Free market capitalism makes people more materialistic

"My opponent in his resolution inherently suggests that "materialistic" possessions are bad things. .. " This contrast in category of goods was established with the intention of definition, and makes no appeal to the subjective values of the voter. There could very well be an ultra-materialistic voter who values microwaves more than love, and my contrast may have the opposite effect on that person than the one you classify as implying material possessions are "bad things". ". .. one of the five individuals on the island has offspring. .. the economy as a whole must produce 120 Utils. Per person now, each worker must produce more exchangeable goods than they were asked to before. " Looking at individual players in a free market scenario, each worker is not required to produce more exchangeable goods. Let us say the farmer and the clothing maker have the child, thus creating a fifth player. The increase in the Utils from 20 per player (80 Utils) in the state of affairs A to 120 Utils in the state of affairs B does not entail the increase in the individual Utils of the doctor or the fisherman, who did not create the fifth player, unless the parents offer to trade more because of their responsibilities to the child. 20 Utils remains the number necessary for the survival of these two players; in other words, the introduction of the fifth player has not necessarily increased these two non-parents' demand for exchangeable goods (i. e. not made them more materialistic). As for the farmer and the clothing maker, who produced the fifth child, their demand for exchangeable goods comes about because of the various non-exchangeable goods that emerge from raising a child (e. g. love, friendship, and so on). In other words, these two individuals have elected to take on expenditures in terms of exchangeable goods (e. g. doctor expenses for the child, fish as food for the child, and so on) to gain the benefits from the non-exchangeable goods mentioned previously. Because these people presumably did not create the fifth player simply to help with the farm or the clothes, they are anticipating the benefits of non-exchangeable goods despite the costs in terms of exchangeable goods for raising the child. Thus, while the total Utils necessary for keeping the economy alive has increased, the expansion of this economy has occurred because of non-material, non-exchangeable goods, which leads to my own arguments against the resolution. Suppose that both exchangeable and non-exchangeable goods conform to diminishing marginal returns, which means that the increase in one kind of good will lead us to shift effort and time to the acquisition of the other kind of good. Diminishing marginal returns, a well-documented and intuitive economic concept, applies in the following way: if a person develops more wealth and acquires more goods in the form of physical property such that he can acquire additional exchangeable goods, then that individual will derive less and less marginal satisfaction from further additional exchangeable goods that he otherwise would. An advancing free market system will satisfy more and more of one's desires for exchangeable goods. Consequently, the marginal utility of exchangeable goods declines over time, while the marginal utility of non-exchangeable goods increases. In short, the greater satisfaction of demands for exchangeable goods on the part of the player lends a much greater marginal significance to the demands for the nonexchangeable goods. Instead of fostering "material" values, then, a growing free market economy does just the opposite. With respect to my opponent's example of an anarcho-capitalist free market island, the starting point for the players in terms of their wealth is unspecified. They may have been stranded on the island recently and thus are trying to build a civilization; or they have been there for years. In the first scenario, the players are technically in a state of poverty, where "poverty" is "the state of having little or no money and few or no material possessions". In which case, the players are very focused on building wealth and materials to sustain their lives. In the second scenario, they have been on the island for a while and are relatively well established. They have the foundation of a productive society. I doubt this second scenario is what my opponent had in mind, because he seems to measure Utils strictly in terms of exchangeable goods, which are far more important than the alternative when one is in a state of poverty as implied in scenario one by various statements about life-sustaining material goods. If we are to measure Utils strictly in terms of material possessions and regard the players as in a state of poverty, of course I will concede that demands for exchangeable goods will be high. This is characteristic of most people in poverty: a desire to get out of poverty by the acquisition of more material goods. Observe players in backward economies: they spend most time and effort trying to acquire material possessions. These are not the people who decry materialism, or who spend that same amount of time and effort seeking nonexchangeable goods by taking yoga classes or becoming vegan. Sensitivity to materialism comes from developed countries. But as we move from scenario one to scenario two on the hypothetical island, where the foundations of a money-economy are laid down, the diminishing marginal returns of exchangeable goods step in and the demand goes from this kind of good to the non-exchangeable kind. The money-economy allows the farmer, the angler, and the clothing maker to generate wealth and keep that wealth from perishing. Therefore, it is no longer a matter of keeping the kids fed or building the house that is particularly important at present. People pursue non-material goods as a higher value. If we pair these considerations with the fact that the freer an economy is, the more successful at producing wealth that economy will be(1), we realize this correlation means primarily one thing: as wealth in terms of exchangeable goods within an economy increases, the demand for non-exchangeable goods increases. The demand increases because the players in that economy value these non-exchangeable goods more highly than exchangeable ones; if that were not true, these players would never develop hobbies. But hobbies do develop when our basic material needs are met. In sum, there is no force inherent to the free market making us value material goods more than the alternative. Denying this implies that human beings are not rational (i. e. capable of utility-maximizing decisions). Human happiness (or utility) is achieved through satisfying needs for both kinds of goods, and the free market gives one more freedom and inclination to pursue both kinds of goods. *Source in Comments section.