Abolishing and Eliminating Currency is a viable proposal.

Besides the fact that abolishing all forms of currency and banking is not a VIABLE (as the resolution states) solution because it will never be supported by enough people to get passed, I'll debate the actual merits of this idea because it seems that is what the instigator intends. I'd rather not get caught up in a semantics debate on what viable means and if this is indeed viable. I'd rather focus on whether this idea will be beneficial or harmful. With that being said, I'll begin with some refutation. There is an interesting statement that my opponent makes very early on. He says that this will "create a paradigm shift..." I tend to feel that not only will this actually be a paradigm shift, but it won't bring about the change in how we pass laws and view the world at all. For one, people won't just think "I guess I'll stop being greedy and wanting as much as I possibly can for myself now that there is no currency." My opponent fails to take into account human nature in his account of things, and this will be the reason he will end up being proven wrong on this issue. Plus, the actual implementation of the bill, will lead to everyone dying right away. And I don't mean this in the policy sense of "no matter what happens everyone dies because of nuclear war." I mean that all he's doing is modifying SS. I'm 25 years old and not receiving SS benefits. The reason for this is because SS is designed to give out what you've put into it at a later time. You theoretically receive 20 years of benefits (from the time you retire at 65 till the time you die at 85, because 20 is an easy number to do math with) for the 40+ years of work you did. It's not a 1-1 ratio because it's impossible to do that. I'll address your actual ideas of getting rid of currency and why they're flawed, but your implementation is seriously lacking. You're asking that Social Security be active at all times in people's lives, and it just can't work like that. The very IDEA of SS is a bank. I deposit the money I make today and receive it back later when I need it. So you implement a policy of a bank to get rid of banking. Now let's discuss the hours he talks about and the work he talks about. You're clearly not a parent. Neither am I, but I know for a fact that you don't spend only 24 hours raising a child every week. So now, I can opt out of the work I do normally in order to raise a child. This means that EVERY SINGLE PARENT ALIVE is now receiving your benefits just for staying at home with their child. We will see a sharp increase in stay at home parents. In fact, both parents are now going to stay at home. This is simple economics. In a free market where goods are exchanged for services provided people try to trade based on what is beneficial for them. In a non-coerced trade, both parties are to have won. This means that I give what I think is less for something I believe to be worth more. The other person I trade with thinks the same thing. So both parties are winning. Now when we translate this idea to your proposal, we have one side giving the same thing no matter what the other party (parents) give. So I can choose to work or I can choose to stay at home with my family. In my opinion, and many other people's as well, the staying at home option allows me to earn more for my trade of services for goods. So now you have people leaving the production side of this goods and services trade en masse. That will cause a steep decline in the amount of goods produced for consumption. You have no way of stopping this from happening. You must give incentives for people to produce and consume rather than just consume. Now let's talk about your misconceived notions of government. Government is not a yin yang sort of agreement. The government doesn't take rights in order to give them lol. If so, who is currently losing their right to life in order that I have mine? Who's losing their right to a name so that I can have mine? This is absurdity at its finest. Have you studied the way government works? Our current monetary policy doesn't undermine citizen's rights, but rather gives them a medium at which to value both goods and services. This is inherently key to having a stable and sustainable way of life. Now let's get into my own argumentation. Firstly, this is really appealing to those who are on the lower sections of the economic scale. This isn't at all appealing for the CEO of any major company. Which means that those people who are the one's providing jobs in the first place...aren't going to do this. This leads to one of two things. The first is that the employees of such companies leave in order to start providing basic goods that the government can make (food, shelter, clothing, etc...). This will lead to a way of life that is viable, but not rewarding. Look to Maslow's hierarchy here. We'll have our basic needs covered, but not the upper tiers that we want. So yes, we'll be able to survive, but we won't be happy. That doesn't sound like a place I want to live. The second thing that could happen is that all companies are abolished and reformed under this new SS. While COMPLETELY impossible, it's also not going to happen. The basic needs need to be covered first, and after those needs are met, the other wants can grow. Countries that are financially stable are able to provide luxury goods to their citizens, but countries that aren't financially stable are focusing on providing the basics first. The reason we won't be financially stable anymore, is that the government is only providing basic necessities. Is the government going to be sending me a Galaxy S 4 and my Xbox and gaming computer that I want as well? If so, who is saying what is given to each citizen? Do I get whatever I want from the government? Or do I have to put in more hours? The government is going to be giving to everyone the same thing. And it's the ability to survive and keep working and producing. But people don't want to just survive. People want to thrive. People want to have the latest and greatest and most fun toys. My life is worth living not because I have life, but because of the things I can do that aren't survival. You're losing that aspect of things. You're eliminating competition from the market. If the government is going to be giving us all phones, then they're going to give us the same kind of phone which eliminates the need for production of other phones. This eliminates jobs. But the same thing happens in every other sector of the market. So now we have one phone company, one gaming company, one food production company, one of everything. And monopolies are not good things. When a monopoly forms, the quality of the product declines. There is no need to create newer and better things, because they don't need to "beat" anyone else in order to make money. So now we stop seeing any sort of new technologies. We're stuck in 2013 AND I STILL DON'T HAVE A LIGHTSABER!!!!!! I'm not ok with that. Freer competition increases the amount of technologies, medicines, and the things that make life better that are produced. You're creating the world Aldous Huxley already proved was bad. This is a cool idea if basic economics didn't exist, if human nature was one of appeasement from the basics of life, if we weren't already so wealthy in the first place. But none of those "if's" are true. Basic economics does exist and they say that life will stop progressing. Human nature is one of greed. We all want our life to get better. We don't want to just survive anymore. We're incredibly wealthy already. This is proven by the sheer number of luxury goods consumed in our nation. Life isn't just eating, sleeping, and procreating. It's so much more than that. And I'm thankful it is.