Resolved: Capitalism Has Been The Exclusive Liberator From Grinding Poverty

As I will not have the chance to respond any arguments my opponent makes in his last round, I ask that he abide the same restriction. We have witnessed in this debate a spirited discussion of the merits of capitalism. I thank my opponent for accepting this daunting task. As it now comes to a close, let`s review the final status of the debate. That which is key: The status of "the challenge": Con had a very simple obligation, and ample opportunity to respond to this challenge, not to mention a few reminders along the way. "That the only cases in which the masses have escaped the kind of grinding poverty that the overwhelming majority of people have been in since the dawn of time, which includes lack of access to clean water, lack of adequate nutrition, and so on so forth, have been when they have had capitalism and largely free trade. " A single counterexample would have been sufficient. Yet across three rounds of debate, the example Con gave was Vietnam, which despite being a crucial point, he provided no source to allow further inquiry, precluding my evaluation of its validity as an example for his point. Likewise, he failed to see that my "acceptance" of Vietnam was quasi-sarcastic. Vietnam indeed is leaving poverty (yet remains in it), and has left only to the extent it has left the communist policies that had prevented it from riding the post-war economic boom and adopted market policies (Mind you, this is not a new argument, it was contained in my "Doi Moi" link). Con proposed some sort of alternative definition of poverty which I again dismiss. If one does not have adequate nutrition, if one does not have clean water, if one does not have adequate shelter, one is poor. Relative poverty is simply not interesting to this debate, it is a moral argument that was dismissed in the opening of R1. I am not interested in the rich being poorer, I wish the poor to be richer than before without regard to the middle or upper classes. Con has asserted that I did not address how wealth was distributed. I showed him that wages increased during the unrestricted "reign" of the "plutocrats". Per the rules I cannot present new data, but suffice it to say that his view that this growth in working man`s wages was unsustainable and destined to reverse in the 1930s is an absurd view, and requires an assumption that there were no major market corrections before the 1930s. In the entire course of this debate Con failed to produce also a single source substantiating any of his viewpoints. By the rules I cannot produce a source to show how Belgian wages increased from 1800 to 1900 in an enormous way, and so I invite the reader to do so. Fortunately for me, if Con`s assertion that the poor remained poor were true, he cited no source as is his custom. It begs the question why none of his key assertions came with sources. The crux of the debate revolves around therefore this argument of Con`s that he asserts went without response. "Liberation from grinding poverty coming from innovations within society which capitalism is not logically necessary a causal factor of. "I refer him to my counterpoint in R3"With relation to the absolute necessity of capitalism to cause the Industrial Revolution, I submit that we will only ever have inductive means to reach such a conclusion, which I am attempting to use. It will forever be impossible to rule out all the myriad hypothetical economic systems as means of liberating the poor, and thus impossible to show that capitalism is a necessary condition. Good thing I did not do that. I only stated in the title that "Capitalism has been the exclusive liberator from grinding poverty" and in the challenge that "That the only cases in which the masses have escaped the kind of grinding poverty that the overwhelming majority of people have been in since the dawn of time, which includes lack of access to clean water, lack of adequate nutrition, and so on so forth, have been when they have had capitalism and largely free trade. " I never proposed to prove more than this. "All social life is essentially practical. All mysteries which lead theory to mysticism find their rational solution in human practice and in the comprehension of this practice. " (Karl Marx, Eighth Thesis, Theses on Feuerbach, 1845) There are no shortage of unexplained questions that can get us off into the weeds of mystical idealism. I thank Marx for his unintentional candor. Ultimately, the rational solution comes in human practice and in the comprehension of this practice. As I`ve pointed out time and time again, no adequate substitute for capitalism has ever been found. None exists that has replicated its success in elevating the poor from their historical destitution to a position now exceeding the emperors of Rome, again, not in relative but absolute terms. The ruling of human practice when comprehended is that capitalism, in fact, has been "the exclusive liberator from grinding poverty. "Ladies and gentlemen, remember the challenge, remember the title. Con, while not admitting that capitalism was a necessary condition for the technological advances of the 19th century, admitted at several points that capitalism was a sufficient condition. Here are several of his quotes:"No one is denying capitalism as a source of social change and concrete improvement""Raising the question of Newcomen, leads precisely to this difficult question: was capitalism ancillary to his success, or could the steam engine have been devised in a socialist state? Of course, resources and capital were required to realise the steam engine: it didn't run on thin air. "Con therefore assumed the obligation, having conceded that capitalism can be a liberator from absolute poverty (despite his other claims to the contrary based on capitalism`s supposed worsening of relative poverty, which I have always maintained as not being material to this discussion), to find any other economic system which has achieved what capitalism has in terms of taking the masses out of absolute poverty (again, defined by lack of access to adequate food, clean water, and adequate shelter, to say nothing of life`s amenities). Despite three rounds of debate, he produced no such substantiated example. Having failed to meet the essential test, Con has attempted to change the debate, first by advocating a silly definiton of poverty, and second setting up the false dichotomy between social progress and capitalism which you may anticipate as being the main thrust of his closing argument. Really? Remember, "no one is denying capitalism as a source of social change and concrete improvement", so whether social change implements capitalism which then frees the poor or capitalism implements social change which then frees the poor or there is some sort of symbiosis between the two is immaterial. Any time "humanism", "social progress" or what have you has implemented communism, socialism or any substitute for capitalism on a national level, it has failed to achieve what capitalism has in terms of lifting the poor in absolute terms, despite all the preceding "humanist" development. Doctors cure diseases, but a doctor who administers a hamburger rather than an antidote will not cure poisoning. Quoting Marx again, "All social life is essentially practical. All mysteries which lead theory to mysticism find their rational solution in human practice and in the comprehension of this practice. "Marx`s Razor from the Eighth Thesis on Feuerbach compels us to reject any previously attempted theory on the basis of its failure and accept the historical success of capitalism, thus confirming the resolution.