A Resource Based Economy is better than Free Markets

Claim #1: “in a resource based economy, there is no incentive to work.” Pro addresses this with his point that “Solving problems is the real incentive,” so I’ll refute that. “Solving problems is the real incentive” While it's nice to claim that solving problems is the only incentive people need to be productive, that is simply not true for the majority of the population. In 2004, the X PRIZE Foundation offered a $10 million dollar award in a competition to Scaled Composites for crafting a commercial spacecraft. Prior to this competition, nobody was really working on making space travel publicly available. As a result of that monetary incentive, 25 teams of scientists and engineers worked aggressively to make space travel commercial, and the government no longer has a monopoly on space travel (1). I would also like to point out that I already addressed this in the previous round, where I showed how in an economy based purely on altruism, fewer people would be working on more problems, thus dramatically slowing progress. My opponent also chooses to conveniently ignore my point about how work in a free market would simply become more service based. This refers to the doctors, the lawyers, the deliverymen, and more who would still have jobs. In a RBE, there would be significantly less servicemen. This is because very few people are willing to work without benefit. Doctors and lawyers, for example, would still need to get the extra years of education just to be qualified for their jobs. Why would the majority of people still want become doctors or lawyers if they would get the exact same benefit from sitting around as they would get from getting the extra years upon years of schooling? Since a delivery man would be paid the exact same amount of resources in any situation and he won’t get tipped, he might as well take his time, rather than make the process quicker, safer for the resources, and more friendly. Don’t get me wrong; solving problems is an incentive, but only to a small amount of people. The majority needs something more substantial, like money. “Money as an incentive is an illusion” Pro states that since money has no intrinsic value, it is not an incentive. This is completely false. Though money has no intrinsic value, it has an implicit value. It allows people to purchase not only what is needed, but also what is wanted. It is a pathway to better living conditions. Pro said, “since food costs money in a free market, he works to get money.” With this statement, he conceded that money is a motivator. Since money has a high implicit value and is needed to acquire necessities (and wants), it is a major incentive. Claim #2 “In a resource based economy, there is little to no human process. “This...Neolithic Agricultural Revolution” The Neolithic Agricultural Revolution led to people trading their art, music, pottery, and tools. While those goods and services were initially bartered, money has been consistently shown to increase the transaction velocity, thus improving the economy. Also (question for Pro), are people expected to just be content with what they have, or do they still trade in a RBE? “Art would actually flourish” Pro ignores my argument that in a RBE, you only get what is necessary, and since art materials aren't needed, instruments (which would need construction) aren't needed, and sporting equipment isn't needed, the artist or sportsmen would need to go out into nature, obtain the raw materials necessary to build what they need, and then build it themselves. This is a huge amount of work for something that satisfies few needs. Even if more people became artists, wouldn’t that be detrimental? After all, more people are still needed for practical work, and since art and sports are generally more enjoyable, why would someone do practical work? "Lower opportunity cost" Not true (why trade pure enjoyment through play or art for work?), but this point about progress is also counteracted by lower incentive to work and a lower number of practical workers. “The free…tied up with money” My opponent makes this claim, but doesn’t support it. I have shown that a monetary incentive encourages people to be more cost and time efficient. “We have a lot of… are not being made available” In regards to electric cars, that’s not bad. Electric car’s manufacturing process has twice the global warming potential as the process for making normal cars. In fact, when the initial CO2 cost is considered, an electric car driven 50,000 miles will have higher CO2 emissions than a similar-sized gas car. Also, since the majority of the initial CO2 cost is from the battery manufacturing, and they need to be replaced, electric cars are not “greener” (2). “Where is the progress here?” A free market solution for a greener world is a cap and trade system, where there is a set amount of emissions, and so companies have to buy and sell the emissions in order to maximize their utility. Environmental groups will be able to buy the emissions, and choose not to use them, thus lowering the amount of emissions. Companies are encouraged to lower their environmental impact, because if they do, they can sell their emissions. If they can use renewable energy, they have more emissions to sell. Unrefuted or Conceded Arguments Tech unemployment is workable in a free market because of service industry Money is an incentive to work Art materials Money incentive extends resource longevity Overall Economic wellbeing (wealth) Less workers=Less progress ConclusionPro didn't refute many of my points, and due to my refutations, has not shown a RBE to have more progress than a free market, that an RBE would be a better economic system for distributing wealth, that technological abundance is against a profit driven system (sidenote-to remove a PDS would be to change human nature), and that worrying about eating isn't a good motivator to be productive. Thank you Pro, I look forward to your response.Sources: http://tinyurl.com... http://tinyurl.com...