Georgia 20091
File Title
KRITIKS
*** CAPITALISM KRITIK ***......
CAPITALISM KRITIK NEG......
1NC Cap K......
Block Tricks – Capitalism Unsustainable......
Block Tricks – Ethical Obligation......
Block Tricks – Root Cause – War......
Block Tricks – Root Cause – Environment......
Block Tricks – Root Cause – Economy......
Link – Space......
Link – Satellites......
Link – Economic Growth......
Link – Space Dominance......
Impact – War......
Impact – Environment......
Impact – Environment – AT: Space Exploration/Development Solves......
Impact – Ethics......
Alternative – Reject Capitalism......
AT: Permutation......
AT: No Alt to Capitalism......
AT: No Alt to the State......
AT: Extinction Outweighs......
AT: Capitalism Key to the Economy......
AT: Capitalism Key to Freedom......
CAPITALISM KRITIK AFF ANSWERS......
Alt Doesn’t Solve – Rejecting the State......
Alt Doesn’t Solve – Revolution......
*** SECURITY KRITIK ***......
SECURITY KRITIK NEG......
Link – Space......
Link – Asteroids......
Impact – Space Militarization......
Alternative – Asteroids......
AT: Technical Expertise Good......
AT: Threats Real......
*** CAPITALISM KRITIK ***
CAPITALISM KRITIK NEG
1NC Cap K
The desire to go into outer space manifests a doomed attempt to “fix” the world’s problems, expanding the reach of global capitalism and setting the stage for mass violence.
Dickens 10
(Peter, Professor of Sociology – University of Brighton and Cambridge, UK, “The Humanization of the Cosmos – To What End?”, Monthly Review, 62(6), November, 6-6,
Since Luxemburg wrote, an increasing number of political economists have argued that the importance of a capitalist “outside” is not so much that of creating a new pool of customers or of finding new resources.10 Rather, an outside is needed as a zone into which surplus capital can be invested. Economic and social crisis stems less fromthe problem of finding new consumers, and more from that of finding, making, and exploiting zones of profitability for surplus capital. Developing “outsides” in this way is also a product of recurring crises, particularly those of declining economic profitability. These crises are followed by attempted “fixes” in distinct geographic regions. The word “fix” is used here both literally and figuratively. On the one hand, capital is being physically invested in new regions. On the other hand,the attempt is to fix capitalism’s crises. Regarding the latter, however, there are, of course, no absolute guarantees that such fixes will really correct an essentially unstable social and economic system. At best, they are short-term solutions. The kind of theory mentioned above also has clear implications for the humanization of the cosmos. Projects for the colonization of outer space should be seen as the attempt to make new types of “spatial fix,”again in response to economic, social, and environmental crises on earth.Outer space will be “globalized,” i.e., appended to Earth, with new parts of the cosmos being invested in by competing nations and companies. Military power will inevitably be made an integral part of this process, governments protecting the zones for which they are responsible. Some influential commentators argue that the current problem for capitalism is that there is now no “outside.”11 Capitalism is everywhere. Similarly, resistance to capitalism is either everywhere or nowhere. But, as suggested above, the humanization of the cosmos seriously questions these assertions. New “spatial fixes” are due to be opened up in the cosmos, capitalism’s emergent outside. At first, these will include artificial fixes such as satellites, space stations, and space hotels. But during the next twenty years or so, existing outsides, such as the moon and Mars, will begin attracting investments.The stage would then be set for wars in outer space between nations and companies attempting to make their own cosmic “fixes.”
The unchecked expansion of US driven global capitalism causes nuclear war and environmental catastrophe. Foster 5
(John Bellamy, Editor of Monthly Review and Professor of Sociology at University of Oregon, Monthly Review, “Naked Imperialism”, 9-1,
From the longer view offered by a historical-materialist critique of capitalism, the direction that would be taken by U.S. imperialism following the fall of the Soviet Union was never in doubt. Capitalism by its very logic is a globally expansive system. The contradiction between its transnational economic aspirations and the fact that politically it remains rooted in particular nation states is insurmountable for the system. Yet, ill-fated attempts by individual states to overcome this contradiction are just as much a part of its fundamental logic.In present world circumstances, when one capitalist state has a virtual monopoly of the means of destruction, the temptation for that state to attempt to seize full-spectrum dominance and to transform itself into the de facto global state governing the world economy is irresistible. As the noted Marxian philosopher István Mészáros observed in Socialism or Barbarism? (2001)—written, significantly, before George W. Bush became president: “[W]hat is at stake today is not the control of a particular part of the planet—no matter how large—putting at a disadvantage but still tolerating the independent actions of some rivals, but the control of its totality by one hegemonic economic and military superpower, with all means—even the most extreme authoritarian and, if needed, violent military ones—at its disposal.”The unprecedented dangers of this new global disorder are revealed in the twin cataclysms to which the world is heading at present: nuclear proliferation and hence increased chances of the outbreak of nuclear war, and planetary ecological destruction. These are symbolized by the Bush administration’s refusal to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty to limit nuclear weapons development and by its failure to sign the Kyoto Protocol as a first step in controlling global warming. As former U.S. Secretary of Defense (in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations) Robert McNamara stated in an article entitled “Apocalypse Soon” in the May–June 2005 issue of Foreign Policy: “The United States has never endorsed the policy of ‘no first use,’ not during my seven years as secretary or since. We have been and remain prepared to initiate the use of nuclear weapons—by the decision of one person, the president—against either a nuclear or nonnuclear enemy whenever we believe it is in our interest to do so.” The nation with the greatest conventional military force and the willingness to use it unilaterally to enlarge its global power is also the nation with the greatest nuclear force and the readiness to use it whenever it sees fit—setting the whole world on edge. The nation that contributes more to carbon dioxide emissions leading to global warming than any other (representing approximately a quarter of the world’s total) has become the greatest obstacle to addressing global warming and the world’s growing environmental problems—raising the possibility of the collapse of civilization itself if present trends continue. The United States is seeking to exercise sovereign authority over the planet during a time of widening global crisis: economic stagnation, increasing polarization between the global rich and the global poor, weakening U.S. economic hegemony, growing nuclear threats, and deepening ecological decline. The result is a heightening of international instability. Other potential forces are emerging in the world, such as the European Community and China, that could eventually challenge U.S. power, regionally and even globally. Third world revolutions, far from ceasing, are beginning to gain momentum again, symbolized by Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution under Hugo Chávez. U.S. attempts to tighten its imperial grip on the Middle East and its oil have had to cope with a fierce, seemingly unstoppable, Iraqi resistance, generating conditions of imperial overstretch. With the United States brandishing its nuclear arsenal and refusing to support international agreements on the control of such weapons, nuclear proliferation is continuing. New nations, such as North Korea, are entering or can be expected soon to enter the “nuclear club.” Terrorist blowback from imperialist wars in the third world is now a well-recognized reality, generating rising fear of further terrorist attacks in New York, London, and elsewhere. Such vast and overlapping historical contradictions, rooted in the combined and uneven development ofthe 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 barbarism—or worse. Yet it is important to remember that nothing in the development of human history is inevitable. There still remains an alternative path—the global struggle for a humane, egalitarian, democratic, and sustainable society. The classic name for such a society is “socialism.” Such a renewed struggle for a world of substantive human equality must begin by addressing the system’s weakest link and at the same time the world’s most pressing needs—by organizing a global resistance movement against the new naked imperialism.
Vote Neg to reject the dictates of global capitalism. Only refusing to obey subverts exploitation.
Holloway 05
(John, Professor in the Instituto de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades of the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma,“Can We Change The World Without Taking Power?”, 5-4,
I don’t know the answer. Perhaps we can change the world without taking power. Perhaps we cannot. The starting point—for all of us, I think—is uncertainty, not knowing, a common search for a way forward. Because it becomes more and more clear that capitalism is a catastrophe for humanity. A radical change in the organisation of society, that is, revolution, is more urgent than ever. And this revolution can only be world revolution if it is to be effective. But it is unlikely that world revolution can be achieved in one single blow. This means that the only way in which we can conceive of revolution is as interstitial revolution, as a revolution that takes place in the interstices of capitalism,a revolution that occupies spaces in the world while capitalism still exists. The question is how we conceive of these interstices, whether we think of them as states or in other ways. In thinking about this, we have to start from where we are, from the many rebellions and insubordinations that have brought us to Porto Alegre. The world is full of such rebellions, of people saying NO to capitalism: NO, we shall not live our lives according to the dictates of capitalism, we shall do what we consider necessary or desirable and not what capital tells us to do. Sometimes we just see capitalism as an all-encompassing system of domination and forget that such rebellions exist everywhere. At times they are so small that even those involved do not perceive them as refusals, but often they are collective projects searching for an alternative way forward and sometimes they are as big as the Lacandon Jungle or the Argentinazo of three years ago or the revolt in Bolivia just over a year ago. All ofthese insubordinations are characterised by a drive towards self-determination, an impulse that says, ‘No, you will not tell us what to do, we shall decide for ourselves what we must do.’ These refusals can be seen as fissures, as cracks in the system of capitalist domination. Capitalism is not (in the first place) an economic system, buta system of command. Capitalists, through money, command us, telling us what to do. To refuse to obey is to break the command of capital. The question for us, then, is how do we multiply and expand these refusals, these cracks in the texture of domination?
Block Tricks – Capitalism Unsustainable
Capitalism is unsustainable.
Newman 6
(Robert, author and political activist and speaker Third World First, “Capitalism or a habitable planet – you can’t have both”, 2-2,
There is no meaningful response to climate change without massive social change. A cap on this and a quota on the other won't do it. Tinker at the edges as we may, we cannot sustain earth's life-support systems within the present economic system.Capitalism is not sustainable by its very nature. It is predicated on infinitely expanding markets, faster consumption and bigger production in a finite planet. And yet this ideological model remains the central organising principle of our lives, and as long as it continues to be so it will automatically undo (with its invisible hand) every single green initiative anybody cares to come up with.Much discussion of energy, with never a word about power, leads to the fallacy of a low-impact, green capitalismsomehow put at the service of environmentalism. In reality, power concentrates around wealth. Private ownership of trade and industry means that the decisive political force in the world is private power. The corporation will outflank every puny law and regulation that seeks to constrain its profitability. It therefore stands in the way of the functioning democracy needed to tackle climate change. Only by breaking up corporate power and bringing it under social control will we be able to overcome the global environmental crisis.
Capitalism’s mode of production isn’t sustainable: India and Pakistan prove
International Review 4
(current predecessor of Communist League of Marx and Engels, “India And Pakistan: Capitalism's Lethal Folly”, 28-11,
The threat of nuclear war between India and Pakistan on the one hand, and the rise of the far right on the other, are both part of the same reality. They are both expressions of the impasse that the capitalist mode of production has reached. They demonstrate that capitalism has no future to offer humanity, and, in different forms, they illustrate the present phase of capitalism's decomposition: a social rot that menaces society's very existence. This decomposition is the result of a historic process where neither of society's antagonistic classes - the bourgeoisie and the proletariat - has been able to impose its own response to capitalism's insoluble crisis. The bourgeoisie has been unable to drag humanity into a third world war because the proletariat of the central countries has not been prepared to sacrifice its own interests on the altar of the national interest. But neither has the proletariat been capable of asserting its own revolutionary perspective, and imposing itself as the only social force able to offer an alternative to the dead end of the capitalist economy. While they have been able to prevent the outbreak of World War III, the workers' struggles have thus failed to halt the bloody madness of capitalism. Witness the murderous chaos spreading day by day through the system's periphery, which has accelerated ever since the collapse of the Eastern bloc. The endless escalation of war in the Middle East, and now the menace of nuclear conflict between India and Pakistan, reveal clearly the apocalyptic future that capitalism offers us.
Block Tricks – Ethical Obligation
You have an ethical obligation to reject capitalism – its violence is concealed and naturalized by everyday politics.Zizek and Daly 4
(Slavoj, professor of philosophy at the Institute for Sociology, Ljubljana, and Glyn, Conversations with Zizek, pg 14-16)
There is a further potential danger. This concerns especially orthodox trends in politically correct multiculturalism and their distortion of a certain type of alliance politics that seeks to establish chains of equivalence between a widening set of differential struggles around gender, culture, lifestyles and so on. While there is nothing wrong in principle with establishing such forms of solidarity, the problem arises where this type of politics begins to assume, in a common-sense way, a basic leveling of the political terrain where all groups are taken to suffer equally ('we are all victims of the state/global capitalism/repressive forces'). In other words, there is a danger that equivalential politics becomes so distorted that it becomes a way of disguising the position of those who are truly abject: those who suffer endemic poverty, destitution and repressive violence in our world system. In this way, the abject can become doubly victimized: first by a global capitalist order that actively excludes them; and second, by an aseptic politically correct 'inclusivism' that renders them invisible inside its postmodern forest; its tyranny of differences. For Zizek it is imperative that we cut through this Gordian knot of postmodern protocol andrecognize that our ethico-political responsibility to confront the constitutive violence of today's global capitalismand its obscene naturalization/anonymization of the millions who are subjugated by it throughout the world. Against the standardized positions of postmodern culture - with all its pieties concerning 'multiculturalist' etiquiette - Zizek is arguing for a politics that might be called 'radically incorrect' in the sense that it breaks with these types of positions and focuses on the very organizing principles of today's social realitiy: the principles of global liberal capitalism. This requires some care and subtlety. For far too long, Marxism has been bedevilled by an almost fetishistic economism that has tended toward political morbidity. With the likes of Hilferding and Gramsci, and more recently Laclau and Mouffe, crucial theoretical advances have been made that enable the transcendence of all forms of economism. In this new context, however, Zizek argues that the problem that presents itself is almost that of the opposite fetish. That is to say, the prohibitive anxieties surrounding the taboo of economism can function as a way of not engaging with economic reality as a way of implicitly accepting the latter as a basic horizon of existence. In an ironic Freudian-Lacanian twist, the fear of economism can end up reinforcing a de facto economic necessity in respect of contemporary capitalism (i.e. the initial prohibition conjures up the very thing it fears). This is not to endorse any kind of retrograde return to economism. Zizeks point is rather that in rejecting economism we should not lose sight of the systemic power of capital in shaping the lives and destinies of humanity and our very sense of the possible. In particular we should not overlook Marx's central insight that in order to create a universal global system the forces of capitalism seek to conceal the politico-discursive violence of its construction through a kind of gentrification of that system. What is persistently denied by neo-liberals such as Rorty (1989) and Fukuyama (1992) is that the gentrification of global liberal capitalism is one whose 'universalism' fundamentally reproduces and depends upon a disavowed violence that excludes vast sectors of the world's population. In this way, neo-liberal ideology attempts to naturalize capitalism by presenting its outcomes of winning and losing as if they were simply a matter of chance and sound judgement in a neutral marketplace. Capitalism does indeed create a space for a certain diversity, at least for the central capitalist regions, but it is neither neutral nor ideal and its price in terms of social exclusion is exorbitant. That is to say, the human cost in terms of inherent global poverty and degraded 'life-chances' cannot be calculated within the existing economic rationale and, in consequence, social exclusion remains mystified and nameless(viz. the patronizing reference to the 'developing world'). And Zizeks point is that this mystification is magnified through capitalism's profound capacity to ingest its own excesses and negativity: to redirect (or misdirect) social antagonisms and to absorb them within a culture of differential affirmation. Instead of Bolshevism, the tendency today is towards a kind of political boutiquism that is readily sustained by postmodern forms of consumerism and lifestyle.