A government has the obligation to lessen the economic gap betweem its rich and poor citizens.

I affirm, resolved, governments have an obligation to lessen the economic gap between its rich and poor citizens. Government: the political direction and control exercised over the actions of the members, citizens, or inhabitants of communities, societies, and states; Obligation: something by which a person is bound or obliged to do certain things, and which arises out of a sense of duty or results from custom, law, etc. Economic gap: A wide divergence, difference, or disparity pertaining to the production, distribution, and use of income wealth, and commodities. Rich: having wealth or great possessions; abundantly supplied with resources, means, or funds Poor: having little or no money, goods, or other means of support Value: Legitimacy of government. This is the correct value for this round because the main purpose of a government is to protect its people by adhering to a set of obligations with the basic aim of protecting its people. If a government does not fulfill these obligations, they would be illegitimate, taking advantage of its people and not doing the things that the government was created to do. An illegitimate government would not be concerned with its obligations to its people. Thus, the resolution, in asking whether something is an obligation to the government, mandates this value of legitimacy of government because, if it were an obligation, it would be one in order to make a government legitimate. Value Criterion: Protecting the rights of the poor. I define human rights with those listed in the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It claims that everyone has the right to equality, life liberty, security of person, equality before the law, free speech, dignity, a healthy standard of living and education. It also declares that people will always have duties to the community set forth to protect the rights of others, so long as those people's rights are still recognized. Protecting the rights of the poor is important as a value criterion because the only way a government could be deemed legitimate is if it adheres to obligations to protect the rights of the poor, as I will argue in my case. Obligations should be demanded to make sure that the poor have the aforementioned rights protected. Thus, the rights of the individual are the correct value criterion for this round. Contention 1: The existence of a large economic gap between the rich and poor violates a representative government, which in turn violates the individuals' rights to equality, fairness, and justice. Representative government is when the people of a country are represented in the government and its decisions. Absence of a representative government would jeopardize all human rights, because there would be no provision for fairness, equality, or justice. This is exactly what happens when income inequality is allowed to take over. Rich citizens make it so that the voices of the poor cannot be heard. Hunter Lewis, in his book Are The Rich Necessary?, explains how the rich can use their money to gain influence in this country, stamping out the wishes of the rest and annulling the justice and fairness which the government should be trying to preserve. "The problem in a nutshell is that one cannot have a politically representative government without an economy which represents everyone. The two go hand in hand, together represent a completely representative system, this is exactly what we need… Yet capitalism proceeds on the contrary notion of one dollar, one vote, which means that rich people have a very disproportionate say. One person, one vote, and one dollar, one vote, are obviously incompatible notions. Incompatibility breeds tension, and the tension can only be relieved by abandoning a representative government or by making wealth more equal, so that people have more equivalent numbers of dollars." The outnumbering of rich people's money to the money of the poor makes it so that the poor have an extremely smaller voice in the government simply because they can buy more things, know more people, and get more influence. The economy and the government go hand in hand, so when one is unequal, the other is bound to be. Poor people cannot achieve major elected positions since they lack influence. Many homeless people cannot even vote. It is not fair to have a government where more money means more power, so in order for the government to protect equality and justice and be legitimate, they must reduce the income gap. Contention 2: Inequality between the rich and poor violates the most basic individual rights for the poor and rich alike. Sub-Point A: A capitalist society based on social class, competition, and subordination violates almost all of the rights of the individual. In their book The Spirit Level, Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett explain how people's obsession with competition and economic growth end up making everyone unhappy. They claim that we are led to discriminate and not trust one another based on class differences, just the same as we used to do these things based on gender or race. The authors claim that humans are automatically programmed to cooperate, trust each other, and issue fairness, so evident social strains are caused by inequality, inferiority, and social exclusion. They also showed how these social strains lead rich and poor people alike to mental instability through the pressure of living in a competitive society, and how rates of violence, prisoners, obesity, education, and teenage birth are all negatively affected by the strains put forward by our society to compete in the economy and deal with their economic positions, rich or poor. Good health, or the right to life, a well as fairness and the pursuit of happiness are all invaluable rights of the individual. Since capitalism creates loss of all of these things, and a more egalitarian society would help people to be happier, healthier, and live more fairly by giving everyone equal opportunity, it is the government's responsibility to lessen the economic gap between the rich and the poor. Otherwise, it would not be doing a good job of protecting people's rights. Sub-Point B: The very existence of poverty means the stripping away all of the most basic human rights. In her book The Unheard Truth, Irene Khan explains how poverty is not just a matter of people lacking money, but a human rights crisis. People in poverty lack the rights to freedom of speech, freedom from discrimination, and the rights to safety, health, protection, and liberty which people would normally have if their government was legitimate. They cannot speak freely as they are often ignored by the government and denied the information to improve their situation. The poor are discriminated against and denied the equality and freedom from discrimination that our country sees as one of the most important human rights. Poor people are also denied the basic human rights of safety and healthcare, since they often do not have enough money to contact authorities or the doctors if they are in danger. They are also denied freedom in any form since they have no way to improve their situation enough to join the middle class. She quotes Muhammad Yunus in saying that "Because poverty denies people any semblance of control over their destiny, it is the ultimate denial of human rights." Therefore, in order to protect the rights of the individual the government must reduce the economic gap between its rich and poor citizens.