Freemarket capitalism is both unsustainable and environmentally unsound.

I shal save my defense and closing remarks for Round 4. I shall use this round to rebut a few of PRO's points from Round TWO, as well as ask a few questions of my opponent, as this has been PRO's preferred form of argumentation. Free-Market Capitalism shall be abbreviated as F. M. C. , in order to save character space. Rebuttals to Round TWO. I will be addressing most of PRO's arguments against F. M. C. . In order to save character space, I will not write the entire sentence, but will be addressing the entire sentence within my rebuttal. Point #1"The underlying problem with capitalism is that it requires infinite resources. .. and it's primary concern as an economic system is profit. " I will agree that there exists the concept of scarcity in the real world. "Scarcity" is a concept which describes the unlimited wants and needs of humankind, and the limited resources available to fulfill these wants. This is a fact of the world, regardless of any economic system. All economies face scarcity, and it is the job of the economic system to decide upon how to engage with scarcity in an attempt to meet as many wants and needs as possible, with the limited resources available. The thing with this is that it is true of any economic system, not only F. M. C. [1] PRO attempts to place this at the feet of F. M. C. , which is The focus of Capitalism is profit. I do not understand how this is problematic, and would like PRO to explain this to the audience and myself. Profit is based upon the number of customers willing to pay a given price, minus the costs of producing whatever good or service is being sold. So, it is true that profit is a, perhaps the, driving force of Capitalism, however, i see this as more supportive of my position than my opponents. There is reason to believe that increasing the costs to a business will give rise to less pollution, by necessity. If a company's primary objective is earning profit, and there exist extreme costs to over-exploitation and pollution, business owners would find ways to decrease their costs. Pollution and exploitation relate directly to the topic of this debate, and it makes sense to place a cost on these two to Point #2". .. sustainability is only possible if economic consumption is scaled down drastically. . "I am under the impression that consumption in this instance refers to the use of natural resources by businesses. I agree with PRO. However, i have two questions: What does this have to do with FMC? What would a government-run business do differently from a business in FMC? As i mentioned in point #1, profit is the prime mover of capitalism, whether this is large scale manufacturing companies like GM or Coca-Cola, or smale scale mom-and-pop nick-nack shops. Capitalism includes both of these things, and profit will decide whether or not such a business can stay open. This is not to say that profit is the only thing that matters. There is a large number of people who love to do what they do, and are fine with compensation that covers costs, but perhaps does not allow much more than that. However, at such a point that costs become to high, with individuals or businesses, reassessment must take place, and businesses and individuals will likely change something to cut costs. I am not sure i appreciate, or support, my oppenent's attempts to poision the well with remarks such as, "Am I correct CON posits regulation and laws (from government) are the problem. .. Is a free market even possible without descending into uncontrollable anarchy, corporate monopolies and cartels? ". Such a statement uses language that is generally disagreeable, and while I am sure that audience members will be aware of the fallacious nature of such comments, i believe it deserves a mention. "Anarchy" has multiple definitions, one of which is "absence of government", which i do not believe would be a problematic occurance. Government does not create laws, people create laws. Suggesting that government is required to produce laws is akin to suggesting that government is required to produce education. Government is beneficial to produce these things, but not necessary. The phrasing "descending into uncontrollable anarchy" creates a negative image prior to my presentation of an argument. I shall end my issues with this here, and begin addressing a few of my opponent's statements from this round. I did state earlier that i shall leave Defense for the next round. However, in the previous round i stated that this round shall be for rebuttals. There are not many points for me to address from PRO's last round, so it will appear that i am quote mining. I will attempt to keep my responses as much in-context as possible, and apologize in advance if i fail to do this. I ask that PRO, and any audience members, address this in whatever manner they see fit, with PRO (preferably) addressing this in Round 4, and audience members (preferably) addressing this in the comment section. Rebuttals to Round 3One argument presented by PRO can be summarized as follows: Government policy being involved in the market-place prevents it from being a Free-Market economy. Government policy is a violation of the Non-Agression Principle. I shall first direct my opponent and the audience to another important principle, which i shall shorten and paraphrase here: You own yourself, and your actions. What this principle means is that we may, and should, hold all individuals responsible for their actions. Authors are to be given credit for their books, inventors are to be given credit for their inventions, murderers are to be given credit for their murders, and, most importantly for this debate, businesses are to be given credit for their pollution. The Non-Aggression Principle can be used to create a list of "rights", in a positive and negative sense. "Positive Rights" are those things that people can do, and have a right to be allowed to do. Positive rights are born of negative rights, and negative rights impose duties upon others. . The "right to live" is one such right; this can be written in a negative sense as well. People have the "negative right" against others to not be murdered; others have a duty to not murder. I mention thisas an analogy for my next point. People possess the negative right against others to not have their land, water, and air, polluted. Pollutants are harmful to the human body, as well as the environment. Over-exploitation of land leads to harmful conditions as well. If business are made up of individuals who own themselves, and their actions, and who have moral duty, dictated by a negative right, to not pollute, they must bear as much of the costs of said action as possible. Who else but government would be able to hold businesses accountable? Government allows the existence of corporate entities, so we must then move to consider a corporation as a person, given the fact that there are several reasons why corporations having a distinct identity is beneficial, not the least of which is the ability to recieve loans, and buy property. If corporations were not separate entities, the process would be easier, however, this is not the case, and i have no alternative to offer. I shall simply move forward as though corporations are persons of their own. Just as there exists a force, or group, that holds normal citizens responsible (including the various police departments, court systems, and neighborhood services), there should be a force, or group, that holds corporate citizens responsible. It falls to government, as it does on an individual scale, to do this. I have already stated that i have no alternative to offer to current system, only modifications, and this is what i am presenting. So, to summarize, this is not a violation of the NAP, rather, it is a culmination of all three principles, resulting in a recognition of the NAP. I shall save further points for Round 4. I shall take my remaining number of characters to request a few things from PRO:1. What is the system that you propose? What are the implications, and how is this better?2. Why is FMC unsustainable and environmentally unsound? What evidence do you have for this?3. Do you have evidence to support the position that government-owned resources and production would be better?4. As I have expressed it here, is FMC still unsustaiable and environmentally unsound? I hope PRO addresses these questions within Round 4. To the audience members, i have noticed that this debate has veered away from the originally intended resolution of, "Freemarket capitalism is unsustainable and environmentally unsound. " I have attempted to redirect it. I think perhaps my clarification in round 1 lead to a distorted reosolution. PRO has not made any statements that this is an unwelcomed change, and i hope it is not. I have made my arguments in such a way that they defend a minarchist-libertarian conception of FMC, as well as posited ideas as to how it could be sustainable and environmentally sound. As True FMC is not the current state of things, this becomes a debate about abstracts and theory, as well as about the eco-friendliness of socialist economic structure vs capitalist economic structure. Hopefully this is not too far from the original purpose. I would like to thank PRO for this debate once more, and the audience members for reading and voting. [1] . http://www.whatiseconomics.org...[2] . http://faculty.winthrop.edu...;