causes transition wars- progress is innate and
necessary for the quality of life
Aligica 3 [Paul; Fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and Adjunct Fellow at the Hudson
Institute; The Great Transition and the Social Limits to Growth: Herman Kahn on Social Change and Global
Economic Development, April 21, http://www.hudson.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=publication_details&id=2827; JL]

Stopping things would mean if not to engage in an experiment to change the

human nature, at least in an equally difficult experiment in altering powerful cultural
forces: "We firmly believe that despite the arguments put forward by people who
would like to 'stop the earth and get off,' it is simply impractical to do so.
Propensity to change may not be inherent in human nature, but it is firmly
embedded in most contemporary cultures. People have almost

everywhere become curious, future oriented, and dissatisfied with

their conditions. They want more material goods and covet higher
status and greater control of nature. Despite much propaganda to
the contrary, they believe in progress and future" (Kahn, 1976, 164). As
regarding the critics of growth that stressed the issue of the gap between rich and
poor countries and the issue of redistribution, Kahn noted that what most people
everywhere want was visible, rapid improvement in their economic status
and living standards, and not a closing of the gap (Kahn, 1976, 165). The
people from poor countries have as a basic goal the transition from poor
to middle class. The other implications of social change are secondary for
them. Thus a crucial factor to be taken into account is that while the zero-growth
advocates and their followers may be satisfied to stop at the present point, most
others are not. Any serious attempt to frustrate these expectations or
desires of that majority is likely to fail and/or create disastrous counter
reactions. Kahn was convinced that "any concerted attempt to stop or even
slow 'progress' appreciably (that is, to be satisfied with the moment) is
catastrophe-prone". At the minimum, "it would probably require the creation of
extraordinarily repressive governments or movements-and probably a repressive
international system" (Kahn, 1976, 165; 1979, 140-153). The pressures of
overpopulation, national security challenges and poverty as well as the
revolution of rising expectations could be solved only in a continuing growth
environment. Kahn rejected the idea that continuous growth would generate
political repression and absolute poverty. On the contrary, it is the limits-togrowth position "which creates low morale, destroys assurance,

undermines the legitimacy of governments everywhere, erodes

personal and group commitment to constructive activities and
encourages obstructiveness to reasonable policies and hopes". Hence
this position "increases enormously the costs of creating the resources
needed for expansion, makes more likely misleading debate and
misformulation of the issues, and make less likely constructive and
creative lives". Ultimately "it is precisely this position the one that increases the

potential for the kinds of disasters which most at its advocates are trying to avoid"
(Kahn, 1976, 210; 1984).

Backlash from the alt culminates in extinction

Anderson 84 [Perry; Professor of Sociology at UCLA, Marxist Scholar; 1984; In the tracks of
historical materialism; p. 102-103; JL]
That background also indicates, however, what is essentially missing from his work. How are we to get from where
we are today to where he point us to tomorrow? There is no answer to this question in Nove. His halting discussion
of transition tails away into apprehensive admonitions to moderation to the British Labor Party, and pleas for
proper compensation to capitalist owners of major industries, if these are to be nationalized. Nowhere is there any
sense of what a titanic political change would have to occur, with what fierceness of social struggle, for the
economic model of socialism he advocates ever to materialize. Between the radicalism of the future end-state he
envisages, and the conservatism of the present measures he is prepared to countenance, there is an unbridgeable
abyss. How could private ownership of the means of production ever be abolished by policies less disrespectful of
capital than those of Allende or a Benn, which he reproves? What has disappeared from the pages of The Economics
of Feasible Socialism is virtually all attention to the historical dynamics of any serious conflict over the control of the

If capital could visit

such destruction on even so poor and small an outlying province of its empire in Vietnam,
to prevent its loss, is it likely that it would suffer its extinction
meekly in its own homeland? The lessons of the past sixty-five years or so are in this
respect without ambiguity or exception, there is no case, from Russia to
China, from Vietnam to Cuba, from Chile to Nicaragua, where the existence of
capitalism has been challenged, and the furies of intervention, blockade and
civil strife have not descended in response. Any viable transition to
socialism in the West must seek to curtail that pattern: but to shrink from or to ignore
it is to depart from the world of the possible altogether. In the same way, to
means of production, as the record of the 20th century demonstrates them.

construct an economic model of socialism in one advanced country is a legitimate exercise: but to extract it from
any computable relationship with a surrounding, and necessarily opposing, capitalist environmentas this work
doesis to locate it in thin air

The transition would be a blood bath you cant turn off the
economy. Pragmatic political strategies are key.
Barnhizer 6 [David Barnhizer Professor of Law at Cleveland State University,
Summer 2006, Waking from Sustainability's "Impossible Dream, Georgetown
International Environmental Law Review, Lexis]

The scale of social needs, including the need for expanded

productive activity, has grown so large that it cannot be shut off at
all, and certainly not abruptly. It cannot even be ratcheted down in
any significant fashion without producing serious harms to human
societies and hundreds of millions of people. Even if it were possible
to shift back to systems of local self-sufficiency, the consequences
of the transition process would be catastrophic for many people and
even deadly to the point of continual conflict, resource wars,
increased poverty, and strife. What are needed are concrete, workable, and
pragmatic strategies that produce effective and intelligently
designed economic activity in specific contexts and, while seeking

efficiency and conservation, place economic and social justice high

on a list of priorities. n60 The imperative of economic growth applies not only
to the needs and expectations of people in economically developed
societies but also to people living in nations that are currently
economically underdeveloped. Opportunities must be created, jobs must be
generated in huge numbers, and economic resources expanded to
address the tragedies of poverty and inequality. Unfortunately,
natural systems must be exploited to achieve this; we cannot return to Eden.
The question is not how to achieve a static state but how to achieve
what is needed to advance social justice while avoiding and
mitigating the most destructive consequences of our behavior.

Cap Sustainable
Free markets are adaptable Adjusts to all crises better
The Australian 9 [Staff Writer, The Case for Capitalism, 6-25
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25685611-16382,00.html, JL]
THE way Australians are selling out of shares will delight doomsayers, giving them additional evidence for their
argument that capitalism has failed and that only the state can save us from privation. The number of shareholders
has slumped by 14 per cent from 2004, when more than half of us had portfolios. But the problem with the
cassandras' commentary is that while they are obviously accurate in pointing to the damage down by the global
financial crisis, they have misunderstood the nature of the disease and are peddling a snake oil solution to an

there was no crisis in

capitalism last year; the laws of market economics did not suddenly
stop operating - to suggest they did is the equivalent of arguing that the principles of physics are
optional. The immutable rule of supply and demand did not disappear in October, the
way wealth is created did not change. In the real world, entrepreneurs continued to
produce products and supply services to sell for a profit, just as they have done since
humanity first grasped that free exchange on open markets is the only just way to create wealth. Last year's
disaster on stock exchanges and in credit markets around the world had nothing to do with
capitalism. Rather, it was caused by the folly of financial alchemists, who
thought they could con investors that it was possible to make money from trading what were
imaginary malady. Whatever critics, including Kevin Rudd, claim,

ultimately promissory notes based on the supposed value of bundles of loans. And it was also caused by the
incompetence of regulators charged with stopping such market manipulation. According to Financial Times
journalist Gillian Tett, the collapse of the $US12,000 billion market for these so-called securities precipitated the
much broader slump. In the US, where regulators once required banks to hold reserves of $US800 million to cover
loans with a face value of $US10bn, the amount required was reduced to just $US160m. This sort of exposure
meant disaster was inevitable, and beyond the global scope of the problem there was little to distinguish last year's
crisis from other get-rich-quick schemes throughout history. But critics, such as the Prime Minister in his nowfamous essay in which he argued that the state must regulate the economy to protect ordinary people from the

While the world requires efficient regulation to

protect the gullible from corrupt credit markets, this is very different from constraining
capitalism itself.
ravages of capitalism, miss the point.

Perm

Reform Good
Thinking of ways to reform capitalism leads to effective
solutions, unlike rejecting it altogether
Miller 13 (Michael M. Miller is a research fellow at the Acton Institute
and director of PovertyCure, which promotes entrepreneurial solutions
to poverty in the developing world, 9-2-13, 1, Reforming Capitalism
for Freedom, Legatus, http://legatus.org/tag/capitalism/, KR)
In the wake of the financial crisis, one of the recurring themes
among business and political leaders is the need to reform
capitalism and create new ways to think about business and the role
of profit. The common narrative is that business as usual doesnt work. Weve tried the free market and
while it made money for some, it also caused the housing boom, the financial crisis, and created a society where all
that matters is making as much profit as possible. The financial crisis is calling us to come up with new models of
how we should arrange the economy. There are two issues here: first, a new way of looking at business and second,
the reform of the current economic system. Let me address both, beginning with business. Its good that business
leaders are making an effort to understand that business is about more than just profit. Profit is important, of
course, but as Blessed John Paul II reminded us, profit is not the main purpose of business. The main purpose is to
serve human needs and wants. Profit is one of the indicators that reveals whether you are meeting those needs. I
also agree that business as usual is not enough. Weve had some serious moral crises in business from fraudulent
accounting to big banks colluding with the government to receive special bailouts. Whats more, business is not
outside the requirements of morality. Most corporate social responsibility programs have a serious flaw they are
relativistic. You cant build a culture of business ethics if there is no truth and no right and wrong. Though
mainstream business leaders rarely talk about it, business has the moral and social responsibility to cultivate a
healthy moral ecology. This means honesty and obeying the laws; it also means respecting families and not

reforming the economy. There is

incessant talk about the need to reform capitalism, but my first question is:
exploiting women to sell products. Lets move to the issue of

What do we mean by capitalism? Unfortunately, the term capitalism has become proxy for that which is bad
and often becomes a substitute for the sins of greed and avarice. Theres another problem and a more serious
one. In common parlance word capitalism is usually identified with a free-market economy both by its detractors
and defenders. But capitalism and the free market are not always the same thing. There are many different
varieties of capitalism: oligarchic capitalism, corporate capitalism, crony capitalism, managerial capitalism, and
free-market capitalism to name a few. Most of the critics of capitalism lament so-called market fundamentalism
or unfettered markets, but we dont have anything of the sort. What we have in the U.S. is a type of managerialcrony capitalism where big business and big government collude to make regulations that serve their interests.
When things went wrong with our managerial capitalist system, instead of assigning blame correctly we blamed this

Our economy does need reform, but if we are going to

address a problem we have to identify it correctly. The problem is
that our diagnosis is wrong. The source of the financial crisis was
not market fundamentalism but a complex interrelationship of
government regulation, lobbying by interest groups, the
manipulation of interest rates and the money supply, big business
and government collusion, and political and social policy all mixed in
with age-old vices like greed and imprudence. There is a tendency to
think that the default position of capitalism is a free market and
that regulations and government interventions are necessary to
resist this return to what is called unfettered or savage
capitalism. But this is a serious misconception. In practice, the free
market requires serious moral restraint especially on the part of
mythical free market.

those with power like big businesses, government and interest

groups. They have to exercise restraint and virtue not to use their
power to gain an unfair advantage by colluding or lobbying the
government for protection. One of the most important, though often neglected, elements of
authentic corporate social responsibility is for companies to help maintain and encourage a free and competitive
economy that enables entrepreneurs to compete even if this means a possible loss to their own business. Too
often companies, once they become successful, look to government to undermine the free and competitive
economy that they benefited from.

Totalization Bad
Alt Fails: The alternative is a fantasy- all your impact are scare
tactics that should be ignored
Gibson-Graham 96 (J.K. Gibson-Graham, Professor of Human Geography at the Australian
National University and Professor of Geosciences at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1996,
The End of Capitalism As We Know It, KC)

If the unity of Capitalism confronts us with the mammoth task of

systemic transformation it is the singularity and totality of
Capitalism that makes the task so hopeless. Capitalism presents itself as a
singularity in the sense of having no peer or equivalent, of existing in a category by itself; and also in
the sense that when it appears fully realized within a particular social formation, it tends to be
dominant of alone. As a sui generis economic form, Capitalism has no true analogues. Slavery,
independent commodity production, feudalism, socialism, primitive-communism and other forms of
economy all lack the systemic properties of Capitalism and the ability to reproduce and expand
themselves according to internal laws. Unlike socialism, for example, which is always struggling to be
born, which needs the protection and fostering of the state, which is fragile and easily deformed,

Its
organic unity gives capitalism the peculiar power to regenerate
itself, and even to subsume its moments of crisis as requirements of
its continued growth and development. Socialism has never been endowed with
Capitalism takes on its full form as a natural outcome of an internally driven growth process.

that mythic capability of feeding on its own crises; its reproduction was never driven from within by a
life force but always from without; it could never reproduce itself but always had to be reproduced,
often an arduous if not impossible process. Other modes of production that lack the organic unity of
Capitalism are more capable of being instituted or replaced incrementally and more likely to coexist

Capitalism by contrast tends to appear by itself. Thus,

in the United States, if feudal or ancient classes exist, they exist as
residual forms; if slavery exists, it exists as a marginal form if
socialism or communism exists, it exists as a pre-figurative form.
None of these forms truly and fully coexists with Capitalism. Where
Capitalism does coexist with other forms, those places (the so-called Third
with other economic forms.

World, for example, or backward regions in what are known as the advanced capitalist nations) are

Rather than signaling the real possibility of

Capitalism coexisting with non-capitalist economic forms, the
coexistence of capitalism with non-capitalist economic forms, the
coexistence of capitalism with non-capitalism marks the Third World
as insufficient and incomplete. Subsumed to the hegemonic
discourse of Development, it identifies a diverse array of countries
as the shadowy other of the advanced capitalist nations. One effect of the
seen as not funny developed.

notion of capitalist exclusivity is a monolithic conception of class, at least in the context of advanced
capitalist countries. The term class usually refers to a social cleavage along the axis of capital and
labor since capitalism cannot coexist with any but residual or pre-figurative non-capitalist relations.
The presence and fullness of the capitalist monolith not only denies the possibility of economic or
class diversity in the present but prefigures a monolithic and modernist socialism one in which

Capitalisms singularity
operates to discourage projects to create alternative economic
institutions and class relations, since these will necessarily be
everyone is a comrade and class diversity does not exist.

marginal in the context of Capitalisms exclusivity. The inability of

Capitalism to coexist thus produces not only the present
impossibility of alternatives but also their future unlikelihood
pushing socialist projects to the distant and unrealizable future.

Acceleration Perm
Neoliberalism can be used to transcend itself the
permutation embraces the transformative potential of
neoliberal technologies in particular instances like the aff to
move to a post-capitalist resource paradigm.
Williams & Srnicek 13 (Alex, PhD student at the University of East London,
presently at work on a thesis entitled 'Hegemony and Complexity', Nick, PhD
candidate in International Relations at the London School of Economics, Co-authors
of the forthcoming Folk Politics, 14 May 2013,
http://criticallegalthinking.com/2013/05/14/accelerate-manifesto-for-anaccelerationist-politics/ md)
5. Accelerationists want to unleash latent productive forces. In this project, the

material platform of neoliberalism does not need to be destroyed. It

needs to be repurposed towards common ends. T he existing infrastructure is
not a capitalist stage to be smashed, but a spring board to launch
towards post-capitalism. 6. Given the enslavement of technoscience
to capitalist objectives (especially since the late 1970s) we surely do not
yet know what a modern technosocial body can do. Who amongst us
fully recognizes what untapped potentials await in the technology which has already
been developed? Our wager is that the true transformative potentials of

much of our technological and scientific research remain

unexploited, filled with presently redundant features (or preadaptations) that, following a shift beyond the short-sighted capitalist
socius, can become decisive. 7. We want to accelerate the process of
technological evolution. But what we are arguing for is not technoutopianism. Never believe that technology will be sufficient to save us.
Necessary, yes, but never sufficient without socio-political action. Technology and
the social are intimately bound up with one another, and changes in either potentiate and reinforce changes in the other. Whereas the techno-utopians argue

for acceleration on the basis that it will automatically overcome

social conflict, our position is that technology should be accelerated
precisely because it is needed in order to win social conflicts.

Development of new technologies for resource distribution is

the only way to achieve post-capitalism reject their fatalist
opposition to neoliberal technologies in favor of a pragmatic
repurposing of tech towards a communal economy.
Williams & Srnicek 13 (Alex, PhD student at the University of East London,
presently at work on a thesis entitled 'Hegemony and Complexity', Nick, PhD
candidate in International Relations at the London School of Economics, Interviewed
by C Derick Varn & Dario Cankovich, at The North Star, The Speed of Future

Thought: C. Derick Varn and Dario Cankovich Interview Alex Williams and Nick
Srnicek, http://www.thenorthstar.info/?p=9240 md)
Our conclusion that post-capitalist planning is required stems from the
theoretical failures of market socialism as well as from our own belief

that a planned system can distribute goods and resources in a more

rational way than the market system. This differs from previous
experiments with such a system in rejecting both the techno-utopian
impulse of much recent writing on post-capitalism, and the centralised
nature of the Soviet system. With regards to the former we valorise
technology not simply as a means to solve problems, but also as a
weapon to wield in social struggles. So we reject any Silicon Valley-ish faith
in technology a problem that the liberal left often falls into. On the other hand, we
reject any discourse of authenticity which sees technology as an aberration or as
the source of contemporary problems a problem that the proper left often falls
into. The question has to be how can we develop, design and use technology in a
way which furthers leftist goals? This means thinking how infrastructures,

data analytics, logistics networks, and automation can all play a role
in building the material platform for a post-capitalist system. The
belief that our current technologies are intrinsically wedded to a
neoliberal social system is not only theoretically obsolete, but also
practically limiting. So without thinking technology is sufficient to save
us, we nevertheless believe that technology is a primary area where
tools and weapons for struggle can be developed. With regards to the
centralised nature of planning, it should be clear to everyone that the Soviet system
was a failure in many regards. The issue here is to learn from past experiments such
as GOSPLAN, and from theoretical proposals such as Parecon and Devines
democratic planning. Particularly inspiring here is the Chilean experiment,
Cybersyn, which contrary to the stereotype of a planned economy, in fact

attempted to build a system which incorporated workers selfautonomy and factory-level democracy into the planned economy.
There remain issues here about the gender-bias of the system (the
design of the central hub being built for men, for instance), yet this experiment
is a rich resource for thinking through what it might mean to build a
post-capitalist economy. And it should be remembered that Cybersyn was built
with less than the computing power of a smartphone. It is todays technology
which offers real resources for organising an economy in a far more
rational way than the market system does. It has to be recognised then
that communism is an idea that was ahead of its time. It is a 21st century idea that
was made popular in the 20th century and was enacted by a 19th century economy.

Impact Turns

Generic
Growth from capitalism solves every impact
Silk 93 [Leonard; Professor, Economics, Pace University; Dangers of Slow Growth, FOREIGN
AFFAIRS v. 72 n. 1, Winter 1993, p. 173-174; JL]

In the absence of such shifts of human and capital resources to expanding

civilian industries, there are strong economic pressures on armsproducing nations to maintain high levels of military production and
to sell weapons, both conventional and dual-use nuclear technology, wherever
buyers can be found. Without a revival of national economies and the global economy, the
production and proliferation of weapons will continue, creating
more Iraqs, Yuugoslavias, Somalias and Cambodias - or worse. Like the Great
Depression, the current economic slump has fanned the fires of
nationalist, ethnic and religious hatred around the world. Economic
hardship is not the only cause of these social and political pathologies, but
it aggravates all of them, and in turn they feed back on economic development. They also
undermine efforts to deal with such global problems as environmental pollution, the
production and trafficking of drugs, crime, sickness, famine, AIDS and other plagues.
Growth will not solve all those problems by itself But economic growth - and growth
alone - creates the additional resources that make it possible to achieve
such fundamental goals as higher living standards, national and collective security, a
healthier environment, and more liberal and open economies and societies.

Disease
Cap solves disease
Zey 98 (Michael G. Professor of management in the School of Business
Administration at Montclair State University and executive director of the
Expansionary Institute. Seizing the Future: The Dawn of the Macroindustrial Era.
Second Edition. Page 120)
In this chapter we will encounter medical and technological breahthroughs
genetic therapy, superdrugs, fetal surgery, and cell and molecular repair that

are helping society extend the life span and improve the quality of
our physical existence. The advances are as striking as any of the
Macroindustrial Era, and their implications are revolutionary. Genetics
and the Assault on Disease Increasingly, we are discovering that our
medical fate lies in our genes. Once we achieve the ability to diagnose
medical problems at the genetic level and replace faulty genes with
healthy ones, we will eradicate a great number of diseases before
they ever start. The onset of what has been labeled the genetic age of
medical research will revolutionize medicine and help us increase life
expectancy and minimize human suffering.

Extinction
Zimmerman and zimmerman 1996 (Barry and David, both have M.S.
degrees from Long Island University, Killer Germs p 132)

Then came AIDSand Ebola and Lassa fever and Marburg and
dengue fever. They came, for the most part, from the steamy jungles of the
world. Lush tropical rain forests are ablaze with deadly viruses. And
changing lifestyles as well as changing environmental conditions
are flushing them out. Air travel, deforestation, global warming are
forcing never-before-encountered viruses to suddenly cross the
path of humanity. The resultemerging viruses.Today some five
thousand vials of exotic viruses sit, freeze-dried, at Yale Universityimports from
the rain forests. They await the outbreak of diseases that can be
ascribed to them. Many are carried by insects and are termed
arboviruses (arthropod borne). Others, of even greater concern, are airborne

and can simply be breathed in. Some, no doubt, could threaten

humanitys very existence . Joshua Lederberg, 1958 winner of the Nobel Prize
in Physiology or Medicine and foremost authority on emerging viruses, warned in a
December 1990 article in Discover magazine: It is still not comprehended
widely that AIDS is a natural, almost predictable phenomenon. It is
not going to be a unique event. Pandemics are not acts of God, but are
built into the ecological relations between viruses, animal species
and human speciesThere will be more surprises, because our fertile

imagination does not begin to match all the tricks that nature can play
According to Lederberg, The survival of humanity is not preordained

The single biggest threat to mans continued dominance on the

planet is the virus (A Dancing Matrix, by Robin Marantz Hening.

Environment
Capitalism key to environmental protection
Taylor 3, [Jerry; Director of natural resource studies at CATO; Aprill 22, 2003; Happy Earth Day?
Thank Capitalism; http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3073; JL]

we wouldn't even have environmentalists in our midst were it not for

capitalism. Environmental amenities, after all, are luxury goods. America
-- like much of the Third World today -- had no environmental movement to speak of until
living standards rose sufficiently so that we could turn our attention from simply providing for
Indeed,

food, shelter, and a reasonable education to higher "quality of life" issues. The richer you are, the more likely you

people wouldn't be rich without capitalism.

Wealth not only breeds environmentalists, it begets environmental
quality. There are dozens of studies showing that , as per capita income initially
are to be an environmentalist. And

rises from subsistence levels, air and water pollution increases correspondingly. But once per capita income hits
between $3,500 and $15,000 (dependent upon the pollutant), the ambient concentration of pollutants begins to

This relationship is found for

virtually every significant pollutant in every single region of the
planet. It is an iron law. Given that wealthier societies use more resources than poorer societies,
decline just as rapidly as it had previously increased.

such findings are indeed counterintuitive. But the data don't lie. How do we explain this? The obvious answer --

wealthier societies are willing to trade-off the economic costs of

government regulation for environmental improvements and that
poorer societies are not -- is only partially correct. In the United States,
pollution declines generally predated the passage of laws
mandating pollution controls. In fact, for most pollutants, declines were greater before the
that

federal government passed its panoply of environmental regulations than after the EPA came upon the scene.

Much of this had to do with individual demands for environmental

quality. People who could afford cleaner-burning furnaces, for
instance, bought them. People who wanted recreational services spent their money accordingly,
creating profit opportunities for the provision of untrammeled nature. Property values rose in cleaner areas and

Market agents will

supply whatever it is that people are willing to spend money on. And
declined in more polluted areas, shifting capital from Brown to Green investments.

when people are willing to spend money on environmental quality, the market will provide it. Meanwhile,

capitalism rewards efficiency and punishes waste. Profit-hungry

companies found ingenious ways to reduce the natural resource
inputs necessary to produce all kinds of goods, which in turn reduced
environmental demands on the land and the amount of waste that flowed through smokestacks and water pipes. As
we learned to do more and more with a given unit of resources, the waste involved (which manifests itself in the

This trend was magnified by the shift away from

manufacturing to service industries, which characterizes wealthy, growing economies. The
form of pollution) shrank.

latter are far less pollution-intensive than the former. But the former are necessary prerequisites for the latter.

Property rights -- a necessary prerequisite for free market

economies -- also provide strong incentives to invest in resource
health. Without them, no one cares about future returns because no one can
be sure they'll be around to reap the gains. Property rights are also important means
by which private desires for resource conservation and preservation
can be realized. When the government, on the other hand, holds a monopoly on such decisions, minority
preferences in developing societies are overruled (see the old Soviet block for details). Furthermore, only wealthy
societies can afford the investments necessary to secure basic environmental improvements, such as sewage
treatment and electrification. Unsanitary water and the indoor air pollution (caused primarily by burning organic
fuels in the home for heating and cooking needs) are directly responsible for about 10 million deaths a year in the

Capitalism can
save more lives threatened by environmental pollution than all the
environmental organizations combined.
Third World, making poverty the number one environmental killer on the planet today.

Poverty
Free market capitalism is vital to preventing extinction and
ensuring equality, value to life including individual rights also
solves disease and poverty
Rockwell 2 [Llewellyn; President of the Mises Institute; The Free Market; Why They Attack Capitalism,
Volume 20, Number 10, October; http://www.mises.org/freemarket_detail.asp?control=418&sortorderarticledate; JL]
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,

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
distribution, and social coordination.

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.

Capitalism doesnt cause income inequality

Ginn 12

[Vance; Economist in the Center for Fiscal Policy at the Texas Public Policy Foundation; January 17,
2012; How Government, Not Capitalism, Is Causing Income Inequality; http://mic.com/articles/3401/howgovernment-not-capitalism-is-causing-income-inequality; JL]

Blaming capitalism for the ills of income inequality is also incorrect. In a capitalist system,
markets provide information to allow prices and wages to send signals for an efficient allocation of scarce resources.
With diversified levels of educational attainment, different years of training, and other factors, one's marginal
product of labor may demand a much higher wage than someone else. It is probable that there would be high levels

the vast differences in incomes

between households would be based on market forces and not on mandates
and distortions to incentives in the labor market put in place by the government.
Government, then, is a virus that continues to plague the epidemic of income inequality.
Unfortunately, there are those who believe government the cure. What types of government programs
contribute to keeping the rich, rich and the poor, poor? Here are a few: Subsidies in general (i.e.
of income inequality in a capitalist system. Despite this,

large farm companies);

tax breaks for renewable and nonrenewable energy production;

welfare programs that reduce incentives for those in lower income groups
to increase their productivity (despite this 60% of the bottom 20% still move up into higher income
groups because of income mobility. Interestingly, 40% move down from the top 20%); a failing public
school system; progressive tax system that affects workers' productivity; the
minimum wage; safety nets and the list could go on. The effects of these policies tend either
to be a wage floor for those incomes at the top or a wage ceiling for those with lower incomes. The recent op-ed
article in the Wall Street Journal by Stephen Moore and Walter E. Williams correctly argues that deductions and
loopholes should be taken away from those making over one million dollars. One could also argue that deductions
and loopholes should be removed for all taxpayers and lower the marginal tax rates, with the goal of having a flat
consumption tax or flat income tax. Removing subsidies and tax breaks to corporations and individuals would
provide more efficient outcomes. This would not only benefit the economy as a whole, but individuals as well.
Socialism has punctured a wound in the side of America for far too long. Why not take a break from our socialist

Some may argue that a country with an

economic system based on capitalism does not have a heart and many people will suffer
because they cannot fend for themselves. This is an unfounded argument based on
a perception that the government is the primary source of benefits for those who
have needs and are unable or unwilling to provide for themselves. Religious organizations,
policies by both political parties and move toward capitalism?

charities, family members, and NGOs could replace welfare programs. These types of resources would have to be
accountable, transparent, and efficient or risk closing; they would also have to provide valuable services because
they will be competing for donations. Competition does not exist or is driven out by government programs. This is
probably the biggest problem with government programs: they have the power of the purse and remain in business
even when they fail. The government is not the answer and creates more problems than it solves from the
redistribution of income and waste. More choices given to individuals with their money and the spontaneous order
of society will bring about the most efficient outcomes. Therefore, those in society may not be getting paid what
they are "worth" because of government manipulation and lack of capitalism, where risk equals reward or failure.
Voter ignorance creates an environment in politics that repeats the same mistakes (see Learn Liberty short video).
To reform our society in a way that benefits everyone, we must educate ourselves and expand our knowledge of our
world. As noted by Socrates, "The unquestioned mind is not worth living." In today's divided political sphere, more
constructive debates are needed more than ever. Let us keep up the fight for liberty, America!

Space
Cap key to successful space programs
Martin 10 (Robert, Amerika, June 21, http://www.amerika.org/politics/centrifugecapitalism/, accessed: 3 July 2011)

Centralization and capitalism are necessary for any intelligent

civilization, yet in excess drains the base population of any
sustenance whatsoever, leaving them unemployed, homeless and
starving at worst. The answer to this event is not a swing on the pendulum all the way onto total
equality fisted socialism out on a plate for everyone who isnt rich, that would be devastating for organization, but
is a more natural ecosystem type of financing of a near-barter economics with different values and currencies for
localized entities and more buoyant monetary for inter-localities only monetizing where absolutely necessary.

Without the higher economics that goes beyond small barter

communities, there could be no space programs, or planetary
defences providing the technology or the organization necessary to
survive extinction events or fund a military etc, its critical for the
structure of the superorganism yet too much and some individuals
inside of it become so padded from outside reality that they
completely ignore the world around them.

Solves all extinction scenarios and social inequality we have

to go to space
Garan 10 Astronaut (Ron, 3/30/10, Speech published in an article by Nancy
Atkinson, The Importance of Returning to the Moon,
http://www.universetoday.com/61256/astronaut-explains-why-we-should-return-tothe-moon/)

Since we live in a world of finite resources and the

global population continues to grow, at some point the human race
must utilize resources from space in order to survive. We are
already constrained by our limited resources, and the decisions we
make today will have a profound affect on the future of humanity .
Using resources and energy from space will enable continued
growth and the spread of prosperity to the developing world
without destroying our planet. Our minimal investment in space
exploration (less than 1 percent of the U.S. budget) reaps
tremendous intangible benefits in almost every aspect of society,
from technology development to high-tech jobs. When we reach the
point of sustainable space operations we will be able to transform
the world from a place where nations quarrel over scarce resources
to one where the basic needs of all people are met and we unite in
Resources and Other Benefits:

the common adventure of exploration. The first step is a sustainable permanent human
lunar settlement.

War
Capitalism incentivizes peaceoutweighs all other factors
Bandow 5 [Doug; senior fellow at the Cato Institute; Nov 10, 2005; Spreading Capitalism is
Good for Peace; http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/spreading-capitalism-is-good-peace;
JL]
But World War I demonstrated that increased trade was not enough. The prospect of economic ruin did not prevent
rampant nationalism, ethnic hatred, and security fears from trumping the power of markets. An even greater
conflict followed a generation later. Thankfully, World War II left war essentially unthinkable among leading
industrialized - and democratic - states. Support grew for the argument, going back to Immanual Kant, that
republics are less warlike than other systems. Today's corollary is that creating democracies out of dictatorships will
reduce conflict. This contention animated some support outside as well as inside the United States for the invasion
of Iraq. But Gartzke argues that "the 'democratic peace' is a mirage created by the overlap between economic and

democracies typically have freer economies than do

authoritarian states. Thus, while "democracy is desirable for many reasons," he notes in a chapter in
political freedom." That is,

the latest volume of Economic Freedom in the World, created by the Fraser Institute, "representative governments

Capitalism is by far the more

important factor. The shift from statist mercantilism to high-tech
capitalism has transformed the economics behind war. Markets
generate economic opportunities that make war less desirable.
Territorial aggrandizement no longer provides the best path to riches. Freeflowing capital markets and other aspects of globalization simultaneously draw nations
together and raise the economic price of military conflict. Moreover,
sanctions, which interfere with economic prosperity, provides a coercive step short of
war to achieve foreign policy ends. Positive economic trends are not enough to prevent
are unlikely to contribute directly to international peace."

war, but then, neither is democracy. It long has been obvious that democracies are willing to fight, just usually not
each other. Contends Gartzke, "liberal political systems, in and of themselves, have no impact on whether states
fight." In particular, poorer democracies perform like non-democracies. He explains: "Democracy does not have a
measurable impact, while

nations with

times more prone to conflict

very

low

levels of

economic freedom are 14

than those with very high levels." Gartzke considers other

variables, including alliance memberships, nuclear deterrence, and regional differences. Although the causes of
conflict vary, the relationship between economic liberty and peace remains.

The alternative only works in theory in the real world of

scarcity and biases, only capitalism promotes peace
Perry 95 (Mark; Professor of Economics at University of Michigan Flint and Adjunct Scholar at the
Mackinac Center for Public Policy; The Freeman; Why Socialism Failed, Volume 45, Number 6, June;
http://www.fee.org/publications/the-freeman/article.asp?aid=4014, JL)

Socialism is the Big Lie of the twentieth century. While it promised prosperity,
equality, and security, it delivered poverty, misery, and tyranny. Equality was
achieved only in the sense that everyone was equal in his or her
misery. In the same way that a Ponzi scheme or chain letter initially succeeds but eventually collapses,
socialism may show early signs of success. But any accomplishments quickly fade as the fundamental deficiencies
of central planning emerge. It is the initial illusion of success that gives government intervention its pernicious,
seductive appeal. In the long run, socialism has always proven to be a formula for tyranny and misery. A pyramid
scheme is ultimately unsustainable because it is based on faulty principles. Likewise, collectivism is unsustainable

Socialism does not work because it is not

consistent with fundamental principles of human behavior. The failure of
socialism in countries around the world can be traced to one critical defect: it is a system that
in the long run because it is a flawed theory.

ignores incentives . In a capitalist economy, incentives are of the utmost importance. Market
prices, the profit-and-loss system of accounting, and private
property rights provide an efficient, interrelated system of
incentives to guide and direct economic behavior. Capitalism is
based on the theory that incentives matter! Under socialism, incentives either play a
minimal role or are ignored totally. A centrally planned economy without market prices or profits, where property is

By
failing to emphasize incentives, socialism is a theory inconsistent
with human nature and is therefore doomed to fail. Socialism is based on the
owned by the state, is a system without an effective incentive mechanism to direct economic activity.

theory that incentives don't matter! In a radio debate several months ago with a Marxist professor from the
University of Minnesota, I pointed out the obvious failures of socialism around the world in Cuba, Eastern Europe,
and China. At the time of our debate, Haitian refugees were risking their lives trying to get to Florida in homemade
boats. Why was it, I asked him, that people were fleeing Haiti and traveling almost 500 miles by ocean to get to the

The Marxist
admitted that many "socialist" countries around the world were
failing. However, according to him, the reason for failure is not that
socialism is deficient, but that the socialist economies are not
practicing "pure" socialism. The perfect version of socialism would
work; it is just the imperfect socialism that doesn't work. Marxists
like to compare a theoretically perfect version of socialism with
practical, imperfect capitalism which allows them to claim that
socialism is superior to capitalism. If perfection really were an
available option, the choice of economic and political systems would
be irrelevant. In a world with perfect beings and infinite abundance,
any economic or political system--socialism, capitalism, fascism, or
communism--would work perfectly. However, the choice of economic and
political institutions is crucial in an imperfect universe with
imperfect beings and limited resources. In a world of scarcity it is essential for an
economic system to be based on a clear incentive structure to promote economic efficiency. The real
choice we face is between imperfect capitalism and imperfect socialism.
Given that choice, the evidence of history overwhelmingly favors
capitalism as the greatest wealth-producing economic system
available. The strength of capitalism can be attributed to an
incentive structure based upon the three Ps: (1) prices determined
by market forces, (2) a profit-and-loss system of accounting and (3)
private property rights. The failure of socialism can be traced to its
neglect of these three incentive-enhancing components. HE Continues The
"evil capitalist empire" when they were only 50 miles from the "workers' paradise" of Cuba?

temptress of socialism is constantly luring us with the offer: "give up a little of your freedom and I will give you a
little more security." As the experience of this century has demonstrated, the bargain is tempting but never pays
off. We end up losing both our freedom and our security. Programs like socialized medicine, welfare, social security,
and minimum wage laws will continue to entice us because on the surface they appear to be expedient and
beneficial. Those programs, like all socialist programs, will fail in the long run regardless of initial appearances.
These programs are part of the Big Lie of socialism because they ignore the important role of incentives. Socialism
will remain a constant temptation. We must be vigilant in our fight against socialism not only around the globe but
also here in the United States. The failure of socialism inspired a worldwide renaissance of freedom and liberty. For
the first time in the history of the world, the day is coming very soon when a majority of the people in the world will
live in free societies or societies rapidly moving towards freedom. Capitalism will play a major role in the global
revival of liberty and prosperity because it nurtures the human spirit, inspires human creativity, and promotes the

spirit of enterprise. By providing a powerful system of incentives that promote thrift, hard work, and efficiency,

The main difference between capitalism and

socialism is this: Capitalism works
capitalism creates wealth.