2NC

CP
COUNTERINTERP -WE GET 2 CONDITIONAL ADVOCACIES.

BETTER
A) NEG FLEXIBILITY
B) KEY TO TEST MULTIPLE PARTS OF THE AFF FROM DIFFERENT
ANGLES
6. DISPO WORSE -
A) ENCOURAGES LESS COMPETITIVE COUNTERPLANS LIKE CONDITION OR
DELAY OR MULTI-PLANKS TO COUNTERPLAN OUT OF ADVANTAGES FORCING
PERMS AND LEADING TO TRIVIAL DEBATES
B) STILL LINKS TO OUR OFFENSE AT ANY TIME, THEY CAN REDUCE THE DEBATE
TO ONLY ONE WORLD.

NO STRAT SKEW THIS IS NOT IMPACTED OUT - NO REASON WHY STRAT
SKEW IS BAD. AND ITS INEVITABLE I COULD READ 20 T SHELLS AND THEY
COULDNT READ CONDO.

NO STRAIGHT TURNS IN THE 2AC MEANS WE MEET THEIR INTERP
K
Globalization outweighs:
Globalization causes war-exacerbates all the proximate causes.
Staples 2000, International Network on Disarmament and Globalization chair
(Steven, The relationship between globalization and militarism, Social Justice, 27.4, proquest)

Economic inequality is growing; more conflict and civil wars are emerging. It is important to see a connection between these two situations.
Proponents of global economic integration argue that globalization promotes peace and economic development of the Third World. They assert that "all boats rise with the tide" when investors and corporations make higher profits. However, there is precious little evidence that this is true and substantial evidence of the opposite. The United Nation's
Human Development Report (U.N. Development Programme, 1999: 3) noted that globalization is creating new threats to human security. Economic inequality between Northern and Southern nations has worsened, not improved. There are more wars being fought today -- mostly in the Third World -- than there were during the Cold War. Most are not
wars between countries, but are civil wars where the majority of deaths are civilians, not soldiers. The mainstream media frequently oversimplify the causes of these
wars, with claims they are rooted in religious or ethnic differences. A closer inspection reveals that the underlying source of such
conflicts is economic in nature. Financial instability, economic inequality, competition for
resources, and environmental degradation -- all root causes of war -- are exacerbated by
globalization. The Asian financial meltdown of 1997 to 1999 involved a terrible human cost. The
economies of Thailand, South Korea, and Indonesia crumbled in the crisis. These countries, previously held up by neoliberal economists as the darlings
of globalization, were reduced to riots and financial ruin. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) stepped in to rescue foreign investors and impose austerity programs that opened the way for an invasion by foreign corporations that bought up assets devalued by capital flight and threw millions of people out of work. Political
upheaval and conflict ensued, costing thousands of lives. Meanwhile, other countries watched
as their neighbors suffered the consequences of greater global integration. In India, citizens faced
corporate recolonization, which spawned a nationalistic political movement. Part of the political program was the
development of nuclear weapons -- seen by many as the internationally accepted currency of power.
Nuclear tests have put an already conflict-ridden region on the brink of nuclear war. 2. Globalization Fuels the Means to Wage War The world
economic system promotes military economies over civilian economies, pushing national
economic policies toward military spending. The World Trade Organization (WTO), one of the main instruments of
globalization, is largely based on the premise that the only legitimate role for a government is to provide
for a military to protect the interests of the country and a police force to ensure order within. The WTO attacks
governments' social and environmental policies that reduce corporate profits, and it has succeeded in having national laws that protect the
environment struck down. Yet the WTO gives exemplary protection to government actions that develop, arm, and deploy armed forces and supply a military establishment. Article XXI of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) allows governments free reign for actions taken in the interest of national security. For example, i n 1999 a WTO
trade panel ruled against a Canadian government program that provided subsidies to aerospace and defense corporations for the production of civilian aircraft. Within weeks, the Canadian military announced a new $30 million subsidy programfor the same Canadian corporations, but this time the money was for production of new weapons (Canadian
Press, 1999). In this case, the government was forced down the path of a military economy. Contrast this WTO ruling with the billions of dollars the Pentagon gives to American weapons corporations for developing and producing military aircraft. The $309-billion U.S.
military budget dwarfs the budgets of all its potential enemies combined, and with the
collapse of the Soviet Union the U.S. faces no imminent military challengers. This large budget
is, for all practical purposes, a corporate subsidy. Because the corporations involved happen to be building weapons, the
subsidy is protected under GATT's Article XXI. The use of military spending to develop a country's industrial and
economic base has not been lost on Third World countries. Though struggling to lift itself fromapartheid-era poverty and accompanying social problems, South Africa is spending billions of
dollars on aircraft, warships, and even submarines in an effort to develop its economy. South Africa stipulated that the arms it buys must be partially manufactured in South Africa. Finance Minister Trevor Manuel explained that the increase in military spending would allow "the National Defence Force to upgrade equipment, while providing a substantial
boost to South African industry, foreign investment, and exports" (Engelbrecht, 1999). South Africa's performance requirements would be wide open to WTO challenges if they were for building schools, hospital s, transportation infrastructure, or virtually anything except weapons. South Africa is about to make the same mistake Northern industrialized
countries made: it is creating new military projects that will become dependent on perpetual government funding, drawing money away from essential social programs. When the current weapons orders have been
filled and government funding dries up, weapons corporations will have to find new
customers to maintain current job levels, driving the arms trade and potentially causing a
whole new arms race in the region. The Military-Corporate Complex Since the end of the Cold War, President Eisenhower's 1960s-era military-industrial complex has been fundamentally challenged by globalization. Globalization has weakened the powers of
the nation-state, while freeing corporations to move profits and operations across national boundaries. Defense/military contractors, once considered part of the national industrial base and regulated and nurtured as such, are becoming detached from the nation-state and are able to pursue their interests independently.
Globalization and the transnationalization of defense/military corporations have replaced the
military-industrial complex of the Cold War economy with a military-corporate complex of the
new global economy. This is based upon the dominance of corporate interests over those of the state. The weakened state is no longer able to reign in weapons corporations and is trapped increasingly by corporate interests: greater military spending, state subsidies, and a liberalization of the
arms trade. Increased military production and the proliferation of weaponry take place without considering the costs of militarization to international diplomacy and peace. In many industrialized nations, government military spending has increased since the end of the Cold War. Lockheed Martin, Boeing, BAe Systems (formerly British Aerospace),
Raytheon, Thomson-CSF, and DaimlerChrysler Aerospace are all part of the military-corporate complex. Formerly national in orientation, these corporations have become transnational, with enormous revenues and tremendous economic and political power. Boeing alone has global sales of over $50 billion and has swallowed up several competitors to
become the world's largest maker of military aircraft, including advanced fighters, bombers, helicopters, and missiles. Boeing is the largest U.S. exporter, with customers in 145 countries, employees in more than 60 countries, and operations in 27 U.S. states. Worldwide, over 200,000 people receive paychecks from Boeing. Weapons corporations on both
sides of the Atlantic have been merging at an unprecedented rate in recent years. In the U.S., Boeing has merged with McDonnell Douglas, Hughes Helicopters, and Rockwell International; Lockheed with Martin Marietta and General Dynamics; Northrop with Grumman and Westinghouse; and Raytheon with Hughes Aerospace & Defense and Texas
Instruments Defense. In Europe, British Aerospace has taken over GEC Marconi, and France's Aerospatiale Matra has merged with Germany's DaimlerChrysler Aerospace and Spain's CASA. Weapons corporations are merging to compete more forcefully for a dominant share of the lucrative but highly competitive global arms market. In 1998, arms imports
amounted to $22 billion, with Third World countries accounting for over half of this market. Until the late 1990s, transatlantic mergers of defense/military
contractors had been prohibited by governments due to national security concerns. In 1999,
however, the Pentagon admitted that U.S. and European mergers were inevitable and accorded national treatment to BAe Systems, allowing it to be
awarded military contracts as if it were an American corporation. These mergers produce ever-larger and more
powerful weapons-producing corporations. These newly merged corporations are able to
greatly influence, even dictate, government defense and military policy. Government regulations have been weakened or removed altogether. For example,
export controls designed to prevent weapons from being sold to countries at war or to countries that violate human rights are narrowly interpreted so that they do not interfere with corporate profits. Foreign embassies and trade missions abroad are used to aid arms sales. 3. The Threat of Military Force Is Used to Protect Corporate Interests According
to New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, "the hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist. McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the builder of the F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies is called the United States Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps"
(Friedman, 1999). Friedman illuminates the strategic relationship that exists between corporations and militaries. As globalization extends the reach of corporate interests
around the world, a matching military capacity must be deployed to protect those interests. This is
the underlying reason the U.S. military maintains the capacity to wage two major wars in different regions of the world simul taneously. There is nothing new about Friedman's "hidden fist." Military supremacy has always been a prerequisite for economic integration into a sphere of influence or an empire. One can see this in the settling of the New
World, when the network of military forts and outposts suppressed First Nations peoples and opened North America for settlers, prospectors, and industry barons. Outer space is the next frontier to be made safe for corporations, according to U.S. military strategists. In Visi on for 2020, the U.S. Space Command revealed that the "U.S. Space Command
[is] dominating the space dimensions of military operations to protect U.S. interests and investment" (United States Space Command, 1997). Conclusion Globalization is driving a global war economy and
creating the conditions for tremendous loss of human life. Many writers and researchers have
documented the decline in human rights, social justice, environmental standards, and
democracy caused by globalization. The inevitable outcome of globalization will be more wars --
especially in the Third World where globalization has its harshest effects. Meanwhile, the elites of the industrialized world are confident that the global
economy will continue to provide them with wealth created from the resources and labor of the Third World. Their technologically advanced militaries
will protect them and their investments, insulating them from the violent effects of globalization.

THE ROLE OF THE BALLOT IS TO SEE WHO BEST UPHOLDS THEIR EPISTOMOLOGY.

BETTER FOR EDUCATION METHODS COME FIRST, ONLY WAY TO KNOW WHAT WE
ARE SAYING IS TRUE.

WE ARE MORE PREDICATBLE, EVERYONE SHOULD BE ABLE TO UPHOLD THEIR
KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION.

NO GROUND LOSS JUST DEFEND YOUR EPISTO FIRST.
Line By Line
Link Debate
LINK NOT NON-UNIQUE, CX SPECIFIED THE PLAN CREATES MARKET SHIFTS.

AND EVEN IF IT IS, THE K IS A LINEAR DISAD, MEANS THAT ANY RISK THAT THEY
INCREASE THE DEHUMANIZATION IN LATIN AMERICA IS A REASON TO VOTE NEG. THE
IMPACT OF THE 1NC IS LINEAR.
Perm Debate
1. They say perm but the alternative and the plan are mutally exclusive, they
cannot be permed.
2. Neoliberalism coopts reform. Pragmatism for Latin American governments
results in control by international capital.
Boron, Buenos Aires political science professor, 2008
(Atilio, The New Latin American Left, pg 242-245)

THE CURSE OF CONSERVATIVE 'POSSIBILISM' Given the above, and granting the existence of alternatives to neo-liberalism, a
disturbing question arises: is there room for neo-liberal policies? The answer must be qualified. In some cases it is an unequivocal
yes; in others, the response is still positive, but with some reservations. Let us consider the most optimistic case: Brazil. When one asks friends in the
Brazilian government why it has not pursued an economic policy that diverges, even slightly, from the rules of the Washington Consensus and that aims
to be something other than an intensification of the neo-liberal policies that preceded it, the response from Brasilia is an exact replica of what is taught
in US business school textbooks: Brazil needs to gain the confidence of international investors, we need foreign capital and we must observe strict fiscal
discipline, because if we don't, the country risk rating will go sky high, and no one will invest a single dollar in Brazil. This was the premise that guided
Lula's first term, and nothing suggests that things will be any different following his re-election. It does not require a great deal of effort to demonstrate
the weakness of that argument. If there is a country in the world that has all the necessary conditions to pursue a successful post-neo-liberal policy, it is
Brazil. If Brazil cannot do it, who can? Rafael Correa's Ecuador? Taban\ Vazquez's Uruguay? Evo Morales' Bolivia? Perhaps Venezuela, under the
leadership of Hugo Chavez, or even Argentina, but only with a strong political will and under extremely favourable international conditions. Brazil, on
the other hand, has everything. It covers an immense territory that encompasses every kind of natural resource. It has huge agricultural and livestock
resources, enormous mineral wealth, phenomenal sources of renewable energy in some of the largest rivers on the planet, 8,000 kilometres of
coastline with extremely rich fish stocks, a population of close to 200 million inhabitants, one of the most important industrial infrastructures in the
world, a society weighed down with poverty but with a high level of social and cultural integration, a first-class intellectual and scientific elite, and an
exuberant and pluralistic culture. Furthermore, Brazil has sufficient capital, and a potential tax base of extraordinary magnitude, although one which
remains unexploited owing to the power of the moneyed classes who have vetoed any initiative in this direction. If, with this super-abundance of
conditions, Brazil cannot extricate itself from neo-liberalism, then we are lost, and the best we can do is to prostrate ourselves humbly before the
verdict of history that consecrates the final and definitive victory of the markets. Fortunately, that is not tlie'case. The corollary of ' conservative
possibilism', beloved offspring of the pensee unique, is that nothing can change, not even in a country with Brazil's exceptional condi tions. Going
beyond the horizon of the possible and abandoning the dominant economic consensus, certain eminent government officials assure us, would expose
Brazil to terrible penalties that would put an end to the Lula government. Nevertheless, a close look at the recent economic history of Argentina may be
instructive. 'Possibilism' was intensely cultivated in Argentina, from the early days of Raul Alfonsin's government to the final catastrophic moments
under Fernando de Ia Rua's administration. This false realism, ceaselessly promoted by neo-liberal think-tanks throughout the world, drove Argentina
to the worst crisis in its history by shackling political will and the administration of the state to the whims and the greed of the markets. What is more,
when in the middle of the deepest and most extensive crisis the country had ever known, Buenos Aires defaulted on the foreign debt and began timidly
implementing some heterodox policies- the clearest example of which was the cancellation of approximately 70 per cent of foreign debt bonds -the
country started on a path of very high rates of economic growth, comparable only to those of China, which have continued uninterrupted for four years
now (through early 2007, as the first edition of this book went to press). As I noted in an analysis written prior to Lula's assumption of office, the
'possibilist' temptation always lies in wait for any government driven by reformist aims (Boron, 2003b). Faced with the objective and subjective
impossibility of revolution - a characteristic feature of the current situation not only in Brazil but in the region as a whole - a misunderstood
notion of common sense leads to accommodation with one's adversaries, and to a search for
some small escape route within the interstices of reality that will avoid total capitulation. The
only problem with this strategy is that history teaches us that it is later impossible to avoid the transition from
'possibilism' to immobilism, and then to catastrophic defeat . This was clearly the Argentine experience with the 'centre left'
Alianza government, and more generally with social-democratic governments in Spain, Italy and France. In more general terms, this was also Max
Weber's theoretical conclusion when he stated, in the final paragraph of his celebrated lecture 'Politics as a Vocation' , that 'all historical experience
confirms the truth - that man would not have attained the possible unless time and time again he had reached out for the impossible' (Weber, 1982).
Weber's words are all the more important in a continent such as ours, in which the lessons of history indisputably demonstrate that real revolutions
were needed to institute some reforms in the social structures of the most unjust region of the planet, and that without a bold utopian
political vision capable of mobilising people, reformist impulses die out, government leaders
capitulate, and their governments end up focusing on the disappointing administration of daily tasks. The hopes invested in vigorous
reformism, while undoubtedly possible, should not mean turning a deaf ear to the warnings of Rosa Luxemburg, who argued that social reforms,
however genuine and energetic they may be, do not change the nature of the pre-existing society. What happens is that as revolution is not on the
immediate agenda of the great masses of Latin America, social reform becomes the most likely alternative, above all in times of retreat and defeat such
as those that have characterised the international system since the implosion of the Soviet Union and the disappearance of the socialist camp. Reform,
Luxemburg also reminds us, is not a revolution that advances slowly, or in stages, until, with the imperceptibility of the traveller who crosses the
equator - to use Edouard Bernstein's famous metaphor - it arrives at socialism. A century of social-democratic reformism in the West irrefutably
demonstrated that reforms are not enough to 'overcome' capitalism. It did, without a doubt, produce significant changes 'within the system', but it
failed in its stated goal of 'changing the system'. In the current national and international context, reformism appears to offer the only opportunity for
moving forward, until the necessary objective and subjective conditions can be created for the pursuit of more promising alternatives. The
mistake of many reformists, however, has been to confuse necessity with virtue. Even if reforms
are currently all that can be achieved, this does not make them adequate tools for building socialism.
They can, if undertaken in a certain way, constitute an invaluable contribution to advancing in that direction, but they are not the path that will lead us
to that destination. In the present circumstances, they are what is possible, but not what is desirable in a barbaric world in need of fundamental
transformation, not simply marginal adjustments. If, as the Zapatistas say, it is a question of 'creating a new world', such an undertaking greatly exceeds
the cautious limits of reform. However, we cannot wait with our arms folded for the ' decisive day' to arrive. If the reforms are imbued
with energy and build popular power, that is to say, if they modify the existing correlation of
forces, shifting it in favour of the condemned of the earth, then those reforms contain a
transformational potential of extraordinary importance. This is the kind of reformism that, for now
and in the absence of a better alternative, we need to see in Latin America. The case of Argentina demonstrates that in practice
even a country that is far weaker and more vulnerable than Brazil can grow despite the very bad (according to Joseph Stiglitz) advice given to Argentina
by the IMF for decades and the highly publicised support of the ' international financial community', which today lavishes Lula with the same praise that
it previously reserved for the Menem administration. Is it a characteristic of ' realism ' to follow the advice of those
who, according to Stiglitz, became the principal promoters of crisis throughout the world? Crises
that, incidentally, enriched speculators and parasites -those for whom the phlegmatic John M. Keynes recommended euthanasia- while condemning
the rest to servility. What serious economist - and we are speaking of economists, not spokespersons for business interests disguised as economists -
can believe that a country can grow and develop by fostering economic recession through exorbitant interest rates, reducing public spending,
constricting the internal market, increasing unemployment, restricting consumption, facilitating the flow of speculative short-term capital and
overwhelming the poorest members of the population with indirect taxation, while subsidising the rich, and consolidating the right of large monopolies
to go untaxed? Can this be the path to liberating our countries from the ravages of neo-liberalism? Successive Argentine presidents opted for governing
according to the rules of 'possibilism', calming the markets and punctually satisfying every one of its complaints. The voices of big capital and the IMF
resonated deafeningly in Buenos Aires, and the government of the day did not hesitate for a minute in responding to their commands. That same
government, however, was deaf to the groans and cries of the condemned. The results are plain to see. The Brazilian experience during Lula's first term
painfully proved that neither a respectable leadership nor what was once a great party of the masses like the Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers'
Party, PT) was enough to guarantee the correct course of government. Brasilia has gone down the wrong road, at the end of whi ch we will not find a
new, more just and democratic society - the goal that gave birth to the PT little more than 20 years go - but rather a capitalist structure more unjust
and less democratic than the previous one. A country in which the dictatorship of capital, with a pseudo-democratic veneer, will be even stronger than
before, demonstrating that George Soros was right when he advised the Brazilian people not to bother electing Lula, because the markets would
govern the country in any case.

3. All links are disads to the perm---they shouldnt be able to sever their 1AC
justifications---thats the framework debate---.
Education this destroys the educational purposes of debate because if they can take
whatever they want out of their aff, then they will sever everything could be a
possible detriment to their plan, which takes away the educational benefits of
learning about those detriments.
Ground if they take anything that links into the negative args from their aff, then the
neg is robbed of all arguments, which is a huge blow to neg ground.

4. Alt is competitive-opposite of AFF + links to the plan
5. Perm cannot solve for radical change:
Neoliberal engagement in the Americas ensures structural violence,
environmental collapse and insecurity-only radical change solves
Nef, South Florida Latin American and Caribbean Studies director, 2008
(Jorge, Capital, Power, and Inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean, pg 142-7)

Thus, from a long-range structural perspective, social upheavals, some of them violent, have not withered away in the region, although their
manifestations have changed. My analysis strongly suggests that the politics of limited democratization combined with
neoliberal economics, while an improvement over the atrocious human rights abuses of the military dictatorships, imposes built-
in constraints that block the realization of a truly stable and sustainable system of
democratic politics in the Americas. Nor is this combination of limited democracy with neoliberalism a guarantee against
expanding corruption and widespread popular alienation. In fact, the opposite seems to be the case. Moreover, if the neoliberal
economic policies continue to fail to produce a better standard of living for the alienated
majorities (as is currently the case throughout the Americas), and should the structural crisis deepen, these
civilian regimes will likely be replaced once again by repressive civil-military regimes in the
name of national security . A subtler form of national security ideology is the cultural "software" of the security establishments in
most countries of the Americas and a regular staple in the training of the military, police, and paramilitary forces throughout the hemisphere. The
"Communist" subversion of yesteryear is being replaced by new internal enemies: "terrorism," "anarchy," and "drug traffickers." In fact, anything
that threatens the investment climate, or the core elites' interests, qualifies as a threat to
national security and as a candidate for enemy status. Growing U.S. military involvement, as in Plan Colombia, is a case
in point. Moreover, the post-9/11 atmosphere has had a most deleterious effect on the prospects for democracy in the Americas because it has given
those in control of the U.S. government the opportunity to assume a hard-line "counterterrorist" posture that justifies authoritarian measures and the
violation of civil rights. As the entire region becomes more closely integrated, a potentially
dysfunctional system of mutual vulnerability is taking shape. Its impact on the life of
millions throughout the Americas could be catastrophic . The preservation of the status quo
points toward scenarios where unemployment, poverty, violence, criminality, health hazards,
environmental threats, drug addiction, refugee flows, massive population displacements,
repression, and environmental decay feed upon each other and transcend national
boundaries . The regional drug-trading regime is a dramatic illustration of this interconnectedness. The ties that link the drug trade together
begin with peasant producers in the economically depressed Andean region and include the crime syndicates that produce, transport, and import these
addictive commodities, the corrupt officials who assist them, the local retailers who sell the drugs, and the end users, ranging from the destitute to
those in high social standing. Under these circumstances, the linkages of mutual vulnerability between North and South and their multiple accelerators,
including the contingent mode of labor relations, create a spiraling lose-lose situation: a negatives core game. Without profound changes in both the
societies of the South and the North, the possibility of arresting or reversing the existing serious threats to human security will remain doubtful.
Short of a radical reorganization of the pattern of governance throughout the Americas,
including decision making, accountability, and regional cooperation, multiple and critical
dysfunctions are likely to increase within these societies. In recent years, the Americas have been undergoing a rapid
and multidimensional process of globalization, a term often used synonymously with modernization and Americanization (Fukuyama 1999).14 But this
process has not necessarily benefited most countries, let alone their people, as Geoffrey Garrett ( 2004) has observed: Middle-income countries have
not done nearly as well under globalized markets as either richer or poorer countries, and the ones that have globalized the most have fared the worst
.... The ultimate irony facing globalization's missing middle may be that the more the free trade project flounders in Latin America, the greater will be
the pressure on people in the region to migrate to the United States. Migration will, in turn, squeeze employment and wages for the American
manufacturing middle class even more. (Garrett 2004, 96) Globalization does not involve just a series of purely random, mechanically preordained
stages of development operating outside the realm of concrete actors' interests, objectives, and rules. Rather, this process unfolds within a system of
intentional regulations (and deregulations) that affect the very way the "game" of globalization and its outcomes play out. Globalization in the Americas
is not exempt from these eminently political regulatory policies, which the global actors can create and change. Politics still matters, and what matters
in politics is who governs. Regional security cannot be equated with short-term business confidence, the magic of the marketplace, or a messianic
vision of a hemispheric "Manifest Destiny," or "wars" on terrorism, or fending off the "Hispanic threat" (Huntington 2004). On the other hand, a
breakdown of democratic development, prosperity, and equity, together with the increase of tensions in the more volatile regions of the hemisphere,
would have a direct and most deleterious effect upon the well-being and security of the people all over the Americas. The weakness of democratic
institutions and their inability to move from democratic transition and elected plutocracies to the consolidation of popular rule is a critical structural
flaw in the security system of the Western Hemisphere. As a 2005 report from the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA)
in Sweden indicates (see table 5.2), Key democratic institutions in the Americas are not performing to the entire satisfaction of citizens. Some segments
of the population feel and are effectively excluded from politics and its processes, particularly women, youth and indigenous peoples. In many
countries, democratic institutions remain weak, especially political parties and representative bodies. Politicians are mistrusted everywhere, yet the
majority of Latin Americans say that political parties are vital to democracy. Once in office, Latin American governments often fail to forge the political
alliances needed to govern and to facilitate needed reforms (otherwise known as a "crisis of governability"). (IDEA 2005) A similar observation could be
made of North America (Stoker 2006, 36-37). It is becoming obvious that the Cold War's end did not automatically bring about a Fukuyama-type
scenario of the "end of History," with global prosperity, peace, and democracy for all (Fukuyama 1989). The two-decade-old democratic transition in
the region has not been synonymous with either the entrenchment of participatory practices or with responsible government, let alone with the
enhancement of human dignity. The "safe," "limited," "low-intensity," and substantially meaningless
democracy brokered and supported by Washington and encapsulated in the famous,
unilateral "Washington Consensus" is fundamentally flawed. This model of democratic development, peddled by
transition theorists and the neoauthoritarians at the core of the hemispheric order, impedes more than facilitates the emergence of a sustainable
security community for the whole region. So does the persistence of neoliberal economic dogmatism and the
rebirth of national security doctrines designed to fight elusive and perpetual global enemies.
That narrowly defined concept of military security as practiced in the Americas is, in fact, a
major cause of insecurity. This link underpins the insurmountable contradiction between
globalization and militarization (Benftez-Manaut 2004, 59). In this context, real regime change throughout the Americas is a
necessary condition for human security and the well-being of the vast majority of its peoples.
6. Permeation of economic rationality via the plan entrenches inequality
Brown, Maryland sociology professor, 2002
(Richard, Global Capitalism, National Sovereignty, And The Decline Of Democratic Space,
Rhetoric & Public Affairs; Summer2002, Vol. 5 Issue 2, p347-357, ebsco)

The intrusion of market rationality into formerly autonomous social spheres, like nonprofit hospitals,
public education, or voluntary blood drives, undermines the strength of civil society in relation to the
corporate state. As the practices and institutions of civil society become "permeated by market principles,
they lose their capacity to offset market outcomes or to offer alternative moralities. One recurrent
market outcome is ever-increasing economic inequality."^ Similarly, when state policy becomes
infused with economic rationality, it exacerbates economic inequality rather than mitigating
it. The 1981 U.S. tax law, passed in the name of increasing investment and national competitiveness, also contributed to a
tremendous increase in economic inequality. The tax law of 2001 also is likely to starve public
services, threaten social security, and further increase economic inequality between the top 20 percent and the rest of society. This trend is
global. The United Nations reports that the incomes of the world's richest 20 percent grew
three times faster than the incomes of the poorest 20 percent from 1960 to 1990. All these factors
narrow public space and the possibilities of informed, active citizenship
7. They say to do the plan and reject neoliberalism in all other instances but:
Try or die for the alternative alone.
De Angelis, East London political economy professor, 2009
(Massimo, The tragedy of the capitalist commons, December,
http://turbulence.org.uk/turbulence-5/capitalist-commons/, DOA: 7-2-12)

This platform of management of the global commons is based on one key assumption: that capitalist
disciplinary markets are a force for good, if only states are able to guide them onto a path of
environmentally sustainable and socially inclusive growth. What this view forgets is that there is little evidence that
global economic growth could be achieved with lower greenhouse gas emissions, in spite of increasingly energy-efficient new technologies, which in
turn implies that alternatives might just be necessary to stop climate change. This raises the question of how we disentangle ourselves from the kind of
conception of commons offered by Stiglitz, which allow solutions based on capitalist growth. COMMON INTERESTS? Commons also refer
to common interests. To stay with the example of climate change, if there is any chance of significantly reducing greenhouse gas
emissions without this implying some form of green authoritarianism it is because there is a common interest in doing so. But common
interests do not exist per se, they have to be constructed, a process that has historically
proven to be riddled with difficulties witness the feminist movements attempts to construct a global sisterhood; or the
workers movements project of a global proletariat. This is partly the case because capitalism stratifies women,
workers or any other collective subject in and through hierarchies of wages and power. And therein lies
the rub, because it is on the terrain of the construction of common global interests (not just around
ecological issues, but also intellectual commons, energy commons, etc.) that the class struggle
of the 21st century will be played out. This is where the centre of gravity of a new politics will lie. There are thus two possibilities.
Either: social movements will face up to the challenge and re-found the commons on values of
social justice in spite of, and beyond, these capitalist hierarchies. Or: capital will seize the historical moment to use
them to initiate a new round of accumulation (i.e. growth). The previous discussion of Stiglitzs arguments highlights the dangers
here. Because Stiglitz moves swiftly from the presumed tragedy of the global commons to the need to preserve and sustain them for the purpose of
economic growth. Similar arguments can be found in UN and World Bank reports on sustainable development, that oxymoron invented to couple
environmental and social sustainability to economic growth. Sustainable development is simply the sustainability of
capital. This approach asserts capitalist growth as the sine qua non common interest of humanity. I call
commons that are tied to capitalist growth distorted commons, where capital has successfully
subordinated non-monetary values to its primary goal of accumulation. The reason why common interests cannot
simply be postulated is that we do not reproduce our livelihoods by way of postulations we cannot eat them, in short. By and large, we
reproduce our livelihoods by entering into relations with others, and by following the rules of
these relations. To the extent that the rules that we follow in reproducing ourselves are the rules of capitalist production i.e. to the extent
that our reproduction depends on money we should question the operational value of any postulation of a
common interest, because capitalist social relations imply precisely the existence of injustices, and
conflicts of interest. These exist, on the one hand, between those who produce value, and those
who expropriate it; and, on the other, between different layers of the planetary hierarchy.
And, it is not only pro-growth discourses that advocate the distorted commons that
perpetuate these conflicts at the same time as they try to negate them. The same is true of
environmental discourses that do not challenge the existing social relations of production
through which we reproduce our livelihoods. Given that these assertions are somewhat abstract, let us try to substantiate
them by testing a central environmental postulate on subjects who depend on capitalist markets for the reproduction of their livelihoods.

NEOLIB PRETTY BAD
2. Rejecting neoliberalism is key to prevent watered down solutions that make
climate change inevitable.
Foster et al., Oregon sociology professor, 2010
(John, The Ecological Rift: Capitalisms War on the Earth, pg 108-111)

Human activities, primarily fossil fuel combustion and deforestation are unequivocally
responsible for the observed warming of the earths atmosphere.2 In the 1990s, global carbon emissions
increased 0.9 percent per year, but in 2000-2008 they increased by 3.5 percent per year, presenting a scenario outside of the range of possibilities
considered in the 2007 IPCC report.3 This recent escalation has been due to economic growth, risi ng carbon intensity, and the continuing degradation
of ecosystems that serve as natural carbon sinks.4 At the PICC meeting held in Copenhagen in March 2009, several research noted how global climate
conditions had gone from bad to worse: "Emissions are soaring, projections of sea level rise are higher than
expected, and climate impacts around the world are appearing with increasingly frequency."5
The carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere \has increased from the preindustrial level of 280 parts per million (ppm) to 390 ppm in 2010
(higher than ever before during recorded human history), with an average rate of growth of 2 ppm per year. Climatologists had previously indicated
that an increase above 450 ppm would be extremely dangerous, given that various positive feedbacks would be set in motion, furthering climate
change. But 450 ppm is now seen as too high, given thatbecause of inadequate knowledgemost climate models failed to consider "slow" climate
feedback processes such as the disintegration of ice sheets and the release of greenhouse gases from soils and the tundra.6 Hansen and his colleagues
warn that "if humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate
evidence and ongoing climate change suggest" that carbon dioxide must be reduced to "at most 350 ppm."7 Thus it is imperative to act
now, since we have already surpassed the limit, and the longer we exceed this point and the
further we push up these numbers, the greater the threat of creating irreversible environment
changes with dire consequences. Global temperature is already at the warmest it has been during the Holocene (the last 12,000
years, which includes the rise of human civilization). Climate change has shifted the habitat zones for animals and plants and influenced the hydrologic
cycle. Specific positive feedbacks have been set in motion, so that even if carbon dioxide emissions do not increase further, significant additional
warming would still occur. Society, through its expanding production and the resulting carbon emissions, is already in the process of racing off the cliff.
For instance, the thawing of the tundra will release massive quantities of the potent greenhouse gas methane. The melting of ice and snow throughout
the planet will reduce the earth's reflectivity, accelerating the warming process. Drought conditions will cause "the loss of the Amazon rainforest,"
greatly diminishing natural sequestration.8 Other related trends include a rapidly increasing extinction rate,
growing severity of weather events, rising sea levels, and expanding numbers of ecological
refugees throughout the world. Under these circumstances of what can be called, without hyperbole, threatened apocalypse, it is
critically important to assess what forces are driving the ecological crisis, especially the accumulation of carbon in the atmosphere.9 What is abundantly
clear at this point is that the logic of capital accumulation runs in direct opposition to environmental sustainability. The motor of
capitalism is competition, which ensures that each firm must grow and reinvest its "earnings"
(surplus) in order to survive. By its nature, capital is self-expanding value, and accumulation is
its sole aim. Hence, capitalism as a system does not adhere to nor recognize the notion of
enough. Joseph Schumpeter observed that "stationary capitalism would be a coundtadictio in adjecto. The capitalist economy
must increase in scale and intensity. The earth and human labor are systematically
exploited/robbed to fuel this juggernaut. Today we are threatened by the transformation of
the entire atmosphere of the earth as a result of economic processes. Although mitigation of
and/or adaptation to climate change is definitely on the global agenda, there remains a real
danger that it will be hijacked by mainstream economics, which plays a critical role in constraining possible social
responses. The threatening imperfections of this are clearly revealed in the work of Nicholas Stern am, William Nordhaus, who represent the limits of
variance that exist within the neoclassical economics mainstream on the issue of climate change. In the most progressive neoclassical treatment of
global warming, Stern argues that carbon dioxide equivalent concentration in the atmosphere (which includes other greenhouse gases as well) should
be stabilized at 550 ppm.11 This corresponds to an atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration of 480 ppm and a rise in global temperature of 3-4C
(6.1-7.2F) above preindustrial levels.1* Even though this exceeds atmospheric carbon targets proposed by climatologists. Stern insists that efforts to
limit greenhouse gases to levels below this I should not be attempted, given that they "are unlikely to be economically viable" and would threaten the
economic system.13 In other words, the level of atmospheric carbon is not to be determined by ecological
considerations in this conception, but by what the present economic system will permit.
Nordhaus, the most prominent U.S. economic analyst of climate change, suggests that only modest reductions in greenhouse gas emissions should be
implemented in the short term, and in the long term more ambitious reductions could be put into place.14 In support of this "climate-policy ramp," he
argues against drastic attempts to stabilize emissions this century. Instead he insists on an "optimal path" that would slow the growth of carbon
emissions, peaking at about 700 ppm by 2175, with a global average temperature approaching 6C (10.8F) above preindustrial levels. This way the
economy will be permitted to grow, allowing for various investments in welfare-enhancing areas of the economy to address whatever risks may arise
from climate changes. Taking strong measures to reduce carbon levels, even to the extent proposed by Stern, is seen by Nordhaus as being too
economically costly. Both of these options, offered by orthodox economists who are seen as taking
pro-environment positions, would lead to atmospheric carbon dioxide stabilization goals that
many scientists see as catastrophic. Thus the mainstream economics of climate change directs
us toward an ecologically unsustainable targetone that climatologists believe would imperil
human civilization itself, and could result in deaths in the millions, even billions, plus the loss
of countless numbers of species


Consumption out paces efficiency, innovation is only used to further profit AND
locks in existing social relations
Foster et al., Oregon sociology professor, 2010
(John, The Ecological Rift: Capitalisms War on the Earth, pg 41-4)

Ecological modernization theorists simply added to this the corporate green-washing claim
that the eco-modernizing tendencies intrinsic to capitalism or "the market system" allowed
the "expansion of the limits" of growth. Ecological modernization, according to its leading advocate, Arthur Mol, is the belief
that "an environmentally sound society" can be created without reference to "a variety of other social criteria and goals, such as the scale of
production, the capitalist mode of production, workers' influence, equal allocation of economic goods, gender criterion, and so on. Including the latter
set of criteria might result in a more radical programme (in the sense of moving away from the present social order), but not necessary a more
ecologically radical programme." As another leading ecological modernization theorist, Maarten Hajer, has acknowledged, ecological modernization
"does not call for any structural change but is, in this respect, basically a modernist and technocratic approach to the environment that suggests that
there is a techno-institutional fix for the present problems." For this reason, ecological modernization sees no reason to address the reality of
capitalism. In Hajer's words, "It is ... obvious that ecological modernization ... does not address the systemic features of capitalism that make the system
inherently wasteful and unmanageable."76 This rigid notion of ecological modernization as a mere correction
in the original modernizing tendency of society leaves little room for considerations of social
inequality. Additionally, ecological modernization thinkers do not normally address the larger problems
of the global ecological crisis, such as global warming, or the forms taken human-nature interactions.77 Rather than engaging in an
overarching critique of the historical relation between society and nature, the increasingly dominant ecological modernization perspective takes all of
this for granted. It begins and ends with the notion of techni (technics), which is both cause and
effect, problem and solution: at most a question of technological innovation coupled with the
appropriate forms of ecological management. Ecological modernization is thus all about the development and management
of green technologies (techniques), displacing the old, environmentally harmful operations. Entrepreneurs are deemed to be an important driver of this
transition, as they respond to increasing environmental consciousness among the public and pursue important innovations as far as products and
technologies. "The basic notion of the ecological modernization processes," as the principal sociological advocates of this perspective state, is "aimed at
'regaining one of the crucial design faults of modernity'" through technological innovation.78 The standard way in which to
square the expanding circle (or spiral) of capitalist production is to bring in the black box of
technology as constituting the solution to all problems. Yet, technology cuts both ways. "The
assumption of some critics that technological change is exclusively a part of the solution and
no part of the problem," Herman Daly writes, "is ridiculous on the face of it and totally demolished by
the work of Barry Commoner [in The Closing Circle] (1971). We need not accept Commoner's extreme emphasis on the importance of
the problem-causing nature of post-World War II technology (with the consequent downplaying of the roles of population and affluence) in order to
recognize that recent technological change has been more a part of the problem than of the solution."79 To be sure, technological change is a
necessary part of any ecological solution. But ecological modernizers in sociology and sustainable-developers
in mainstream economics go beyond this by arguing that technology can work magic:
"dematerializing" economic production so that the capitalist economy can then walk on air (or
create a "weightless society"), thereby continuing its relentless expansion but with a rapidly diminishing effect on the environment. Needless to say,
such technological fantasies have no basis in reality.80 Still, technological optimism is pervasive in the ecological literature (and especially among
ecological modernization theorists). All sorts of "positive-sum" and "win-win" technical fixes are proposed. Hajer speaks confidently of the
"technicisation of ecology" as the answer to the ecological crisis. In this view, "microelectronic technologies are presented as the solution for the
juggernaut effect'" of capitalism.81 Technological change is promoted in an attempt to argue that social
relations (of power and property) can remain the samewhereas it is merely values, consciousness,
and knowledge that change, and that direct technological innovation. Such views are worse than
those of necromancers of old, since they wish away all pretenses to a scientific understanding in the
name of science. Not only are the basic physics of thermodynamics set aside, but the way in which
technology is embedded within the social system is also ignored.82 The notion that economic production in general
under the present system can continually expand without ecological waste and degradation (the dematerialization hypothesis) goes against the basic
laws of physics. As the brilliant ecological economist Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen wrote: "Had economics recognized the entropic nature of the
economic process, it might have been able to warn its co-workers for the betterment of mankindthe technological sciencesthat 'bigger and better'
washing machines, automobiles, and superjets must lead to 'bigger and better' pollution."83 Although new technologies (and
indeed much older technologies) can accomplish great things in terms of reducing the
environmental impact per unit of production, the scale effects of economic expansion
generally override any energy/environmental savings (a phenomenon known as the Jevons
Paradox).84 Since 1975 the amount of energy expended per dollar of GDP in the United States
has decreased by half, marking an increase in energy efficient by that amount. But at the same time the overall
consumption of energy by U.S. society has risen by some 40 percent. New environmental technologies are
adopted not on the basis of their value in creating a sustainable relation to the environment
but on the basis of the profit considerations of corporations, which rarely converge with ecological requirements.
As economist Juliet Schor notes, "Firms are reluctant to install technologies whose gains they cannot
capture. A decentralized system of solar and wind, for example, may have technical superiorities such
as avoiding the power loss that accompanies long-distance power generation in centralized facilities. But if the technologies are small-
scale and easy to replicate, large firms have difficulty capturing the profits that make investments
desirable."86 Indeed, the single-minded goal of technological innovation under capitalism is expansion
of production, profits, accumulation, and wealth for those at the top, not protection of the environment. According to
Donella Meadows and her co-authors in The Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update: "If a society's implicit goals are to exploit
nature, enrich the elites, and ignore the long term, then that society will develop technologies
and markets that destroy the environment, widen the gap between the rich and the poor, and
optimize for short-term gains. In short, that society develops technologies and markets that hasten
a collapse instead of preventing it."87
4. Neoliberalism makes disposable those it renders have nots and makes them
socially invisible COMES BEFORE EXTINCITON
Giroux, McMaster cultural studies professor, 2008
(Henry, Beyond the biopolitics of disposability: rethinking neoliberalism in the New Gilded
Age, Social Identities; Sep2008, Vol. 14 Issue 5, p587-620, ebsco)

Any attempt to address the current biopolitics of neoliberalism and disposability must begin by
decoupling what has become a powerful hegemonic element in neoliberal rationality the presupposition
that the market is synonymous with democracy and the final stage in the telos of history (Davis, 2008). Against this
ideological subterfuge, it is crucial for intellectuals and others not only to reveal neoliberalism as a historical and social construction, but also to make
clear the various ways in which its regime of truth and power is being resisted by other countries, particularly as its magic seems to have faded in the
laboratories of the south, especially in Latin America, where once Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, and Ecuador were crowded together as its poster children
(Martin, 2007, p. 20). Equally important is the necessity to make visible and critically analyze the matrix
of ideological and economic mechanisms at work under neoliberalism and how the latter are
producing a growing inequality of wealth and power throughout the globe. And, yet, revealing the
underlying material relations of power, institutions, and political rationality at work in the biopolitics of neoliberalism while important is not enough.
What must also be addressed in resisting the biopolitics of neoliberalism is its concerted
assault on the very possibility of politics, democracy, and the educational conditions that
make them possible. Central to such a challenge is the necessity to address how neoliberalism
as a pedagogical practice and a public pedagogy operating in diverse sites has succeeded in reproducing in the social order a
kind of thoughtlessness, a social amnesia of sorts, that makes it possible for people to look away as an
increasing number of individuals and groups are made disposable, relegated to new zones of exclusion marked by the
presupposition that life is cheap, if not irrelevant, next to the needs of the marketplace and biocapital. Of course, there is more at stake here than
providing a genealogy of neoliberal economics, politics, and hegemony, there is also, as Zygmunt Bauman (2004, 2005, 2006) has pointed out, a need to
situate the biopolitics of neoliberalism within a growing economy of individuation and privatization, the current collapse of the social state, the transfer
of power to larger global political forces, the death of long term projects that embrace a democratic future, and a dissolution of all democratic social
forms. Under the reign of neoliberalism and its rabid market fundamentalism, society is no
longer protected by the state. As neoliberalism reproduces with deadly results the multi-
leveled economies of wealth and power, it also decouples economics from public life and
morality from market forces, and in doing so creates with little opposition endless numbers of
disposable populations who are stripped of their most basic rights and relegated to the axis of
irrelevance. As Bauman (2006) points out, against the most basic principles of a viable democracy, neoliberalism produces disposable populations
that are now not only considered untouchables, but unthinkables. He writes: In the habitual terms in which human identities are narrated, they are
ineffable. They are Jacques Derridas undecidables made flesh. Among people like us, praised by others and priding ourselves on arts of reflection and
self-reflection, they are not only untouchables, but unthinkables. In a world filled to the brim with imagined communities, they are the unimaginables.
And it is by refusing them the right to be imagined that the others, assembled in genuine hoping to become genuine communities, seek credibility for
their own labours of imagination. (pp. 4546) This logic of disposability is about more than the extreme
examples portrayed by the inhabitants of Agambens camp. The biopolitics of disposability both includes and
reaches beyond the shocking image of the overcrowded refugee camps and the new American Gulag that includes the massive incarceration mostly
people of color, special prisons for immigrants, torture sites such as Abu Ghraib, and the now infamous Camp Delta at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Disposable populations now include the 60 million people in the United States living one
notch about the poverty line, the growing number of families living on bare government subsistence, the 46 million Americans
without health insurance, the over 2,000,000 persons incarcerated in prisons, the young people laboring under enormous debt and rightly sensing that
the American dream is on life support, the workers who are one paycheck away from the joining the ranks of
the disposable and permanently excluded, and the elderly whose fixed incomes and pensions
are in danger of disappearing. 16 On a global level, the archetypes of otherness and
disposability can be found in disease-ridden Africa, the Orientalist paradigm that now
defines the Arab world, those geopolitical spaces that house the growing refugee camps in
Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and North America, and those countries from Iraq to
Argentina that have suffered under neoliberal economic polices in which matters of structural adjustment are
synonymous with the dictates of what Naomi Klein (2007) calls disaster capitalism. The camp increasingly becomes the exempl ary institution of global
neoliberal capital succinctly defined by Zygmunt Bauman (2003) as garrisons of extraterritoriality, functioning largely as dumping grounds for the
indisposed of and as yet unrecycled waste of the global frontier-land (p. 138). A biopolitics that struggles in the name of democratic education and
politics becomes impossible unless individual and political rights are protected and enabled by social rights. This means in part that
collective opposition to the punishing state and the sovereignty of the market has to be
waged in the name of a democracy that takes up the struggle for a social state that not only provides social protections and
collectively endorsed insurance but also redistributes wealth and income so as to eliminate the inequalities that
fuel and reproduce the power of neoliberalism and its war on the welfare state, its promotion
of an expanded military, its contracting out of major public services, and its call for a law-
andorder state of (in)security. Biopolitics as a concept in this struggle is essential because it makes
visible a neoliberal regime in which politics not only makes life itself a site of radical unequal struggle, but under the power of
global capital produces a politics of disposability in which exclusion and death become the only
mediators of the present for an increasing number of individuals and groups. If the exclusion of vast
numbers of people marginalized by race, class, age, and gender was once the secret of modernity, late modern politics has amplified its power to
exclude large numbers of diverse groups from a meaningful social existence, while making the logic of disposability central to its definition of politics,
and, as I have argued, its modes of entertainment. But there is something more distinctive about neoliberal biopolitics and a post-9/11 world than an
obsession with necropolitics, where the state of exception becomes routine, a war against terrorism mimics that which it opposes, and death-dealing
modes of inequality strengthen, despite the growing modes of global resistance, the increase in humanitarian aid, the escalating call for more rights
legislation, and the growing influence of international law (Comaroff, 2007, p. 207). Neoliberalisms politics of disposability
not only are maintained merely through disciplinary and regulatory powers, but also work
primarily as a form of seduction, a pedagogy in which matters of subjectification, desire, and
identities are central to neoliberalisms mode of governing. Pedagogy functions as a form of cultural politics and
governmentality understood as a moral and political practice that takes place in a variety sites outside of schools. In this instance, pedagogy anchors
governmentality in domain of cognition functioning largely as a grid of insistent calculation, experimentation, and evaluation concerned with the
conduct of conduct (Dillon, 1995, p. 330). But there is more at work here than the domains of cognition that shape common sense, there is also a
pedagogy of fantasy and desire producing a kind of emotional habitus through the ever present landscapes of entertainment (Illouz, 2007). There is in
this case a pedagogical apparatus and mode of seduction that in the name of entertainment invites spectators to watch an unfolding theatre of
cruelty expanding across the globe to laugh at exclusion and humiliation rather then be moved to challenge it. And it is precisely at this intersection of
pedagogy and politics that neoliberalism must be challenged.
Alt Debate
2. Infusing public and educational spaces with critiques of neoliberalism is key
to establish new social relations KEY TO OVERCOMING ENTRENCHMENTS AND
AVOIDS TRANSITION WARS.
Henderson et al., Rochester doctoral candidate, 2011
(Joseph, Contesting global neoliberalism and creating alternative futures, Discourse: Studies in
the Cultural Politics of Education, 32.2, Taylor and Francis)

Contesting neoliberalism necessitates that we situate neoliberal policies within the larger
neoliberal discourse promoting markets, competition, individualism, and privatization. Analysing education policies in the USA, whether the
push for mayoral control in Rochester, New York (see Duffy, 2010; Hedeen, 2010; Ramos, 2010), school reform policies under Renaissance 2010 in
Chicago, or Race to the Top under the Obama administration, requires that we understand how reforms such as using standardized testing are
presented as efficient, neutral responses to the problem of raising student achievement, rather than examining the root causes of student failure,
including lack of decent paying jobs and health care, and under-funded schools. Current policies reinforce neoliberalism and leave the status quo intact.
Similarly, if we look at education in Sub-Saharan Africa, we must situate schools within the hollowing out of the state, and the lack of adequate funding
for education and other social services such as health care. For example, in Uganda, as in several other Sub-Saharan countries, the global recession has
contributed to drug shortages, making it impossible to treat the growing number of AIDS patients (McNeil, 2010). Yet, under more social democratic
policies the state would play a larger role in providing health care. Furthermore, education is increasingly contested, as
the plutocracy promotes education as a means of producing productive, rather than critical,
employees. Schools are more often places where teachers and students learn what will be on
the test rather than seeking answers to questions that cry out for answers, such as how to
develop a healthy, sustainable environment or communities where people are actually valued
for who they are rather than what they contribute to the economy. Instead, we must ask
what kinds of relations do we want to nurture, what kinds of social relations, what kind of
work do we want to do, and what kinds of culture and technologies do we want to create .
These questions require that we rethink schools so that teachers and students can engage in real questions for which the answer will make a difference
in the quality of our lives. These questions also require that we rethink our relationship to a specific kind
of free marketplace that is not, in fact, inevitable. By problematizing the idea of neoliberal
marketization, we can begin to construct new markets that actually value commonly held
resources and local communities. In our own educational efforts, we ask just these kinds of questions. For example, we are
working with students and teachers in Africa with the goal of having them become community resources in alternative, reliable, and healthy energy
resources. We note that two billion people in the developing world still lack natural gas, propane or other modern fuels used for cooking or heating
their homes, and 1.5 billion people live entirely without electricity. Those without modern fuels rely typically on wood or dung for fuel, which are often
used for unventilated indoor cook stoves that produce smoke and gases that result in numerous illnesses. A United Nations report notes two million
people die every year from causes associated with exposures to smoke from cooking with biomass and coal (Legros, Havet, Bruce, & Bonjour, 2009, p.
2). Furthermore, children and adults who rely on biomass are much more likely to die from pneumonia and chronic lung diseases. Our hope is to work
with students to provide reliable and safer energy without contributing to global climate change. At the same time we are working with schools in the
USA to develop alternatives to electricity generated by coal by working with students to conserve energy and develop alternative energy resources.
Rather than seeing themselves as individuals responsible only to themselves, we are encouraging students to see themselves as a community
participating in determining their local and global futures. Contesting neoliberalism, then, needs to occur at three
levels, the discursive, the political, and the pedagogical. First, we need to analyse the ways in
which particular discourses have become dominant and the interconnections between what is
occurring at the local, national, and global levels. Understanding events in Chicago, Mexico, or Uganda requires that we
examine how global neoliberal discourses and policies promote the withering away of the state except for its role in promoting a climate conducive to
capital investment through low taxes, deregulation, and the availability of finance capital. Second, we need to examine and
contest the way in which power has been concentrated in the hands of the corporate and
political elite. In Chicago, under Renaissance 2010, they have destroyed working-class neighbourhoods and replaced them with upscale
housing and boutique schools (Lipman, in press). In New York City, the mayor has gained control over the city's schools by secretly and unilaterally
choosing Cathleen Black, CEO of a major media corporation, as the next Chancellor, completely disempowering and disenfranchising the public (Chen &
Barbaro, 2010). In response to events in Chicago and New York, parents, community youth groups, and teachers are working, separately and together,
to resist school privatization and the destruction of neighbourhoods. Possibilities for real community-based reform have increased with the election of
the Caucus of Rank and File Educators (CORE) to the Chicago Teachers Union on a platform of democratic unionism and opposition to privatization and
Renaissance 2010. In New York City parents and community groups are organizing against the Cathleen Black's appointment as school Chancellor.
Third, schools must engage students in raising the essential questions of our time, whether
these be about climate change, environmental sustainability, or rebuilding communities in a
socially just way. We need to develop a social democratic approach to government,
governance, and education that promotes critical analysis and active participation in creating
an alternative to neoliberalism.

2. Try or die-only way to create a system not centered on profit.
Sachs et al., Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy, 2012
(Wolfgang, Critique of the Green Economy Toward Social and Environmental Equity,
http://boell.org/downloads/Critique_of_the_Green_Economy.pdf, DOA: 6-27-12)

In all the old industrial countries the times of high economic growth are past. Experts now argue over whether we should
expect a slight rise in economic output year on year or zero growth punctuated by upswings
and downswings. Yet that takes no account of the green transformation of society and the economy. A strategy of eco-
efficiency (better), environmental sustainability (different) and self-restraint (less) has
fewer prospects of growth. In a post-growth society the renewable sectors of the economy will need to grow while the fossil ones
shrink, but on balance it must be assumed that in the long term growth rates will be negative. How will a non-growing economy
work, if everyone has a lower income than before? To this key question, which will define the next few decades, there
are broadly speaking two answers a reactionary one and a progressive one. The reactionary answer involves enduring a period of loss of growth
accompanied by increasing inequality, social exclusion and impoverishment. The progressive one sees us investing in a new
model of wealth that ensures that everyone has enough, because it is based on a different equilibrium between
the economy and society. The progressive answer does not just fall from the sky; we must prepare for it over the forthcoming years and decades.
Strengthening society as against the economy needs new types of infrastructure for different ways of thinking. The commons are a
fundamental feature of our present reality. People can only survive and thrive if they have
access to nature, to family and friends, and to language and culture. While this may seem obvious, it is
hard to find a public and political language in which to talk about the commons. If we speak of the economy,
the concepts of the market and the state dominate everything else. If we speak of politics, what comes to mind
is the polarization of right and left. Hardly anyone mentions the commons as though nothing of
significance exists outside the market and the state. These two concepts are like two communicating tubes: a lot of
market on one side and not much state on the other; not much market on one side and a lot of state on the other. Yet historians and anthropologists
have long been at pains to point out that exchanging goods via the market or via the state are only two ways in which goods can be distributed there
is a third way: exchange in the community. The first way is governed by the principle of competition and the second by the principle of planning, while
in the third the emphasis is on mutuality. In any society the three distributive principles usually mingle, but over the last two centuries something new
has happened: the principle of mutuality has steadily lost ground. Since Adam Smith the relationship between the
market and the state, between competition and planning, has become the main dispute, while
the principle of mutuality has become the big loser. Social groups such as families, relatives,
neighborhoods, networks of friends, cooperatives and similar economic forms have been
sucked into a vortex of decline from which by turns the market and the state have emerged
victorious. In a post-growth society this development must be reversed. Or rather: it must move forwards. The
commons are another source of wealth in addition to the market and the state. They form the
basis of social communities, especially at four levels: Firstly, at the natural level all humans depend on water, forests, soil, fishing grounds, species diversity, countryside, air and
the atmosphere and on the life processes embedded in them. As biological beings they have a right to natural assets, regardless of and with precedence over any private ownership of natural stocks. Secondly, at
the social level places such as squares, parks, courtyards and public gardens, as well as post-work leisure, holidays and free time, are essential if social networks are to develop. Thirdly, as far as the cultural level is
concerned, it is obvious that language, memory, customs and knowledge are basic to the creation of any material or non-material product. As cultural beings, the spirits and fates of every person ultimately rely on
the achievements of others. And finally, fourthly, at the digital level: production and exchange on the Internet work best if access to stored data is not impeded. For free navigation in the virtual world it is
important that neither software codes nor the wealth of uploaded documents, sounds and pictures are locked away by excessive property claims. Restoring the strength of the
commons requires a different perspective on the economy. What actually is property? And what legitimates the ownership of property?
What sounds like a philosophical discussion has practical consequences. If the concept of property does not discriminate clearly between possession and use there is little hope either for the shepherd who lets his
sheep graze here one day and there the next, or for the Internet surfer who downloads articles and pictures. And what actually is competition? If competition is understood as costriving (and the German word
for competition, Konkurrenz, has the same Latin root as the English concur) rather than as survival of the fittest, then small traders and software specialists can breathe again. And what does creating value
actually mean? If it means only monetary value created by selling goods and services, then work in the home, neighborhood services, community organizations and peer groups are left out in the cold. And
the most fundamental question of all what actually is money? If we make no distinction
between money as a means of exchange and credit and money as a means of enrichment and
speculation, the whole economy is listing dangerously in nautical terms it is a disaster
waiting to happen. Looking at the economy from a different angle reveals important aspects that
could be relevant to a no-growth economy. Alongside the formal economy there is a relational economy that is concerned not with
material things but with relationships between people. The ambit of the relational economy is wide and can range from traditional associations such as
sports clubs and church communities, together with businesses of the classical type such as shops and repair services, to post-modern manifestations
such as car-sharing schemes and community solar energy projects. Different forms of commitment can arise: friendships, self-help groups and
neighborhood services as well as welfare organizations, local businesses and Internet services. Forms of the relational economy
can be found in different sectors: relating to food, the care of the sick and elderly, service provision and everyday needs, and in
sports and entertainment. At the core is an economy that is built on social relationships, a care
economy. It cares for children, young people, the sick and the elderly. It brings together parents, educators and carers of all types. Of course it also demonstrates the difficulties that a relational
economy has to contend with: care work, family relationships, local communities and private organizations will need to be financially and structurally reorganized. This reorganization must also extend to
relationships between the genders if the inherited gender-based division of labor that is predicated on gender hierarchy is not to become even more firmly entrenched. The care economy, and with it the whole
concept of the relational economy, will be derailed if men and women do not participate equally. Caring must undergo a political and social
revaluation. In the process, paid and unpaid work must be redistributed not just between the genders, but primarily so. Moreover,
the relational economy appeals to different motives and norms than the market and the state.
Competition and achievement, routine and loyalty certainly occur and can be a component of the social commons, but they can never replace
voluntary action and selforganization, cooperation and enterprise. Whether in the development of Wikipedia or of urban community gardens or in the
running of old peoples clubs and nursery schools the virtue of cooperation is writ large. Cooperation, with all the attendant
difficulties, is held in higher regard than competition, shared curiosity is valued more than
hoarding egotism. Things are more successful if they are done with passion, commitment and a sense of responsibility this is an old lesson
that classical business administration has been slow to learn. How can an economy function without growing? This is
a big question that cannot be answered without considering the hidden dimensions of wealth
and in particular of the care economy. One of these dimensions is the social commons. Although
private wealth is the most frequently highlighted aspect of wealth, all the variants of community wealth are just as important. Moreover, they harbor
the opportunity of creating forms of a distributed economy based on the model of distributed energy production in other words, forms of local
production that are linked, globally if necessary, via the Internet. Above all, though, it has become possible to imagine a
form of wealth with less money. Because in the social commons services are not provided for
monetary reasons, but out of a sense of community spirit, interest or solidarity, needs can be met with a lesser investment of money. For
example, just as Wikipedia would be unaffordable if all the authors and editors had to be paid a fee, older people in a housi ng project provide caring
services for each other that could never be paid for from public care budgets. The reinvention of the commons is therefore vital
to the creation of an economic order for the 21st century that has been freed from the dictate of
growth.



Framework Debate
1. Our interpretation is the judge should be an intellectual grading the
foundation upon which 1AC stems from---if we win the foundations of the aff
are suspect we should win irrespective of hypothetical enactment. The
affirmative should not be allowed to weigh the aff with faulty evidence.
2. Method first key-otherwise alternative modes of knowledge concerning
neoliberalism are delegitimized..
Gunder et al., Aukland University senior planning lecturer, 2009
(Michael, Planning in Ten Words or Less: A Lacanian Entanglement with Spatial Planning pgs
111-2)

The hegemonic network, or bloc, initially shapes the debates and draws on appropriate
policies of desired success, such as the needs of bohemians, knowledge clusters, or talented knowledge workers, as to what
constitutes their desired enjoyment (cobblestones, chrome and cappuccinos at sidewalk cafes) and what is therefore lacking in
local competitiveness. In tum, this defines what is blighted and dysfunctional and in need of economic,
spatial planning, or other, remedy. Such an argument is predicated on a logic, or more accurately a
rhetoric, that a lack of a particular defined type of enjoyment, or competitiveness (for surely they are one and the same) is
inherently unhealthy for the aggregate social body. Lack and its resolution are generally presented as
technical, rather than political issues. Consequently, technocrats in partnership with their
"dominant stakeholders` can ensure the impression of rationally seeking to produce
happiness for the many whilst, of course, achieving their stakeholders' specific interests (Gunder and Hillier 2007a,
469). The current "post-democratic` milieu facilitates the above through avoidance of critical
policy debate challenging favored orthodox positions and policy approaches. Consideration of policy
deficiencies, or alternative solutions, are eradicated from political debate so that while "token
institutions of liberal democracy' are retained conflicting positions and arguments are negated (Stavrakakis
2003, 59). Consequently, "the safe names in the field who feed the policy orthodoxy are repeatedly
used or their work drawn upon. by different stakeholders. while more critical voices are silenced by their inability
to shape policy debates' (Boland 2007, 1032). The economic development or spatial planning policy
analyst thus continues to partition reality ideologically by deploying only the orthodox "successful'
or "best practice' economic development or spatial planning responses. This further maintains the
dominant, or hegemonic, status quo while providing "a cover and shield against critical
thought by acting in the manner of a "buffer" isolating the political held Rom any research that is independent and radical in its conception as in its
implications for public policy' (Wacquant 2004, 99). At the same time, adoption of the hegemonic orthodoxy
tends to generate similar policy responses for every competing local area or city-region. largely resulting in a
zero-sum game (Blair and Kumar 1997).
3. Knowledge production far outweighs any practical policy because debate is
totally ruined if they just use lies to back up their own lies.
4. Policy making isnt grounded in objectivity but cherry picking. Means a
residual link takes out the aff because the ideological underpinnings of their
knowledge is inaccurate.
Bristow, Cardiff University economic geographer senior lecturer, 2005
(Gillian, Everyone's a winner: problematising the discourse of regional competitiveness,
Journal of Economic Geography, June, oxford journals)

This begs the question as to why a discourse with ostensibly confused, narrow and ill-defined content has become
so salient in regional economic development policy and practice as to constitute the only valid currency of
argument (Schoenberger, 1998, 12). Whilst alternative discourses based around co-operation can be conceived (e.g. see Hines, 2000; Bunzl,
2001), they have as yet failed to make a significant impact on the dominant view that a particular, quantifiable form of output-related regional
competitiveness is inevitable, inexorable and ultimately beneficial. The answer appears to lie within the policy process,
which refers to all aspects involved in the provision of policy direction for the work of the public sector. This therefore includes the
ideas which inform policy conception, the talk and work which goes into providing the
formulation of policy directions, and all the talk, work and collaboration which goes into translating these into practice (Yeatman,
1998; p. 9). A major debate exists in the policy studies literature about the scope and limitations of reason, analysis and intelligence in policy-makinga
debate which has been re-ignited with the recent emphasis upon evidence-based policy-making (see Davies et al., 2000). Keynes is often cited as the
main proponent of the importance of ideas in policy making, since he argued that policy-making should be informed by knowledge, truth, reason and
facts (Keynes, 1971, vol. xxi, 289). However, Majone (1989) has significantly challenged the assumption
that policy makers engage in a purely objective, rational, technical assessment of policy
alternatives. He has argued that in practice, policy makers use theory, knowledge and evidence selectively to
justify policy choices which are heavily based on value judgements. It is thus persuasion (through rhetoric,
argument, advocacy and their institutionalisation) that is the key to the policy process, not the logical correctness or
accuracy of theory or data. In other words, it is interests rather than ideas that shape policy making
in practice. Ultimately, the language of competitiveness is the language of the business community. Thus, critical to
understanding the power of the discourse is firstly, understanding the appeal and significance
of the discourse to business interests and, secondly, exploring their role in influencing the ideas of regional and national policy
elites.