Summation

Let's begin with an overview of the debate and see how things fared. First of all we'd like to bring to attention the lack of adherence to the motion by Team England. The motion required of them to defend that rich nations should actively recruit medical personnel (MP); instead they came up with a scheme where rich countries should compensate poorer countries for the lost medical staff, as if the motion were about fairness rather than about being active or passive. Had they engaged with their motion and provided the advantages of brain drain (BD) or the reasons why is it OK for rich countries to recruit talented professionals, to the point rich countries should instigate it (active), the debate would have been far more interesting. They end up saying things like: "[Brain Drain] is so bad that it deserves formal international recognition to actively control it", which means BD is so bad it needs to be put under control and not that rich nations should be doing it actively. We called their attention on this topicality breach in the rebuttals to their 1st and 5th arguments, and then in our 8th argument, but as of yet they haven't picked up the glove. As for style, we believe that misrepresenting our arguments using incomplete quotes -as denounced in our 8th argument- doesn't improve the quality of the debate at all. On the other hand their case-wide Moving Target fallacy wasn't that constructive, either: launching an extremely broad plan meant that we had to refute hypothetical scenarios since their first speech didn't clarify whether payment was before migration or to compensate past migrations; or what happens if the employee decides to leave the rich nation; or the criteria to determine what country is richer (GDP, GDP per capita, PPP, etc); or if their scheme also applies to those who graduate from private universities, or through student loans, or if it is retroactive or applies to future graduates. Then after we made our guesses and objections they could have engaged our different scenarios and explained how their general approach works in each of them, instead they refined their plan saying things like "If the employee changes their mind and wants to change careers they simply buy themselves out of the contract by reimbursing their employer. If they do so after a year or two, they repay a proportion pro rata. Once they have 'worked off' the cost of the investment they become free agents", which redefines their initial doctors-as-resources approach where rich nations were pouching them, to a doctors-as-the-primary-agents-of-BD one where they have an obligation to their fatherland. Then they attempt to redefine the scope from all MP to "newly-graduated medical personnel to cut and run without compensating the home nation for the costs of their training". But no matter how much they moved their target with these (and others) unacceptable shift in their framework, we have still managed to hit a Bulls-eye in this debate. Their Plan, even with their shift in framework and extemporaneous explanations and mechanisms, failed to provide enough details to be acceptable. For instance what does the compensation cover? The costs of College Education? the costs of their entire education? the costs of the public investment made in that person so far (health, security, etc)? or -as we proposed- the actual value of having a doctor in the home country? Since "there is no need to wait or negotiate", there is no mechanism to add a profit to the compensation. If only the costs are covered, the value of having a doctor at home for 30 years and the increase in economic growth it would cause are lost. Hence it's a bad business to the home nation, that has no added investment capacity and is running out of its scarce human resource. Also, who pays for the foreign doctors anyway? They have said it is the host country, the employee and also that it is the employer. The thing is the employer for doctors and nurses need not be the state, so in the case of private institutions it is not clear how this would work, are taxpayers forced to subsidize private institutions hirings? Or are private institutions supposed to enter into treaties and negotiations with foreign nations in order to hire employees? Would medical staff be ultimately liable (could they loose their house or go to jail) if their own government doesn't receive a satisfactory compensation from a foreign government or employer? Would medical staff have to repay their governments in order to work in their own national private sector? Much meaningful debate is lost because of this ambiguities. The best way to meter the quality of the World View of a team is seeing how able are they to keep a consistent line of thought throughout their case. When they talk about values- as in a point "The Rights of the Individual"- they ridicule, reject and call absurd the notion that "A practical need [...] has the power to override the freedom of individuals". So here they put freedom above utilitarianism. Then they say "...our[Prop] proposal would restrict the freedom of newly-graduated medical personnel to cut and run without compensating the home nation for the costs of their training". Here they're saying it's OK to restrict their individual freedoms due to the practical need of states to either provide health care or train more doctors. So which way is it? Why would they dedicate an entire point to enshrine individual freedoms in their opening speech and also propose a plan that curtails them? Let's try to ascertain who is the responsible party in BD from their statements: First they say "But with this freedom [to hire workers] would come the responsibility to ensure poor countries were fully reimbursed for the costs of their education", complemented with how they will address the "pretence[sic] of rich countries that the resulting damage done to donor nations is not their responsibility" but they contradict themselves with "The primary agents are the doctors themselves, so the rich state that benefits has done nothing wrong, and there are no grounds on which they could be made to pay compensation". Which way is it? Whose responsibility is it then? The doctors' or the rich countries'? Why would rich countries have to "ensure poor countries were fully reimbursed" by paying a compensation if "there are no grounds" to make them do it? The left hand needs to talk to right hand more often. They also fail to meet the burden of proof required by their plan, that is: 1. Rich countries are responsible for the BD on poorer countries 2. The compensation corrects BD by either discouraging or by offsetting the loss of the doctor. They did not prove that rich countries were responsible for the harms of BD, they just asserted both that they needed to take responsibility and that it wasn't their responsibility. But they fail to say why it has to be them. If it were because they are the ones reaping the benefits, then it makes no sense to make it unidirectional from rich to poor, when all nations could compensate each other for migrant workers without needing to check who's richer. If it were because they can afford it and because poorer nations need it, then why not the UN or the WHO, or the World Bank or the IMF or any other well funded aid-oriented organization? Also they merely claimed without proving that the demand would diminish due to the increased cost caused by the compensation (refuted by us since health care demand is inelastic), and since they only talk about costs and never the value of having a doctor, then their burden of proof is not met. Even if the other side failed to analyze who is responsible, let us see, shall we? Lets consider the MP. Isn't it true that s/he decided to study a medical career under the understanding she would have to give back to the community? Shouldn't s/he pay it back to be able to leave? No. The MP got the education for free, which means nothing is owed. The plan would make the MP be indebted after the fact, after s/he entered training that was supposed to be free. We don't have any problem with the student receiving a loan from the government, as long as the MP knows all the implications. But a person shouldn't be able to sign a contract of the kind the prop. describes, since it violates the signer's human rights: it constitutes servitude (indenture servant) as the person can't decide it's way of life while under the contract unless they buy themselves out of it, and can even be traded. The employer is merely interested in providing health care for those who seek it, solving complex political, economic and social problems of foreign poorer nations is outside of their scope. As for the rich country, their duty is assuring that their citizens have a decent standard of living which includes access to health care. If MPs come knocking on their doors fleeing from harsh conditions and persecutions, why shouldn't they offer the MPs some hospitality? Even the Proposition acknowledges at one point that they have no responsibility in this. We contest the main party responsible in the BD phenomenon are the home nations, since they are the ones that are failing to provide their citizens with living conditions that are good enough for them to stay. Home nations are the ones with failed economic policies, political instability, fundamentalism and civil strife. Giving them more scapegoats like having Mugabe now declaring that Zimbabwe is in crisis because the West isn't giving enough money as compensations would mean giving them more excuses to avoid taking responsibility, and thus pushing a real solution farther away. SQ is not good but it's preferable to plan because the plan creates new problems. We have established in their argument #6 how implementing this plan would create friction between states and citizens. Firstly, this kind of international transaction is many times ridden with sources for conflict: it could offend nationalistic states if they feel under payed, for example. Added to that it could create friction if a country decides not to let out someone that invented a new technique because to compensate him would take a hundred times more than what it cost to train him. Secondly, the plan could create a need for each citizens to have to prove they are not a doctor, before you can leave the country. Lastly the plan opens a can of worms, tells rulers there is a new tool to be used for power and money and they might use it badly or they may think the way to resolve it is closing its borders: as we say on our no point #3 and then there could be the emergence of a black market as happens with most things that are demanded and at difficult reach. But it also creates problems of perception that are crucial to the future of those countries: Gives the responsible party (the poor country) the position of wronged party since it's getting compensation. So it reinforces its self perception of being a helpless victim and this takes it farther from solving the problems that cause BD in the first place. Another terrible perception the plan brings is that countries can be compensated by getting back the money they invest on training. Countries should look at their MPs and other brains as more valuable than just their training so the country can improve their situation and make them be comfortable and happy where they are. But the worst of harms created by introducing the compensation model it would be the lost of individual freedoms as we explained in arg. #10. The plan incentives poor governments to restrain freedoms of their citizens since the payment is to be done before the doctor leaves as to be enforceable, governments could be seeing their medical personnel as property or currency. But also the mechanism diminishes freedom when proposing a form of contract that if dissolved has doctor's paying for it, a form of servitude. Another problem that plan creates, different than further BD, is that there will be less inclined to studding medicine because now it engenders a debt if they want to migrate. The prop said that BD is "unacceptable" and they "are opposed to it and seek to rectify it. We believe this to be an anomalous feature of the SQ, a loophole which must be closed" therefore, they are trying to solve the BD issue with their plan but they don't make it First of all, it's very likely the compensation wouldn't end the way the rich country wanted it to be, in the training of new doctors since some of these countries are less than transparent. Second of all, people leave their country not only because of an increase in wages or tax breaks, which is how the prop. explains BD. We say that a BD happens many times when there is a problem that makes the citizens feel better leaving their situation than staying in it. These considerations are extremely complex and vary with each and every person. They decide about leaving a country considering what they are attached to-if at all: a family, job, friends, house and they add (or subtract) the attractiveness of the country they live in. The attractiveness may vary because of  political situation, persecution, inestability, judicial impunity, crime, weather, cost of living. Most of these things are the responsibility of the government. Good governance, as we have shown, can make the country more or less attractive. Few people would go to a war zone just for better wages which illustrates that the context of the country is as important as wages. The BD is not diminished by the plan. The prop. suggested the compensation would create a price hike that would affect the demand. We showed that the demand is inelastic and it won’t be smaller as demonstrated on our 7th argument. Lastly we present the question of the Opportunity costs. The investment the State made on the doctor’s public education was made because he was supposed to provide health-care. The real cost is not only the cost of his training but also the cost that he wont be there to help society. In the meantime, the state renounced to other projects just to afford the investment made on him. Makes BD and union problems worse: The proposed plan will make the BD worse. First, as we explain in our second point, it gives incentives to governments to solve liquidity problems by "selling their assets". They may resort to pressuring MPs if not enough of them want to leave on their own. They conceded that this could happen but it would be marginal. We gave to examples of what rulers are ready to do in other to get what they want. So this rise in BD will be caused by the offering of compensation. The ruler might "sell" the MP that teaches other MPs and with this it's more difficult to create new personnel. The plan of compensation puts the money on the hand of the government and many poorer countries have a total lack of transparency and huge corruption, so the plan would change one doctor ready to cure people for money that could go into the pocket of the ruler. This in turn would deepen the deficit of doctors, not because BD but due to lack of funding of training facilities needed to make up for "sold" doctor or nurse. There is a problem that would get worse as more foreign MP get drained out of their countries: it will worsen the bargaining power for unions as discussed. They didn't respond to this argument, discussed as well in our second point so they conceded that more BD would cause problems not only for the poorer country but for the recipient country as well. Conclusion In conclusion, we win this debate because we proved the status quo is preferable to their plan. The other team losses the debate because they accept a problem (brain drain) and then don't solve it, but rather worsen it and then add new problems to the SQ. They lost the debate because they didn't manage to meet the burden of proof of their plan: that it had the responsible for the damage reimburse the innocent party. We showed that the poor country wasn't without blame and that the origin of the problem couldn't be solved by the rich country. And even if they had proved that there are reasons to pay a compensation, they propose a plan that violates human rights and puts the poorer countries' health, economy and stability at risk.