A Resource Based Economy is better than Free Markets

From now on I will refer to the Resource Based economy as an “RBE” to make it shorter. For the 3rd round I will disprove the erroneous claims made by my opponent in the 2nd round. False Claim #1: "in a resource based economy, there is no incentive to work. When everybody simply gets what they need, what motivation is there to succeed? If the person could simply sit around and do nothing, or that person could cure cancer and get the same benefits as sitting around and doing nothing, why should he cure cancer? He get’s no benefit from it. He therefore has little to no motivation to cure cancer.” Classicrobert claims that since everything will be provided, there wouldn't be any motivation to be productive. That people will become lazy bums who lay on their hammocks sipping kool-aid all day. This assumption is false. Solving problems is the real incentive In a RBE, the incentive is not money; the incentives are solving current problems, improving and discovering. So why exactly would a person be motivated to cure cancer if he gets the same benefits as doing nothing? This is a good question, but the answer is simple and lies within the question itself. The motivation of curing cancer is TO CURE CANCER. Curing cancer is actually already a benefit within itself, even if that person doesn’t have cancer. It benefits him because he doesn’t have to worry about getting the disease in the future and would make the rest of society healthier and happier which improves the whole economy. Today there are lots of people who do all kinds of volunteer services around the world which just disproves your argument that people would not be motivated to work without money as an incentive. People’s motivations have not always been money. Most of the greatest inventions and technologies in history were created by people who wanted to make a significant impact on society such as Albert Einstein, Nikola Tesla, and Thomas Edison. The Wright Brothers invented the airplane because they wanted to prove that a flying machine was possible which would revolutionize transportation. The main reason Steve Jobs developed the iPod and iPhone was not because he was after the profits, but because he wanted to revolutionize the way we listened to music and the way we communicate and interact with our phones; the money was just secondary. People actually operate in a RBE everyday such as taking caring for their kids and doing chores around their house. People clean their homes not because someone is paying them to do it; they do it so that they have a clean house to live in, which is the reward/incentive. My opponent might argue that it’s because these actions benefit the person himself. But if that same person is performing service for another person, then he wouldn’t do it without a monetary incentive, because it doesn’t benefit him. Well the fact is that the entire earth is our home and we are all connected. We are more productive as a team than individual groups competing against each other. In a RBE, every work performed by individuals benefits themselves and the whole community. It is a win-win situation. Money as an incentive is an illusion The true reason people work is not for the money, but for the standard of living that the money affords them.Money is only an incentive because the stuff that you want and need has a price tag. Consider this simple scenario: A homeless person is hungry and wants food. Since food costs money in a free market, he works to get money. Then finally he uses the money that he earned to buy food. What’s my point? Money was never the incentive for working. Obtaining the food to satisfy his hunger was the real underlying incentive for wanting to work in the first place. Money only became an incentive because it was the only means to get the food which was his end goal. If you were stranded on island with a suitcase full of cash, but had no food, clothing, shelter, or technology, it would have no purpose. Money has no real intrinsic value within itself; its either only pieces of paper or numbers on a computer.You can’t eat it; you can’t build houses, cars, cell phones, or computers with it. Besides wiping your butt or creating a bonfire, it doesn’t have any purpose by itself. False Claim #2 “In a resource based economy, there is little to no human progress.” An RBE would actually have significantly more progress than a free market because it creates a better opportunity cost. People would have more time to focus on innovating and actually solving problems, instead of being constrained from working hours and hours at their jobs. This is akin to the period of the Neolithic Agricultural Revolution which liberated tribes from hunting all day and allowed them to devote more time in the diverse labors such as arts, music, pottery, tool making, etc. Art would actually flourish and people will be able to spend more time pursuing their passion such as playing instruments or sports. The free market hinders the growth and innovation of technology because every decision that is made is tied up with money; I’m not saying there is no innovation & progress in a free market economy; it just takes much longer. Today we have a lot of advanced technologies that already exist, yet are not being made available or viable for the majority of the consumers in the market. We have the resources to make every new car made to be electric if we wanted to, but car companies are impeded by the high costs of the materials required to build them. The same thing for renewable energies. So where is the progress here? Conclusion: If we had a RBE, humans would already be colonizing the moon, yet today most of the world is still worrying where to get their next meal. Con might argue that the governments are responsible for the slow growth of the market, and that free markets don’t really exist, which is true. Even if free markets did exist progress would still be slower than RBE since technological abundance is against a profit driven system.