DDO Tier Tournament Take Two: A Liberal Social Democracy is Preferable to Anarchy

Again, thanks to all readers, to our judges, and to my opponent. --- Values Debate: Prefer Utilitarianism How do we know which society is "better"? To objectively know, we must determine which has more value. Value "denotes something's degree of importance, with the aim of determining what ... is best to do," [01]. Value is that which is ethically significant, and an ultimate value or values would be the most ethically significant value, to which all other values are subservient. To attempt to determine what the ultimate value is, living sentient entities attempt to construct ethical systems. However, because living sentient entities have limited knowledge, we cannot know which, if any, of the ethical systems available is/are perfect, and thus we don't know what, if anything, is actually valuable. In this dearth of knowledge, we must attempt to maximize the chance that we can determine what the ultimate value is. Thus, we must keep the maximum number of sentient entities alive and ensure their maximum ability to make reason, because only living sentient entities are likely to significantly increase the probability that we can determine what the ultimate value is. (Because non-living entities and non-sentient entities don't usually develop or test ethical or scientific theories, and both of those actions are vital for increasing available knowledge and the chance of ascertaining ultimate value.) Further, if an ultimate value is determined, then only living sentient entities would be able to act towards it. Thus, we must value: 1. Maximizing the number of living sentient entities, and 2. Maximizing the capability of living entities to reason Utilitarianism best achieves these goals, because it values both keeping the maximum number of living sentient entities alive (because life is a prerequisite for utility and determining ultimate value) and in maximizing potential utility by giving living sentient entities long, interconnected, educated, scientifically engaged, relatively comfortable, and relatively free lives (because a high quality of life, high level of knowledge, and high level of productivity increase utility both for the person and society in general, and thus increase the probability of determining ultimate value). As such, we should prefer whichever society maximizes utility, in order to maximize the probability of determining ultimate value. --- 2P2: Liberal Social Democracy Increases Economic Growth While Anarchy Decreases It 2P1A: Economic Growth Increases Utility Economic growth is "an increase in the amount of goods and services produced per head of the population over a period of time," [02]. Economic growth is the only way to increase available resources [03], and is thus key to higher living standards [03], more economically and culturally open societies [03], better education [04], technological growth [05], lifespan [06][07], and even the environment [08]. Thus, economic growth increases utility and the probability of determining ultimate value, and thus whichever society better increases technological growth should be preferred. To simplify: A world of scientists and industrialists is more likely to be able to find the ultimate value, when a world of subsistence farmers is not. Economic growth is key to the former. 2P1B: Organized Capitalist Society Helps Economic Growth Economic output and world population combined from 0 CE to 1700 CE grew at about 0.1% per year [09], a period oft dominated by non-free markets and poverty. However, as technological progress, open markets, and centralized governments rose, so did growth, averaging 0.8% economic output growth and 0.8% population growth from 1700-2012 [09]. Research and education are especially linked to Liberal Social Democracy. Neither happens in a void, but instead require funding. Anarchy cannot guarantee funding (whether private or public), and thus cannot guarantee education or research. Liberal Social Democracy helps to resolve the problems of capitalism, or those of disenfranchisement and inequality. By providing assistance to the impoverished, education to all, and various other services, as well as using progressive taxation, Liberal Social Democracy prevents those who don’t benefit as much from capitalism from being unduly harmed by it. In contrast, Anarchy cannot redistribute or even help the poor in a systematic manner. 2P1C: Anarchy Causes Crime and Hurts Economic Expansion Anarchy makes doing business much riskier. Because a government is, “An entity with a monopoly on legitimate violence,” a lack of government would necessitate that no entities (not even corporations or militias) have a monopoly on legitimate violence. There can be no systematic enforcement of laws in an anarchy, or else it is not anarchy. Because a significant factor in choosing to commit crime is the possibility of getting away with it [10], crime rates would significantly increase if it was possible to get away with it. We see this in the past, when enforcement of laws was much less possible [11][12]. Seeing as these levels of homicide were present in moderately-organized societies, we can expect a far higher level in less organized and more anarchic societies. Very few people in this situation would create businesses or perform research. Why would you produce products, when you could be murdered and all you’ve worked for stolen? If you don’t stand to make a profit or achieve something, it’s likely that you won’t attempt to conduct business. This would lead either of the following: A: a breakdown of larger society into small groups of survivors who trust each other, much like the tribal bands of pre-civilization, and/or B: groups of people would form to protect others A would halt large-scale commerce and science, because groups would be isolated, the population reduced, and research unfunded. This forfeits essentially all economic growth, and thus puts people in a pre-historic state of high mortality and low productivity. B would mean that anarchy has failed, and that a government (an entity with a monopoly on violence) has risen. Conversely, in a Liberal Social Democracy, people must follow the rules, or face sanctions from the government. This has had quite positive rates on crime [11][12] and on economic growth. Summary of 2P1: Economic growth is good. Liberal Social Democracy allows for economic growth while combating its negative effects, while Anarchy has no or insignificant growth. --- 2P2: Liberal Social Democracy Protects Freedom While Anarchy Cannot One of the most often-made arguments for anarchy is that it supposedly increases freedom by preventing exploitation by the government. However, this is rather questionable, because freedom can be violated by anybody, not just a governmental actor, and nongovernmental actors would be quite happy to violate people’s freedom if they can get away with it [11][12]. This makes the gain of freedom from anarchy small or negative as compared to Liberal Social Democracy, because the gained freedoms to not pay taxes or obey the government pale in comparison to the lost freedoms to not be stolen from or killed. And because life is a prerequisite for freedom, it should be preferred to have less freedom in return for not being dead, because you would have no freedom if dead. --- 2P3: Anarchy Quickly Collapses While Liberal Social Democracy Does Not A question for anarchists is this: If anarchy is all that it’s cracked up to be, why did people form governments? Two answers are presented: 1. People are idiots, and want to stay comfortable even if they’re being exploited. If this is true, then government is inevitable, regardless of whether it is better. 2. Government is actually preferable to nongovernment, at least for large societies. If this is true, then government is better than anarchy, and should be preferred. In either case, anarchy does not survive long in the wild. Further, humans inherently form status hierarchies [13]. This means that we tend to group together and choose leaders, not least because this allows those of us who are a little smarter or a little better at managing others to put the talents of others to work better. As such, anarchies are extremely likely to collapse into government by giving one person power, and thus a monopoly on violence, and thus making him or her the leader of a government. What happens when anarchy collapses? A government forms. But we don’t know what kind of government – it could be a theocracy or a totalitarian dictatorship as easily as a liberal social democracy or libertarian society. Choosing anarchy doesn’t give you anarchy, but a mystery box of governments. Why choose an alternative that might lead to an even worse form of government when a perfectly workable form of government exists? On the other hand, democracies have done pretty well, and are still going strong 200 years after America, Britain, and France tried republican democracy [14]. --- References: [01] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_(ethics) [02] https://www.google.com... [03] books.google.com/books?isbn=0814746705 , p. 251. [04] http://www.nber.org... [05] http://www.pnas.org... [06] http://www.oxfamblogs.org... [07] http://filipspagnoli.files.wordpress.com... [08] http://www.economist.com... [09] http://www.advisorperspectives.com... [10] http://www.dummies.com... [11] https://hbdchick.files.wordpress.com... [12] http://madeinamericathebook.files.wordpress.com... [13] http://www.psychologytoday.com... [14] http://media.hoover.org...