Art and Aesthetics

• Main Clashes and Motions Pg. 5

• Timeline of Art Pg. 5
• Artistic Utility and Appreciation Pg. 7
• Artistic Interpretation and Social Messaging (Morality) Pg. 9
• “Good Art” and Aesthetics Pg. 10

United States Politics

• Major Political Issues in America (Guns, Wages, Pharma, Prisons etc.) Pg. 13
• Healthcare, Insurance Companies, Drug Costs and Pharma, Opioids Pg. 18
• CASE: THS Health insurers offering the terminally ill $$$ to forgo treatment Pg. 22
• 2020 Candidates and Positions Pg. 27
• Impeachment Pg. 31
• Voting System Pg. 34
• Foreign Policy (Especially Under Trump) Pg. 37
• Major Forces Over Political System Pg. 39
• CASE: THS the Establishment of a Black Secessionary State in the USA Pg. 41
• CASE: THW, as the USA give citizenship to non-violent illegal immigrants. Pg. 44
• CASE: HW, as California, secedes from the USA if Donald Trump is re-elected. Pg. 46

International Relations

• General IR Framing Pg. 48

• Civil Wars and Ethnic Conflicts Framing Pg. 48
• Problems with Democratisation in Developing States Pg. 49
• Latin America: Venezuela Pg. 51
• Latin America: Mexico Pg. 53
• Europe: The European Union Pg. 55
• Europe: Danger of Bringing Countries Together in Hope of Unification Pg. 58
• North Africa and Middle East: Algeria Pg. 59
• North Africa and Middle East: Bahrain Pg. 61
• North Africa and Middle East: Egypt Pg. 62
• North Africa and Middle East: Iran Pg. 65
• North Africa and Middle East: Iraq Pg. 67
• North Africa and Middle East: Israel Pg. 69
• North Africa and Middle East: Kuwait Pg. 73
• North Africa and Middle East: Lebanon Pg. 75
• North Africa and Middle East: Libya Pg. 77
• North Africa and Middle East: Morocco Pg. 79
• North Africa and Middle East: Oman Pg. 81
• North Africa and Middle East: Qatar Pg. 82
• North Africa and Middle East: Saudi Arabia Pg. 83
• North Africa and Middle East: Syria Pg. 88
• North Africa and Middle East: Tunisia Pg. 90
• North Africa and Middle East: UAE Pg. 92
• Asia: China Pg. 93
• CASE THW, as the Kremlin, reduce dependency on China. Pg. 98
• CASE: THBT Kashmir should aim for independence not unification with Pakistan
Immigration

• Is Migration a Fundamental Right Pg. 77

• European Migration Pg. 78
• Migration and Productivity (Selling Citizenships) Pg. 79
• Migration and Crime Pg. 80

Religion

• Belief vs Alief Pg. 81

• On Islam Pg. 81
• On Christianity Pg. 85
• On Hinduism and India’s Hindu Nationalism Pg. 86
• On Judaism Pg. 87
• Is Spirituality Replacing Religion? Pg. 89
• How do Religions Change? Pg. 89
• CASE: THBT It’s in the interests of organised religions to liberalize Pg. 163

Rights and Philosophy

• Natural Rights (Nightwatchman State) Pg. 91

• Community Rights vs Individual Rights Pg. 91
• The “It Factor” Pg. 92
• Free Speech Pg. 92
• Positive Duties Pg. 93
• Mass Surveillance and the “Nothing to Hide” Argument Pg. 94

Electoral Mechanisms and Political Philosophy

• Voting Ethics and Electoral Structures Pg. 95

• The “Myth of the Rational Voter” Pg. 98
• Racial/Gendered/Identity Politics Pg. 99
• Populism and Populist Movements Pg. 99
• Extremism and Extremist Parties Pg. 100
• Majority Rule – Minority Rights: Essential Principles Pg. 100
• Economic Power vs. Political Power (Lobbyists etc.) Pg. 101
• CASE: THW Give all Permanent Residents the Right to Vote Pg. 165

Foundational Economics

• Motions Pg. 103

• Trade Pg. 103
• Labour Pg. 105
• Finance Pg. 106
• Capitalism Pg. 106
• Socialism Pg. 106
• IS-LM Models Pg. 109
• Budgetary Cycles Pg. 110
• Market Structures Pg. 110
• Game Theory and the Nash Equilibrium Pg. 112
• Nudge Theory Pg. 113
• Arbitrage Pg. 113

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 • Micro-Loans and Microfinance Pg. 113
• The Sharing Economy Pg. 114
• CASE: THO Unions Pg.
• CASE: THBT The Poor are Justified in Perusing Total Marxist Revolution Pg.

Macroeconomic Policy

• Interest Rates, Quantitative Easing & Currency Pg. 107

• Macroeconomic Policy and Liquidity Traps Pg. 109
• The Money Multiplier Pg. 110
• Public Wealth Management Pg. 115
• Global Financial Crisis (2008-2009) Pg. 119
• European Debt Crisis (2009 - Present) Pg. 121
• CASE: Bail-Outs and Bail-Ins

Government Intervention in Markets

• Intervention in Markets Pg. 116

• Sin Taxes Pg. 116
• Drug Prohibition Pg. 117
• The Role of the Government in Banning Dangerous/Taboo Activities Pg. 118
• Demonetisation

Taxation and Social Policy

• Social Policy Pg. 122

• Welfare (Welfare Reforms, Welfare States, Welfare as a Right) Pg. 123
• Welfare, Charity and Effective Altruism Pg. 125
• The Nordic Model Pg. 125
• Nozick vs. Rawls on Distributive Justice Pg. 125
• Inheritance Tax Pg. 126
• Minimum Wage Pg. 128
• Progressive Taxes Pg. 129
• Capital Flight Pg. 129

Indigenous Affairs and Race

• Indigenous Affairs Pg. 131

• Important Movements and Events Pg. 131
• Referenda Pg. 132
• Existing Problems Pg. 133

Feminism, LGBT and Gender

• Feminist/Gender Motions Pg. 134

• Common Clashes Pg. 134
• History of Feminism Pg. 134
• Wage Gap Pg. 136
• Framing Feminist Leaders Pg. 137
• Affirmative Action Pg. 139
• LGBT Issues Pg. 140
• Testosterone and Sport Pg. 142

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Criminal Justice and War

• Principles of Just War Pg. 143

• The Justice System and the “Rehabilitation vs Punishment” Debate Pg. 143
• Abolishing Short-Term Sentences Pg. 144
• Do You “Owe” the Victim or Future Victims Pg. 144
• CASE: THS Hacktivism and release of documents as a form of protest Pg. 16

Culture

• Cultural Appropriation vs. Celebration Pg. 145

• Marriage in Society Pg. 145
• Movies and Minority Roles Pg. 146

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 Art and Aesthetics
Main Clashes and Motions

Sample Motions

THBT governments should prioritise economically productive public spending over investing in arts,
humanities, etc. when deciding on their budget.

THB that European States should end all funding for the arts until everyone lives above the national
poverty level.

THBT Artists should not participate in the ongoing interpretation of their art.

THR Art that glorifies gaining material wealth.

THW Not consume art created by people who have committed deeply immoral acts.

THBT States Should Destroy All Contemporary Works of Art (including but not limited to music,
films and paintings) Created by Artists Convicted of Heinous Crimes.

THBT the identity of the artist should be obscured from those who buy and display the art
(approximation)

Clash: Is the value of art unique or are there other outlets for these values available?

 Escapism and feeling small in front of breathtaking artwork (Sistine Chapel Ceiling).
 But is this unique to art? (landscapes and architecture can all be awe-inspiring).
 But, consider art’s specificity in inspiring emotion and evoking feeling.

Clash: What values of art should we prioritise? Is the value of art socially constructed?

 Representational art vs. conceptual art (portrait vs. impression)

 “High-Brow” art vs. “Low-Brow” entertainment (classics vs street/pop art)
 Art in private institutions vs. public
 Connoisseurship
 Cultural background/identity
 Mirror against society

Clash: Who gets to profit from art?

 Cultural commodification vs. cultural preservation

 Repatriate art vs. Keep in museum

Timeline of Art

Prehistoric Art (Stone Age)

• Rock carvings to depict objects, animals and rituals that governed civilisation’s experience
• No written language system -> turned to art

Ancient Art (Ancient Egypt/Greece)

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 • Written languages established
• Religious and symbolic imagery to pass down stories
• Artwork depicting laws

Medieval Art (The Dark Ages)

• Reflection of the darkness of status quo
• Grotesque imagery of heaven and hell (the black death)
• Showed influence of the Church

Renaissance
• Focus on nature and individualism under a prospering status quo, recovering for “the dark
ages”
• Belief that humans were independent and self-reliant

Baroque
• Grandeur and richness
• Status quo which focused on broadening the human intellect
• Anticipation for exploration and global discovery

Neoclassicism
• Archaeological ruins were excavated which started the recreation of ancient art
• Projection of idealism (Napoleon Crossing the Alps)
• Propaganda

Romanticism
• Sought to escape the agendas of the status quo
• Expression of emotion which originated from the disappointment in societal constraints
• Rejected order, passion > reason
• Focus on the individual and imagination

Realism
• Anti-romantic movement in Germany
• Rise of journalism and photography, therefore, capture daily life in detail

Impressionism and Post Impressionism

• Visions, symbols and personal meaning
• The capturing of the first and quick impression

Expressionism
• Response to the conflicted world views and loss of spirituality under the status quo
• Wanted authenticity
• Distortion of from to express anxieties and raw emotions

Cubism
• Art should not copy nature
• Radical
• Subject matter discernible

Surrealism
• The status quo of post WW1 had repressed imaginative thoughts
• Influence of the imaginists like Karl Marx

Op (optical) art
• Developments in science and technology
• Sought to excite the eye

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Conceptual Art
• Ideas over visual components
• E.g. an exhibit of a chair, placed in three different way

Artistic Utility and Appreciation

Firstly: How is funding used? Who gets the funding?

 Grants to artists
 Independent government bodies
 Funding of organisations
 Galleries both urban and regional: climate control of items, staffing, security

How does art funding vary across the world?

 India: $217m in the arts and $5bn on health (the arts funding seems very large when there is
still pressure for the country to deliver basic services like health and education)

 Italy: Shortfall of government to subsidise the arts is met by private sponsorship, but
commercial sponsors see more value in funding sports over the arts

 US: Federal and state fund into the arts. The federal budget is allocated upon advice by an
independent body, The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). States have own institutions
to advise the directions of fund. 40% of NEA money is given as grants to state art agencies.
NEA cut from 150m to 29m.

 Australia: Independent Art Council to direct the funds, low levels of arts funding compared to
other wealthy nations.

Arguments for Art

1. Art is an important lens through which people can appreciate culture and history. When this is
the case, the state should prioritise its people having access into these parts of their identity.
The arts offer unique opportunities for people to access religion and ideologies they believe in.

 Take the motion on European funding of the arts, in these countries, Christian art has been
prolifically produced for over a thousand years. This is because artwork makes religious ideas
more resonant, appealing and easily digestible which people regardless of class and background
have the same access to their faith.

 The need for Christian artwork stemmed from the oppression the religion was under during the
Roman Empire, meaning art became an important outlet for people to proclaim their faith and
spread their cross-continental religious message

 Parallel to the east: many believe the act of seeing an artwork or sculpture that depicts a
religious deity brings inner calm and contemplation. It also brings inspiration to become more
like the eg. Buddha in front of the due to the close proximity with e.g. the sculpture.

Implications: State is seen as actively preserving/promoting identity which people can then access.
This also creates opportunity for the economy when a country has an ingrained art culture they can
capitalise.

 People often view going to see important religious artworks as a form of pilgrimage

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  The reputation of a historical invaluable work sparks curiosity e.g. Mona Lisa

2. Art is Accessible to All People

 The technicality: Improved skill in observing colours/details

 Feelings evoked are unique and different for everyone: communicative of experience/history

Implications: Relays information in a way that is resonant which opens access to a larger majority.

But if art is communicative, can something innovative but unattractive be art?

 Academic journals, war accounts, debates?

 Able to engage emotions in a way that academic articles can't
 Enriches understanding not through facts but by creating an imagined space in which we can
think of different kinds of life/worlds e.g. One where the working class is glorified

Arguments Against the Utility of Art

1. Benefits of art are trivial compared to the dire circumstances the poor are in to meet their needs.

 Art inherently locks out the poor. Art is not a good shared equally between the rich and poor.
It is a luxury that the rich and cultivated yield over the poor, meaning it is not essential to the
functioning of our life. Therefore, the wellbeing of the poor and services that can be accessed
equally between everyone ought to be prioritised.

 Art is inaccessible because the western emergence of connoisseurship asserts intimidation: that
certain tastes are superior to others and that we should feel more so when we don’t know who
the artist is, or if we don’t feel emotionally moved enough to understand what the connoisseurs
promote as the exquisiteness of the art.

 Modern art is expensive and held in high regard even when they are often very vague, focusing
on the manipulation of colour and shape rather than a physical object. However, the wealthy
believe the emotions that are conjured by art are invaluable. Discussion and understanding
modern art revolve around those with power and wealth.

 Membership and entry fees into art venues (galleries) are very high.

Implications:

 Children under the poverty line are turned off pursuing arts knowing that it is for the upper
class and that they will always be excluded from the styles and preferences the wealthy
have/assert in the arts industry (the social stigma)
 Many do not aspire to become artists knowing the subjectivity of the career
Utility of art and its communicative value - idea of propaganda:

E.g. Napoleon Crossing the Alps

• The leader is depicted as heroic on a white horse in attempt to surprise the enemy over the alps
• In reality, Bonaparte crossed the icy range on a mule, looking exhausted…

Napoleon Crossing the Alps is considered a great piece of art. Again, think back to the value of art
being socially constructed. It is then difficult to judge art’s communicative value in regard to history
and the passing down of stories when obvious twisting of the truth exists.

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Much of the ancient art dating back centuries we admire today were created for propaganda purposes,
but we still hold them in high regard. Take Tutankhamun's Mask for example. It was not the teen-king’s
exploits that gave him eternity but the fact that he had conquered the artisans of Ancient Egypt.
Effectively, the production of the extravagant mask was to hide the truth of his weak regime.

 Underlying question: Can we admire art, based purely on its quality and artistic value or is the
propaganda side far too ingrained? Would these artworks still have been created without the
ideological motive?

Artistic Interpretation and Social Messaging (Morality)

For freedom of interpretation and consumption:

 Art isn't just expressing a viewpoint, it is a way to share how people experience the world
 Expresses emotions and desires
 Art is an extension of the artist's personality

Implications: Provocative art can challenge the state, give a voice to the voiceless, suggesting a better
way to live

Art is an important and unique communicative avenue: Most authoritarian regimes have/had
established censorship of art

 Stalinist regime executed Ukrainian folk poets

 Pinochet in Chile tortured and killed artists
 Ai Weiwei in China

Definitions of “moral art” are fluid because they are set by the government or a majority group
interested in the stability of an incumbent government or hold the mainstream viewpoint. Therefore, it
is important to analyse where the “immoral art” in question originated from and who produced it.

 Does the reputation of the artist impact our view on the work?
 Some pieces of provocative art challenges the state - is this desirable?

Against:

 Incites conflict when displayed in societies with varying aims

 Seen as offensive around cultural and religious taboos
 Government has free licence to censorship (mainstream value pushes out the minorities and
challenges this system)
 Operates behind the false screen of protection from free speech and expression principles

Implications of immoral art:

 De-legitimises the reputation of art as valuable and accessible to all (which has been built up
over centuries)
 Turns off popular support: questions are raised over arts funding

Case Study of “Immoral and Controversial Art”:

Piss Christ (1987), Andres Serrano

 Traditionally, the repurposing of religious iconography has been a definite way to spark
scandals to surrounding cultural and religious taboos. When Andres Serrano produced "Piss
Christ," a photograph of a crucifix submerged in the artist's urine, it was widely seen as
disrespectful to Christians. It eventually earned the condemnation of conservative U.S. Senators

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 and sparked debates around the issue of public arts funding. Twenty-four years later, French
Catholic fundamentalists destroyed a print of of the photo on display in Avignon.

 Though Serrano, a Christian, originally said that the piece had no specific political motivation,
he has since suggested that it was meant to highlight the continued cheapening of the image of
Christ, and the hypocrisy of those who twist the words of Christ to fit their own ends.

 It is important to note here the role of awards and accolades and how they skew our perceptions
of what is immoral. We are clouded by the fame and limelight that surround certain artists
which makes us hesitant to call them out on certain “immoral” behaviours.

 E.g. The Turner Prize founded in 1984, was established to promote discourse of art in Britain,
celebrating the best artworks by British artists annually. To this day, it still holds its prestigious
reputation but also one for sparking debate with polarising nominations. The prize money artists
win is only a drop in the ocean compared to how much they will receive over the course of the
controversy.

Is profit a motive in creating immoral art? Is this justifiable?

However, motive and inspiration behind a piece of artwork are almost impossible to trace

In Summary:

• Art is unique in its communicative value and ability to shape our beliefs and values
• The way we value art is closely linked to mainstream viewpoints and reflective of the status
quo
• The realm of art is inaccessible to many which undermines its benefits in utility

Morality in art and those who are concerned with it can largely be placed on a scale:

Aesthetic Autonomists < ====================================== > Aesthetic Moralists

Autonomists think that art should exist in the moral vacuum and Moralists think that immorality in art
should be an arbiter for its value. The classic example of this dilemma is that of the goldfish and the
blenders.

One man put ten goldfish in ten blenders and displayed them at a museum. He plugged in all blenders
and just left them there. Eventually, a person in the audience went up to a blender and turned it on. A
fish was liquidised, and the artist was arrested. The artist argued that his art had the exact same purpose
as a lot of other art which was self-definition. He said that those who objected were moralists, those
who pushed the buttons on the blender were sadists and that those who looked on curiously were
voyeurs. The moralist perspective on this is that what he did was immoral and that he ought to be
punished for it, but more importantly that that discredits the art.

The autonomist perspective would be that art always evokes emotions and they do not always have to
be positive (i.e. really sad films and movies or rollercoasters) to be valuable. They argue that artists
play a unique role in society where they are able to define the way that people feel about others and
about themselves, and therefore should be given licence to do things that may be immoral. A middle of
the road stance would be that although what the artist did was immoral, that the art is still valuable
regardless and that even if art sends immoral messages, it can be assessed artistically separately.

“Good Art” Immoral and Controversial Art

Aesthetics

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Aesthetics is the study of value and beauty (generally confined to the field of art). Questions like
“what is art?” and “what makes art beautiful?” all fall under aesthetics. Motions relating to aesthetics
broadly fall under two categories:

(1) What defines art from just random things lying around/on a page?

 THBT in order to be eligible for public funding, art must be subject to a double-blind test, in
which it is judged anonymously by an art critic, and by members of the public against the
work of a 5-year-old
 What makes good art?
 Ties to the artist
 THW prefer a world in which all art was anonymous over a world where it was always
attributed to the artist.
 Intention
 Monetary Wealth
 THR the Negative Connotations Surrounding Creating Art for the Primary Purpose of Profit.
 Championing Social Movements/Religions
 THW prohibit works of art that undermine/go against morality
 THW censor art that desecrates religious symbols
 THBT Governments should fund and public display of art which viscerally portrays the
suffering of victims created by state policies/actions (e.g. war, failure to go to war, poverty)

What is Art?

Aesthetically appreciated objects are objects that prompt valuable sensory emotions within us.
The question of where art begins, and ends is an interesting starting point in working out what art “is”.
For instance, is the frame around the artwork a part of the art, or is it not? Is the lighting in which the
art is shown a part of the artwork or is it not? Do the imperfections in vinyl records form part of the
recording and are they important parts of the artwork?

What is “Good” Art?

The answer to that question rests on one central question – “does the value of the art come from
something physical or even emotional that the artist put into the artwork” i.e. does it have a
predetermined value before you see it, or is the value in the emotional experience which is had when
people see it? Is art tied to the artist?

The distinction between Tolstoy’s imagining of art (that its value is determined by the effort and
intention of the artist) and Wittgenstein’s imagining of art (that value lies entirely with the audience)
lies at the heart of whether the artist matters in our consumption of art.

Is it in the artist? Is it in the audience?

[Thought Experiment] Danto (who proposed the red canvas thought
experiment), argued that there was something
Suppose you had four canvases painted which was external of the artwork itself which
completely red: made it art.

• One was painted red in preparation for a
still life with a red background
• One was painted red to symbolise the
turning of water into blood before the
freeing of the Israelites from Egypt
• One was a soviet political statement
• He believed that the art itself had an
effect on people even if it was outside
of its cultural context, because people
brought that context to it. (i.e. people
have unique experiences, therefore
people can assign unique value
regardless.

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 • One had just accidentally been dropped
in red paint
o It would be ludicrous to argue
that all of those have the exact
same value out of their contexts
and the contexts of their artists.
o If they were all hanging in an
exhibit (out of context), they
would then all have the same
amount of aesthetic value, but
in context, some have vastly
more than others (and thus,
context kind of matters)
• This thought Arthur Danto proposed
experiment.
In 2016, two yahoos put a pair of glasses on the
floor of the Museum of Modern Art and then
ridiculed people for mistaking it for an art
exhibit, some even taking pictures of it
• The underlying premise is that due to
fact that the art had no effort in it, that it
was not art and that this was analogous
to a lot of the modern art in the
MoMA.
This was also broadly Tolstoy’s take: that the
artist putting more in art made it more valuable.
It should be noted that generally, this is the
harder side to take on these debates in a
theoretical sense. (it is more useful practically
when talking about how art changes the artist
(i.e. makes them wealthier) and whether the
character of the artist “should” be rewarded, but
that is not really aesthetics anymore)
The opinion also allows for non-intentional
things to be art, for instance, nature is broadly
non-intentional (unless one ascribes to
intelligent design which makes this messy, so
let’s leave intelligent design out of this for
now), but a landscape can take your breath
away. This allows for the landscape to be art.
Marcel Duchamp explains;
• Duchamp was a part of the Independent
Artists’ Association, which was a board
of artists who held very progressive
views on what could be classified as art.
• This group held and exhibit where as
long as artists payed a small amount of
money, they would have their art
displayed to the public.
• Duchamp was fiercely sceptical of his
colleagues and so under the pseudonym
R. Mutt, he submitted a piece called
“fountain” which was a urinal turned
side-ways. This was the one piece
which rejected from the collection.
• Duchamp was furious, resigning from
his position on the board and detaching
himself from the modern arts scene.
• He published a manifesto on the nature
and state of modern art (the Blind Man)
in which he made this comment:
• “Whether Mr Mutt with his own hands
made the fountain or not has no
importance. He chose it. He took an
ordinary article of life, placed it so that
its useful significance disappeared
under the new title and point of view –
created a new thought for that object.”
• Notice that this is a very distinct take on
modern art, where it is argued that while
the physical part of the urinal never
changed, the effect that it had on
audience changed, and that made it art.

The truth probably lies somewhere in between the two, but notice how useful this is in debates about
artists committing heinous crimes, or about high-brow, low-brow art. Because if the art does not
matter, but it is the artist (and the context of the artist) that determines the value of the art, then yes,
we ought to stop consuming art from problematic artists, because theoretically, the problematic nature
of these artists also affects the art.

 If the art and the audience are the only things that matter, i.e. “artiness” is a connection
between the audience and the work, then the artist being problematic is irrelevant to the
goodness of the art. (of course, the art also changes the artist which may be good or bad, for
instance, do we want people with problematic opinions to become excessively wealthy?
 Most curators now believe that on a principle level, the “artiness” of something is determined
by the way in which an audience engages with it rather than the thing itself, because in the

12
 words of Marcel Duchamp, “every piece of art is just the reconstruction and reorganisation of
materials”.
 This is true (i.e. a renaissance painting is just the brushing of paint onto a canvas, and
Malevich’s infamous black square is just the same thing except simpler), and so the unique
experiences of people looking at art is probably more important than the art itself and so the
glasses in the MoMA probably were art, they just were not as complicated.
 It has been argued that they were no less valuable, however, than any other piece if people
found them meaningful.

United States Politics

Recent Motions

Sample Motions

THBT the US Democratic Party should move to the left in candidate selection and policy platform.

That the Clintons should cease all engagement in US politics and public life.

THBT The US should ban extremist groups (e.g. the KKK and neo-Nazi groups).

THBT centrist US media outlets should actively combat the notion of American exceptionalism
Easters 2016 - That we support the recent US foreign policy of re-engaging rogue states (e.g. Iran,
Cuba)

That the rise of the Tea Party Movement is good for liberal citizens of the United States.

That it would be better for the United States if the Southern states were to secede.

Major Issues in America 2020

Should the Democrats shift to the left?

Evidence points to Democratic voters shifting further to the left since Obama was elected in 2008:

Percentage support among Stricter Gun Laws Increasing legal immigration

democrats
2008 67% 20%
2018 90% 40%

Several Democratic candidates running for office in 2020 are adversely affected by the shift to the left,
as their past policy positions are inconsistent with the new Democratic vision.

 Obama’s VP, Joe Biden, passed a bill in 1994 which accelerated incarceration rates,
especially harming minorities
 Senator Kamala Harris sought to criminalise truancy (unaccounted absence from school)
when Attorney General for California
 Kirsten Gillibrand used to oppose stricter gun laws

Key Candidates in Primaries 2020 (Updated: Dec 7, 2019)

1. Joe Biden
2. Bernie Sanders
3. Elizabeth Warren

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 4. Pete Buttigieg
5. Amy Klobuchar
6. Cory Booker
7. Michael Bloomberg
8. John Delaney

Big Issues in America

Cash Bail Reform:
Candidates who advocate ending the cash bail system argue
it disproportionately affects low-income Americans those
who can't afford to post bond and face the choice between
accepting a plea deal out of desperation (despite innocence)
remaining in jail until their trial (which takes months or even
years) or being beholden to a bail bondsman.

Cocaine Sentencing Disparities:
A 1986 drug bill instituted different sentencing guidelines for
two different forms of the same drug: cocaine. As a result of
the legislation, those arrested for offenses involving crack
cocaine faced much steeper punishments than those arrested
for those involving powder cocaine, hurting black Americans
at much higher rates than other groups. 2020 Democratic
candidate argue that the sentencing disparity between crack
cocaine and powder cocaine, which sits at 18-to-1, should be
eliminated entirely.

Mandatory Minimum Sentences: In 1986, in an attempt at addressing drug abuse, mandatory

minimum sentences for drug offenses were expanded. The
law required that some offenses be punished with minimum
sentence regardless of the circumstances of a case which,
advocates of reform say, have been a major factor to mass
incarceration in the U.S. Advocates also say that prosecutors
often use the threat of charges that carry steep minimum
sentences to elicit a guilty plea to lesser charges regardless of
a defendant’s guilt.

 TRUMP: While the 2018 criminal justice bill signed by

President Trump enacted some reforms to federal
mandatory minimum guidelines, many 2020 Democrats
say it didn’t go far enough.
 TRUMP: His “First Step Act” has been the largest
upheaval of mandatory minimum sentences, spending on
anti-recidivism programmes, facilitating family visitation
rights and undoing of the 1980/90s laws in a generation.
 TRUMP: Undermined Jeff Sessions’ (Former Attorney
General) plea to federal prosecutors to be tougher.

Private Prisons: The Justice Department's watchdog found in 2016 private

prisons to be less safe than federally maintained ones. The
proponents of shuttering them also point to data indicating

14
 indicates rehabilitative services at private prisons are less
effective and that private prisons aren't substantially cheaper
than government-controlled prisons.

 REPUBLICANS: Justice Department sought to end the use

of private prisons to house federal inmates, directing the
Bureau of Prisons to wind down its use of the contracted
for-profit facilities, a move then reversed by Trump's first
attorney general early in his administration.

Quick Facts and Logic on Private Prisons

Background: The U.S. has stumbled on a particularly inefficient form of providing services.
Instead of having government employees do the work, or leaving it to the private
sector, the U.S. sometimes combines government funding with private execution.
This sort of pseudo-privatization generally fails to control costs, even as it
reduces oversight and provides low-quality service.There are many examples of
this. No-bid contracting in the health-care, defense and infrastructure industries
drives up costs. Expensive mercenary contractors like Blackwater (Academi)
were notorious for human-rights abuses during the Iraq War.

Competition: Cost saving is the main rationale for private prisons. But beyond faith in the
power of private ownership to increase efficiency, there isn’t much reason to
think the approach has the intended effect. Competition is scarce, with three big
companies CoreCivic Inc. (formerly Corrections Corporation of America),
GEO Group Inc. and Management and Training Corp. controlling 96% of beds.

Costs: State laws often require private prisons to operate at lower per-day, per-prisoner
cost than state prisons. But these costs are hard to compare, thanks to differences
in capital spending, employee compensation packages and the characteristics of
the inmates at the different institutions. When the Government Accountability
Office has looked into the issue, it hasn't been able to verify the existence of cost
differences between private and government-run prisons. Independent research
has found little if any cost differential. And audits in some states have found that
private prisons were actually more costly on a per-person, per-day basis.

Increased Sentences: The the incorrect perception that private prisons are cheaper may lead courts to
incarcerate people for a longer time. A recent paper by economists Christian
Dippel and Michael Poyker compared sentencing across state lines, and found
that opening a private prison caused judges to dish out longer prison terms. The
authors found that the effect was greater in states with more laws mandating
larger private-prison cost savings, suggesting that judges felt more comfortable
with longer sentences because they weren't as worried about the cost. Using
more of a resource because it seems cheaper is a well-known phenomenon in
economics. But because in this case the cheapness is illusory rather than real, the
existence of the private prisons actually increases taxpayer spending on prisons
not to mention the greater human cost of longer sentences.

Violations: A 2017 paper by economist Anita Mukherjee examining prison privatization in

Mississippi found that private prisons tended to give prisoners more conduct
violations as well, increasing their average time served by about 90 days. This
practice, which obviously fills the private prison companies’ coffers at taxpayer
expense, is a result of weak government oversight. A DOJ report found a higher
incidence of safety- and security-related incidents, “serious or systemic” safety
failures, and improper housing at many private prisons. At least one private
prison was the subject of criminal investigation for encouraging gang violence
among inmates (Idaho, “Gladiator School”). 15
Minimum Wage: Congress hasn't legislated a national minimum-wage increase
since 2007 (when it hiked the hourly minimum to $7.25 as of
July 2009), both sides agree a raise is overdue; Trump said
he’d raise it to $10 in 2016 but did not.

 Trump's Economic Council director, Larry Kudlow, said

that the very existence of a federal minimum wage was a
"terrible idea." Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta told
Congress in May 2019 that he opposes any hike.

Paid Leave: Nearly every 2020 Democrat is on board with providing some sort of paid
family leave to American workers, but there is some dispute over how to pay
for such programs and what types of family circumstances should qualify.
Most Americans support paid leave for a number of reasons, including after
the birth or adoption of child, to deal with serious health conditions or to care
for a sick family member. But according to a March 2017 report from Pew
Research, they're split down the middle as to whether paid leave should be
mandated by the government.

Reparations: This year marks the 400th anniversary of the first arrival of slaves. Congress
has not discussed reparations in more than a decade, but it has increasingly
become an issue in the 2020 Democratic primary. Democratic voters are split
down the middle on support for reparations, polling shows, while more than
90 percent of Republicans oppose the idea.

Charter Schools: President Barack Obama embraced charter schools during his administration,
but 2020 Democratic presidential candidates seem to be running from them.
Their positions range from qualified support to calls for aggressive oversight
and cutting off charter schools’ federal funding. The publicly funded, but
independently run schools have been under fire and an issue in teacher strikes
that have roiled the nation, even though the top two teachers union presidents
say candidates’ positions on charters won’t be a litmus test for the unions’
endorsements. Charter schools, along with private school vouchers and tax
credit scholarships, are at the heart of school choice policies promoted by the
Trump administration and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, are a frequent
target for Democrats.

Cost of College: Most Democrats have gotten behind the idea of some form of tuition-free or
debt-free college, but disagree about how much of the tab should be covered
Several candidates have called for making four years of public college free
for students under a certain income threshold, while others would cover only
community college or technical school. And then there are proposals that
would offer more assistance to students so they don’t have to take on debt to
cover tuition — or books and living expenses, in some cases.

Student Debt: 45 million Americans collectively owe $1.6T in student debt. Democratic
candidates broadly agree that student-loan debt is a burden for many families
and is a drag on the economy. The federal government already offers student-
loan forgiveness programs for public servants and income-based repayment.

16
 Democrats’ positions on existing student debt range from changing tweaking
programs meant to help borrowers to cancelling all of the debt.

Campaign Finance: Democrats have long sought to reform the campaign finance system — but
this year, the candidates for president are trying to practice what they preach
by putting self-imposed limits on how they raise money for their election
bids. The leading candidates for president have all, at a minimum, sworn off
accepting money from corporate PACs. They've also said they don't want
super PACs supporting their bids during the primary election, a reflection of
how important getting money out of politics is for the candidates. But how
the candidates would actually try to address the pernicious effects of money
in Washington if elected is another issue: Most candidates have yet to release
plans for how they would reform the campaign finance system.

Nuclear Power: The future for the technology that powers about one-fifth of the U.S.
has dimmed because of high costs to build reactors and deadlock
over how to deal with mounting radioactive waste. Environmental
groups are split on the use of nuclear power, which produces large
amounts of electricity without the CO2 emitted by coal or natural gas
plants, but has for decades been among the biggest targets.

Assault Weapons: Govt banned assault under Reagan (bc blacks) but they’re back.

Background Checks: Democratic presidential candidates are eager to rectify perceived

cracks in federal background check law, including the so-called “gun
show loophole” and “Charleston loophole.” Much of the debate has
centered on the call from gun-control advocates for universal checks
systems, a proposal that has been deliberated for nearly two decades
and now enjoys support from a large majority of Americans.

Defence Spending: Donald Trump won the White House pledging a "great rebuilding of
the armed forces" after years of across-the-board budget cuts and
growing signs of strain on the military. A two-year, bipartisan budget
deal reached with Congress in 2018 increased the Pentagon's coffers
to as high as $716 billion. In 2019, the administration doubled down
by proposing a new $750 billion annual budget for the next fiscal
year as the president had second thoughts on the Pentagon's "crazy"
spending. Democratic leaders accuse the administration of crying
wolf when it contends it needs every penny - it redirected $2.5B from
approved Defence Department funds to pay for a border barrier.

Troops: There's a big divide among Democratic presidential hopefuls on U.S.

troop deployments to foreign nations such as Afghanistan, Iraq and
Syria. Anti-war candidates insist these conflicts are unwinnable and
American intervention has only undercut U.S. security by fomenting
further terrorism. They call for and voted for a full withdrawal of
American fighting forces. But after the outcry that ensued as Trump
earlier this year announced his intent to immediately withdraw troops
from the fight against ISIS in Syria, some Democrats caution against
precipitously abandoning allies on the battlefield or risking military
gains that will only require sending U.S. back at some future date. At
least one candidate, Beto O'Rourke, has proposed levying a war tax

17

Trade (China):
Capital Gains Tax:
Corporate Tax:
Abortion:
Healthcare, Pharmaceutical Companies, Drug Costs and Insurance
The Affordable Care Act:
Medicare for All:
to pay for future combat deployments of American troops. And the
first post-911 veterans are running for president -- Pete Buttigieg,
Tulsi Gabbard, and Seth Moutlon -- and attest that avoiding USA’s
involvement in open-ended conflicts is a major reason why.
Trump has launched an all-out trade offensive against in an attempt
to pressure Beijing into changing its intellectual property practices
and what the White House sees as theft of trade secrets from foreign
companies that want to operate in the Chinese market.
Capital gains from the sale of investments like stocks; artwork and
real estate are taxed lower than other income. The rate ranges from
15% to 20% depending on how long they've been held. The highest
income tax rate is 37%. Some of the Democratic candidates believe
capital gains should be on a more equal footing with income when it
comes to taxes. They argue a lower rate benefits the wealthy, creates
tax shelters and helps drive income inequality.
The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act cut the corporate income tax to 21
percent from 35 percent. Many Democratic candidates say that was a
handout to profitable businesses and want to reverse it.
Abortion has been one of the most contentious issues in the United
States since the Supreme Court upheld abortion in Roe v. Wade in
1973. Whoever wins the White House in 2020 could significantly
shape when and under what circumstances women can get abortions
Recognizing that abortion rights could be vulnerable because of the
Supreme Court's ideological shift to the right under President Donald
Trump, states are moving quickly. Some are passing laws aimed at
provoking a legal challenge to Roe. Others are codifying protections
so that abortion is legal in these states even if Roe is overturned. The
high court in early October announced it will review abortion laws
in Louisiana that would require doctors who perform the procedure
to have admitting privileges to a nearby hospital. With arguments
set for March 4, justices could weigh in on abortion.
The ACA, or Obamacare, extended health coverage to 20 million
Americans, and the candidates agree the government must do more to
cover the remaining uninsured. But clear divisions remain on how to
achieve that goal. The most progressive say the government should
provide health insurance for the vast majority of Americans through
a “Medicare for All” system. Others who think that system would be
too costly and too jarring for voters have supported more incremental
coverage expansions that preserve a larger role for private insurers
The idea of shifting everyone in the United States into a single health
insurance plan with generous benefits has rocketed from the leftist
fringes to the political mainstream in just a few years. It now has the
support of numerous Democratic candidates and has become a litmus
test for many progressive voters. Over the course of the primary, the
number of top-tier candidates aligning with Sanders on Medicare for
All has dwindled. Harris, Buttigieg, Booker and others who endorsed
18
 the policy backed away from it or rolled out their alternatives that
would be cheaper and preserve a role for private insurers. But, only
Warren has stayed with Sanders in fully embracing single-payer. But,
under pressure from journalists and rival candidates to explain how
she’d pay for the massive overhaul, Warren in November released a
$20.5 trillion financing plan that she says would spare the middle
class from tax increases. Warren later detailed a plan for transitioning
to Medicare for All within three years, while Sanders says he would
make an immediate push for the single-payer system.

Drug Costs: Democrats have typically favoured increasing intervention to contain

drug prices. They've called for Medicare to directly negotiate drug
prices, then revoking branded drug patents to allow for competition
from cheaper generics, or basing U.S. prices on those paid in other
nations.

Quick Facts and Logic on Drug Costs, USA Healthcare, Risk Pooling and Hospitals

The Opioid Crisis

Shocking statistics to use in debates:

Article I. Every day over 130 people in the US die from opioid overdoses.
Article II. CDC predicts opioid over-prescription costs the US $78.5 billion a year. ($200m/day!)
Article III. 21-29% of those who use opioids for chronic pain misuse them.
Article IV. Overdoses increased in frequency by 30% between 2017 and 2018.

What is an opioid?

 Any drug derived from opium designed to act on the nervous system to relieve pain.

How did we end up here?

 Pharmaceutical companies are interested in selling opioids that they spent heaps of money
patenting and developing so they spend a large sum of money throughout the 90’s convincing
healthcare professionals that patients using opioids to deal with pain won’t become addicted
(Purdue Pharmaceuticals).
 Mass misuse of opioids ensued. Opioids were overused by patients due to addictive nature,
overprescribed by doctors as an easy fix for things like chronic pain (rather than more time-
consuming long-term approaches like physiotherapy) and were used in illicit drug circles to blend
with other compounds creating addictive compounds.

Questions raised by mass opioid consumption:

• When should the government regulate addictive substances/ practices?

• When it comes to regulation of addictive things our governments are not necessarily always acting
in the interests of the people most affected. Take gambling for example, in the years 2007-2008
the Australian government raised $19 billion dollars from the taxation of gambling. This does to a
certain extent demonstrate a conflict of interest in the sense that a Government that profits from
something greatly is unlikely to take strong restrictive action against it. The response is often that
the Government re-invests this money into rehabilitation schemes for this addicted to gambling.

Pharmaceutical Costs

Overview
19
 The United States is exceptional in that it does not regulate or negotiate the prices of new
prescription drugs when they come onto market. Other countries will task a government agency to
meet with pharmaceutical companies and haggle over an appropriate price. The United States
 Continued: Quick Facts and Logic on Drug Costs and USA Healthcare

Lobbying, Price Hikes and Regulatory Capture

 America pays the same prices as other countries for generics

 They pay about 2-4 times as much for brand-name patented drugs
 Martin Shkreli increased Daraprim price 5,000%, Doxycycline Hyclate 7,000% ($27 to $1,900)
 20% of people skip doses, and many spend less on food to pay for their drugs
 Big Pharma (fucking hate that phrase) invest heavily in lobbying, they are the top lobbying
spenders with insurance companies a distant second, spending over $4.5B
 Interestingly, they dentate equally to Democrats and Republicans (55-45 split in 2016)
 Mitch McConnell got over a million USD from “big pharma”
 Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) were created to negotiate drug prices with drug companies
on behalf of health insurers. PBMs determine what medications are available to consumers.
 PBMs take rebates from drug manufactures in exchange for giving them more market access and
getting insurance companies to give them priorities on their formularies. They then sell the drugs
to insurance companies, but this is where it gets messy: nobody really knows the extent to which
they pass on the rebates to the insurers because there is no transparency. Insurers in 2017 only got
$89B in rebates shaved off the cost of their drugs, this sounds like a lot, but its very little in the
scope of a $500B industry in the USA alone (given that the same amount of drugs in Europe could
only make for a $150B industry).
 People suspect PBMs of absorbing these rebates and not passing them onto insurance companies.

Research and Development Facts

It’s impossible to operate with low costs to develop new drugs, which when factoring in the following (7)
reasons, have an average cost of $2.5B per drug on average:

(1) Sunk costs of fail trials: 95% of molecules developed by drug companies fail so companies
need a guarantee that the earnings from the 5% that succeed will cover the failed projects.
(2) The opportunity costs that are incurred from not investing that capital elsewhere
(3) It can be hard to find people to trial the drug on, as they are rare in number and usually
need to be paid a lot of money to be your guinea pig, but you need to for purposes of
statistical significance.
(4) Regulation: The FDA is risk averse because there is a huge amount of publicity for a drug
that gets approved and is dangerous but none for one that does not get approved that is
dangerous because nobody gets to try that drug and get outraged about it
(5) Time: You have to wait years for all the people to die to determine whether there was a
marginal increase in their life expectancy. 20
(6) It’s even harder to invest in Hail-Mary drugs, because if even one molecule goes wrong,
that’s the end of their company, they payouts, their share price etc. so you need a massive
 Obamacare Pros
The biggest benefit of the ACA is that it slows the rise of
health care costs.6 It does this partly providing insurance
for millions and making preventive care free. This means
people receive treatment before they need expensive
emergency room services. In 2016, the cost of health care
services increased by 1.2 percent for the year.8 That's much
less than the price increase of 4 percent in 2004.
It requires all insurance plans to cover 10 essential health
benefits.9 These include treatment for mental health,
addiction, and chronic diseases. Without these services,
many patients wind up in the emergency room. Those costs
are passed onto Medicaid and therefore the taxpayer. Under
current law, health insurance companies can't refuse to
cover you or charge you more just because you have a “pre-
existing condition”.
Insurance companies can no longer deny anyone coverage
for pre-existing conditions. They can't drop them or raise
premiums if beneficiaries get sick. It eliminates lifetime
and annual coverage limits. Insurance companies used this
to contain costs to $1 million per year. Beneficiaries who
exceeded that limit had to pay 100 percent of costs.
Obamacare Cons
Three million to 5 million people lost their employment-
based health insurance. Many businesses found it more
cost-effective to pay the penalty and let their employees
purchase insurance plans on the exchanges. Other small
businesses find they can get better plans through the state-
run exchanges.
Thirty million people never had company plans and relied
on private health insurance. Insurance companies
cancelled many of their plans because their policies didn't
cover the ACA's 10 essential benefits. For those who lost
those cut-rate plans, the costs of replacing them can be
high. The ACA requires services that many people don't
need, like maternity care.
Increased coverage raised overall health care costs in the
short term. That's because many people received
preventive care and testing for the first time. It was
expensive to treat illnesses that had been ignored for
decades. In 2022, insurance companies will be assessed a
40 percent excise tax on "Cadillac" health plans. Many of
these plans are for people in high-risk pools, such as older
workers or those with dangerous jobs. Most of the tax will
be passed onto the companies and employees, raising
premiums and deductibles and potentially lowering
wages. .
21
Children can stay on their parents’ health insurance plans
up to age 26. As of 2012, more than 3 million previously
uninsured young people were added. This increased profit
for insurance companies. They receive more premiums
from these healthy individuals.
The ACA taxed those who didn't purchase insurance. But
many avoided the tax through an ever-expanding list of
exemptions. Four million people chose to pay the tax
rather than pay for coverage. The Congressional Budget
Office estimated they paid $54 billion.

The middle class (earning up to 400 percent of the poverty
level) receive tax credits on their premiums. It expands
Medicaid to 138 percent of the federal poverty level. It
provides this coverage to adults without children for the
first time.
Businesses with more than 50 employees must offer health
insurance. They receive tax credits to help with the costs.
States must set up insurance exchanges or use the federal
government's exchange. Either method makes it easier to
shop for plans.
Starting in 2013, families could deduct medical expenses
that exceeded 10 percent of income. Before, they could
deduct any expenses that exceeded 7.5 percent of income.
The Tax Cut and Jobs Act restored the deduction to the 7.5
percent limit for 2018 and 2019.
Starting in 2013, medical device manufacturers and
importers paid a 2.3 percent excise tax Note: This tax was
suspended for 2016-2018. Indoor tanning services paid a
10 percent excise tax. This discourages businesses from
hiring new employees.

The Congressional Budget Office originally estimated it
would reduce the budget deficit by $143 billion by 2022. It
would theoretically accomplish this in three ways. First, it
reduces the government's health care costs. Second, it raises
taxes on some businesses and higher income families.
Third, it shifts cost burdens to health care providers and
pharmaceutical companies. The CBO has since revised its
estimates.
In 2013, the ACA raised the income tax rate for
individuals with incomes above $200,000. It also raised
taxes for couples filing joint returns on incomes exceeding
$250,000. The rate increased from 1.45 percent to 2.35
percent on income above the threshold. They also pay an
additional 3.8 percent Medicare tax.

HWS 2016 Grand Final

This house supports health insurance companies offering optional lump sum payments to terminally ill
patients who choose to forgo expensive life extending medical treatments.

The good shit comes out at CG vs. CO, but here is a summary of opening half for context:

Opening Government

(1) This facilitates a dignified death

(a) The duty to “treat” people does not just mean a duty to stop people dying; rather it’s a
duty to allow them to best achieve their conceptualisation of a good life. For many,
this is not necessarily participating in protracted, invasive and painful treatments.

(b) Lots of people value the ability to help their kids pay for college more than a few
months of wasting away in a hospital bed. And this is likely to be a lot of money
because the costs of these treatments are so high.

(c) People have different conceptions of the good life, some pick and some don’t, but its
unclear that we ought to fetishize the preferences of one group just to create a blanket
policy that coerces everyone. Even if our duty were to “extend life” we don’t force
chemotherapy on people who don’t want it.

(2) This results in a more equitable system to access healthcare

22
 (a) Terminally ill people, or those with pre-existing conditions, do not opt in for health
insurance because they feel that they will be gauged on premiums and don’t see the
value of such premiums in the long term. Now, they ex ante price in the lump-sum
payout and are more likely to opt-in. This has two benefits: (1) incidentals like not
dying on the street, (2) the massive $$$ payout

(b) The equitability of healthcare distribution is improved. Without this system, people
who have AIDS, Cancer or incurable diseases colossally increase costs and risk
balance sheets for (5) reasons:

(1) These treatments can cost as much as $800,000

(2) They use incredible amounts of resources in hospitals and are disproportionately litigations
(3) Through risk pooling, that risk is spread in such a manner that people already in the insurance
system don’t pay the full amount, so it forces them to increase prices for all
(4) These treatments can be very protracted and uncertain
(5) There is zero return on the investment of that liability, because these people die and don’t
continue to pay premiums into the future

(c) The pooling of this increased risk leaves banks with only two options, (1) don’t insure
these people (Anthem Inc did this to HIV patients), (2) they hike their premiums for
all. But, by reducing the extent to which the riskiest patients dominate the top ends of
the risk pool, in those 5 ways, you can not only keep total risk low and therefore reduce
premiums, but also have the people you pay out profit hundreds of thousands too.

Opening Opposition (Very Underdeveloped)

Response to more equity: It is morally reprehensible to buy lives off the poor to make way for
other people to feed off the dissolution of their liability.

Response to risk: There is no proof that they don’t just internalise the lessened risk and
keep premiums the same.

(1) This breeds a perverse incentive to worsen treatments, the scope of treatments offered
or new investments into these lifesaving drugs.

(2) The poor will be disproportionately pushed into taking these deals because they value
their lives the least and need money the most.

Government Member

Preservation of life is not an absolute societal value

R: “Do no harm”: Euthanasia is allowed, control groups who increase their likelihood of death

R: “Innovation”: Rich people remain the main users, so monetary incentives exist, the poor can’t
access them anyway

R: “Free choice”: The finality of death makes your considerations of your options more acute.

Harms to families:

(1) Psychological insecurity

(2) Financial stress
(3) Long time as the death can be protracted
(4) Eats up life insurance,

23
 (5) Weighing: they matter because more of them and their suffering lasts longer after the event

Opposition Member (Ashish)

Making it easier to access drugs for millions in the future is an absolute good. We want to talk about
choice into the future, the choice of every single person who will be denied the vast benefits of medical
research (slow and expensive) who will not get effective and cheap drugs.

R: “Free choice”:

(1) Hospitals are paid and get funding for the number of QUALYs they can get
(an index of quality of life and the years that the life was extended). Each
QUALY is about $120,000USD in funding.

(2) For the hospital, the loss to life expectancy is small, and the quality will be
poor, but you take up a bed that could earn them more QUALYs, so a doctor,
who you see as an authoritative source will always encourage you to take the
deal.

(3) That is a short-term decision that is made but it is not an intrinsic feature of
being terminally ill that your life is not worth living.

This reduces development of new drugs:

Drug companies do research, this policy places a ceiling on the possible price of any new drug that
enters the market. What is that ceiling? That ceiling is the lump-sum which the insurance company is
willing to pay. That is, drug companies cannot put that drug on the market unless it comes out cheaper
than what the insurance companies are willing to pay in the lump sum. So, they have two choices:

(1) Risk keeping their prices the same and have patients be hugely discourage from opting for the
drugs (which is really easy to do now that the spread between the lump sum value and the cost
of the drug is so high that you’d have to be clinically insane to take it), and eventually risk
being taken off insurance formularies.

(2) Operate with a massively slashed budget and ceiling costs.

It’s impossible to operate with low costs to develop new drugs, which when factoring in the following
(7) reasons, have an average cost of $2.5B per drug on average:

(1) Sunk costs of fail trials: 95% of molecules developed by drug companies fail so
companies need a guarantee that the earnings from the 5% that succeed will cover the
failed projects.
(2) The opportunity costs that are incurred from not investing that capital elsewhere
(3) It can be hard to find people to trial the drug on, as they are rare in number and usually
need to be paid a lot of money to be your guinea pig, but you need to for purposes of
statistical significance.
(4) Regulation: The FDA is risk averse because there is a huge amount of publicity for a
drug that gets approved and is dangerous but none for one that does not get approved
that is dangerous because nobody gets to try that drug and get outraged about it
(5) Time: You have to wait years for all the people to die to determine whether there was
a marginal increase in their life expectancy.
(6) It’s even harder to invest in Hail-Mary drugs, because if even one molecule goes wrong,
that’s the end of their company, they payouts, their share price etc. so you need a
massive sale price to justify that risk

24
Therefore, the creation of a price ceiling will destroy investment into new drugs and kill millions.

We instrumentalise people all the time, we tax them to spend less on oil so that future people don’t get
inundated by rising sea levels.

Government Whip (Dan Lahav)

R: “Ceiling Price => No New Development”

(1) Most drugs are effective for people who are not terminally ill, so the same market
structure will exist on both sides (true of cancer and aids)
(2) Many will choose to keep living, because it’s scary to die, and the rich drive the
market too as they value their life highly and pick to pay for the drugs
(3) Countries can subside and regulate markets (most research is done in Europe)
(4) Even if the lump sum is less, companies have an incentive to increase the lump
sum because competition exists. It will be the minimum amount to be profitable
and still reduce risk.
(5) Diseases that are for the poor are not incentivised to be researched into anyway

Contradiction: CO say “do no harm” but allow people to be put in a state of torture for the betterment
of others down the line. Thus, they knife their opening

Opposition Whip (MDG)

20 years ago, going to a school that was unfortunate nought to contain asbestos was a death sentence.
Now, there are a variety of drugs that exist to cure a number of types of asbestosis. Because medical
research happens when there are a large number of people, usually insurance companies, who are
willing to pay substantial sums of money for that medication

R: “The amount paid for the drugs won’t reduce as, and the lump sums high”

(1) It needs to be no lower as there is very little marginal incentive to invest in something
so risky when pharmaceutical companies can otherwise just reduce side effects and
increase branding of drugs that already exist because that has a much lower fixed cost
than ground-breaking research. That’s why there are 1,000 types of aspirin and zero
cures for malaria.

(2) Lump sums will be low because of the maximally asymmetric bargaining. You need to
be able to negotiate for a long time to get a good deal, but terminally ill people can’t
because the clock is ticking.

R: “The rich will pay”

(1) Everyone’s favourite get out of jail free card, the 1%. Guys, there are 1% of them. So yes, they
can pay a lot per treatment, but there are very few of them so they can’t pay for very many
treatments.

(2) Also, they’re the least likely to get sick, so fewer and fewer of them are likely to get sick, and
there are fewer and fewer of them to begin with anyway. So realistically, out of a range of
different options a drug company has, if you choose to pin your hopes of success on the 1% of
the 1% who get sick, you’re going to go out of business 10 years before you develop the drug.

25
 (3) Even if that were true, without price ceilings, you get research into diseases that afflict the poor
more than the rich which you never otherwise could, because the poor can pressure the market
without any money by forcing insurance companies to pay for them through the mechanism of
pooling their risk.

R: Government subsidies

(1) Governments suck at it, hate spending that takes 20 years to pay off because governments
changes and they don’t reap the electoral benefits of research output. Hence, research funding
for medication in UK has gone down year on year.

R: “Drugs work for terminally ill patients that work for normal patients too”

(1) Diseases are not static, they change the chemical composition of your cells. And if a drugs is
effective because it reacts to changes in the composition of your cells, by definition it can only
be effective once the chemical composition of your cells has changed; i.e. once the disease has
progressed.

POI: Why are you prioritising the unborn

Because not every person who might die of mesothelioma is unborn, because not every person who
might die of cancer is unborn. Because, for every person to whom you give extra optionality, there are
thousands and millions alive today who will die if research does not progress.

2020 Candidates and Positions

Joe Biden

A Delaware Senator for 36 years, Biden’s presidential runs in 1988 and 2008 were dismal failures,
though he was nominated as Obama’s vice for both terms. Is an early frontrunner despite facing
criticism for his behaviour around women and past policy positions: supporting an invasion of Iraq,
leading the War on Drugs etc. Popular amongst party loyalists, his key policies include increasing the
capacity for workers to strike, increasing the minimum wage and shrinking the tax burden on middle-
income earners

 DONORS: Law firms, Hollywood insiders, insurance companies, rich people.

 BIG IDEA: His Biden Institute is pushing tech education and increased bargaining power
for American workers as a solution to the left-behind working and middle class.
 FANS: Democrats who think a safe pair of hands is a tested white man, independents
nostalgic for the Obama administration, Republicans Trump has lost.

Cash Bails: Abolish

Cocaine Sentencing: Abolish Disparity
Mandatory Minimums: Eliminate
Private Prisons: Eliminate
Minimum Wage: $15
Paid Leave: Family and Sick Leave
Reparations: Study
Charter Schools: Against
Cost of College: Two years free
Student Debt: Expand debt-relief programs
Campaign Finance: Unlimited spending should not be allowed
Nuclear Power: Support
Assault Weapons: Voluntary buybacks

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Background Checks: Universal
Defence Spending: Boost
Troops: Maintain
Trade (China): “Don’t worry so much about China”
Abortion: Some limits
Affordable Care: Expand
Medicare for All: No, but expand
Drug Costs: International reference pricing
Capital Gains: Increase
Corporate Tax: Rise, but lower than 2017

Bernie Sanders

Democratic socialist who believes in a more equitable economic system which does not favour the
wealthiest 1%
Key policies include doubling the minimum wage, making college free, environmental reform and
establishing Medicare-for all
Has contributed to the Democratic party’s shift to the left since narrowly losing to Clinton in 2016, but
now faces competition from other socialist candidates like Warren

 DONORS: Over the past five years, 75% of Sanders’ campaign funds have come from
small donors in amounts of less than $200, according to a Center for Responsive Politics
analysis of FEC data. His top sources of funding include liberal advocacy group
MoveOn.org, University of California employees, two postal-employee unions, and the
Communication Workers of America. Just $177,000 of $12.7 million raised during that
period came from PACs.
 BIG IDEA: Sanders would like to make public colleges tuition-free, increase Social
Security benefits, and make corporate America more union-friendly. Sanders has proposed
paying for the tuition costs by taxing financial transactions and the Social Security
expansion by subjecting all incomes above $250,000 to the 6.2% payroll tax.
 FANS: Loyal “Bernie Bros” who still think he would have won in 2016, new converts to
the idea of universal healthcare and higher taxes for the wealthy.
 NOT FANS: Democrats who see Sanders as a “spoiler” who siphons votes away from
defeating Trump, Clinton fans still smarting over her loss, people of colour alienated by
Sanders’ last campaign.

Cash Bails: Abolish

Cocaine Sentencing: Abolish Disparity
Mandatory Minimums: Eliminate
Private Prisons: Eliminate
Minimum Wage: $15
Paid Leave: Family and Sick Leave
Reparations: Study
Charter Schools: Restrict their expansion
Cost of College: Free
Student Debt: Cancel All Debt
Campaign Finance: Unlimited spending should not be allowed
Nuclear Power: Close Down
Assault Weapons: Voluntary buybacks
Background Checks: Universal
Defence Spending: Slash
Troops: Bring Home
Trade (China): Supports the goal, “wrong approach”
Abortion: Some limits

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Affordable Care: Medicare for All
Medicare for All: Yes
Drug Costs: International reference pricing
Capital Gains: Increase
Corporate Tax: Rise

Elizabeth Warren

An outspoken advocate of economic reform in response to the GFC in 2008; she supports increased
taxes on the rich and oversight on large corporations
Has been criticised for her ongoing claims that she has a native American background that she
unsuccessfully sought to ratify through a recent DNA test
Called for Trump to be impeached in response to the findings of the Mueller report

 DONORS: The education industry, women’s PACs, and the legal profession in the past;
she’s pledged to take no money from billionaires or billionaire PACS in 2020.
 BIG IDEA: A “wealth tax” of 2% on net worth over $50 million and 3% over $1 billion
designed to raise $2.75 trillion over a decade.
 FANS: Detail-oriented voters who like her mix of east-coast academic know-how and
Midwest roots.
 NOT FANS: Voters who distrust the intellectual elite, people who doubt she has enough
personal appeal and can lure centrists.

Cash Bails: Abolish

Cocaine Sentencing: Abolish Disparity
Mandatory Minimums: Eliminate
Private Prisons: Eliminate
Minimum Wage: $15
Paid Leave: Family and Sick Leave
Reparations: Study
Charter Schools: Restrict their expansion
Cost of College: Free
Student Debt: Cancel All Debt
Campaign Finance: Unlimited spending should not be allowed
Nuclear Power: Close Down
Assault Weapons: Ban
Background Checks: Universal
Defence Spending: Slash
Troops: Bring Home
Trade (China): Supports the goal, “wrong approach”
Abortion: Some limits
Affordable Care: Medicare for All
Medicare for All: Yes
Drug Costs: International reference pricing, US Government can make generics
Capital Gains: Increase
Corporate Tax: Rise

Pete Buttigieg (Daddy)

 Indiana mayor who fought in Afghanistan and is the first openly gay candidate to run for
President
 Positioning himself as the voice of the Millennials on issues like climate change and is only 37-
years-old

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  Has received a burst of support in polling, and is trailing only Biden and Sanders in key
battleground states such as Iowa and New Hampshire

Cash Bails: Abolish

Cocaine Sentencing: Abolish Disparity
Mandatory Minimums: Eliminate
Private Prisons: Eliminate
Minimum Wage: $15
Paid Leave: Family and Sick Leave
Reparations: Study
Charter Schools: Restrict their expansion
Cost of College: “Students should not have to take on debt”
Student Debt: Cancel Some Debt
Campaign Finance: Unlimited spending should not be allowed
Nuclear Power: Close Down
Assault Weapons: Ban
Background Checks: Universal
Defence Spending: Slash
Troops: Bring Home
Trade (China): Supports the goal, “wrong approach”
Abortion: Some limits
Affordable Care: Medicare for All
Medicare for All: Yes
Drug Costs: International reference pricing, US Government can make generics
Capital Gains: Increase
Corporate Tax: Rise

Buttigieg and the Black Vote: Sorry, Did My Facts and Logic Get in the Way of Your Narrative?

Buttigieg is struggling to sin the black vote, and it’s becoming the thorn in the side of his rise to top-tier candidacy in
the south. The Democratic machine, as well as independent campaign experts tried to find the cause for the lack in his
popularity which turned out to be politically damning – a major concern among polled voters was his sexuality.
Obviously, this was not a politically expedient answer for the democrats, so they invented two contrived reasons to
explain his inability to gain their votes:

(1) Whilst he was mayor, a police officer in the South Bend Police Dept. killed a black man.
(2) A 2011 video of him resurfaced, in which he compared the struggle and oppression of LGBT+
Americans and targeting of trans people to racist attacks and hate crimes upon African Americans
today.

Both of these reasons are motherfucking bullshit designed to conceal the homophobia that permeates the voting patterns
of low-SES communities in America (we’d have no trouble calling out White Southerners for their homophobia). Here
are a few reasons why the two magical explanations for his inability to pull ahead with the southern African American
voters are total shit:

(1) According to polls across the Carolinas, Georgia, Louisiana and Virginia, most candidates did not know about
the police officer incident, and even fewer were aware of some random 2011 video.
(2) If anything, the reason behind finding that video offensive, would be to invalidate the experience of LGBT+
suffering, so it probably is a bit homophobic.
(3) Lying about this is really unfair to black members of the LGBT community, who are almost twice as unlikely
29 for
to come out and experience more pressure from their families. Gender role concerns are a repetitive theme
young African-American men and their families. One young man in the study described the African-American
community as very strict when it comes to homosexuality. “It’s a masculinity thing,” he said.
(4) “I found that parents of African-American gay youth said, ‘You have everything going against you as a black
 Buttigieg and the Black Vote: More Inconvenient Facts and Logic to Get in the Way of Your Narrative

(8) Homophobia may well be at least in part the expression of a more general fear of sexuality. Some black
thinkers and scholars locate this wider fear of sexuality, and of homosexuality in particular, in a psycho-
cultural response to the history of white exploitation of black sexuality during slavery and afterwards. Black
people in the USA have been profoundly affected by the persistent efforts of whites to demonise them and
their sexuality.' In the social construction of standards of beauty, measures of intelligence and assessments
of moral character, elements of racism have been used to effectively privilege whiteness and denigrate
blackness. Much of this has been accomplished through the institution of slavery and its aftermath. US media
stereotypes developed during slavery such as that of the mammy, the jezebel, and the wild and hypersexual
buck have their latter-day incarnations in the domineering matriarch, the 'welfare queen' and the violent and
sexually promiscuous black man. The old images of blacks as bestial, lustful, wanton, lascivious, and
promiscuous persist in the US psyche today. The black community - families, schools, churches - have
historically and assiduously avoided addressing the fundamental issue of sexuality. This reticence on the part
of blacks to speak about sexuality in public grows out of a fear that it will confirm the stereotypes that whites
have long held.

(9) Black homophobia in North America is rooted in the moralisms about homosexuality produced in the
melding - within the context of colonialism and imperialism - of both Western and traditional African
religious beliefs. These homophobic religious moralisms have dovetailed with the urgency of a racial
consciousness of survival and preservation among blacks, that sought to construct black masculinity as 30 the
struggle against white domination. This is sometimes called bionationalism. The fallout from this ideological
joining together of religion-driven homophobia and bionationalism has been that whiteness and
homosexuality are both understood to connote weakness and femininity; conversely, black masculinity has
Kamala Harris (No Longer Running)

His Biden Institute is pushing tech education and increased bargaining power for American workers as
a solution to the left-behind working and middle class.

 A first term Senator from California, born to Jamaican and Indian parents
 Has supported a Medicare-for-all policy, even if it means abolishing private health insurance,
but is generally a more moderate candidate

Beto O’Rourke (No Longer Running)

 Came within 3 percentage points of beating Ted Cruz in the 2018 Midterm Senate race, the
closest a Democrat has come to winning a Texas Senate race in decades.
 Has enormous grassroots support, raising nearly 40 million dollars within three months as part
of his Senate bid, despite the average donation being just $47.
 Key policies include amnesty for illegal immigrants, decreased border controls, gun reform and
legalisation of marijuana.

Green New Deal

Goals

A deal which aims to revolutionise America’s energy sector in order to respond to the challenges of
climate change as well as economic and social inequality. Though most supporters of it want America
to subsist on 100% clean energy in the future, the period of time this will take, and the specific policy
visions of its proponents, are still developing

History

Took off in late 2018 following a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that
humanity has less than a decade to act if temperature increases are to be kept to two degrees Celsius.
Key proponent was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), who was elected as representative in the 2018
Has already received some support from 2020 candidates like Corey Booker and Bernie Sanders
Strengths

Could enable America to generate millions of new jobs and generate investment, which could make it
easier to garner support for the deal from Republican voters. Gives the Democrats a constructive policy
agenda around which to mobilise in 2020.

Problems

 Its radical demands have alienated a lot of high-profile Democrats, such as Nancy Pelosi, who
want to win over moderate voters in 2020.
 Large corporations and lobbyists, particularly those in the non-renewable sector, will oppose
the deal, and have the political power to incite the same opposition in conservative and
moderate politicians

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  Coupling environmental change with uprooting the economic/social system of the Unites States
(which is the vision of politicians like AOC) makes it easier for voters to oppose the idea even
if they support environmental reform

Practical questions

• How can industries like aviation and construction subsist without non-renewables?
• How can renewables be full developed and deployed within a decade or two?
• Will energy types such as nuclear and biomass be developed within a transformed energy
sector?
• Will this require more taxpayer funding that the current energy system requires, and, if so, is
the deal capable of fostering support for higher taxes?

Impeachment

So, what the fuck actually is “impeachment”?

The Constitution permits Congress (House of Representatives + Senate) to remove presidents before
their term is up if enough lawmakers vote to say that they committed “treason, bribery, or other high
crimes and misdemeanours.”

Only two presidents have been impeached — Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998 — and
both were ultimately acquitted and completed their terms in office. Richard M. Nixon resigned in 1974
to avoid being impeached.

In both the Nixon and the Clinton cases, the House Judiciary Committee first held an investigation and
recommended articles of impeachment to the full House. In theory, however, the House of
Representatives could instead set up a special panel to handle the proceedings — or just hold a floor
vote on such articles without any committee vetting them. When the full House votes on articles of
impeachment, if at least one gets a majority vote, the president is impeached — which is essentially the
equivalent of being indicted.

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Which motherfuckers control the Senate?

Republicans captured Democratic seats in: Missouri, Indiana, and North Dakota.

What happened? => As conservative challengers seized on Trump’s enduring popularity with the party
base to easily oust incumbents whose tilt to the center was no match for their state’s GOP lean. Senator
Claire McCaskill of Missouri fell to state Attorney General Josh Hawley in her bid for a third term,
while Senators Joe Donnelly and Heidi Heitkamp could not repeat their surprising victories from six
years ago. The businessman Mike Braun defeated Donnelly in Indiana, while Representative Kevin
Cramer ousted Heitkamp in North Dakota. Republicans won a fourth seat in Florida, where the two-
term governor, Rick Scott, defeated the three-term incumbent, Senator Bill Nelson, by a narrow margin.

At the same time, the GOP blocked Democratic efforts to make inroads into long-standing Republican
strongholds. In Texas and Tennessee, neither the insurgent energy behind Beto O’Rourke nor the
middle-of-the-road appeal of former Governor Phil Bredesen could overcome the Republican bent of
the electorate. Senator Ted Cruz defeated O’Rourke, the well-funded three-term congressman, while
the conservative Representative Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee won election to the seat being vacated
by retiring Senator Bob Corker.

A 2/3 Majority is impossible, and even if it were, it would be Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell
who would be setting the agenda for the hearings (a Republican):

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The “Evidence” of the Quid Pro Quo

The Allegation: In a series of events culminating in a July 25 call with Ukrainian President
Zelensky, Trump used “the power of his office to solicit interference from a
foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election.”

The Whistleblower: (Regarding the call) The complaint detailed concerns that Trump, days after
withholding a nearly $US400 million military-aid package, used the call with
Zelensky to pressure the Ukrainiansto investigate former VP Joe Biden and
his son Hunter. Hunter Biden served on the board of Burisma Holdings, a
Ukrainian oil-and-gas company, from 2014 to 2019. Trump and his allies
have, without evidence, accused Biden of using his power as vice president to
urge Ukraine to fire a prosecutor who was investigating Burisma in order to
protect Hunter.

(Regarding the transcript, wherein Trump only asked for a “favour”) In the
days following the phone call, I learned from multiple U.S. officials that the
White House officials had intervened to “lock down” all records of the phone
call, especially the official word-for-word transcript of the call that was made
by the White House Situation Room. This set of actions underscored to me
that White House officials understood the gravity of what had transpired in
the call.

 Republicans: Morrison said the rough transcript of the Trump-

Zelenskiy call "accurately and completely reflects the substance of the
call," and that he was "not concerned that anything illegal was
discussed."
 Republicans: Want to call the mystery witness, as they are Linley an
operative the democrats and closely linked to Schiff, totally proving
the “witch-hunt” narrative

Adam Schiff: House Intelligence Committee chairman, subpoenaing witnesses, and holding
hearings.

Nancy Pelosi: Guiding the trajectory of the impeachment inquiry in the House and recently
called for a vote on a resolution to formalise the terms of the inquiry’s public
phase.

Jennifer Williams: State Department official detailed to the Vice President’s office who listened
in on the July 25 call and testified before Congress.

Mick Mulvaney: Acting chief of staff, who in a press briefing undermined Trump’s defence
by confirming that the administration withheld the aid in exchange for an
investigation into the Democratic National Committee server.

William Taylor: The acting ambassador to Ukraine, a Vietnam veteran and career diplomat
who gave explosive and damning testimony to Congress that it was his “clear
understanding” that “security assistance money would not come until” he was
“committed to pursue the investigation.”

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John Bolton: Former national security adviser, who is said to have pushed back on the idea
of conditioning assistance to Ukraine for investigations.

Rick Perry: Secretary of Energy, whom Trump tried to blame for the Ukraine call after
the fact. Perry is set to leave the administration at the end of this year.

Kurt Volker: Former US special representative for Ukraine, who gave critical testimony to
Congress about the extent of Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani’s role
in the Trump-Ukraine saga.

Gordon Sondland: The US ambassador to the European Union, a Trump appointee who testified
that the pressure on Ukraine to investigate the Bidens was “insidious” and at
least improper, if not illegal. Someone “heard” Trump ask Sondland about
the investigations over a phone call in a restaurant.

“Oh that’s very vague” (Sondland to Hearing)

“I presumed it” (Sondland to Hearing)
“Guesswork on my part” (Sondland to Hearing)
“How do you know that that was the reason for the block?” “I don’t.” (Sondland to Hearing)
“I don’t want a quid pro quo” (Trump to Sondland) who later texted that to William Taylor

Voting System

Electoral College

Each state is granted a number of electoral colleges which are equal to the number of House
Representatives in the state (proportional to population) plus the number of Senators (two for every
state)

 California has the most electoral colleges attached to it (55), whilst the minimum number for a
state is three
 Since there are 538 electoral colleges in the country, a candidate needs to win 270 to become
President
In all but two states (Maine and Nebraska), electoral colleges are distributed in a winner-take-all
manner, meaning that a candidate receives 100% of the electoral colleges in a state regardless of
whether they win 51% or 75% of the vote:

 States have an incentive to uphold this system so that they have the greatest influence over who
is elected President.

The system allows for candidates to lose the popular vote but win the election:

 Trump lost the popular vote by over two million votes in 2016 and George Bush also lost the
popular vote to Al Gore in 2000 despite winning the election.

Means that parties’ campaign almost exclusively in medium to large “swing states” such as Ohio,
Pennsylvania, Michigan and Florida, and direct their policy agendas in the interests of these states.

 Swing states also tend to have higher voter turnout percentages (in 2016, 12/15 swing states
were above the national voter turnout average)

Also grants voters in very small states significantly more power than voters in large states (a vote in
Wyoming carries 3.6 times the value of a vote in California) though it should be remembered that large
states still have overwhelmingly more electoral colleges attached to them compared to small states.

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  Democrats cite this as a reason to adopt a popular vote system, since it tends to be conservative,
rural states which have more voting power relative to densely populated, cosmopolitan states.

The winner-take-all system makes it virtually impossible for third-party candidates to win any electoral
colleges (the last time a third-party candidate won a state was George Wallace in 1968), but, because
there is no preferencing process, independents could conceivably split the major parties’ votes:

 This is why Democrats are so fervently opposed to centre-left candidates like Michael
Bloomberg and Howard Schultz running as independents

Voter ID laws

Nominally in place in at least 10 states to prevent problems like voter impersonation and undocumented
immigrants casting ballots. This often hurts groups such as young voters and black/Latino voters who
are estimated to be 2.5 to 6 times more likely to lack photo ID:

 This creates an incentive for Republicans to perpetuate harsh voting laws, since these
demographics are aligned more to the Democrats.

Voter Turnout

• America has a voluntary system of voting for citizens aged 18 or older.

• Wealth and education are correlated with significantly highest levels of turnout.

 76% of people with advanced degrees voted in the 2008 election, compared with 23% of people
who dropped out before High School

Voter turnout is historically much higher amongst white voters (60-70%) than Asian and Hispanic
voters (40-55%) Between 1996 and 2012, voter turnout progressively increased amongst African-
Americans from less than 55% to above 65%.

 However, turnout amongst African-Americans decreased by 7% between 2012 and 2016,

suggesting the unrivalled popularity of Obama amongst African-American voters and
communities

There is little discrepancy between men and women in voter turnout, with women (63%) in fact having
a higher turnout than men (59%) in 2016.

In response to Trump’s election in 2016, voter turnout for the 2018 Midterms (49.3%) was at a 104-
year high, suggesting that Trump’s election has mobilised Democrats in opposition to him.

Voter Suppression

 For example, Republican legislators in states like North Carolina have significantly restricted
early voting, because African-Americans vote early at more than twice the rate of white voters
 States like Iowa and Kentucky permanently ban convicted felons from voting, even after they
have served their term
 This was cited as a potential tipping point in the 2000 election, when George W. Bush beat Al
Gore in Florida (which used to permanently disenfranchise felons) by less than 1,000 votes

36
 The Supreme Court has affirmed the legality of felon disenfranchisement, but some states, like
Maine and Vermont, grant unrestricted voting rights to all felons

Gerrymandering

Refers to the manipulation of district boundaries for political gain.

 In effect, it involves overwhelmingly concentrating one party’s voters into a small number of
districts and securing narrow majorities in other districts to achieve an overall majority of seats.
Since the Supreme Court banned racial gerrymandering (diluting the power of racial minorities
through district boundaries) in 1986, a number of “majority-minority” districts have formed
across the country
 Interestingly, this ruling is supported by many African-Americans, as it has allowed them to
vote in their own candidates, but also Republicans, because it concentrates Democratic support
into fewer districts

Heavily utilised by Republicans in the 2012 and 2014 Midterm elections, enabling them to win over a
dozen more seats in Congress than expected:

 For example, Republicans won 10/13 districts in North Carolina, despite only winning 55% of
the vote and in 2012 won 13/18 districts in Pennsylvania despite losing the popular vote in that
state

Partisan gerrymandering remains an extremely contentious issue, with the Supreme Court set to form a
judgement this year on the validity of North Carolina’s electoral boundaries. The significance of these
court cases is that redrawing of district boundaries is set to take place in 2022, and is carried out by
state legislatures in the majority of states:

 Since 27 state legislatures (18 Republican, 9 Democratic) are controlled entirely by one party
right now (i.e. one-party controls both the state House and state Senate, and the state Governor
is also from that party), both parties will have the unchecked capacity to draw incredibly
favourable district boundaries for future elections if the Supreme Court does not rule against
partisan gerrymandering

Solutions to gerrymandering may include instituting independent commissions to redraw boundaries

(states like California, Colorado and Michigan have done this), forcing state legislatures to have a 2/3
majority before passing district changes and extending the criteria for district boundaries to include
compactness, thus preventing the drawing of absurd district boundaries.

 One counter consideration, especially for Democrats, is that Southern states like Alabama,
Mississippi and Tennessee have some of the least restrictive redistricting laws in the country
and are, simultaneously, the safest Republican strongholds

(For More on Lobbying, See Electoral Section)

Foreign Policy

Americas

After 50 years of trade sanctions and travel bans between Cuba and America, Obama removed sanctions
in 2015, and, although Trump has been critical of this deal, he has not repealed these changes. In
response to Mexico’s refusal to engage in any deals which involve paying for Trump’s signature border

37
wall, Trump initiated an unsuccessful 35-day partial shutdown in an attempt to receive funding for the
wall in late 2018.

Trump has been on cold terms with Canada’s PM, Justin Trudeau, imposing tariffs on Canadian
aluminium and steel in 2017.

 He has signed, though not yet ratified, a new trade deal with Mexico and Canada (USMCA)
which will remove some of these tariffs and increase America’s access to Canada’s dairy
industry.

Trump has threatened military intervention against Venezuela under Maduro’s rule, though was not
supported by any South American countries in this stance.

 He has imposed sanctions of Venezuela’s leaders and acknowledged Juan Guaido as rightful
President
 Advisor John Bolton famously described Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua as a ‘troika of
tyranny’

Asia

The Trump administration has been antagonistic towards China, making contacts with Taiwan’s
President and being openly critical of China’s actions in the South China Sea.

 Trump has placed tariffs on over $250 billion worth of Chinese goods
 Adding to the strained Chinese-America relationship, Huawei’s financial officer, Meng
Wanzhou, was arrested in December 2018, in response to fears about China undermining
America’s security interests

Though Trump has been critical of the fact that America provides extensive and unreciprocated military
support to Japan, the two countries remain important allies in maintaining power against North Korea
and China.

Trump controversially claimed in the lead up to the 2016 election that Japan and South Korea should
develop their own nuclear arsenal instead of relying on America’s nuclear umbrella to protect them
from North Korea. Following a series of antagonistic moves between Kim Jong-Un and Trump
throughout 2017, the leaders met in Singapore in June 2018

 Despite promising to work towards denuclearisation, there is little evidence that North Korea’s
dictator will uphold his agreement

Trump has been critical of Pakistan, labelling it a safe haven for terrorists in 2017.

 Though relations have improved since Pakistan’s new PM Imran Khan took power, America’s
lack of response to India’s recent nuclear threat against Pakistan is conspicuous

Europe

Trump has been critical of the fact that Germany and other European powers receive military support
and defence without returning the favour to the US.

 He has threatened to impose a 35% tariff on German imported cars.

Poland is one of Trump’s most favourable European allies and is seeking to draw closer military ties
with America.

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Trump has developed close ties with Putin and Russia and has considered both removing sanctions on
them and condoning their decision to annex Crimea in 2014.

 Trump was harshly criticised by Congress for engaging convivially with Putin at a summit in
Helsinki in 2018 and for denying Russian interference in the 2016 election
 Recent findings by the long-awaited Mueller report dismissed the possibility of a top-down
collusion effort in the election, though it did not absolve Trump on the issue of obstructing the
course of justice

Trump has gently supported the UK’s decision to leave the EU, but caused a rift with the Conservative
Party when he retweeted right wing anti-Muslim content by Britain First in 2017.

In a break from Article V of NATO, which stipulates that a military attack on one NATO state is an
attack on each one, Trump did not promise to defend Baltic States if attacked by Russia, declaring their
protection conditional upon fulfilling financial obligations.

Middle East

In 2018, Trump opted out of the Iran nuclear deal, which had been ratified by Obama and had reduced
economic sanctions on Iran in return for the country slowing down its nuclear weapon development.

 The decision polarised Trump’s supporters (Republicans, Saudi Arabia, Israel) from his
opponents (Democrats, Iran, the EU etc.)

Despite facing heavy criticism for his original travel ban in 2017, Trump’s revised executive order,
which reduces travel from Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, North Korea and Venezuela, was passed
by a margin of 5-4 by the Supreme Court in 2018.

 This is a good example of the way that extremely important Supreme Court decisions can be
swayed by the arbitrary consideration of which party holds a narrow balance of power within
the Court

Trump’s stance on Syria has been inconsistent, as he has alternated between bolstering American
ground forces and supporting a complete withdrawal of troops; he has similarly fluctuated between
supporting Assad and opposing his chemical weapons program.

 After receiving bipartisan opposition from military strategists to his proposed withdrawal,
Trump agreed, in February 2019, to keep a few hundred troops in Syria, despite ISIS losing its
final stronghold in March 2019.

Trump has diverged from Obama in his unfettered beautiful support for Israel, moving the embassy to
Jerusalem in 2018, staying open to the prospect of a one-state solution and not opposing Israel’s
settlements in the West Bank.

Trump authorised a $110 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia in 2017, a move which is controversial
because of war crimes committed by Saudi Arabia in Yemen.

Africa

Trump has been criticised for his apathy towards African politics, especially when it was rumoured that
he labelled the continent as full of ‘shithole countries’ in 2018.

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  Trump was widely condemned within America and by politicians in South Africa for ordering
Mike Pompeo to investigate the possibility of a “white conspiracy” in response to a series of
attacks on farmers in South Africa

Australia Pacific

The United States and Australia are strong trading partners, with a Free Trade Agreement in effect since
2005, and Australia receiving an exemption from Trump’s 25% worldwide steel tariff.

In 2017, tensions between Trump and Turnbull skyrocketed, after Trump was extremely hostile to a
deal which would see America take up to 1,200 refugees from Manus Island and Nauru, in return for
Australia accepting Central American refugees.

Trump opted out of the Trans Pacific Partnership (now renamed) in 2017, in line with his protectionist
vision designed to protect US jobs.

Major Forces Over the Political System

Lobbyists

• The first major application of corporate lobbying was in the 1860s, when railway corporations
bribed the Lincoln Government in return for the establishment of a Transnational Railway
joining California to Nebraska.
• Corporate lobbying was almost non-existent in the 1950s and 1960s, with the prevailing attitude
being one of corporations being best served by distancing themselves from Government.
• With the creation of the ‘Business Roundtable’ in 1972, corporations began to employ lobbyists
as a mechanism for creating changes through Government.

 Soon after their creation, corporate lobbyists were successfully in preventing the Labour
Reform Act of 1977 from passing and bringing about significant corporate tax cuts in 1981.
 A key Supreme Court case in 2010 – Citizens United v Federal Election Commission –
determined in a 5-4 decision that it would be unconstitutional to restrict the capacity for
corporations to support one political candidate or party over another.
 Large corporations now employ up to 100 lobbyists to represent their interests
 Corporations spend $34 on lobbying for every $1 spent lobbying by public interest groups and
labour unions

Problems

Lobbying is only accessible to large corporations, since they have the most resources and often the
largest motivation to invest in the political system. A small change to corporate tax rates/labour laws
could increase or decrease a large company’s profits by extremely substantial amounts, whereas the
impacts those changes would have for a smaller corporation, union or individual would be marginal.

 This distorts policy outcomes, since it means that politicians overwhelmingly favour corporate
interests over worker interests.
 The system of lobbying specifically promotes the interests of large corporations, since most
small corporations do not have the money to employ suitably networked and experienced
lobbyists.

It is now easier for candidates to run “negative campaigns”, because individual candidates are less likely
to be personally held to account for a smear campaign which is led by corporate lobbyists and donations.

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Limits on individual donations to candidates are insufficient at curbing the interests of corporations,
since significant amounts of money can be funnelled through to a candidate through Political Action
Committees (PACs) and Super PACs.

 Super PACs raised $1.8 billion in the lead up to the 2016 election.
 Politicians and staffers have less incentive to develop their own policies because they can save
time by relying on the expertise and inside information of lobbyists to provide policy
information.
 This perpetuates the problem, since it means that politicians need lobbyists in order to succeed.

Case Study: NRA

One of the largest lobbying powers in the United States is the National Rifle Association (NRA), which
has 5 million members. They influence elections in two main ways:

 1) Direct lobbying: (funding campaigns, contact with legislators etc.)

 2) Indirect lobbying (encouraging members to take actions through magazines, gun clubs,
advertisements)

There exists a strong positive correlation between candidates receiving NRA lobbying and winning
seats in elections.

 The flipside is also true: Democratic candidates won in 5/6 districts where gun control groups
spent the most time lobbying in the 2018 Midterms.

 Surprisingly, gun control groups such as Everytown for Gun Safety, funded largely by Michael
Bloomberg, substantially outspent gun rights groups like the NRA in the 2018 elections.

 However, the NRA have, historically, far outspent gun control groups.

 In the 2016 election, gun rights groups spent $55 million, gun control groups less than $3
million. The NRA overwhelmingly targets Republicans over Democrats, adding to the
polarisation of the two parties
 In 2016, it donated $250 to Republicans for every $1 on Democrats
 Eight congressmen, including 2016 Republican candidate Marco Rubio, have received in
excess of $1 000 000 from the NRA. The NRA not only seeks to influence the executive and
legislative branches, but also targets judicial appointments, spending $1 million on ads which
advocated for Kavanaugh’s appointment before the 2018 Senate hearing

Media

Even without political biases, the amount of time which the media dedicates to a candidate or party can
influence election outcomes:

 Since the media has an incentive to increase profits by making themselves viewable, this tends
to advantage sensational or notorious candidates like Trump.
 The New York Times estimates that Trump received six times as much “media value” as his
closest Republican rival in 2016, Ted Cruz, and more than twice the media value which Clinton
received.
 Since almost all media outlets in the US are profit-driven, there is little emphasis on fair or
accurate journalistic reporting within the current paradigm.
 One possible solution would be to establish public or non-profit media outlets akin to the ABC
(Australia) or BBC (Britain)

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Especially since the early 2000s, media outlets have become increasingly partisan.

 Fox News is the most prominent example of this, with 2/3 conservatives watching this channel
 Importantly, the impact which Fox News has is that it establishes a monopoly over conservative
voters by fostering distrust in mainstream media outlets
 A Reuters survey found that only 20% of conservative voters trust the news on the whole

Social media has contributed to political polarisation, since social media sites can tailor a user’s content
to conform to an individual’s pre-existing viewpoints:

As evidenced by Trump’s use of twitter, social media is a useful platform for spreading news, fake or
otherwise, since social media posts can easily be shared and reposted before they are taken down or
rebuked by the mainstream media. Foreign actors can more easily influence elections through social
media outlets than they can through mainstream media outlets.

 In particular, it has been suggested that Russia meddled in the 2016 election through actions on
social media such as misinforming African-Americans about the electoral process and
disseminating far-right content.

On the other hand, social media can be a useful device for increasing voter engagement, particularly
amongst younger voters who are relatively less likely to read newspapers or watch the news.

WUDC 2016 Quarter Finals: Opening Government

THS the Establishment of a Black Secessionary State Within the Territory of the US, the Founding of
Which is Supported by the American Government.

Prime Minister: Mr. Speaker, the United States of America is a global empire built upon the subjugation
of the black body. A nation built on a tradition of plunder, of slavery and of exclusion, a condition that
continues to this day in a modern Jim Crow, where black people are locked up in prisons, where they
are systematically kept out of the halls of power and the bastions of opportunity that we call things like
education and health care. We’re proud, on opening government to stand for a people who have now
withstood 400 years of victimization, marginalization, and exclusion. We say enough is enough, we’ll
give them a state. A three-part model from Opening Government:

(1) First, we’re going to give them a resource rich, well located part of the
United States, following on the tradition of reparation-based state
giving i.e. Israel. And just for the sake of it, we’re going to give them
Texas.
(2) The second thing: we’re going to fulfil the reparation part of our model
by saying that the United States government as it presently stands will
provide technical expertise and in the first few years to get it off the
ground, we’ll provide the funding for the budget.
(3) Will stand as any other nation, that’s to say you can have dual
citizenship with the United States, we think that’s okay for instance.
We think that it will be recognized by international organizations like
the GA. We allow the free flow of remittances back into that nation.

First Argument: The principle of reparation.

We say, first of all, the most important thing when it comes to reparations for historical injustice is that
it be directly proportionate.

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 i) It is a requirement of the principle of fairness, that is to say justice, that
when you have a violation of the principle equality of individuals. That
what is involved is the restoration of that past equality.
ii) The reason that that’s precisely important in this instance is because
any other form of reparation would be totally incommensurable to the
kind harm inflicted upon these people.
iii) So, you may apologize, or you may give them more funding which is
what we suspect those guys are going to stand for, but that will never
systematically count for the kind of harms that we visited upon those.

What are precisely the harms that the United States government have systematically inflicted on African
Americans and why does that necessarily require statehood as the measure and the mechanism of
reparation.

Three things that we did:

(1) We denied them nationhood. And most directly we denied them

nationhood. The black population of the United States begins on a
fundamental act of displacement. That is to say, white people going
into Africa and rounding people onto ships, taking them out of nations
that they had already belonged to, nations they could otherwise freely
move out of. So, it comes from displacement and it comes from a
refusal to allow people to immigrate. You couldn’t, as a black slave,
move out of your state let alone out of your country. The denial of that
ability to choose your nation for yourself is one that requires direct
redress in the form of statehood.
(2) We disenfranchised them. That is to say your democratic right to be
heard, to be counted as a citizen among equals in a polis. That requires
directly, an engagement with a state that gives you precisely that
democratic right. We think that enhancement of citizenship is
something that’s required.
(3) The harm visited upon African Americans is plunder. We say that the
harm of US government policy, isn’t just that they did negative
policies, but rather that they stole money from African Americans.
How did they do this. First, they taxed them without giving them any
representation. If you tax people with the promise that you’ll get equal
opportunities, education, and health, but don’t provide any of those
things, we say that that is theft. When you lock up individuals unjustly
and deprive them of their productive capacity to work or to earn a
living wage for themselves, that too is theft.

We say that those three things require in principle statehood. The importance of this argument is that
it’s not premised on any hypothetical successes or failures of that future state. That is to say it’s in those
people’s right to exercise for themselves and to form a system of government that they think will work
for them. Just the way we don’t deny any citizen the right to a nation just because we don’t think it will
work out for them, we think here the principle of reparation makes it a requirement.

Second. This makes it better for African Americans.

We’re going to explain, why the comparative they need to defend on their side is delayed reform, and
in many instances no reform at all. The reason why that’s the case is because African Americans have
limited democratic representation in the United States as it presently stands. This is for a host of reasons.

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 i) It’s for zoning laws that have gerrymandering which have
almost irreversibly meant that black people are put into
smaller ghettos rather than having a bigger say in broader
electorates.
ii) It’s for a history of disenfranchisement, which means that
African Americans are systemically less likely to turn out and
to exercise their right to vote.
iii) Because of the control of the media and organizations like Fox
and more importantly local media which is disproportionately
owned by white people.
iv) It’s because of schooling and the ability to find education
which directly correlates with you understanding voting issues
and being able to turn out the vote and the systemic failures of
schools in African American districts.
v) Lastly, it’s for the existence of a two-party system, where the
Democrats can by and large count on African American votes.

POI: Why don’t politicians in the Democratic party have an incentive to cater to African American
interests if anything to ensure turnout which you say doesn’t happen in the status quo.

Answer: Because they won’t vote Republican.

The second thing I’m going to talk about is what kind of change this leads to. The first thing that this
does is that it gives them more money. Where does that money come from?

i) It comes from resources that they get by controlling oil mines, and
we’re happy to give them – like if we do shale in Alaska for instance
– we’re happy to give them a cut of that as well.
ii) The reason why that money and those resources rents don’t currently
get to African Americans is because of really low tax rates, which
means that it goes into the pockets of executives at Enron instead of
African American communities.
iii) Internally, it means that African Americans for the first time have jobs
on all different levels of the corporate structure. That’s to say you’re
not just a low-level employee, which can happen presently, but your
middle management and upper management as well.
iv) The third thing is, within the state you don’t have to do silly things that
the US system does at the moment like spending a vast amount of their
GDP on military for instance or for farm subsidies for white farmers
in Iowa. We think that makes them do those things. That kind of
money is going to go towards productive things like the education and
healthcare system which for far too long has been disenfranchised.

We think it allows them to escape from a police state that has been oppressing them. Reparations is a
principled requirement. Statehood is the only way to deliver on that promise. We’re very proud to
propose.

USUDC BP Grand Finals: Opening Government

THW, as the United States Government, provide unconditional amnesty and citizenship to non-violent
illegal immigrants.

Madam Speaker, this is a debate about the invisible citizens of this republic. People who live amongst
us, people who contribute to the rich diversity and the prosperity of the United States, and for all intents
and purposes call themselves Americans, but people who in the status quo are relegated permanently to

44
live in the shadows. Shadows of disenfranchisement, shadows of abuse, shadows of neglect. We say in
this debate that it’s time that we bring those 10 million people for the first time to the light.

Two part very simple model.

(1) We’re going to grant unconditional amnesty in the way the Reagan administration did provided
that they didn’t break any laws i.e. they didn’t have any convictions.
(2) To the extent that we are going to re-appropriate those funds, we think border protection by and
large has been shown to be ineffective, so we think the kinds of things that are going to alleviate
situations overseas is intensify trade with Mexico for instance, divert funds away from the drug
war, we think that’s what’s going to deal with the immigration situation overseas. To that extent
I’m going to bring you three arguments.

First Argument. In principle, immigration ought to be as free as possible. Two things to say.

(1) We prioritize the rights of individuals to seek immigration and to enjoy the benefits of
immigration over the right of any state to impose controls.
a) Because the derivation and the source of the state’s rights are based on
morally arbitrary grounds. That is to say that goodness isn’t spread into
particular geographic locations, that individuals fully endowed with
human rights are born into many disparate situations. Compare that to the
states where it is constructed to a series of legal conventions that were done
mostly through the construct of western nations. The source of the rights
forces us to side with one side.
b) We say there are interests that are incommensurable and that we have
reason to prefer that of individuals. That’s why we recognize things like
refugee status. That in the vast majority of instances we’re going to
contend, that no trade-off exists between states’ interests and granting
these people amnesty, that is to say that the United States, fairly wealthy
in terms of its infrastructure and in terms of its natural resources, it’s
estimated can take up to two hundred million people in the next decade
without much strain. That is to say that ten million to which we are granting
these benefits won’t be under strain, but even if it does, we still prefer that
of the citizens, that’s to say that the United States has available to its
surplus alternatives that its citizens don’t. That is to say that the United
States can slightly worsen services in certain areas in exchange for giving
people a fairer shot at life. We think that in the vast majority of instances
this amounts to them granting refugee status.

(2) Why in particular does the United States owe this obligation to the ten million to
which this debate pertains. We think citizenship, an arbitrary concept, grants and
gains moral significance under two conditions.

i. It is on the basis of reciprocity, where citizens contributing to the

welfare of the state are granted recognition. That’s precisely what
these people are doing when they work for us when they abide by our
laws.
ii. We do it when people identify as Americans and see themselves
intrinsically as a part of society. We see that and the greatest symptom
for that is that these people stuck by our laws and continue to call
America home. In principle this is just.

Second, this benefits immigrants’ lives. Five Reasons why this is the case.

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 1. First, it takes away the constant fear of persecution, the very thing that we grant refugee status
in exchange for. That is to say not only individuals who can’t go to Walmart, who can’t go to
their local schools without fear of their fake identity being discovered. Those people’s fears go
away. But so does the fear of communities who house them, like local churches who look after
those people and families who take in other immigrants of the same ethnicity
2. Two, they get better wages under our side. That is to say that for the first time you can join the
formal economy, you’re no longer exploited by people who threaten to rat you out if you dare
ask for higher wages. You’ll get that under our side.
3. Third, you get legal rights and access to courts in a way that doesn’t exist at the moment. That’s
to say when somebody runs you off in a car on the road, something as mundane as that, you
have very few means of recourse, you often hide from hospitals in order to prevent yourself
being caught, we think that’s disgusting.
4. Fourth, you get access to benefits that other people in similar circumstances would. That if you
are unemployed or going through hard times, you as a citizen that has been abiding by its laws
and contributing to its economic prosperity get those benefits.
5. Finally, you don’t get the stigmatization of all immigrants under our side. That is to say even
people who are granted amnesty at some point, or citizenship at some point, that people can’t
say that you, because you are Mexican, may be an illegal immigrant and treat you accordingly.
We think that that decreases the persecution of all ethnic minorities including the immigrants
themselves.

Third Argument. On the United States, what does this do. Two things to talk about.

1. First of all, it benefits the U.S. economy. Currently, millions upon millions of dollars are spent
on things that have been shown time and time again to be ineffective. That is to say:
a. Prosecuting these people through the courts
b. Chasing them up and deporting them
c. Funding I.C.E

So, it reduces the cost of prosecution and deportation which has been harmful. It allows them to join
the formal economy, that means the government can plan in a way that it doesn’t currently about where
to divert its resources, knowing where most of the people are going to work.

POI: When you encourage more illegal immigration by establishing this precedent, won’t that lead to
more stigmatization in the future?

So, that was the part in the model where I said it hasn’t been shown that incentives are what is at play.
Pull factors are than less significant than the push factors. That’s evident in the fact that they don’t come
here for a terrible life when they face the fear of persecution, they come here because the conditions of
the drug war are awful. That’s what we would rectify instead.

2. They’re able to get credit from banks and do things like start their own businesses involving
local communities and being integrated fully. That economic autonomy benefits the state as a
whole. But second of all, it helps the society and the way that the societal cohesion works. First
of all, this massively decreases crime. That is to say, even the illegal immigrants who are forced
into criminal lifecycles are done so because they have no means of recourse in legal courts,
because they have lower wages than everybody else, and because they can’t join the formal
economy. Recognition and rights solve that problem. Finally, it reduces distrust of immigration
in particular. I’ve discussed that and why it’s beneficial for cohesion.

We’re not talking about illegal immigrants, we’re talking about invisible citizens who now need to be
recognised. Proud to propose.

THW, as California, secede from the United States of America if Donald Trump is re-elected.

46
Adjudicator, Californians live under a system of disenfranchisement and dictatorship which unjustly
denies them of their fundamental right to self-determination. On side affirmative, we stand for that right,
we stand for the right of all Californians to stand up to an oppressive regime, and we stand for their
right to exercise their democratic and political autonomy.

One quick point of setup before beginning our argumentation, which is that given that this is an actor
debate which specifically demands a justification for “we as California” to secede from the United
States, our burden is to show you that for California specifically, this would be a beneficial decision,
not to demonstrate that this policy would be good for the United States as a whole.

To that extent, we’re perfectly happy for the success of the new Californian state to be at the expense
of the United States or premised on the USA losing some power insofar as the extent of oppression and
injustice in California is so great. Two arguments:

(1) That California is oppressed and trapped in an undemocratic system and must therefore
secede.
(2) At second speaker, we’ll detail the significant external factors why California should
secede from the Union.

We propose that California secede from the United States, and become its own sovereign state, electing
its own leaders and allowing free flow of remittances between the United States and the newfound
Californian State.

My first argument will prove that the Union represents an affront to the democratic values that.
Underpin the autonomy and legislative capacity of California which necessitates their exit.

This is important because the ability of a people to control the kinds of laws imposed upon them, the
extent to which they are taxed, and the distribution of their own money is the most fundamental right
of any state on earth which California is currently being denied in three ways;

(1) The Electoral College disenfranchises Californian citizens in a number of ways;

a) It is non-representative, meaning that 300 million other American voters

whose interests are not aligned with those of Californians get to dictate
legislation which has a massive impact on their lives, such as taxation
policy, economic reform, budget expenditure, health care or education,
effectively making Californians slaves to other voters who have no
connection to the impacts of these policies.

b) Notice that the fact that the Electoral College system preferences states in
the rust belt by giving them more per capita voting power means that many
of the issues I just mentioned never get rectified because, old white voters
in Iowa who do nothing but vote for the loosening gun laws ultimately
control other states like California. Not only is that non-representation
responsible for most gun violence in California, and other similar issues
that would be rectified by giving them more autonomy like having better
health care, but what the Electoral College system then does is gives
Californians less power in American democracy. For example, 140,000
voters in Wyoming have the same voting power as 500,000 voters in
California because of a voting system that unfairly preferences rural states
with smaller populations. This is particularly unfair because it means that
all the 40 million Californian voters have significantly less power over
their own lives.

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(2) These policies passed by unrepresentative governments hurt Californians in a way that makes
it necessary that they secede because;

a) This means that a state like California, who vote overwhelmingly

Democrat and have done so for years, are denied their right to self-
determination and are forced into term after term of regressive Republican
administrations who strangle them socially, economically and hinder their
ability to pass critical reforms within their states such as health care
accessibility, education expenditures or bolstering internal welfare
systems because they don’t control the federal budget. Laws they can’t
control like tight immigration restrictions or trade wars that impact their
economic capabilities additionally hurt them.

b) Notice that these are all laws that we would otherwise be able to pass
within the state of California because they have up to 70% support from
citizens of that state. Which is another huge benefit from affirmative
today.

(3) The extension of Donald Trump’s term signifies an irreversible trend toward nationalism and
the prolonged continuation of these policies in America, meaning that overall, California would
certainly be better off seceding as soon as possible before further harms accrue.

This is necessarily true because Donald Trump is a polarising figure who has shown no signs of self-
moderating, meaning that if the Republican platform of minimal gun reform, continued restrictions of
immigration, refusal to fund education or failures develop healthcare continue to somehow win
elections in the United States, it’s a sign that the values and ideals governing legislation in Washington
are continuing to fall further and further from those of the 40 million liberals in California who have a
right to that healthcare, a right to that education and a right to gun laws and immigration reform that
aligns with their individual needs.

Overall, the system under which they want to force California to operate strips them of their basic rights
to self-determination, largely impedes on their ability to form representative legislation at a federal level
and the re-election of a President on this policy agenda is a sign that this divide is only ever going to
grow.

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 International Relations
IR Framing

Framing General IR Motions

Think about where certain incentives come from, why they exist, and which are stronger than others.

Framing (I): Notice that IR motions all have domestic politics aspects to them.

 For example, Scott Morrison and Jerusalem (appealing to marginal seat Jewish
voters at the time of a byelection)
 Modi and Pakistan
 Invading Iraq in the panic following 9/11
 Domestic voters vote to enter these wars, that’s where the incentive comes
from

Framing (II): The “multipolar world” forces different actors to work together and narrative-push.

 Trump helps Khalifa Haftan (in Libya) because the UAE and Saudi Arabia like
him, which is a win for Trump’s relations but terrible for people on the ground
because he prolonged the conflict for years.
 USA is anti-globalism but pro-globalism against China.

CONNOR SAYS:

ALWAYS GO NEG FOR INTERVENTION

ALWAYS GO AFF FOR INTERNATIONAL AID (Or China Steps In)

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Specifically Framing Ethnic Conflicts and Civil Wars

 The framing below can really help in an ethnic conflict debate to constrain the incentives of the
leaders of these movements, to expand the scope of the debate, especially in developing nations
and also to make peace seem more plausible;

Framing (I): Interestingly, most aren’t ethnic at all. The politicization of

ascriptive characteristics allows them to function. There’s a
case that these are political opportunists taking advantage of
unstable regions using ethnicity as their name.
Framing (II): In Kyrgyzstan, you have multiple groups who claim to speak
for the Kurds, if it was nationality and nationality only, they
would be working together. You see it in India, that when you
introduce semi-autonomous regions that are relatively
ethnically homogenous, they start picking on other ascriptive
characteristics like class upon which to divide their society.
Therefore, these are political and not only ethnic conflicts.
Framing (III): The nature of conflict is that the alternative of power sharing
is much more realistic than people might imagine. Because in
many of these countries the force of democratization forces
the hand of the elite. When the Islamic Ennahda Party forms a
fairly successful power sharing agreement in the Tunisia with
the secular Nidaa Tounes Party is because there was internal
pressure to do so, international oversight is also often helpful.

 Ethnic conflicts remove people’s right to preference the security of their family or staying in
social networks and force them to identify with their ethnicity over all of those parts of their
life.
 They also increase the scope of conflict, brandish everybody as a certain ethnic class, it forces
them to engage in that war (this is the problem with propositions to create a Shi’a opposition to
ISIS in the Levant because it’s likely to force Sunnis to align themselves with extremists).
 Also, when debating the formation of ethno-states, for example in the Yale 2014 Semi-final
“TH supports the use of forced population transfers that create separate, ethnically homogenous
states as a solution to prolonged ethnic conflict”, don’t take any implicit premises for granted,
especially that states based on ethnicity are intrinsically bad. Why are they harmful?

(1) You get political exclusion. This is the fate of Arab Israelis that are systematically
denied access to that government because it was founded on a particular conception
on what it means to be an Israeli which in turn forces these governments further to
the right (e.g. Netanyahu).

(2) There is a constant fight to determine what a particular nationality means rather
that furthering the effectiveness of the state. For example, in Xinjiang province in
China, where throwing Uighur Muslims into “re-education camps” takes
precedence over economic development. Now, the Hanification of Xinjiang and
the accompanying security costs have increased 10-fold since 2009, and the
Chinese government has to subsidise most activity in Xinjiang to sustain projects
that defy economic logic.

(3) It means that you define your country in opposition to something else. So, what it
means for North Korea to end of every line with a line by line comparison to the
devils in South Korea means that they can never move on from that particular
historical narrative.

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 (4) In many of the regions we’re talking about (Middle East or Africa) drawing
arbitrary lines based on ethnicity (like if you slice Iraq into Kurdish land, Sunni
land and Shi’a land) you cut off vital access to natural resources and strangle states.
For example, the South Sudanese get very little compensation from oil because the
pipelines happen to run through the north of Sudan.

(5) In the long run, it creates dependant states. So, once an independent Shia region
becomes a state, it becomes reliant on the state of Iran. If the Sunnis create their
own group, it becomes dependant on the support of the Saudis. So, self-
determination principles go out the window, because, you can’t self-define when
(1) ethnic descriptions and the definition of the state systematically excludes some
people and, (2), when it creates dependence.

Problems with Democratisation Initiatives in Developing States

• Things to consider here are: the kinds of leaders that arise, the reasons for which populist
platforms may be the most electorally gainful in these specific new democracies, the tendency
of the West to disengage from these states right after their interventions, weak democratic
structures that can be easily manipulated, the role of the military in these states and different
models of government in ethnically/religiously divided states.
• Look at Iraq. The very next day after US forces left, the Shia-dominated Iraqi government had
an arrest warrant out for the Sunni vice-president. Government minus dissenting voices equals
free reign to implement policies.
• Foreign-imposed regime changes tend to be equally problematic for similar reasons, and the
fact they often tie the regime directly to a set of Western valued or impositions.
• Focus on Institutional Change, Not Leadership Change. Interventions that “decapitate” a
regime by removing an individual leader but leave the wider political institutions of the regime
intact, are the least likely to promote democracy. Interventions are more likely to succeed when
the intervener takes concrete steps to build new democratic political institutions, such as
sponsoring elections, but only in states where economic and social conditions are already
favourable to democracy.
• The Paradox of Foreign-Imposed Regime Change. Policymakers weighing foreign-imposed
regime change as a path to democracy in foreign states face a paradox: weak or poor states are
the most vulnerable to imposed regime change but are also the least likely to democratize
following intervention.
• Although on balance foreign-imposed regime change fails to lead to democratic change, several
factors can increase the odds of success. Regime change is most likely to result in democratic
progress under three conditions: when the intervening state takes concrete steps to create new
democratic political institutions, such as sponsoring elections; when economic and social
conditions in a state targeted for intervention are already favourable to democracy; and when
interventions restore a previous democratic regime to power.

(1) Interventions that overthrow a state’s primary leader but leave the wider
political institutions of the regime intact, are the least likely to result in
sustained democratic change. Leaders brought to power by foreign
intervention broad-based domestic constituencies, can become dependent
on the outside power for support, are more interested in consolidating their
own rule than in democratic reform. They’re unwilling to risk losing power
through free and fair elections. For example, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi
(Iran 1953) and Augusto Pinochet (Chile 1973) came to power in the wake
of U.S.-backed coups, but established dictatorships and resisted
relinquishing office through democratic procedures. Other leaders, such as

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 Carlos Castillo Armas (Guatemala 1954), were themselves violently
removed from power (a fate shared by Iran’s Reza Pahlavi).
(2) Favourable domestic conditions can help sustain democratic institutions
created by outsiders. Three internal factors are associated with successful
externally led democratization: economic development, social and ethnic
homogeneity, and a previous history of democratic government. Reforms
initiated by the US during the military occupations of Japan and West
Germany beginning in 1945 succeeded in part because these countries
already had industrialized economies with low levels of ethnic and
linguistic diversity. However, states without these preconditions face
substantial barriers to democratization, even with the best efforts of
outsiders. In Iraq, regime change triggered a violent sectarian conflict
among the Iraqi Sunni and Shia communities, hindering the political
compromises and power-sharing necessary for democratic reform.
(3) Foreign-imposed regime change can also succeed under a third condition:
when intervention restores a previous democratic regime to power. The
Allied victory in 1945 returned several democratic governments to power
in Western European states that had been occupied by Germany, including
France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. However, in these cases military
intervention did not transform non-democratic states into democracies;
rather, the United States restored legitimate and long-standing regimes to
power after a war-time interruption. These cases therefore tell us little
about the ability of outsiders to engineer democratic institutions where
they did not previously exist.

• Iraq: Any democratic improvements achieved through military intervention must also be
weighed against the costs. The war in Iraq, for example, resulted in approximately 4,500 U.S.
military fatalities and over 100,000 Iraqi civilian deaths (according to conservative estimates),
at an estimated financial cost of over $4.5 trillion dollars, including the cost of funding military
operations, interest payments on the debt incurred, and long-term medical care for injured
veterans. Yet after a decade of war, these efforts have produced little democratic progress:
according to measures such as Freedom House’s Freedom in the World survey, Iraq is barely
more democratic than it was prior to the 2003 invasion. Even if democratic gains are possible
under some circumstances, military intervention may not be worth the price.

Latin America: Venezuela

Very Quick Summary (Chavez, Maduro, Oil and Socialism)

• Venezuela was once the wealthiest nation in Latin America with the largest oil reserves in the
world.
• Was a democratic nation through the 1970s and 1980s – not any more (until last month)
• 2,000% Inflation, food shortages, medicinal shortages, high crime and murder rate
• Violent protests in the last few years
• Much of this was attributed to the election of Nicholas Maduro’s socialist government in 2013,
with recent polls showing that 80% of people want him removed from office
• The basic origins of the democratic deficit in Venezuela began in 2015, when Maduro’s
majority was threatened by “Unity Roundtable” or “MUD” and he expelled a number of
politicians and Supreme Court Justices and replaced them with his cronies and loyalists
• In 2016, that Supreme Court then ruled to strip the opposition-led national assembly of its
powers which began massive protests
• In 2017 Maduro held a vote to effectively disband the National Assembly and replace it with a
National Constituent Assembly, giving him power to rewrite all laws with virtually no
opposition

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 • Unlike his predecessor, Hugo Chavez, Maduro did not hold a vote to decide whether or not to
re-elect members of the Constituent Assembly, and only voted on whether or not the National
Constituent Assembly should re-write the constitution
• Chavez was successful (especially during the 2004 oil surge) in garnering support from the
poor to prop up his regime, he used earnings from oil to fund social-welfare programs for the
poor.
• He subsidised food, built a healthcare system and improved education – he reduced poverty by
more than half.
• He needed to keep the poor happy, so he rigged the economy to do that, maintaining an
unsustainable dependence on oil and very high public spending that was impossible to sustain
if oil prices fell.
• When Chavez died and Maduro took over in 2013/14, oil prices fell, and hyperinflation began.
• 82% of the population are in poverty
• In the 2000s, Chávez purged skilled managers, engineers and technicians from the state-owned
oil giant PDVSA, stocking it with government loyalists. That set it up for a catastrophic failure
as global prices fell from record highs. Venezuelan oil output is now at its lowest levels since
the 1950s.
• Currency Manipulation had terrible impacts, in the 1980s, a “full professor” needed to pay
almost 15 minutes of his salary to buy one kilogram of beef. Today, in July 2017, our full
professor needs to pay the equivalent of 18 hours to buy the same amount of beef. During the
1980s, our full professor needed to pay almost one year’s salary for a new sedan. Today, he
must pay the equivalent of 25 years of his salary. In the 1980s, a full professor with his monthly
salary could buy 17 basic baskets of essential goods. Today, he can buy just one-quarter of a
basic basket.
• Maduro exploited the complex currency system put in place by Chavez and tried to implement
a rate of 10:1 between the Bolivar and the USD (the actual rate is more like 12,100:1) but what
the military does is they buy food at the special 10:1 rate, and resells it on the black market to
starving Venezuelans at the 12:100:1 rate making a massive profit.
• Military generals and political allies see this is a lucrative arbitrage opportunity that allowed
Maduro to keep his cronies in place.
• But socialism’s role in Venezuela’s collapse, observers say, is not as clear as either side likes
to think. At least fleetingly, socialist policies propped up by state petrodollars helped bolster
the country’s status as one of the Western Hemisphere’s most equitable societies. But state-
heavy policies that distorted prices and exchange rates, coupled with corruption,
mismanagement and official repression, turned Venezuela’s economic landscape into scorched
earth.
• A partial police state, Venezuela is a distant, ruthless cousin of European socialism. There is
no comparing it to free Canadian health care or high French tax rates.
• But it is also not communist Cuba or North Korea, where foreign investment and private
ownership are strictly limited. Although many of them have fled the nation, wealthy
Venezuelans still own private companies and high-walled mansions in elite neighbourhoods.
They play golf at country clubs and are taxed at a relatively manageable 34%.

 Massive government spending (esp. Under Chavez) (Case study: Bolivarian missions which
aimed to reallocate wealth to poor in Venezuela) which amassed large foreign debts. (approx.
$170 billion in 2014).
 Low oil prices (which significantly lowered their petroleum export revenue which accounts for
50% of Venezuelan GDP).
 Failed solution (tried to print more money, also created new currency named ‘Sovereign
Bolivar’)

Incumbent Juan Guaido

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 • Mr Guaidó has won the backing of most of Latin America, as well as the United States and
Europe. Protests planned for February 2nd promise to be even bigger. But Mr Maduro is
supported by the army as well as Russia, China and Turkey.
• The region is struggling with the exodus of over 3m of its people fleeing hunger, repression
and the socialist dystopia created by the late Hugo Chávez.
• And as world leaders pile in for Mr Maduro or against him, they are battling over an important
idea which has lately fallen out of favour: that when a leader pillages his state, oppresses his
people and subverts the rule of law, it is everybody’s business.
• Mr Guaidó’s backers have ways to help without resorting to force or dirty tricks. He must create
incentives for Venezuelans to demand change, for the army to abandon the regime.
• Now that Mr Guaidó has been recognised as interim president, he stands to control billions of
dollars of Venezuela’s foreign assets if power shifts. The national assembly has passed a law
offering an amnesty to soldiers and civilians who work to re-institute democracy. Mr Maduro
is being promised the chance to flee the country.
• The second way to help is to let Venezuelans know that the world is ready if Mr Guaidó takes
power. The lesson from the Arab spring is that even a leader who starts by sweeping away a
tyrant must bring improvements rapidly or risk losing support. The immediate priorities will be
food and health care. The very fact of a new government will help stop hyperinflation.
• The to-do list is long: Venezuela will need to remove price controls and other distortions and
build a social safety-net. It must restart the oil industry, which will entail welcoming foreign
investment. Its debt will need restructuring—including the debt to Russia and China which is
due to be paid in oil. And amid all this, Mr Guaidó’s caretaker government must hold election.

Other Venezuelan Relations

• By ordering that payments for Venezuelan oil must be put in bank accounts reserved for Mr
Guaidó’s government, the United States aims to asphyxiate the regime, in the hope that the
armed forces will switch to Mr Guaidó.

 BRAZIL: History not that important. The current state of relations is such that neither country
has an ambassador present in the other following the expulsion of both Delgado (from Brasilia)
and Pereira (from Caracas). Brazil is currently mirroring the pushback against Maduro’s regime
present in large regions around South America (notably from countries such as Colombia and
Guyana). Mass migration of impoverished masses occurring from Venezuela into Northern
Brazil occurring at the moment, government is worried about state of Venezuela. In contrast to
the Mexican president, Jair Bolsonaro, the new Brazilian president has vowed to “do whatever
necessary to defeat the (Venezuelan) government”. Rumours are also rife about secret
conversations with the Colombian government over a possible military intervention.

 USA: Following Chavez’ death due to cancer Maduro rose to office through a really tight
election (51% majority). Obama admin. was not convinced and asked for a recount of the votes,
Maduro not only declined but called Obama himself a literal “devil”. The US is a scapegoat in
Venezuelan politics vilified as the cause of the oil crash responsible for Venezuela’s
deteriorating economic condition and blamed for conspiracies against the state (most notably
during the US’ joint aid mission with Brazil 2018). Strongly tied to Iran and Cuba (who aren’t
big fans of the US). Venezuela is ideologically opposed to West in ideology (most notably
privatisation and free market capitalism which the US embodies). No meaningful relation has
formed, and the US considers Guiado the rightful leader of Venezuela.

 MEXICO: The current Mexican government leads in condemning the corrupt Venezuelan
regime but the New Mexican president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador may change this having
invited Madura to his inauguration and reasserting the foreign policy of non-intervention in the
affairs of foreign nations.

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Latin America: Mexico

Mexico has become open and competitive, dominated by manufacturing, a huge gain from the closed
commodity driven economy of 30 years ago. Development of stable fiscal policies helping the nation
to compete in a background of global financial volatility.

Government

 A federal presidential representative democratic republic

 President is both head of state, executive and government
 6-year term and cannot be re-elected during that
 Mandated to appoint and dismiss ministers of his executive
 Appoints federal district mayor, magistrates of the Supreme Court and top officials of the
military with approval of senate
 Catch: elected by absolute majority (makes bill passing easier)

Partnerships

NAFTA

 Signed by Canada, Mexico and US to create a triangular trade bloc.

 The NAFTA immediately eliminated tariffs on more than one half of Mexico’s exports to the
US and more than one third vice versa.
 Spurred hundreds of billions in foreign investment in Mexico which diversified the economy
and provided thousands of new jobs.

USMCA (2018)

 A trade deal to replace “The catastrophe known as NAFTA” by Trump to “deliver for American
workers like they have not had developed to for a long time”
 Automobiles must have 75% of components manufactured in Mexico, US or Canada to qualify
for zero tariffs (up from the 62.5% under NAFTA)
 Here’s the crucial bit:
 40-45% of a vehicle must be made by workers earning at least $16 an hour

Implications

 Measure aimed at discouraging industries from shifting work to lower-wage Mexico

 Good for labourers in Mexico but a strain on the domestic industries
 Pushes down Mexico’s competitive advantage
 Willing to accept the terms of USMCA to keep their trade bloc with the North

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (Has Absolute Majority)

 President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador elected in 2018 after 18 years campaigning and 2
previous failed presidential runs
 Now has received support of 53% of voters and his 4-year-old political party (National
Regeneration Movement) gained a majority in congress
 Populist rhetoric: criticism of the country’s corruption, violence and inequalities resonated
 Worrisome:

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  Plays of personal political plays have begun through dubious looking “referendums”, polling
small percentages of population (politically skewed groups) in leading questions on
infrastructure projects, social programs and even whether to prosecute former presidents
 Appointed loyal cronies to the states, displacing elected governors and mayors
 Moved to cut judges’ salaries and take control of promotions
 Implications: sweeping away years of legal precedents, diminishing the stature and role of the
legislative/judicial branches
 Continues his criticism of the press and dismissal of civil society
 Salary cuts and sackings are weeding out the technically minded and non-partisans in civil
service
 Bully tactics of congressional inquiries and tax questioning to go after people who question
him
 Implications: undermines democratic voices that could keep him accountable in the future

How does he maintain support - a record high?

 Goes after the masses

 sacrificed educational reform to gain loyalty of a teacher’s union of more than a million people
 Establishing a parallel labour league to challenge the Mexican Workers Confederation which
is allied to the once dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party
 Offering price supports on rice, beans, corn and wheat to farmers
 Doling out cash for pensioners, students and disabled: Subsistence farming subsidies and
stipends (10 of millions of $$)
 Giving the military own independent sources of revenue through construction and operation of
a New Mexico City airport and other real estate
 Implications:
 Keeps people captive in a political base (patronage) diluting political discourse and
accountability
 Keeping certain people close decreases transparency
Europe: The European Union

Overview of European Union

Modern European politics is dominated by the EU since the fall of the Iron Curtain (Separation of
eastern and Western Europe) and the collapse of the eastern communist states. The EU was created by
the Maastricht Treaty, which entered into force on November 1, 1993. The treaty was designed to
enhance European political and economic integration by creating a single currency (the euro), a unified
foreign and security policy and common citizenship rights. The EU has goals to advance cooperation
in the areas of immigration, asylum, and judicial affairs.

NATO - The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation

 Military alliance of mainly European states together the US and Canada

 Founded as a collective security measure following WW2

Objectives: Common single market, single currency, common agricultural policy and common fisheries
policy

GUAM Organisation for Democracy and Economic Development

 Regional organisation of Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova

 Created as a way of countering the Russian influence in these areas as it receives backing and
encouragement from the US

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EU Members: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia,
Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the
Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden

Conditions for Membership

 Complying with all the EU's standards and rules

 Having the consent of the EU institutions and EU member states
 Having the consent of their citizens – as expressed through approval in their national parliament
or by referendum
 First step is accession
 Stable institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect for and
protection of minorities
Aa functioning market economy and the capacity to cope with competition and market forces
in the EU
 The ability to take on and implement effectively the obligations of membership, including
adherence to the aims of political, economic and monetary union

Albania

 Recognised as potential candidate

 But the EU has urged Albania to do more to tackle corruption and organised crime, especially
crime relating to immigration and human trafficking and drugs in order to meet EU accession
criteria
 Concluded on the Stabilisation and Association Agreement * in 2006 (first step towards
membership)

Bosnia and Herzegovina

 Potential candidate, applied formally for membership in 2016 but yet to be given a response
from the council.
 Signed a Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) with the EU in 2008.
 The EU was satisfied with progress in four key areas - police reform, cooperation with the
international war crimes tribunal, public broadcasting and public administration reform.
 Visa-free travel to the Schengen zone began in mid-December 2010 for Bosnians with
biometric passports.
 EU still concerned with Bosnia’s ethnic quarrels - The European Court of Human Rights has
ruled that Bosnia's electoral laws discriminate against Jews and Roma (Gypsies), because only
Bosnia’s, Croats and Serbs are allowed to run for high office.

Croatia

 Joined EU
 Croatia's accession was widely seen as a strong signal of EU commitment to a region that was
ravaged by war in the 1990s
 Judicial reform negotiated with EU
 More transparency, clear court backlogs and investigate high profile corruption cases

Iceland

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  Negotiations for accession started in 2010
 Criteria met
 A new centre-right coalition government took office in May 2013 and immediately announced
that a referendum would be held on EU membership before any further accession negotiations
 If negotiations were to resume, Iceland would face controversial issues on fisheries which could
potentially derail an agreement, despite already being a member of the European Economic
Area (which excludes fishery and whaling)
 Icelandic membership would give the EU a more significant role in the Arctic (region rich in
energy and mineral resources)

Kosovo

 Potential candidate
 Serbia alongside Russia, China and 5 other EU member states do not recognise the breakaway
territory in the Balkans
 Aiming to reach a Stabilisation and Association Agreement
 EU calls for further efforts to tackle human trafficking in Kosovo and gangs that smuggle drugs
and illegal weapons
 Protection of minority rights and freedom of speech are also significant challenges that Kosovo
must meet on the path to EU membership

Macedonia

 Submitted application in 2004 but progress has been stalled by Greece over naming disputes
 Has made progress in tackling police reform, corruption and advancing human rights
 Greece objected diplomatic recognition of the country under the name of "Republic of
Macedonia" due to hints of territorial ambitions towards Greece's own provinces in Macedonia
 Greece vetoed Macedonia’s accession
 On 12 June 2018, an agreement was reached between Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras and
his Macedonian counterpart Zoran Zaev, known as the Prespa agreement, under which the
country would be renamed the "Republic of North Macedonia"
 As part of this deal, Greece withdrew previous opposition, allowing EU to approve on June 27
the start of accession talks with the future Republic of North Macedonia, at that point still
referred in official documents as "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia"

Montenegro

 The EU says Montenegro must intensify its efforts to consolidate the rule of law, fight organised
crime/corruption and protect freedom of expression
 Talks with the EU on a Stability and Association Agreement began shortly after the country
voted, in May 2006, to end its union with Serbia
 The SAA was signed in October 2007
 Serbia
 Serbia's co-operation with the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague remains a key
condition in its accession bid (Bosnian War)
 Signed the SAA

Turkey

 Confirmed as candidate
 The negotiations have been overshadowed by concerns about freedom of speech and
democracy in Turkey, treatment of religious minorities, women's and children's rights, civilian
control of the military and the Cyprus tensions

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  Some politicians worry that such a large, mainly Muslim country would change the whole
character of the EU, while others point to the young labour force that Turkey could provide for
an ageing Europe
 European Commission has underlined the need for judicial reform in the nation in order to
access EU membership

Ukraine

 Partner in ENP policy

 The association agreement (association between EU, member states and important non-EU
partners) was initiated in 2012
 Ukrainian government suspended preparations for signing the association agreement during the
presidency of pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovych
 The decision to put off signing the association agreement led to the pro-EU Euromaidan
movement
 Led to the removal of Yanukovych and his government by parliament after the 2014 Ukrainian
revolution in February 2014
 Since then, Ukraine has been striving towards integration into the European Union whilst the
eastern part of the county has been engaged in pro-Russian unrest, opposing the Euromaidan
movement

Balkan Wars

 2 conflicts between 1912 and 1913

 Involving 4 Balkan States (Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece and Montenegro) and the Ottoman Empire
 A war in which the Ottoman Empire lost bulk of its territory to Europe
 A prelude to WW1
 Very Brief Overview
 The danger of an incomplete emergence: The 4 Balkan states mentioned above had just
achieved independence from the Ottoman Empire but were concerned with the large ethnic
populations that remained part of the Empire
 Russia wanted access the Mediterranean so supported the Balkan League of the 4 states
 Britain was wary of Russia so supported the Empire
 So did Austria-Hungary as it was also a multinational empire, holding the logic of if they fall,
we fall
 Though the Ottoman Empire had 26 million people (so massive manpower) ¾ of that
population was in Asia
 The first conflict saw the end to the Ottoman presence in Europe, west of the Catalca line (a
city in Istanbul)
 However, just after the first conflict ended, a second one started (In-war)
 Serbia had violated a previous agreement of giving Bulgaria most of Macedonia
 Bulgaria attacked Serbia
 The Balkan League disintegrated

Implications of the Balkan Wars:

 Catastrophic blow to Russia policies to access the Mediterranean as it no longer had the full
alliance of the Balkan League which was a vital arm in its defence against Austria-Hungary
 Serbia was plunged into isolated military status against Austria-Hungary, having been at war
with Bulgaria
 Bulgaria, frustrated in its insufficient share of Macedonia, looked to Austria for support, while
Serbia, which had been forced by Austria to give up its Albanian conquests, regarded Vienna
with greater hostility than ever

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  Therefore, Russia had to unconditionally support it last ally against Austria-Hungary when the
crisis (assassination of the Archduke) broke out in 1914
 Austria-Hungary had been alarmed with the territorial increase of Serbia after the Balkan Wars
 Concern was shared by Germany who saw Serbia as Russia’s satellite nation
 So, when a Serbian nationalist assassinated the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, no country
hesitated to go to war

Europe: Populism

Note: Consult European Migration in Migration Section for Detailed Analysis

Europe: Danger of Bringing Different Countries Together in Hope of Unification

Case Study: Yugoslav Wars (1991-2001)

 Yugoslavia was a socialist state created after WW2 which saw the federation of 6 republics,
bringing together the Serbs, Croats, Bosnians, Albanians and Slovenes and others under a
communist regime
 Tensions between group were successfully suppressed under President Tito
 After his death, nationalist sentiment re-emerged
 Calls for autonomy within Yugoslavia led in 1991 to the independence in Croatia and Slovenia
 Slovenia declared independence first which triggered an intervention by the Yugoslav army
which turned into a brief military conflict
 Slovenian forces won
 Croatia’s sizeable ethnic Serb minority rejected the declare of independence
 With the support of the Yugoslav Army and Serbia, the Croatian Serbs rebelled, declaring
nearly a third of Croatia’s territory under their control to be an independent Serb state
 Croats and other non-Serbs were expelled from this territory in a form of ethnic cleansing
 But the Croatian authorities were determined to regain authority of the territory lost,
undertaking 2 major offenses
 Tens of thousands Serbs fled this Croatian advance
 Regain of territory was successful

Bosnia and Herzegovina

 Bosnia was complex mix of Serbs, Muslims and Croats

 In fact, Serbia and Croatia had in 1991 conspired to divide up Bosnia, leaving a small enclave
for Muslims
 In a referendum, Bosnians voted for independence
 Bosnian Serbs, backed by Serbs in Yugoslavia, rebelled and declared their controlled territories
to be a Serb republic in Bosnia
 Bosnian Croats soon followed, rejecting the Bosnian central government
 Conflict turned into bloody 3 front war
 International peace efforts to stop the war failed
 UN humiliated after the death of 100,000
 2 million people forced to flee their homes
 Thousands of Bosnian women systematically raped
 Detention centres set up by all conflicting sides
 Single worst atrocity of the war in 1995, when the UN declared safe area, a small Bosnian town,
came under attack by the Bosnian Serbs, executing 8000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys
(genocide)
 Women and children driven out

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  War ended in 1995 after NATO bombed the Bosnian Serbs and when Muslim and Croat armies
made gains on the ground
 US brokered peace divided Bosnia into 2 self-governing bodies, a Bosnian Serb republic and a
Muslim-Croat one

Kosovo

 1999, Kosovo’s ethnic Albanians fought Serbs in another war to gain independence
 Serb forces heavily targeted civilians, shelling villages
 Peace talks failed
 NATO carried out a campaign of air strikes
 In response, Serb forces further intensified persecution of Kosovo Albanian civilians
 The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
 Largely at peace during the Yugoslav wars
 Home to ethnic Macedonians and Albanian minority
 Albanians sought independence
 Armed conflict for several months
 Ended with disarmament of Albanian militia and deployment of NATO
 Implications: complete disintegration of Yugoslavia, back to square one of separate states

North Africa and Middle East: Algeria

Background

 Independence achieved in 1962 after a decade under French rule

 National Liberation Front (NLF) established as part of the independence struggle and has since
dominated politics
 Civil war from 1992-98; over 100,000 dead – many from indiscriminate massacres of villagers
by extremists
 Abdelaziz Bouteflika, won presidency in 1999 with the backing of the military in an allegedly
fraudulent election
 Some political reforms introduced in 201 post-Arab Spring
 Lifting State of Emergency restrictions, women’s quotas in assemblies, subsidies

Geography

 Largest country in Africa but 80% desert

 17.4% agricultural land, soil erosion from overgrazing and poor farming practices
 People and Society
 Sunni Muslim
 15% of population identify as Berber, long agitated for autonomy, govt unlikely to grant but
does recognise Berber languages and teaches in schools

Government

 Presidential republic
 Capital: Algiers
 Mix of French civil law and Islamic law
 Non-party to the ICC/ICJ
 Executive
 Chief of state: Interim President Abdelkader BENSALAH
 Head of government: Prime Minister Noureddine BEDOUI
 Legislative - Bicameral parliament

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  Council of the Nation (144)
 National People’s Assembly (462)

Judicial

 Does not include sharia courts

 Judges appointed for life by High Council of Magistracy (presided over by executive)
 Law bans political parties based on religion [result of civil violence b/w Islamic Salvation Front
and military c. 1990s]

Economy

 Dominated by the state; remnant of socialist post-independence development model

 Recently govt halted privatisation of state-owned industries, restricted imports and foreign
involvement, pursued explicit import substitution policy.
 Hydrocarbons account for 30% GDP, 95% export earnings
 Allowed govt to maintain macroeconomic stability, amass large foreign currency reserves,
maintain low external debt
 Oil prices dropped post-2014 as Foreign exchange reserves declined more than half
 Govt can’t distribute rends and fund generous public subsidies
 Increased taxes, increased prices for gasoline, cigarettes, and alcohol
 Maintained education, healthcare, and housing subsidies
 Increased protectionist measures to encourage domestic production of non-oil and gas
industries
 Non-hydrocarbon industries have struggled due to heavy regulation and focus on state-driven
growth

Communications

 Limited network of fixed lines

 Prolific mobile phone use (122 telephones per 100 persons)
 State-run Radio-Television Algerienne operates the broadcast media
 Widespread satellite dishes access European and Arab stations

Military

 6% GDP (5 in world)
 19-30 years of age for compulsory service
 Conscription: 6 months basic training, 12 months civil projects

Terrorism

• Al-Qa'ida
 Leadership headquartered in Algeria; operates in Tunisia, Libya, and northern Mali
• ISIS
 Operational and recruitment presence in the northeast

Transnational Issues

 100,000 Sahrawi refugees from Western Saharan, 5 Algerian-sponsored camps in the

southwestern town of Tindouf
 Transit nation for human smuggling and sex trafficking

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  Govt does not make efforts to eliminate smuggling: some officials denied the existence of
human trafficking, hindering law enforcement efforts, no groups referred to NGOs

North Africa and Middle East: Bahrain

Background
 Independence from Britain in 1971
 Economy diversified as oil reserves fell; a leading regional banking centre, especially with respect
to Islamic finance
 Small size, central location among Gulf countries, economic dependence on Saudi Arabia,
proximity to Iran à must balance foreign affairs
 Foreign policy closely aligned with Saudi Arabia and UAE
 Sunni royal family struggles against Shia-majority
 Pro-democracy and reform protests during 2011 Arab Spring
 2014 political talks between govt, opp, and loyalist groups failed. Opposition parties boycotted
legislative and municipal council elections
 Sporadic clashes between demonstrators and security forces over political status quo

Geography
 Tiny archipelago: 3.5 times Washington DC
 Urbanisation rate over 90%
 Lack of freshwater reserves; desalination provides 90% of the country's freshwater

People and Society

 48% immigrants
 73.7% Muslims

Government
 Constitutional monarchy
 Mix of Islamic law and English common law
 Non-party to ICJ/ICC
 Suffrage from 20

Executive
 King HAMAD bin Isa Al-Khalifa
 Prime Minister KHALIFA bin Salman Al-Khalifa
 Cabinet and PM appointed by the monarch

Bicameral legislature
 Consultative Council (40 seats; members appointed by the king)
 Council of Representatives (40 seats; members directly elected in single-seat
constituencies by absolute majority)

Judiciary
 Divided into civil law courts and sharia law courts
▪ Sharia divided into Sunni and Shia courts
▪ Rule on personal status and family law
 Supreme court judges appointed by royal decree
 Constitutional Court appointed by the Higher Judicial Council (monarch and
Supreme court judges)
 Political parties prohibited, political societies legalised 2005

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Economy
 Oil still comprises 85% of Bahraini budget revenues
 Lower energy prices generated budget deficits (10% GDP)
 Other activities include aluminium production, finance, and construction
 Since 2015, lifted subsidies on meat, diesel, kerosene, and gasoline
 Phasing in higher prices for electricity and water.
 Free Trade Agreement with the US in August 2006, the first FTA between the US and a Gulf state

Communications
 High mobile penetration
 Telecos regulated
 State-run Bahrain Radio and Television Corporation (BRTC) operates 5 TV networks and several
radio stations
 Satellite TV systems provide access to international broadcasts
 98% pop internet users

Military
 No conscription

North Africa and Middle East: Egypt

Background
 Full sovereignty from Britain in 1952
 A rapidly growing population (the largest in the Arab world), limited arable land, and dependence
on the Nile overtax resources
 Govt struggled to meet the demands through economic reform and massive investment in
communications and physical infrastructure.

Arab Spring
 Strikes ousted President Hosni MUBARAK in 2011
 Military assumed leadership until Muhammad MURSI won the presidential
election.
 Violent protests 2013 against MURSI's government and the Muslim Brotherhood,
 Egyptian Armed Forces MURSI replaced him with interim president Adly
MANSOUR
 2014, voters approved a new constitution and elected former defence minister
Abdelfattah ELSISI president.
 ELSISI was re-elected to a second four-year term in March 2018.

(a) Geography
 Vast desert plateau interrupted by Nile valley and delta
 95% of the population lives within 20 km of the Nile River and its delta; vast areas sparsely
populated or uninhabited
 Water pollution from agricultural pesticides, raw sewage, and industrial effluents
 Rapid growth in population overstraining the Nile (only perennial water source)
 Controls:
 Sinai Peninsula: only land bridge between Africa and Middle East
 Suez Canal: a sea link between Indian Ocean and Mediterranean Sea;

(b) People and Society

 90% Muslim (predominantly Sunni)

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 Most populous country in the Arab world
 High population growth, no govt initiatives to change
 Women
 Literacy, educational attainment, and labor force participation rates are lower for women
 Prevalence of violence against women, lack of female political representation, nearly universal
FGM
 Historically high level of emigration to oil rich neighbouring countries wanting cheap
construction labour
 Locally encouraged to alleviate unemployment and generate remittances
 Depressed by lower oil prices and cheaper South Asian workers
 Important transit country for economic migrants and asylum seekers due to resettlement
programs with West
 Cairo has one of the largest urban refugee populations in the world
 30% unemployment
 80% literacy rate

(c) Government
 Presidential republic
 legal system based on Napoleonic civil and penal law, Islamic religious law, and vestiges of
colonial-era law
 Non-party to ICC, ICJ jurisdiction with reservations
 Universal and compulsory suffrage

(i) Executive
 President Abdelfattah ELSISI - elected by absolute majority popular vote
 Prime Minister Mostafa MADBOULY - appointed by the president, approved by
the House of Representatives
 Cabinet ministers nominated by the executive authorities and approved by the
House of Representatives

(ii) Unicameral legislature

 596 seats
▪ 448 members directly elected
▪ 120 members - with quotas for women, youth, Christians and workers - elected
in party-list constituencies
▪ 28 members appointed by the president

(iii) Judiciary
 All judges and justices selected by the Supreme Judiciary Council and appointed
by the president
 Judges appointed for life

(d) Economy
 Uncertain political, security, and policy environment since 2011 has restricted
economic growth and failed to alleviate persistent unemployment, especially
among the young.
 2016, dollar shortages and waning aid from its Gulf allies led Cairo to turn to the
IMF for a 3-year, $12 billion loan program.

 IMF required govt floated its currency, introduce new taxes, and cut energy subsidies
 Pushed inflation above 30% for most of 2017

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  Since the currency float, foreign investment in Egypt’s high interest treasury bills has risen
exponentially, boosting both dollar availability and central bank reserves

(e) Communications
 Largest fixed-line system in Africa and the Arab region
 Multiple mobile-cellular networks with a 100-percent penetration of the market
 Telecom Egypt is mostly state owned
 Mix of state-run and private broadcast media

(f) Military
 18-30 years of age for male conscript military service
 Service obligation - 18-36 months, followed by a 9-year reserve obligation
 Voluntary enlistment from age 15
 Terrorism - (all want to overthrow govt, most are Islamic)
 Harakat Sawa’d Misr (HASM):
 Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham (ISIS)-Sinai:

o Liwa al-Thawra:
o al-Qa'ida (AQ):
o Army of Islam (AOI):

(g) Transnational Issues

(i) Refugees
• 70,018 (West Bank and Gaza Strip)
• 6,611 (Iraq)
• 6,561 (Somalia)
• 20,001 (Sudan)
• 11,769 (Ethiopia)
• 11,041 (Eritrea)
• 6,978 (South Sudan)
• 132,281 (Syria)

(ii) Human trafficking

(iii)
 Street children vulnerable to forced labour, sex trafficking, or child sex tourism
 Women and girls are sold into "temporary" or "summer" marriages with Gulf men,
through their parents or marriage brokers
 Military cracked down on criminal groups smuggling, abducting, trafficking, and
extorting African migrants in the Sinai Peninsula, but the practice has reemerged
along Egypt’s western border with Libya
 Govt relied on NGOs to identify and refer victims to protective services, focused
on Egyptian victims and refused to provide some services to foreign victims

(iv) Drugs
o Transit point for drugs moving to Europe, Israel, and North Africa
o Money laundering site due to lax enforcement of financial regulations

North Africa and Middle East: Iran

(h) Background

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 o Became an Islamic republic in 1979 after the ruling monarchy was overthrown and Shah
Mohammad Reza PAHLAVI was forced into exile
o Theocratic system of government with ultimate authority vested in a religious scholar
referred to as the Supreme Leader who, according to the constitution, is accountable only
to the Assembly of Experts (AOE) - a popularly elected 88-member body of clerics
o 1980-88, Iran fought a bloody, indecisive war with Iraq
o Designated a state sponsor of terrorism
o Subject to US, UN, and EU economic sanctions and export controls due to involvement in
terrorism and possible military nuclear program.
o 2013 Iranians elected a centrist cleric Dr. Hasan Fereidun ROHANI to the presidency.
o 2015 Iran the P5, plus Germany (P5+1) signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
(JCPOA); restrictions on nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief
o Iran held elections in 2016 for the AOE and Majles (legislature), resulting in a conservative-
controlled AOE and a Majles more supportive of the ROHANI administration
o Economic concerns once again led to nationwide protests in December 2017 and January
2018 but they were contained by Iran's security services.
o In May 2018, the US withdrew from the JCPOA and reinstituted economic sanctions on
Iran in November.

(i) People and Society

o 83 mil (17th)
o Muslim (official) 99.4% (Shia 90-95%, Sunni 5-10%)

(j) Government
o Theocratic republic
o Religious legal system based on secular and Islamic law
o Non-party to ICJ/ICC

(i) Executive
o Supreme Leader Ali Hoseini-KHAMENEI - appointed for life by Assembly of Experts
o President Hasan Fereidun ROHANI - directly elected by absolute majority popular
o cabinet: Council of Ministers selected by the president with legislative approval; the
supreme leader has some control over appointments to several ministries

(ii) Unicameral legislature (Majles)

o 290 seats
 § 285 members directly elected
 § 1 seat each for Zoroastrians, Jews, Assyrian and Chaldean Christians,
Armenians in north and south
 § All candidates to the Majles must be approved by the Council of
Guardians (12-member group, 6 appointed by the supreme leader and 6
jurists nominated by the judiciary and elected by the Majles)

(iii) Judiciary
 Judges appointed by the High Judicial Council (5-member body with the Supreme
Court chief justice, the prosecutor general, and 3 clergy)
 Some military courts

(k) Economy
o Marked by statist policies, inefficiencies, and reliance on oil and gas exports
o Also possesses significant agricultural, industrial, and service sectors
o Government directly owns and operates hundreds of state-owned enterprises, indirectly
controls companies affiliated with the country's security forces.

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 o Corruption, price controls, subsidies, and a banking system holding billions of dollars of
non-performing loans weigh down the economy
o Significant informal market
o Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – lifting of sanctions – in January 2016
sparked a restoration of Iran’s oil production and revenue that drove rapid GDP growth,
but economic growth declined in 2017 as oil production plateaued.
o May 8, 2018, the US withdrew from agreement, reinstating harsher sanctions
o High levels of unemployment, especially among women and college-educated Iranian
youth

(l) Communications
 Opportunities for telecoms growth, but lack of significant investment due to
sanctions
 Huge demand for services
 Investment by state-owned telecom company greatly improved fixed-line and
mobile cellular networks
 Most of the cell phones in the market have been smuggled into the country
 State-run broadcast media with no private, independent broadcasters
 Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), the state-run TV broadcaster,
operates 19 nationwide channels including a news channel,
 Satellite dishes are illegal; use is subjectively tolerated, but authorities sometimes
confiscate satellite dishes

(m) Military
 18 years of age for compulsory military service
 Conscript military service obligation is 18-24 month
 Women exempt from military service

(n) Terrorism
o Jaysh al Adl
o al-Qa'ida
o Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK):
 Advance Kurdish autonomy, political, and cultural rights in Iran, Turkey, Iraq, and Syria
 Operational in the northwest

(o) Transnational Issues

(i) Refugees
• 28,268 (Iraq)
• 2.5-3 mil (Afghanistan)

(ii) Human trafficking

o Iranian law does not prohibit all forms of human trafficking
o Female victims find it difficult to get justice
§ Iranian courts accord women’s testimony half the weight of men's,
§ Female victims of sexual abuse are likely to be prosecuted for adultery

(iii) Drugs
o One of the primary transhipment routes for Southwest Asian heroin to Europe;
o One of the highest opiate addiction rates in the world
o Increasing problem with synthetic drugs
o Regularly enforces the death penalty for drug offences

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North Africa and Middle East: Iraq

(p) Background
 Independence as a kingdom in 1932
 Proclaimed a "republic" in 1958 after a coup overthrew the monarchy, but in actuality, a series of
strongmen ruled the country until 2003.
 SADDAM Hussein from 1979 to 2003.
 In August 1990, Iraq seized Kuwait but was expelled by US-led UN coalition forces during the
Gulf War
 After Iraq's expulsion, UNSC required Iraq to scrap all weapons of mass destruction and long-
range missiles and to allow UN verification inspections
 Continued Iraqi noncompliance with UNSC resolutions led to the Second Gulf War in 2003
where US ousted Saddam Hussein
 2005, approved constitution and elected a 275-member Council of Representatives (COR)
 Adil ABD AL-MAHDI assumed the premiership in October 2018 with technocratic cabinet
 2014-2017 war against IS
 Recaptured Mosul in 2017, then-Prime Minister Haydar al-ABADI publicly declared victory,
continued operations in rural areas.
 ABADI responded to an independence referendum held by the Kurdish Regional Government
by ordering Iraqi forces to take control of disputed territories previously occupied and governed
by Kurdish forces.

(q) Geography
 Govt water control projects drained inhabited marsh areas; population of Marsh Arabs displaced
 Effluents from oil refineries, factory and sewage discharges into rivers, fertilizer and chemical
contamination of the soil, and industrial air pollution in urban areas damage environment
 Strategic location on Shatt al Arab waterway and at the head of the Persian Gulf

(r) People and Society

 Arab 75-80%, Kurdish 15-20%
 Muslim (official) 95-98% (Shia 64-69%, Sunni 29-34%)
 Christian population dropped up to 50% since the fall of the Hussein regime, many fleeing to Syria,
Jordan, and Lebanon

(s) Government
 Federal parliamentary republic
 Mixed legal system of civil and Islamic law
 Non-party to ICJ/ICC

(i) Executive

 President Barham SALIH – indirectly elected by Council of Representatives

 Prime Minister Adil ABD AL-MAHDI - nominated by the largest COR bloc or by consensus
of majority COR approval
 Council of Ministers proposed by the prime minister, approved by Council of Representatives

(ii) Unicameral legislature

 Council of Representatives or Majlis
▪ 329 seats

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 ▪ 320 members directly elected in multi-seat constituencies by open-list
proportional representation vote
▪ 9 seats reserved for minorities - 5 for Assyrians, 1 each for Mandaeans,
Yazidis, Shabaks, Fayli Kurds
▪ 25% of seats allocated to women
 Iraq's constitution calls for the establishment of an upper house, the Federation Council, but it
has not been instituted

Judiciary
 Federal Supreme Court and Court of Cassation judges selected by the president of
the republic from nominees selected by the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC),
 FSC members appointed for life

(t) Economy
 Govt received its third tranche of funding from 2016 Stand-By Arrangement (SBA)
with the IMF in August 2017,
 Encouraged improved fiscal management, economic reform, and expenditure
reduction.
 Received more than $1.4 billion in financing from international lenders,
 Issued a $1 billion bond for reconstruction and rehabilitation in areas liberated from
IS
 Largely state-run economy dominated by oil sector, provides 85% of govt revenue
and 80% of foreign exchange earnings
 KRG develops IKR oil and gas reserves independent of the federal government.
 The KRG has signed 50 contracts with foreign energy companies to develop its
reserves, some of which lie in territories taken by Baghdad in 2017 (after
independence referendum backlash; federal control reasserted).
 The KRG unilaterally exports oil through its own pipeline to Turkey, which
Baghdad claims is illegal
 Rampant corruption, outdated infrastructure, insufficient essential services, skilled
labor shortages, and antiquated commercial laws stifle investment and constrain
growth of private, nonoil sectors.

(u) Communications
 2003 Iraq war severely disrupted telecommunications
 Government efforts to rebuild have slowed due to political unrest
 2018 showed signs of stability and installations of new fibre-optic cables and growth in mobile
broadband subscribers; the most popular plans are pre-paid
 Private radio and TV stations increased rapidly since 2003
 Govt-owned TV and radio stations operated by the publicly funded Iraqi Media Network
 Private broadcast media mostly linked to political, ethnic, or religious groups

(v) Terrorism
Ansar al-Islam (AAI):
o Expel western interests from Iraq, sharia interpretation. Headquartered in northern Iraq
o Majority of members are Iraqi Kurds or Iraqi Arabs who are Sunni Muslim
Jaysh Rijal al-Tariq al-Naqshabandi (JRTN):
o End external influence in Iraq, overthrow govt, and install a secular Ba'athist state
o Attacks separatist Kurdish groups, Iraqi Government military and security forces and
facilities, and foreign military personnel
Kata'ib Hizballah (KH):
o Counter US influence, overthrow the govt to install Shia Muslim laws and precepts

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 o Headquartered in the Shia Muslim areas of Baghdad, with fighters active in Ninawa, Al
Anbar, and Babil governorates
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK):
o Advance Kurdish autonomy and security goals in Iraq, Turkey, Iran, and Syria
o Stronghold in the Qandil Mountains:

(w) Transnational Issues

(i) Refugees
 15,514 (Turkey)
 7,865 (West Bank and Gaza Strip)
 7,143 (Iran)
 253,672 (Syria)
 IDPs: 2,699,108
 Stateless persons: 47,630
o In the 1970s and 1980s (Hussein regime), thousands of aili Kurds, followers of Shia,
were stripped of their Iraqi citizenship, had their property seized by the government,
and many were deported.

North Africa and Middle East: Israel

(x) Background
 State of Israel declares in 1948 after Britain withdrew from its mandate of Palestine
 UN proposed partitioning the area into Arab and Jewish states
 Fought wars against Arab neighbours in 1967 and 1973
 Peace treaties with Egypt in 1978 and Jordan in 1994
 Interim period of Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza Strip

(y) Geography
 In 2017, there were 422 settlements in the Israeli-occupied territories - 42 settlements in the Golan
Heights, 380 sites in the occupied Palestinian territories to include 213 settlements and 132 outposts
in the West Bank, and 35 settlements in East Jerusalem; there are no Israeli settlements in the Gaza
Strip, as all were evacuated in 2005 (2017)

(z) People and Society

 (Ethnic) Jewish 74.4% (of which Israel-born 76.9%)
 Arab 20.9%,
 (Religious) Jewish 74.7%
 Muslim 17.7%
 Urban population: 92.4% of total pop

(aa) Government

Capital: Jerusalem

 US recognized Jerusalem as capital without taking a position on the specific boundaries of Israeli
sovereignty
 Mixed legal system of English common law, and Jewish, Christian, and Muslim religious laws
 Non-party to ICJ, withdrew acceptance of ICC in 2002

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 Israeli law (Law of Return, 5 July 1950) grants citizenship to any Jew (Jewish mother or converted
to Judaism while renouncing other religion) or family member - who immigrates to and expresses
a desire to settle in Israel on the basis of the Right of Aliyah

(i) Executive

 President Reuben RIVLIN - indirectly elected by the Knesset

 Prime Minister Binyamin NETANYAHU
 Cabinet selected by prime minister and approved by the Knesset

(ii) Legislature

 Unicameral Knesset
 120 seats; members directly elected in a single nationwide constituency by proportional
representation vote

(iii) Judiciary

 Judges selected by the Judicial Selection Committee (3 Supreme Court judges, 2 Cabinet
members, 2 Knesset members, and 2 representatives from the Israel Bar Association)
 Mandatory retirement at age 70
 Some religious courts

(bb) Economy
 Technologically advanced free market economy
 Leading exports: cut diamonds, high-technology equipment, and pharmaceuticals
 Tech sector employs only about 8% of the workforce, rest employed in manufacturing and services;
face downward wage pressures from global competition.
 Sizable trade deficits offset by tourism, service exports, and foreign investment inflows
 Weathered global financial crisis with prudent fiscal policy and a resilient banking sector
 Strong trade ties outside Middle East insulated economy from Arab Spring spillover effects
 Natural gas fields discovered off Israel’s coast largest finds in past decade
 Income inequality, high housing and commodity prices
 Broad public perception that a small number of "tycoons" have cartel control of economy
 Low education expenditures

(cc) Communications
 Most highly developed telephone system in Middle East
 Mobile broadband inexpensive and 100% population penetration
 A TV channel broadcasting Knesset proceeding,
 Multi-channel satellite and cable TV packages provide access to foreign channels

(dd) Military

 6% GDP (6th)
 18 years of age for compulsory (Jews, Druze) military service
 17 years of age for voluntary (Christians, Muslims, Circassians) military service
 Both sexes are obligated to military service
 Conscript service obligation - 32 months for enlisted men and 24 months for enlisted women
 Reserve obligation to age 41-51 (men), age 24 (women)

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 (ee) Transnational Issues

 West Bank and Gaza Strip are Israeli-occupied with current status subject to the Israeli-Palestinian
Interim Agreement
 Israel continues construction of a "seam line" separation barrier along parts of the Green Line and
within the West Bank
 Israel withdrew its settlers and military from the Gaza Strip and from four settlements in the West
Bank in August 2005
 Golan Heights is Israeli-controlled
 350 peacekeepers from the UN Truce Supervision Organization headquartered in Jerusalem
monitor ceasefires, supervise armistice agreements, prevent isolated incidents from escalating, and
assist other UN personnel in the region.

Quick History of Israel-Palestine Conflict

• Has not actually been going on for centuries (since early 1900s)
• Region was under Ottoman rule, general peace
• In 1900s, the Ethnic Arabs began to feel a sense of Palestinian National Identity
• At the same times Jews were joining Zionist movements (WW2 impetus for this)
• France and Britain took control of this
• The Brits began to limit Jewish immigration to Palestine which created conflict
• In 1947, following sectarian violence, UN Partition Plan is made
• Gives Jews Israel and Arabs Palestine (Jerusalem was International)
• Neighbouring Arab states saw the plan as more European colonialism, declared war on Israel
• They wanted to unify both states and give it all to the Arabs
• Israel won the war, and took some added Palestinian territory
• Israelis are tactical beasts, won the 1967 six-days war, Golan Heights, West Bank and Sinai.
• 1978 USA-Israel sign Camp-David Accords (Israel gives Sinai back to Egypt)
• Egyptian president Sadat was assassinated for collaborating with Jews
• PLO used acts of terrorism to fight Israel
• PLO said in 1978 that a two-sate solution would be okay
• Arab-majority nations began to kick out Jews
• Over 700,000 Jews living in “Palestine” which make independence harder
• First Intifada (1987-1993) Extreme violence, Israel responded and killed Palestinians
• 200 Jews and 1,000 Arabs died
• 1993 Hamas is formed (violent terrorists) as they think that the PLO are too weak
• 1993 Oslo accords establish Palestinian authority (Hamas tried to suicide bomb the accords)
• Yasser Arafat (of Palestine), Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin (of Israel) jointly won the 1994
Nobel Peace Prize for their collaborations
• Rabin was later assassinated by an Israeli Nationalist
• 2000 a second round of Camp David Accords is fruitless
• 2001 the Second Intifada of the Palestinians begins, even more violently
• The second intifada made the Israelis much more sceptical that the Palestinians would veer
accept peace
• 2005 Israel withdraws from Gaza, Hamas has a civil war with the PLO, unemployment grows
to 40%
• The Palestinians are smothered by settlements, and have no future as a people suffocated by
embargos and Israeli blockades
• IMPORTANT NOTE: In framing any debate where the opposition tries to make it seem
plausible that either Israel or an Arab state would make a concession, it may be useful to
remember that Yasser Arafat, Yitzhak Rabin and Sadat were all assassinated after their
cooperation with one another and branded traitors, demonstrating the extent to which domestic

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 political and nationalist pressures hinder possibilities of concessions and shift regional politics
in the Levant to the hard right – more on this under “Israel Politics”.

Problems with A Two-State Solution

• Israelis argue that it is unjustified to give terrorists (Hamas/PLO) a state

• If you say you’re negotiating a peace deal and that you’re giving someone a state, you’ve
already given up that which you are negotiating, and past the point of statehood, there is no
more possibility for negotiations whatsoever
• All the pressure is on Israel to make concessions
• They say that when British Mandate Palestine was partitioned, it gave Jordan to most of the
Palestinians
• Jordan is 70% Palestinian
• The Gaza strip is arguably terrorist state due to power struggles between PLO and Hamas
• There’s an argument that in peace, the relationship between Israel and Palestine would be the
same as that between that between the USA and Puerto Rico (no voting rights, but free trade,
movement, functional economy, pays for infrastructure and broadly beneficial to both parties)
• Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia don’t actually want a Palestinian State because if there were
Palestinian state, Al Sisi in Egypt would have a terror state on their border, and so would Jordan
• They pretend to for political purposes but rarely push hard enough
Israel Politics

• Sharp shift to the right following the second Intifada

• Little political will for peace, its more about managing the conflict
• Israel can’t afford the Caroline-Glick one state solution as then the Jews would actually be a
democratic minority in Israel

United Nations and Israel

• History of hostility
• The notion of the UN being the centre of moral gravitas is a bit off;
• 193 countries in the UN, about 25% are Islamic countries that “hate Israel”
• UNHRC adopted 135 resolutions condemning nations, 68 of them were written against Israel
• Almost half were written against Israel, not China, not Saudi Arabia, not Venezuela, nor Iran
but instead the only democratic country in the entire Middle East
• Of the 97 UNGA resolutions criticising countries, 83 were directed against Israel
• UNESCO had 10 resolutions per year, all 10 were against Israel since 2015, not even Hamas
who use schools to launch rockets
• The problem with this is that it forces Israeli politics too far to the right and fosters anti-globalist
sentiments in Israel
• “You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy than the United Nations
General Assembly” - Interesting quote…

North Africa and Middle East: Kuwait

(ff) Background
 Independence from Britain in 2961
 Attack and overrun by Iraq in 1990
 US-led UN coalition pushed out Iraq in 1991 (4 days)
 More that $5B pent to repair damaged oil infrastructure
 AL-SABAH family returned to power in 1991
 Historic election of four women to the National Assembly in 2009

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 Amid Arab Spring, Bidoon (stateless Arabs) demanded citizenship, jobs, benefits afforded to
Kuwaiti nationals
 Protests led to resignation of the PM amid allegations of corruption
 Opposition (coalition of Sunni Islamists, tribal populists, and some liberals) boycotted legislative
elections in 2012 and 2013
 Legislature became pro-govt, proposed subsidy cuts
 Oppositionists and independents actively participated in 2016 election, winning nearly half of the
seats.
 The Amir has frequently dissolved the National Assembly and shuffled the cabinet, citing political
stagnation and gridlock between the legislature and the government.

(gg) Geography
 Limited natural freshwater resources; some of world's largest and most sophisticated desalination
facilities provide much of the water
 Strategic location at head of Persian Gulf

(hh) People and Society

 Kuwaiti 30.4%, other Arab 27.4%, Asian 40.3%
 Muslim (official) 74.6%, Christian 18.2%
 69% of the population consists of immigrants

(ii) Government
 Constitutional monarchy (emirate)
 Mixed legal system of English common law, French civil law, and Islamic sharia law
 Non-party to ICC/ICJ
 Suffrage: 21 years of age and at least 20-year citizenship

(i) Executive
 Amir SABAH al-Ahmad al-Jabir al-Saba
 Chosen from within the ruling family, confirmed by the National Assembly
 Prime Minister JABIR AL-MUBARAK al-Hamad al-Sabah, Appointed by Amir
 Council of Ministers appointed by the PM, approved by the Amir

(ii) Legislature
 Unicameral National Assembly or Majlis al-Umma
§ 65 seats (1 woman)
§ 50 members directly elected in multi-seat constituencies by simple majority vote
§ 15 ex-officio members - cabinet ministers - appointed by PM

(iii) Judiciary

 All judges appointed by the Amir upon recommendation of the Supreme Judicial Council
(Kuwaiti judges and Ministry of Justice officials)
 No political parties
 Formation of political parties is practically not permitted but is not explicitly forbidden by law

(jj) Economy
 Geographically small but wealthy
 Relatively open economy with crude oil reserves of 102 billion barrels (6% of world)
 Plan to increase production to 4 million barrels of oil per day by 2020.
 Petroleum accounts for half of GDP, 92% of export revenues, 90% of govt income

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 Declining oil prices, Kuwait budget deficit of 16.5% of GDP in 2016
 Cuts to fuel subsidies provoked outrage among public and National Assembly
 Despite Kuwait’s oil dependence on oil, government has cushioned by saving annually 10% govt
revenue in the Fund for Future Generations.
 Failed to diversify economy or bolster the private sector due poor business climate, a large public
sector that employs about 74% of citizens, and poor relationship between National Assembly and
the executive branch

(kk) Communications
 Excellent telephone service
 High ownership of smartphones
 State-owned TV broadcaster operates 4 networks and a satellite channel;
 Several private TV broadcasters since 2003, first private radio station emerged in 2005
 Satellite TV available with pan-Arab TV stations are especially popular

Military
 17-21 years of age for voluntary military service; conscription suspended

Transnational Issues
 92,000 stateless persons
o 1/3 pop, descendants of Bedouin tribes, missed the window of opportunity to register
for nationality rights after Kuwait became independent in 1961
o Classified as bidun (meaning "without"), progressively lost their rights including
opportunities for employment and education
o Govt claims they are nationals of other countries who have destroyed ID documents to
gain citizenship.
o Labelled biduns as "illegal residents," denying them access to civil documentation: birth
and marriage certificates
 Human trafficking
o Destination country for forced labour
o Migration from South and Southeast Asia, Egypt, the Middle East, and Africa to work
in Kuwait in the domestic service, construction, and sanitation sectors; upon arrival
subjected to conditions of forced labour by their sponsors and labour agents, including
debt bondage
o Kuwait’s sponsorship law restricts workers’ movements and penalizes them for running
away from abusive workplaces

North Africa and Middle East: Lebanon

(ll) Background
 Independence from France in 1943
 Periods of political turmoil interspersed with prosperity
 Regional centre for finance and trade
 1975-90 civil war, 120,000 fatalities, followed by years of instability
 Hugely sectarian
 Foreign and internal policies influenced by Syria, occupied Lebanon 1976-2005
 Lebanon based Hezbollah (Shi'a Islamist political party and militant group) launch attacks against
Israel

(mm) Geography

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 Rugged terrain historically helped isolate, protect, and develop numerous factional groups based
on religion, clan, and ethnicity

People and Society

 Arab 95
 Many Christian Lebanese do not identify as Arab but prefer to be called Phoenicians
 Muslim 57.7% (28.7% Sunni, 28.4% Shia, smaller percentages of Alawites and Ismailis)
 Christian 36.2%, Druze 5.2%
 Sizeable Syrian and Palestinian refugee populations not included in above date

(nn) Government
 Parliamentary republic
 Mixed legal system of French civil and religious laws covering family relations of the Jewish,
Islamic, and Christian communities
 Non-party to ICC/ICJ
 Suffrage: 21 years of age; authorized for all men and women; excludes criminals; excludes all
military and security service personnel

(i) Executive
o President Michel AWN
§ Indirectly elected by the National Assembly with two-thirds majority vote
o Prime Minister Saad al-HARIRI
§ Appointed by the president in consultation with the National Assembly
o Cabinet chosen by the PM in consultation with the president and National Assembly

(ii) Legislature
o Unicameral National Assembly or Majlis al-Nuwab
§ 128 seats
§ members directly elected in multi-seat constituencies by proportional
representation vote
o Lebanon’s constitution states the National Assembly cannot conduct regular business
until it elects a president when the position is vacant

(iii) Judiciary
o Court of Cassation judges appointed by Supreme Judicial Council (chief justice, other
judicial officials)
o Constitutional Council members appointed - 5 by the Council of Ministers and 5 by
parliament; members serve 5-year terms

(oo) Economy
 Free-market economy and a strong laissez-faire commercial tradition
 Foreign investment limited by red tape, corruption, arbitrary licensing decisions, complex
customs procedures, high taxes, tariffs, and fees, archaic legislation, and inadequate IP rights
 Service-oriented; main growth sectors include banking and tourism
 1975-90 civil war seriously damaged Lebanon's economic infrastructure, cut national output by
half, and derailed Lebanon's position as a Middle Eastern banking hub
 Rebuilt much of war-torn infrastructure by borrowing heavily,
o Chronic fiscal deficits have increased debt-to-GDP ratio (150%), the third highest in
the world; most of the debt is held internally by Lebanese banks, huge burden
 Weak economic growth limits tax revenues
o Largest expenditures are debt servicing, salaries for government workers, and transfers
to the electricity sector

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 o Constrains investment in necessary infrastructure improvements, such as water,
electricity, and transportation
 The Syria conflict cut off one of Lebanon's major markets and a transport corridor through the
Levant
 1.3mil Syrian refugees has increased social tensions and heightened competition for low-skill
jobs and public services

(pp) Military

 17-30 years of age for voluntary military service

 No conscription

(qq) Terrorism
 Abdallah Azzam Brigades (AAB):
o Combat Shia Muslim influence in the country; seeks to disrupt Israel; attack Western
interests in the Middle East
o Headquartered in the Ayn al-Hilwah Palestinian refugee camp

 Asbat al-Ansar (AAA):

o Overthrow govt, rid Western influences, destroy the state of Israel to seize Jerusalem,
establish an Islamic state in the Levant region
o Headquartered in the Ayn al-Hilwah Palestinian refugee camp

 Hezbollah:
o Destroy the state of Israel; counter the West; provide paramilitary support to Syrian
President Bashar al-ASAD's regime
o Headquartered in Beirut
o Remains the most capable armed group in the country, enjoying support among many
Lebanese Shia and some Christians; receives considerable support from Iran
 ISIS
o Operational along the border with Syria; maintains a presence in Ayn al-Hilweh refugee
camp
 al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade (AAMB):
o Establish a Palestinian state comprising the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and Jerusalem
o Recruits youths in Palestinian refugee camps
 al-Nusrah Front/al-Qa'ida:
o Along the Lebanon-Syria border; targets govt, security forces, and civilians
 Palestine Liberation Front (PLF):
o Destroy the state of Israel to establish a secular, Marxist Palestinian state with Jerusalem
as its capital
o Recruitment and training presence in many refugee camps (April 2018)

(rr) Transnational Issues

 Refugees: 5,695 (Iraq) 469,555 (Palestinian refugees) 944,613 (Syria)
 Stateless persons
o Tens of thousands stateless, generally descendants of refugees
 Human trafficking

o Under Lebanon’s artiste visa program, women enter Lebanon to work in the adult
entertainment industry but are often forced into the sex trade
o Syrian refugees are vulnerable to forced labour and prostitution
o Govt heavily reliant on NGOs to identify and provide service to trafficking victims

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 o Victims continuing to be arrested, detained, and deported for crimes committed as due
to being trafficked
 Drugs
o Money laundering of drug proceeds fuels concern that extremists are benefiting from
drug trafficking

North Africa and Middle East: Libya

(ss) Background
 Independence in 1951
 1969 military coup, Col. Muammar al-QADHAFI assumed leadership
 1970s, QADHAFI (with oil money) supported foreign terrorism: downing two airliners - one over
Scotland, another in Northern Africa - and a disco bombing in Berlin
 UN sanctions in 1992 were lifted in 2003 following Libyan acceptance of responsibility and ending
development of weapons of mass destruction
 2011, QADHAFI's brutal crackdown on Arab Spring protesters spawned a civil war
 UN authorised US led NATO intervention, toppled QADHAFI regime replaced by transitional
government National Transitional Council (NTC)
 2012, the NTC handed power to an elected parliament, the General National Congress (GNC)
 In October 2015, the UN brokered Libyan Political Agreement (LPA).
 Called for the formation of an interim Government of National Accord (GNA), with a nine-member
Presidency Council, the HoR, and an advisory High Council of State
 2017, UN rep Ghassan SALAME announced new roadmap for national political reconciliation
following continual friction between gov. and opp. parties

(tt) Geography

 More than 90% of the population lives along the Mediterranean coast
 Interior remains vastly underpopulated due to the Sahara and lack of surface water
o More than 90% of the country is desert or semidesert

(uu) People and Society

 12% population are immigrants

 Berber and Arab 97%
 Muslim (official; virtually all Sunni) 96.6%
 Destination country for economic migrants
 Hub for transit migration to Europe due to proximity to and lax border controls
 International isolation led QADHAFI in 1998 to adopt pan-African policy that let sub-Saharan
migrants to enter Libya without visas to work in construction and agriculture
 Poorly treated and were subjected to periodic mass expulsions.
 Mid-2000s, due to domestic xenophobia and a desire for int. reintegration, QADHAFI imposed
entry visas on immigrants and joined maritime patrols and migrant repatriations with Italy, the main
recipient of illegal migrants
 As regime neared collapse, reversed policy of cooperating with Italy and sent boats of migrants to
strain European resources.

Government
 In transition

(i) Executive

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 o Chairman, Presidential Council, PM Fayiz al-SARAJ

(ii) Legislature
o Unicameral House of Representatives (Majlis Al Nuwab)
o 200 seats, 32 reserved for women
o Directly elected by majority vote
o Supreme Court in 2014 declared the HoR election unconstitutional, but HoR and the
international community rejected the ruling
o only 188 of the 200 seats were filled in 2014 election due to boycotts and lack of security
at some polling stations; some elected MPs also boycotted the election

Economy
 Almost entirely dependent on oil and gas exports, struggled since 2014 due to security and political
instability, disruptions in oil production, and decline in global oil prices.
 Large shadow economy
 Widespread power outages, caused by shortages of fuel
 Conditions - clean drinking water, medical services, safe housing – declined since 2011.
 Oil production in 2017 reached a five-year high, still below the pre-Revolution levels
 The Central Bank of Libya continues to pay government and fund subsidies for fuel and food,
estimated budget deficit of 17% of GDP
 Low consumer confidence in the banking sector and the economy has driven a severe liquidity
shortage

(vv) Communications
 Instability has disrupted telecommunications sector
 Registering a SIM card now requires proof of ID; govt. established new independent regulatory
authority
 Generally adequate mobile subscriptions
 State-funded and private TV stations
 Pan-Arab satellite TV stations are available

(ww) Terrorism
 al-Qa'ida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM):
 Establish a regional Islamic caliphate across all of North and West Africa
 Leadership headquartered in Algeria; operates in Tunisia and Libya
 ISIS
 al-Mulathamun Battalion:
 Replace Libya's transitional government with an Islamic state
 Engages in kidnappings for ransom

Transnational Issues
 Refugees

• 23,823 (Syria)
• 11,101 (Sudan)
• 7,277 (Palestinian)
• 8,728 (Eritrea)

 IDPs: 172,541
• conflict in 2011; post-QADHAFI tribal clashes 2014

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 Human Trafficking
o Since 2013, militia groups are reported to conscript Libyan children
o Govt’s capacity to address human trafficking hampered by the ongoing power struggle
and violence, non-functioning judicial system, complicit detention camp guards or
government officials

North Africa and Middle East: Morocco

Background
 Independence from France in 1956
 King MOHAMMED VI responded to Arab Spring movements with a reform program - new
constitution, new powers to parliament and PM, but ultimate monarchical authority
 2011, the Justice and Development Party (PJD) - a moderate Islamist party - won the largest number
of seats in parliamentary elections, becoming the first Islamist party to lead the Moroccan
Government. In September
 2015, first direct elections for regional councils – part of reform
 The PJD won the largest number of seats in nationwide parliamentary elections in 2016
 Claims the territory of Western Sahara, the political status of which is considered undetermined by
the US Government

Geography
 Strategic location along Strait of Gibraltar; the only African nation to have both Atlantic and
Mediterranean coastlines

People and Society

 Muslim 99% (official; virtually all Sunni, <0.1% Shia)
 Population is growing but at a declining rate, result of increased female educational attainment,
higher contraceptive use, delayed marriage, and the desire for smaller families
 Infant, child, and maternal mortality rates reduced through better health care, nutrition, hygiene,
and vaccination coverage, disparities between urban and rural and rich and poor households persist
 Job creation rate slower than pop growth, high youth unemployment, most work in the informal
sector with
 Govt encourages emigration for remittances and to prevent unrest in rebellious
 Flood of "guest workers" across north western Europe to fill unskilled jobs in manufacturing,
mining, construction, and agriculture
 Deteriorating economic conditions resulted in permanent emigration
 Mid-1990s, developed into a transit country for asylum seekers trying to reach Europe
 2014 regularization program legalized the status of some migrants and granted them equal access
to education, health care, and work, but xenophobia and racism remain obstacles

Government

 Parliamentary constitutional monarchy

 Mixed legal system of civil law based on French law and Islamic law
 Non-party to ICC/ICJ

(i) Executive
o King MOHAMMED VI
o Prime Minister Saad-Eddine al-OTHMANI - appointed by the monarch from the
majority party following legislative elections
o Council of Ministers chosen by the prime minister in consultation with Parliament and
appointed by the monarch

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 (ii) Bicameral legislature
o Chamber of Advisors
§ 120 seats; members indirectly elected by an electoral college of local councils,
professional organizations, and labor unions
o Chamber of Representatives
§ 395 seats
§ 305 members directly elected in multi-seat constituencies by proportional
representation vote
§ 90 directly elected in a single nationwide constituency by proportional
representation vote;
§ 60 seats are reserved for women and 30 reserved for those under age 40

(iii) Judiciary
o Supreme Court judges appointed by the Superior Council of Judicial Power (a 20-
member body presided by the monarch and includes 5 "notable persons" appointed by
the monarch)
o Judges appointed for life
o Constitutional Court members - 6 designated by the monarch and 6 elected by
Parliament; court president appointed by the monarch

(xx) Economy
 Capitalized on its proximity to Europe and relatively low labor costs
 Diverse, open, market-oriented economy.
 Increased investment in its port, transportation, and industrial infrastructure to position itself as a
center and broker for business throughout Africa
 1980s, heavily indebted before pursuing austerity measures and pro-market reforms, overseen by
the IMF.
 Since 1999, stable economy marked by steady growth, low inflation, and gradually falling
unemployment
 2006 Free Trade Agreement with the US and 2008 Advanced Status agreement with the EU
 Seeks to expand renewable energy capacity
 High unemployment, poverty, and illiteracy, particularly in rural areas.

(yy) Transnational Issues

 Serves as one of the primary launching areas of illegal migration into Spain from North Africa
 World's largest producer and exporter of cannabis

North Africa and Middle East: Oman

(zz) Background
 1970, QABOOS bin Said Al-Said overthrew his father, since ruled as sultan
 Modernization program has opened the country to the outside world, while preserving the
longstanding close ties with the UK and US
 Moderate, independent foreign policy has sought to maintain good relations with its neighbours and
to avoid external entanglements.
 Following Arab Spring protests, QABOOS pledged economic and political reforms, such as
granting legislative and regulatory powers to the Majlis al-Shura and increasing unemployment
benefits.
 First municipal council elections in December 2012, have the power to advise the Royal Court on
local needs
 Sultan returned to Oman in 2015 after eight months in Germany for medical treatment

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 (aaa) People and Society
 45% immigrants
 Muslim 85.9%, Christian 6.5%, Hindu 5.5%
 Omani citizens are overwhelming Muslim (Ibadhi and Sunni sects each 45% and Shia 5%)

(bbb) Government
 Absolute monarchy
 Mixed legal system of Anglo-Saxon law and Islamic law
 Suffrage
o 21 years of age; universal;
o Members of the military and security forces by law cannot vote

(i) Executive
o Sultan and Prime Minister QABOOS bin Said Al-Said
o Cabinet appointed by the monarch

(ii) Bicameral legislature

o Council of State or Majlis al-Dawla
§ 85 seats; members appointed by the sultan from among former government
officials and prominent educators, businessmen, and citizens
o Consultative Council or Majlis al-Shura
§ 85 seats; members directly elected by simple majority popular
§ Legislation from the Consultative Council is submitted to the Council of State
for review by the Royal Court

(iii) Judiciary
o Judges nominated by the Supreme Judicial Council (chaired by the monarch) and
appointed by the monarch
o Judges appointed for life
o Some sharia courts
 Organized political parties are banned, loyalties tend to form around tribal affiliations

(ccc) Economy
 Heavily dependent on oil and gas resources, generates 68% - 85% of government revenue
 2016, low global oil prices drove Oman’s budget deficit to $13.8 billion (20%)
 Using enhanced oil recovery techniques to boost production
 Pursued a development plan of diversification, industrialization, and privatization to reduce oil
sector's contribution to GDP
 High social welfare benefits – post-Arab Spring – increased deficit
 2016, austerity measures on gasoline and diesel subsidies
 Spending cuts have had only a moderate effect on the government’s budget

(ddd) Communications
 1 state-run TV broadcaster
 TV stations transmitting from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iran, and Yemen available via satellite
 State-run radio operates multiple stations
 First private radio station began operating in 2007

(eee) Military
 14% GDP (1st)

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North Africa and Middle East: Qatar

(fff) Background
 1995, Former Amir HAMAD bin Khalifa Al Thani overthrew his father in a bloodless coup
 Reformed politics and media, unprecedented economic investment, growing Qatari regional
leadership role, created pan-Arab satellite news network Al-Jazeera
 2000s, resolved its border disputes with Bahrain and Saudi Arabia
 2007 attained the highest per capita income in the world, No Arab Spring uprisings due to wealth
 2013, HAMAD peacefully abdicated, transferring power to his son, Amir TAMIM bin Hamad
 During Arab Spring, supported many popular revolutions, particularly in Libya and Syria
 Damaged relations with Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)
 Relations with Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE improved in 2014 following Kuwaiti mediation
and signing of the Riyadh Agreement
 2017, Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE cut diplomatic and economic ties with Qatar in
response to alleged violations of the agreement

(ggg) People and Society

 Non-Qatari 88.4%, Qatari 11.6% Muslim 67.7%, Christian 13.8%, Hindu 13.8%
 Most of the population clustered in or around the capital of Doha, eastern side of peninsula

(hhh) Government
 Absolute monarchy
 Mixed legal system of civil law and Islamic law (in family and personal matters)
 Non-party to ICC/ICJ

(i) Executive
o Amir TAMIM bin Hamad Al Thani
o Prime Minister ABDALLAH bin Nasir bin Khalifa Al Thani
§ Appointed by the amir
o Council of Ministers appointed by the amir

(ii) Legislature
o Unicameral Advisory Council or Majlis al-Shura
§ 45 seats
§ 30 members directly elected by popular vote
§ 15 appointed by the monarch to serve until resignation or until relieved

(iii) Judiciary
o Supreme Court judges nominated by the Supreme Judiciary Council (9 judiciary heads
appointed by the Amir)
o Judges appointed for 3-year renewable terms

 Political parties are banned

(iii) Economy
 Oil and natural gas resources drive high economic growth and per capita income levels
 Robust state spending on public entitlements, construction spending, especially for 2022 World
Cup in 2022
 Low oil and natural gas prices have tightened some spending to stem budget deficit

84
 Despite the dominance of oil and natural gas, significant gains made in strengthening non-oil
sectors, such as manufacturing, construction, and financial services, leading non-oil GDP to steadily
rise in recent years to just over half the total.
 Following trade restriction imposed by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt in 2017, Qatar
established new trade routes with other countries to maintain access to imports.

(jjj) Communications
 First commercial 5G network in the world
 TV and radio broadcast licensing and access to local media markets are state controlled
 Satellite TV channel Al-Jazeera, originally owned and financed by the Qatari government evolved
to independent corporate status; claims editorial independence in broadcasting

(kkk) Military
 Conscription for males aged 18-35
 4-month general obligation, 3 months for graduates

North Africa and Middle East: Saudi Arabia

(lll) Background
 2005 to 2015, King ABDALLAH bin Abd al-Aziz Al Saud incrementally modernized Kingdom.
 Expanded employment and social opportunities for women, attracted foreign investment, increased
role of private sector, and discouraged businesses from hiring foreign workers
 Reforms accelerated under King SALMAN bin Abd al-Aziz, ascended to the throne in 2015, since
lifted the ban on women driving, opened cinemas for the first time in decades
 Relatively limited protests during Arab Spring
 The government held first-ever elections in 2005 and 2011 to elect municipal councillors.
 In December 2015, women were allowed to vote and stand as candidates for the first time in
municipal council elections, with 19 women winning seats.
 Led a coalition of 10 countries in a military campaign to restore the government of Yemen, ousted
by Houthi forces allied with former president ALI ABDULLAH al-Salih.
 In June 2017, King SALMAN elevated MUHAMMAD BIN SALMAN to Crown Prince.

(mmm) People and Society

 37% immigrants
 Muslim (Official; citizens are 85-90% Sunni and 10-15% Shia)
o Most forms of public religious expression inconsistent with the government-sanctioned
interpretation of Sunni Islam are restricted
o Non-Muslims are not allowed to have Saudi citizenship and non-Muslim places of
worship are not permitted

(nnn) Government
 Absolute monarchy
 Islamic (sharia) legal system with some elements of Egyptian, French, and customary law
 Non-party to ICC/ICJ
 Suffrage: 18 years of age; restricted to males; universal for municipal elections

(i) Executive
o King and Prime Minister SALMAN bin Abd al-Aziz Al Saud
o Crown Prince MUHAMMAD BIN SALMAN bin Abd al-Aziz Al Saud

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 o Council of Ministers appointed by monarch, includes many royal family members

(ii) Legislature
o Unicameral Consultative Council or Majlis al-Shura
§ 150 seats; members appointed by the monarch
§ 2013, the monarch granted women 30 seats on the Council

(iii) Judiciary
o High Court chief appointed by royal decree upon the recommendation of the Supreme
Judiciary Council
o New judges and assistant judges serve 1- and 2-year probations, respectively, before
permanent assignment

(ooo) Economy
 Oil-based economy with strong government controls over major economic activities
 16% of the world's proven petroleum reserves, largest exporter, leading role in OPEC
 Petroleum sector accounts for 87% budget revenues, 42% GDP, 90% export earnings
 Encouraging the growth of private sector to diversify its economy and employ more Saudis
 2017, budget deficit estimated at 8.3% of GDP,
 Cut capital spending and reduced subsidies on electricity, water, and petroleum products and
recently introduced a value-added tax of 5%
 Govt has approached investors about expanding the role of the private sector in the health care,
education and tourism industries

(ppp) Communications
 Broadcast media is state controlled
 Major market for pan-Arab satellite TV broadcasters

(qqq) Military
 10% GDP (3rd)
 No conscription

(rrr) Terrorism
 al-Qa'ida (AQ):
o Opposes the Saudi Islamic monarchy due to its cooperation with the US and the West,
particularly US military bases in the Kingdom; aims to eradicate US and Western
influence and presence from Saudi Arabia
 ISIS
o Conducts strikes against Saudi security personnel and bombs Shia Muslim mosques,
markets, and other places where Shia Muslims gather

(sss) Transnational Issues

 Reinforced concrete-filled security barrier along sections of the now fully demarcated border with
Yemen to stem illegal cross-border activities
 Refugees: 30,000 (Yemen)
 Stateless persons: 70,000
o Thousands of Biduns (stateless Arabs) are descendants of nomadic tribes who were not
officially registered when national borders were established
o Most Palestinians have only legal resident status
• Saudi women cannot pass their citizenship on to their children, so if they marry a non-national,
their children risk statelessness

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 Human trafficking

o Domestic servants or low-skilled labourers face non-payment and withholding of

passports
o Some migrant workers forced to work beyond the term of their contract because their
employers will not grant them a required exit visa
 Drugs
o Regularly enforces the death penalty for drug traffickers, with foreigners being
convicted and executed disproportionately

Basic facts on Saudi Arabia

• Away from commodity prices, increased western focus on human rights around the world,
combined with the greater transparency forced on the kingdom by the globalisation and
enhanced reach of conventional, digital and social media, has placed the Saudi record under
unprecedented scrutiny.
• This has meant more pressure on issues such as;
- Women’s rights
- Human rights violations in Yemen
- Killing of journalists
- Corruption in the regime
- Saudi funding for extremist rebels

• The Saudi’s are 75% Sunni and have hostile relations with Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Iran,
Hezbollah, the Houthis in Yemen and Libya.
• Nearly 45 percept of the population (currently about 26 million) is under the age of 25. This is
really interesting in “liberalisation” debates as it’s an interesting metric by which to measure
the capacity of the West to use instruments like social media to promote more liberal and
Western values to the next generation of Saudis.

Vision 2030

• Mohammed Bin Salman’s project revolves around “Vision 2030,” a comprehensive economic
and social initiative with three core elements:

(1) Developing a diversified and sustainable economy that shifts

away from reliance on the energy sector as the main pillar;

(2) Shifting the main driver of economic growth and prosperity

from the public sector to the private; and

(3) Creating the millions of jobs needed to absorb the coming

demographic wave as the public sector retreats from its
historic role as employer of first resort.

• Vision 2030 is an aspirational document. It’s unlikely that all the ambitious goals it lays out
can or will be achieved over the next decade.
• The plan is frank about the need to open up Saudi society on many levels if economic reforms
have any hope of succeeding.
• Beyond gender issues, the crown prince’s ambitious plans to move the Saudi economy toward
a private-sector focus will require sweeping changes to the country’s traditional cradle-to-grave
social welfare system.

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 CHECK RELIGION SECTION FOR MORE INFORMATION ON 2030 LIBERALISATION

• Interestingly, young Saudi women appear far more interested in finding careers in the private
sector than their male counterparts, who often prefer the security and better pay and benefits of
public-sector jobs.

Oil, Leverage and Power Dynamics

• It’s time to stop overestimating the power of having oil in debates

• The USA is actually net exporter of Oil (as of late 2018)
• Countries like Saudi Arabia and Russia have very poorly diversified economies as a result of
their dependence on Oil which is a double-edged sword as it means that any volatility in Oil
prices can cause significant downturn, or as it did in Russia in 2014-2017 – a financial crisis
• This actually gives countries like the USA economic and diplomatic leverage to use against the
Saudis, having recently threatened to lower oil prices in relation to the release of CIA
documents
• Moreover, the fall in oil prices in November 2018 was largely because of the USA’s ability to
convince the Saudi’s to lower prices (note that this was probably a political move as it was at
the height of the Khashoggi Affair)
• Increased supplies of oil from non-Middle East countries, such as Angola, coupled with the
advent of alternative green-energy systems, improved conservation, and heightened awareness
about the need to curb carbon emissions, are also reducing Saudi leverage.

Saudi Aramco IPO

Overview: The Kingdom plans to sell about one to two per cent of Aramco in a deal which is
estimated to value it at $1.5 trillion. While this is significantly below Crown Prince
Mohammad Bin Salman’s initial target of $2 trillion, it would still make the company
vastly more valuable than tech behemoths like Apple and Microsoft, which are both
valued at $1 trillion.

Attacks: Beyond the listing itself, the September drone attacks on Aramco oil facilities will be
a point of contention. The attacks are still very fresh in global investors’ minds, which
demonstrates the kind of problem they will have in coming to a suitable valuation.

Regulation: As the battle for high-value international listings among exchanges reaches fever pitch,
the temptation to dilute regulations for dual listings will only grow more compelling.
The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) announced that it was considering the
provision of a fresh listing module for international companies; enabling them to obtain
a London Stock Exchange listing in absentia of several historically key aspects of
domestic Compliance & Governance criterion. The FCA communique points to the
very clear and realisable danger of a wide scale regulatory slide, fueled by a host of
circumstantial factors including but not limited to the appeal of the listing prospect,
aspects of financial deregulation in the United States and commerce linked Brexit
trepidation.

Transparency: Saudi Aramco publishes very little information about its reserves, finances and
activities, including how much of the oil revenue is diverted back to the Saudi royal
family. Listing the shares on an international stock exchange would require Saudi
Aramco to publish much more information, thereby becoming more transparent about
its activities. Under rules in the United States, for example, all publicly listed
companies are required to have a code of conduct, audit committees, corporate
governance controls, policies on risk topics (conflicts of interest, insider trading, etc.)
and certain controls for financial reporting.

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Corp. Gov: Saudi Aramco is expected to introduce a tighter corporate governance structure. This
is expected to bring about more transparency and added controls to prevent or detect
potentially corrupt acts in the company. There are several positive examples with other
national oil companies where a listing of some shares has brought about more
transparency and lower levels of corruption.

• Norwegian Statoil
• Colombian Ecopetrol
• Kazakhstan’s KazMunaiGas,

All of which have been increasing their performance and revenue after offering a
portion of their shares to the public. However, there have also been compliance issues
for national oil companies that have a minority of shares listed on an international stock
exchange. The most well-known example of this is Brazil’s Petrobras, which, despite
the compliance requirements of the New York Stock Exchange, has been the centre of
a large-scale international corruption scandal. A public listing alone does not guarantee
less corruption in a company, and it might even give some a false sense of security
about the robustness of controls. Requirements that go along with public listings are
not best practices but baseline rules to give some level of security to investors.

Oil Prices: The IPO is not expected to have a major impact on oil prices. Aramco is not expected
to change its production strategy, as this is still dictated by the Saudi government.
Aramco will only offer about 5 percent of its shares, so the new shareholders will not
be in any position to change the company’s overall strategy. It is also unlikely that
other oil-producing companies will change their production strategy as a result of the
IPO. However, greater transparency at Saudi Aramco as a result of the IPO might
provide a better understanding of the actual size of Saudi Arabia’s oil reserves and
whether these have been romanticised.

Saudi Arabia has been the controlling power of oil prices for decades. When the
company removed 1 million barrels per day in 1974, the result was a supply crunch
and skyrocketing prices. Companies in the region and in the industry will look at Saudi
Aramco if they are considering going public, as their efforts of transparency,
compliance and ethics will become the benchmark for others. If there is a shortage of
information provided about compliance efforts, companies later might ask “If Saudi
Aramco chose not to provide this information, why should we?” and the reasons for
doing so might not be persuasive enough to start a trend of openness.

However, Saudi Aramco through pioneering positive action could usher in a new era
for compliance and transparency standards in the region. The international investor
community will be patiently waiting to observe exactly how much data the company is
willing to share to and ultimately looking to gauge whether the window provided into
their ethics and compliance efforts turns out to be truly transparent or merely
translucent in practice. The one thing that we can be assured of at this stage is that the
Saudi Aramco IPO, however the powers at be choose for it to be eventually played out,
will have reverberations in the global compliance ecosystem for many years to come.

CHECK RELIGION SECTION FOR MORE ON EXPORTING WAHABBISM IN S.E. ASIA

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North Africa and Middle East: Syria

(ttt) Background
 Independence from France in 1946
 1967 Arab-Israeli War, lost the Golan Heights region to Israel
 1970, Hafiz al-ASAD, a member of the socialist Ba'ath Party and the minority Alawi sect, seized
power in a bloodless
 2000, Bashar al-ASAD, approved as president by popular referendum
 Antigovernment protests broke out first in the southern province of Dar'a
 Protesters called for the repeal of the restrictive Emergency Law allowing arrests without charge,
the legalization of political parties, and the removal of corrupt local officials.
 Govt responded with concessions - repeal of the Emergency Law, new laws permitting new political
parties, and liberalizing local and national elections - and military force
 Efforts to quell unrest led to civil war
 2011, Arab League, EU, Turkey, and the US expanded economic
 2015, Russia launches military intervention on behalf of ASAD, govt-aligned forces recapture
Aleppo
 UN-sponsored Geneva conferences since 2014 have failed
 Since 2017, Iran, Russia, and Turkey held separate Astana negotiations to reduce violence
 December 2018, approximately 6.2 million Syrians were internally displaced,
 13 mil in need of humanitarian assistance
 5.7 million Syrians registered refugees in Turkey, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, and North Africa

People and Society

 Arab: 50%, Alawite: 15%, Kurd: 10%

 Muslim 87% (official; includes Sunni 74% and Alawi, Ismaili, and Shia 13%), Christian 10%

(uuu) Government
 Presidential republic; highly authoritarian regime
 Mixed legal system of civil and Islamic law (for family courts)
 Non-party to ICC/ICJ

(i) Executive
o President Bashar al-ASAD - directly elected by simple majority popular vote
o Prime Minister Imad Muhammad Dib KHAMIS
o Council of Ministers appointed by the president

(ii) Legislature
o Unicameral People's Assembly or Majlis al-Shaab
§ 250 seats; members directly elected in multi-seat constituencies by simple
majority preferential vote

(iii) Judiciary
o Court of Cassation judges appointed by the Supreme Judicial Council (7 members,
including national president)
o Supreme Constitutional Court judges nominated by the president and appointed by the
SJC; 4-year renewable terms

(vvv) Economy
 Deeply deteriorated, declining by more than 70% from 2010 to 2017

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 Struggled to address the effects of international sanctions, widespread infrastructure damage,
diminished domestic consumption and production, reduced subsidies, and high inflation
 High levels of international assistance, as more than 13 million people in need inside Syria, more
than 5.4 million registered Syrian refugees

(www) Communications
 Armed insurgency caused telephone and Internet outages throughout the count
 Telecoms have become decentralized with expensive satellite communications in the country
 State-run TV and radio broadcast networks
 Roughly two-thirds of Syrian homes have a satellite dish providing access to foreign TV broadcasts
 Private radio broadcasters prohibited from transmitting news or political content

(xxx) Military
 18 years of age for service
 Conscript service obligation is 18 months
 Women are not conscripted but may volunteer to serve

(yyy) Terrorism
 al-Nusrah Front
o Establish a regional Islamic caliphate
o Headquartered in the northwestern Idlib Governorate, installs Sharia in areas under its
control; targets primarily Syrian regime and pro-regime forces,
 ISIS
o Lost most of the territory it once controlled and now its overt territorial control is limited
to pockets of land along the Syria-Iraq border and in southern Syria
 Abdallah Azzam Brigades (AAB):
o Conducts attacks against primarily Shia Muslim organizations and individuals,
including Hezbollah members, and Westerners and their interests
 al-Qa'ida (AQ):
o Operational primarily in Idlib Governorate and southern Syria, where it has established
networks and operates paramilitary training camps
 Ansar al-Islam (AAI):
o launches attacks on Syrian Government security forces and pro-Syrian Government
militias; some AAI factions combat ISIS, while others are aligned with ISIS
 Hezbollah:
o Centered on providing paramilitary support to President Bashar al-ASAD's regime
against armed insurgents
 Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK):
o Aims to advance Kurdish autonomy, political, and cultural rights in Syria, Turkey, Iraq,
and Iran
 Mujahidin Shura Council in the Environs of Jerusalem (MSC):
o Aims to destroy the state of Israel; enhance its networks in Syria
 Palestine Liberation Front (PLF):
o Aims to destroy Israel and establish a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital

(zzz) Transnational Issues

 IDPs: 6.2 million
 The civil war has resulted in approximately 5.7 million registered Syrian refugees - dispersed in
Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey
 Statelessness: 160,000 stateless Kurds and Palestinians

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 o Prevented from voting, owning land, holding certain jobs, receiving food subsidies or
public healthcare, enrolling in public schools, or being legally married to Syrian
citizens

 Human trafficking
o Syrian children forcibly recruited by government forces, pro-regime militias, armed
opposition groups, and terrorist organizations to serve as soldiers, human shields, and
executioners

North Africa and Middle East: Tunisia

(aaaa) Background
 Independence from France in 1956
 The country's first president, Habib BOURGUIBA, established a strict one-party state
 Dominated the country for 31 years, repressing Islamic fundamentalism and establishing rights for
women
 1987, BOURGUIBA replaced by Zine el Abidine BEN ALI in a bloodless coup
 Facing pro-democracy protests, BEN ALI dismissed the government and fled the country
 2011, "national unity government" formed
 Human rights activist Moncef MARZOUKI elected as interim president
 Ratified constitution in 2014.
 Beji CAID ESSEBSI elected as the first president under new constitution

Geography
 Overwhelming majority of the population is located in the northern half of the country;
the south remains largely underpopulated
 Strategic location in central Mediterranean; Malta and Tunisia are discussing the
commercial (oil) exploitation of the continental shelf between their countries

People and Society

 Muslim (official; Sunni) 99.1%

 Govt took steps in the 1960s to decrease population growth and gender
 First national family planning program in Africa
 Total fertility rate of 2 children per woman; will soon be shifting from a youth-bulge country
to a transitional age structure
 Lower fertility and mortality rates, slower population growth rate, rising median age, and longer
average life expectancy
 Large number of jobless youth; deficiencies in primary and secondary education; and the
ongoing lack of job creation and skills mismatches could contribute to future unrest
 History of labour emigration; signed bilateral labour agreements with France, Germany,
Belgium, Hungary, and the Netherlands
 Post-Arab Spring, illegal migration of unemployed Tunisian youths and Libyan refugees to
Europe increased
 Readmission agreement stemmed outflow, leaving Tunisia and IGOs to accommodate some 1
million Libyans and third-country nationals.

Government
 Parliamentary republic

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  Mixed legal system of civil law, based on the French civil code and Islamic law
 Accepts ICC jurisdiction
 Suffrage: 18 years of age; universal except for active government security forces (including the
police and the military), people with mental disabilities, people who have served more than
three months in prison

(i) Executive
o President Beji CAID ESSEBSI
§ Directly elected by absolute majority popular vote
o Prime Minister Youssef CHAHED
§ Selected by the majority party or majority coalition and appointed by the
president

(ii) Legislature
o unicameral Assembly of the Representatives of the People
§ 217 seats
§ 199 members directly elected in Tunisian multi-seat constituencies
§ 18 members in multi-seat constituencies abroad by party-list proportional
representation vote

(iii) Judiciary
o Supreme Court judges nominated by the Supreme Judicial Council (elected judges
and legal specialists)
o New Tunisian constitution called for the creation of a constitutional court to consist
of 12 members - 4 appointed by each the president, the Supreme Judicial council,
and parliament

Economy
 Structurally designed to favor vested interests
 Focused on bolstering exports, foreign investment, and tourism
 Key exports include textiles and apparel, food products, petroleum products, chemicals, and
phosphates, 80% of exports bound for the EU.
 Former President Zine el Abidine BEN ALI’s reign stymied economic performance with cronyism
and corruption, unemployment rose, and the informal economy grew.
 Successive terrorist attacks against the tourism sector and worker strikes in the phosphate sector
slowed growth
 Seeking increased foreign investment and working with the IMF through an Extended Fund Facility
agreement to fix fiscal deficiencies

Communications
 Telephone system above the African average and continuing to be upgraded
 Internet access available throughout the country; penetration rates and internet services are among
the highest in the region
 Broadcast media is mainly government-controlled
 1 TV and 3 radio stations are privately owned and report domestic news stories directly from the
official Tunisian news agency
 Tunisians also have access to Egyptian, pan-Arab, and European satellite TV channels

Military
 20-23 years of age for compulsory service
 1-year service obligation
 Tunisian nationality required

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 Terrorism
 al-Qa'ida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM):
o Leadership headquartered in Algeria; operates in Tunisia and Libya
 Ansar al-Sharia in Tunisia (AAS-T):
o Headquartered in Tunisia; members instigate riots, violent demonstrations and attacks,
target Tunisian military and security personnel, Tunisian politicians, religious sites,
and Western interests

 ISIS
o Tunisian ISIS fighters stage attacks just across the border in Libya against government
facilities and personnel and foreign tourists in Tunisia

Transnational Issues
 Human trafficking
o Street children, rural children working to support their families, and migrants are
vulnerable to human trafficking
o Organized gangs force street children to serve as thieves, beggars, and drug transporters

North Africa and Middle East: UAE

Background
 1971, Abu Dhabi, 'Ajman, Al Fujayrah, Ash Shariqah, Dubayy, and Umm al Qaywayn - merged to
form the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
 Oil and global finance drove the UAE's economy, deeply affected by falling oil prices, collapsing
real estate prices, and international banking
 Avoided Arab Spring unrest partly because of the government's multi-year, $1.6-billion
infrastructure investment plan for the poorer northern emirates, and its aggressive pursuit of
advocates of political reform
 Growing role in regional affairs; donating billions of dollars in economic aid to help stabilize Egypt,
one of the first countries to join Defeat-ISIS coalition, a key partner in a Saudi-led military
campaign in Yemen

(bbbb) People and Society

 Immigrants make up more than 88% of the total population
 Emirati 11.6%, South Asian 59.4% (includes Indian 38.2%, Bangladeshi 9.5%, Pakistani 9.4%,
other 2.3%), Egyptian 10.2%
 Muslim (official) 76%, Christian 9%
 85% of the population live in the three largest emirates - Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Sharjah

(cccc) Government
 Federation of monarchies
 Mixed legal system of Islamic law and civil law
 Non-party to ICC/ICJ
 Suffrage: rulers of the seven emirates each select a proportion of voters for the Federal National
Council (FNC) that together account for about 12 percent of Emirati citizens

(i) Executive
o President KHALIFA bin Zayid Al-Nuhayyan
§ Indirectly elected by the Federal Supreme Council
o Prime Minister Vice President MUHAMMAD BIN RASHID Al-Maktum
§ Appointed by the president
o Council of Ministers announced by PM and approved by the president

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 o Federal Supreme Council (FSC) composed of the 7 emirate rulers
§ Highest constitutional authority in the UAE
§ Establishes general policies and sanctions federal legislation
§ Abu Zaby (Abu Dhabi) and Dubayy (Dubai) rulers have effective veto power

(ii) Legislature
o unicameral Federal National Council (FNC) or Majlis al-Ittihad al-Watani
o 40 seats (1 woman)
o 20 members indirectly elected by an electoral college whose members are selected by
each emirate ruler proportional to its FNC membership,
o 20 members appointed by the rulers of the 7 constituent states

(iii) Judiciary
o Judges appointed by the president following approval by the Federal Supreme Council
 Political parties are banned

Economy
 Open economy with a high per capita income and a sizable annual trade surplus
 Successful efforts at economic diversification have reduced the portion of GDP from the oil and
gas sector to 30%.
 Free trade zones offer 100% foreign ownership and zero taxes
 Authorities tried to blunt 2009 crisis by increasing spending and boosting liquidity in the banking
sector
 Dubai lacked sufficient cash to meet its debt obligations, received a $20 billion bailout from the
UAE Central Bank and Abu Dhabi Government that was refinanced in March 2014
 Reduced fuel subsidies in 2015, and introduced excise taxes (50% on sweetened carbonated
beverages and 100% on energy drinks and tobacco) in 2017.
 Strategic plan focuses on economic diversification, promoting the UAE as a global trade and
tourism hub, and creating more jobs through improved education and increased private sector
employment
 Expatriates account for about 85% of the workforce

Communications
 Most TV and radio stations remain government-owned except for the many organizations now
operating in media free zones in Abu Dhabi and Dubai
 Widespread use of satellite dishes provides access to pan-Arab and other international broadcasts
 Restrictions since June 2017 on some satellite channels and websites originating from or otherwise
linked to Qatar

Military
 18-30 years of age for compulsory military service for men
 Optional service for women
 2-year general obligation, 12 months for secondary school graduates

Asia: China

Quick Historical Facts or References

• Pax Sinica - Chinese globalist worldview of China being the centre of a global community,
central to China’s conception of foreign relations and governments (can be linked to the more
historical or ideological incentives behind initiatives like One Belt One Road to ignite new
trade routes centred around China)

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 • Sino-Japanese war, narratives used to refer to the “century of humiliation” where china was
subject to “foreign humiliation” when colonial and imperial forces tried to insert themselves in
China and shape Chinese politics (i.e handover)
• The manners through which history is taught in china has an innate political bias, currently “us
vs. them” and China reacting to the perceived threats of other nations asserting themselves in
China.
• Chairman Mao – formed communes, mass propaganda, collectivisation of industry, put
students and academics on farms, three years of famine from 1968-1961, Great Leap Forward
shows the ability of Chinese leaders to leverage a strong cult of personality to garner support
from masses in China who responded to cues from these kinds of elites
• Since 1976, series of economic reforms that introduced Chinese capitalism, political transitions
of power, Deng Xiaoping rose to power after factional struggles, beat the conservatives and
anti reformists.
• Realise that this shows a lot about China, unlike Russia, who followed Stalin’s death with
leaders like Gorbachev who began to democratise and liberalise, this is because Deng was
worried about devolving political power towards the masses within China
• Hence, experts are usually wrong about China on these kinds of issues
• Deng turned China into a country that always looked to centralise power to the very upper
echelons of the Communist Party, and at the same time economic reforms and restructuring so
that as opposed to be a state-driven economy to have a sustainable capitalist market that
deviated heavily from the economic vision of Mao, and crucially, allowed China to become
more assertive in global markets and spheres of economic and cultural influence
• In this period, (80s-90s) China’s economy grew the most
• When Xi has a much more global view of China, his enshrinement at most summits to the
Central Committee have centred around two issues;

(1) Continuing the centralisation of political power in the sense of

ensuring that Beijing had greater access to information of
individuals, communications and localities (think mass
technological surveillance, aggressive social crediting
systems, monitoring of informatics or widespread facial-
recognition).
(2) Economic globalisation and interconnectivity in China

• Legislature is composed of two groups, one (the CCPCC) is completely superficial, and many
legal arbitrations carried out in China are arbitrated by people with little legal expertise and
stronger political links, hence the recent increase in the incarceration rates of pro-emancipation
lawyers in China since the turn of the millennia
• There’s a 7-member standing committee elected by a politburo, a larger organ of the state, built
of the central committee (about 300 people) this constitutes the political organ that governs
China on a national level
• Very hard to report things in China, lots of vertical reporting, local – city – region – province
– national.
• Xi wrote himself into the party constitution and Xi Thought, this can be a characterisation
tussle, it can be said that this is a move toward liberalism (as Xi Thought is more globalist and
is being enforced) for that (for obvious reasons) this is just more of a cult of personality
• China’s a good example to use to show that economic marketization does not always lead to
democratisation, as improved living standards legitimise them, the absence of domestically
affluent middle class, no leverage between domestic classes and the government as China can
fund huge initiatives without relying on them, very hard for labour liberalisation may have
increased foreign investment, but made it much harder for unions to form.

China’s Influence, Democracies and Liberty

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 • If we want to think about how a China that is economically so successful while making no
changes to its one-party model challenges the democratic world then we may as well be clear
about what we can, and can’t, impute to the People’s Republic.
• First up, though Beijing’s use of technology has been horribly effective in infiltrating and
controlling public discourse in China, and seeps into our own virtual worlds, that’s a generic
outcome of technology. We need to share the blame: look at how uncontrolled the empires of
Facebook and other Western companies have been.
• We created this particular monster. China has been opportunistic in developing it.
• The West needs to create a more effective regime to deal with the threat to personal liberty
• China is influencing French and Australian curriculums to promote its regime, but its not
terribly effective, often meeting strong criticism and coming off as defencing material
• The same can be said for the China Daily, which is often not sold alone, but inserted free into
Western magazines and papers. All of this just raises a question: if this is the era of an
emboldened, brave new China coming to conquer our hearts, why is it doing it in such a hesitant
way?

So, what does China actually want?

• Unlike in the era of Mao Zedong when, paradoxically, an isolated, marginalised China still
tried to commit funds to the outside world in support of Maoist insurrection movements in
places as far-flung as Bhutan and Paris, the unhappy and contentious outcomes of that era mean
that, on the whole, China today is not interested in changing our minds about our own systems.
• Its greatest characteristic is a relentless focus on its own self-interest. Where it suits it, it wants
to change Western thinking about things that matter to it—Taiwan, Tibet, the South China Sea.
• In this context, China is a threat to the liberal world order not because it has anything close to
a set of ideas and attitudes that the outside world might be easily able to adopt, and that compete
with enlightenment universalist liberal values, but because of its clear stance under Xi of
allowing non-Chinese to hold these values, while resolutely rejecting them for itself.
• Its exceptionalism of course offends Western desires for modernisation universalism.
• If China succeeds in creating a future with no political reform, but a fully modernised economy,
then theories of development will need to be rewritten.
• In that sense, China is a threat to an intellectual consensus.

China and Western Standards

• After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the West welcomed the next big communist country
into the global economic order. Western leaders believed that giving China a stake in
institutions such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO) would bind it into the rules-based
system set up after the second world war
• They hoped that economic integration would encourage China to evolve into a market economy
and that, as they grew wealthier, its people would come to yearn for democratic freedoms, rights
and the rule of law.
• Today the illusion has been shattered. In reality, Mr Xi has steered politics and economics
towards repression, state control and confrontation.

China Under Xi (Useful information for any China motion)

• Mr Xi has used his power to reassert the dominance of the Communist Party and of his own
position within it. As part of a campaign against corruption, he has purged potential rivals. He
has executed a sweeping reorganisation of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), partly to
ensure its loyalty to the party, and to him personally. He has imprisoned freethinking lawyers
and stamped out criticism of the party and the government in the media and online. Though

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 people’s personal lives remain relatively free, he is creating a surveillance state to monitor
discontent and deviance.
• China used to profess no interest in how other countries run themselves, so long as it was left
alone. Increasingly, however, it holds its authoritarian system up as a rival to liberal democracy.
At the party’s 19th congress last autumn, Mr Xi offered “a new option for other countries” that
would involve “Chinese wisdom and a Chinese approach to solving the problems facing
mankind.” Mr Xi later said that China would not export its model, but you sense that America
now has not just an economic rival, but an ideological one, too.
• The bet to embed markets has been more successful. China has been integrated into the global
economy. It is the world’s biggest exporter, with over 13% of the total. It is enterprising and
resourceful, and home to 12 of the world’s 100 most valuable listed companies. It has created
extraordinary prosperity, for itself and those who have done business with it.
• Yet China is not a market economy and, on its present course, never will be. Instead, it
increasingly controls business as an arm of state power. It sees a vast range of industries as
strategic.
• Its “Made in China 2025” plan, for instance, sets out to use subsidies and protection to create
world leaders in ten industries, including aviation, tech and energy, which together cover nearly
40% of its manufacturing.
• Although China has become less blatant about industrial espionage, Western companies still
complain of state-sponsored raids on their intellectual property. Meanwhile, foreign businesses
are profitable but miserable, because commerce always seems to be on China’s terms.
American credit-card firms, for example, were let in only after payments had shifted to mobile
phones.

Belt and Road Initiative

• China embraces some Western rules, but also seems to be drafting a parallel system of its own.
Take the Belt and Road Initiative, which promises to invest over $1tn in markets abroad,
ultimately dwarfing the Marshall plan. This is partly a scheme to develop China’s troubled
west, but it also creates a Chinese-funded web of influence that includes pretty much any
country willing to sign up. The initiative asks countries to accept Chinese-based dispute-
resolution. Should Western norms frustrate Chinese ambition, this could be an alternative.

China’s Arbitrage and Debt-Trap Diplomacy in Africa

• Recently, China has been offering cheap loans to developing or indebted nations (with Xi
notably pledging $100 billion to African nations in loans), also done this in Greece/Sri Lanka.
• China’s loaning to developing nations has grown tenfold in 5 years
• African nations, in dire need of boosting their infrastructure, economic growth, and global
competitiveness have increasingly looked to China for loans. Yet the borrowing spree has come
under scrutiny in recent years, with critics noting they could encourage dependency, entrap
nations in debt, and push debt limits to unsustainable levels, crushing currency values and
skyrocketing interest rates.
• Later, once these interest rates rise to unsustainable levels and their economies are devalued,
and the countries are unable to meet repayments, China often engages in extreme arbitrage to
leverage their own power and takes control of assets in these nations (they took Piraeus Port,
the biggest one in Greece, and many resource deposits in developing African nations).
• In Zambia and South Africa, China even implemented their own police forces that resulted in
significant public upheaval and unrest and even vigilante-justice in Zambia resulting in the
killings of 13 Chinese nationals.
• Unless the investments financed by China generates substantial economic gains boosting debt-
servicing capacity, the loans will have significant implications for growth, debt sustainability,
and affordability.

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 • With an already mounting debt problem and low foreign exchange reserves, Kenya, Angola,
Zambia, Congo, Sudan and Cameroon countries might be exposed to fiscal and external
vulnerabilities.
• This warning doesn’t bode well for African governments, who are already battling rumours that
they are about to hand over state assets to Beijing. Given that Chinese loans come with fewer
strings attached, experts have raised concerns that governments are saddling taxpayers with
unnecessary debt in the name of development.
• Another compounding problem is that China isn’t a member of the Paris Club, the multilateral
group of official sovereign creditors. This allows Chinese organizations to not take a country’s
income into account when deciding to approve a loan or its interest rate – so countries like
Nigeria are not excluded. China purely looks at the viability of the project – examining what
sort of return it will generate and therefore how easily it can be repaid.
• Furthermore, decisions are made quickly. In some cases, the entire process to approve and
complete a project can take just two years.

Some Power Dynamics

• China uses business to confront its enemies. It seeks to punish firms directly, as when
Mercedes-Benz, a German carmaker, was recently obliged to issue a grovelling apology after
unthinkingly quoting the Dalai Lama online. It also punishes them for the behaviour of their
governments.
• When the Philippines contested China’s claim to Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea,
China suddenly stopped buying its bananas, supposedly for health reasons. As China’s
economic clout grows, so could this sort of pressure.
• This “sharp power” in commerce is a complement to the hard power of armed force. Here,
China behaves as a regional superpower bent on driving America out of East Asia. As with
Scarborough Shoal, China has seized and built on a number of reefs and islets.
• The pace of Chinese military modernisation and investment is raising doubts about America’s
long-run commitment to retain its dominance in the region. The PLA still could not defeat
America in a fight, but power is about resolve as well as strength. Even as China’s challenge
has become overt, America has been unwilling or unable to stop it.

What should the West do?

• The longer the West grudgingly accommodates China’s abuses, the more dangerous it will be
to challenge them later. In every sphere, therefore, policy needs to be harder edged, even as the
West cleaves to the values it claims are universal.
• To counter China’s sharp power, Western societies should seek to shed light on links between
independent foundations, even student groups, and the Chinese state. To counter China’s
misuse of economic power, the West should scrutinise investments by state-owned companies
and, with sensitive technologies, by Chinese companies of any kind. It should bolster
institutions that defend the order it is trying to preserve. For months America has blocked the
appointment of officials at the WTO.
• To counter China’s hard power, America needs to invest in new weapons systems and, most of
all, ensure that it draws closer to its allies—who, witnessing China’s resolve, will naturally look
to America.

Tariffs, Currency Manipulation and China/USA Debt Holdings

• The Chinese currency, called the renminbi, is what’s known as a policy currency. That the
People’s Bank of China, an arm of the Chinese government, sets the currency’s value against
the dollar means that unlike the U.S. dollar, which rises and falls in value in free market trading.
• While the PBOC has gradually tried to make the value of the renminbi more reflective of market
forces, setting trading bands in which the renminbi is allowed to fluctuate every day.

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 • The reason is that Trump is trying to force China to stop stealing intellectual property from
U.S. companies, which it forces to form joint ventures with Chinese firms if they want to do
business in China. That’s a blatant violation of World Trade Organization rules that Beijing
agreed to when it joined the WTO in December, 2001.
• But here’s the tricky part: while the U.S. bought $505 billion of goods from China last year,
the Chinese only bought $129 billion worth of U.S. goods. Meaning that Beijing will run out
of imports to tax long before Trump does.
• So, one stratagem for the Chinese is to hit back in another, non-tariff way. Such as making their
goods cheaper so that the Trump tariffs don’t make a difference. Enter the renminbi. China has
allowed the currency to decline 7.6 percent against the since July 2018. That’s a huge drop, and
almost negates Trump’s threatened 10 percent import tariffs on some Chinese products.

China/USA Debt Holdings

• Many worry that China’s ownership of over $1 trillion in American debt affords the Chinese
economic leverage over the United States. This apprehension, however, stems from a
misunderstanding of sovereign debt and of how states derive power from their economic
relations. The purchasing of sovereign debt by foreign countries is a normal transaction that
helps maintain openness in the global economy. Consequently, China’s stake in America’s debt
has more of a binding than dividing effect on bilateral relations between the two countries.
• Even if China wished to “call in” its loans, the use of credit as a coercive measure is complicated
and often heavily constrained. A creditor can only dictate terms for the debtor country if that
debtor has no other options. In the case of the United States, American debt is a widely-held
and extremely desirable asset in the global economy. Whatever debt China does sell is simply
purchased by other countries. For instance, in August 2015 China reduced its holdings of U.S.
Treasuries by approximately $180 billion. Despite the scale, this selloff did not significantly
affect the US Economy thereby limiting the impact that such an action may have on U.S.
decision-making. China needs to maintain significant reserves of U.S. debt to manage the
exchange rate of the renminbi. Were China to suddenly unload its reserve holdings, its
currency’s exchange rate would rise, making Chinese exports more expensive in foreign
markets. As such, China’s holdings of American debt do not provide China with undue
economic influence over the United States.

CONSULT RELIGION SECTION FOR MORE INFORMATION ON UIGUIRS

EUDC 2019 Athens Quarter Final LSE CO

THBT it is in the interest of the Kremlin to take measures to reduce Russian dependency on China.
E.g. limit the selling of raw materials to China, reduce the share on Yuan in Russia's currency
reserves, not allowing China’s 5G tech in Russia.

Summary of MO Speech:

(1) “Competing interests with China => must separate”

i) Alternatives won’t be as big as china

ii) China is a major point of entry (Guangdong Ports, existing contracts)
iii) African union will always side with China because of BRI (quid pro quo)

(2) “USA is going to help Russia because no other allies”

i) They have Tokyo and Seoul

ii) USA Sanctions Russia, hacking elections, means political suicide for Trump
iii) Even if, change in 2020 gov’t means they lose out

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 iv) Now the USA can crush Russia, strategic game theory to remove great power
v) EU is energy independent

Extension: China will actively retaliate

(1) These things and signals are immediately identifiable

(2) CCP relies on dependency for border security, therefore there is a sense of insecurity
(3) Seen as Russia shifting from China to the USA

Arth’s Epic OW Speech

Panel, when the dragon bear sees the bear abandon the dragon, the dragon tortures it alive, and that’s
what we showed in closing opposition: that when you leave an angry dragon, the only thing they’ll do
is spit fire at you, and that’s why we won this debate. Because that lackadaisical response from that
previous speaker did not explain why it is that China wouldn’t retaliate, and crucially, opening
government themselves give us this mechanism, because, if it is the case that expansionism is the most
important consideration for China, then when Russia competes against China for expansionism, you
get retaliation, and I thank for that opening government team for it. I’m going to do two things in this
speech:

(1) Firstly, I’m going to talk about opening government: the team of terminal unanswered
contingencies.
(2) And then I’m going to talk about closing government: the team of utter historical ignorance.

Let’s look firstly, at opening government, I think our extension comprehensively beats them, they have
two claims:

(1) There are antithetical regional interests

(2) There are Chinese perverse incentives, and they kick in

Firstly, on antithetical interests.

The first thing that they show is that these antithetical interests necessarily exist, because there is a very
flippant remark from Darren which is that “well if they have an oil field and you guys are competing
for the oil field, then only one of you will come out on top”.

Hint: There are more than one oil field in Africa. The reason that is important is our
extension: at the moment, when there is dependence that Russia has on China and
China has on Russia, they trust through the separation of territory that, Russia can have
its own set of oil fields and China can have its own set of oil fields because the money
that goes towards Russia no longer comes at the expense of China as opening
government would have it.

The manifestation of this is simple, for example, at the moment, Russia actively drills in places like
Venezuela and the DRC, whereas China now has its division throughout the east of Africa, in places
like Djibouti. They had to show, therefore, on a first-premise level why this conflict actually existed in
the first place, and that plausibility test did not pass.

The second thing that we show, is that even insofar as there is competition, we think that it is better that
we do not antagonise the Chinese State for the reason that we will get some of the gains that come from
that competition even if China does not in fact, if China prevails for the reason that if China beats us
out, which they don’t tell us why Russia would beat China, then, it is better that china is buying
resources from us so that, for example, if China is the only actor in Angola, we at least get some of the
money streaming from Angola.

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The second thing is, where competition exists, this Opening Government team had to demonstrate that
Russia would supersede China in that competition and they never did. There are two reasons why they
didn’t.

Firstly, prima facie China has a bigger economy than Russia and a greater number of state-owned
enterprises; they don’t prove that they have the capacity to do so. But secondly, this is really important,
and this is where their own mechanism collapses on themselves. They say, when China has less money,
China has less manufacturing capacity because they are no longer buying Russian googs anymore,
Russia can strangle China. Here’s the important thing: if Russia doesn’t sell its shit to China, Russia
also has less money, according to Opening Government’s own metric, which means they too have less
capacity, which means they cannot drill in fucking Africa. And that’s why they’re out of this debate.

But thirdly, and this is really important, they had to demonstrate that this offset the losses from Chinese
trade. Which at no point you are given a mechanism to weigh. I would suggest that it is unlikely for the
reason that secondary sanctions that the US have implemented mean that thousands of people are
unwilling to trade with Russia, but also that China is a very large market and that is important, the
reason this is important, this is very very important, money is crucial to the Russian State because it
goes towards things like its security apparatus, it funds it’s foreign priorities and expansion, it allows it
to have political stability. These were the three metrics that Opening Government set out at the
beginning of this debate, and they have not won any of them, and that’s why we win against opening
government. And our extension does that, because we show China’s far more likely to retaliate, which
means the Kremlin’s capacity to do all of those things is limited, and there is no implicit material, trust
me I tracked that case, that would allow them to win.

Let’s look at Closing Government, the team of historical ignorance. The only reason they say why the
US doesn’t stay and actually engage in a coalition with Russia is China. And they had a huge burden
here which is to show that the moment that Russia no longer associates with it, the US would get
involved. You know, that US that is a part of NATO, that US that currently funds rebels against the
Ukrainian Rebels in Crimea, that Russia that at the moment is hacking its elections, that Russia at the
moment which is under huge economic pressure and therefore we can pretty easily defeat if we are the
United States. But they did not demonstrate at any point that this would be the tipping point, and they
asserted that is the case.

The one thing they say is the United States would not want to crush Russia because a power vacuum
would be then filled by the US. We didn’t say that they would necessarily crush Russia as in the
Kremlin, but we said they were more likely to make the Kremlin weak, they were more likely to starve
it of money. And if you believe that that is the case given all of the conflicting interests that Russia has,
it is far more easy for the US to give them no alternative rather than trade with them and fund a bunch
of interests that are antithetical to them given Opening Government’s framing that is the most important
thing we ought to consider in the debate.

The last thing they say is the European Union is good. Again, they did not prove this is the case, but
before I demonstrate why even if we concede the entirety of closing government’s case, why they’re
our, I’ll take opening government.

POI: “China is going to hurt us anyway”

Uh no, the reason they will not hurt us is that we tell you at Razzaq there are a number of outlets at
which Russia is reliant, also, you can’t give binary responses, right? It’s the scale of harm that china
could inflict upon you, they showed that there is the possibility that China might do something that will
hurt Russia, we give you a guarantee that China will hurt Russia, and that’s what you have to weight in
this debate.

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They say the EU is good because they’re not going to rig the cables, I would forward that the CIA will
probably also rig your cables but that’s just my feeling but beyond that we think that there are other
sources of oil that the EU can get given their expansion in Africa, but also Russia hacks their elections
they’re probably not going to trade with them.

But even if they do, why is dependence on the US and the West horrific? Because, the reason is simple,
there are conflicting interests, it means now every time we buy stuff from the US our revenues depend
on them, the US at any point given Opening government’s analysis themselves, are going to be like
“fuck you, stop funding this shit”.

The reason that’s more likely to happen on government side is that there are more interests that conflict
with the US than China and at any point they can leverage that and use it against the Kremlin, we do
not want to be in that category of dependency if we buy Opening Governments harms, that’s why the
comparative is far worse, at the end of this debate we do not want the bear to be tortured by the dragon,
that’s why we’re very proud to stand on Closing Opposition.

Kashmir: Historically

Note: For More On Modi and Hindu Nationalism, Check Religion Section

The British left India in 1947 and split the region into a Hindu-controlled South and a Muslim-majority
Northwest (and Bengal).

 15,000,000 people had to flood across borders as this occurred

 500,000 died in riots

There were four main regions impacted:

(1) Bengal
(2) Jammu and Kashmir
(3) Punjab
(4) Singh

Early Jammu and Kashmir was the only Muslim-majority province to be ruled by a Hindu Maharaja
(ruling from the capital Srinagar), the Maharaja was generally thought to be a dictator, tyrannical and
abusive. The Maharaja chose to join India in 1947 following the Poonch rebellion (Pakistan tries to
invade the Maharaja’s territory, so he ran to India).

Since then, Pakistan invaded in 1947, a ceasefire was agreed to in 1949 (and broken), and China claimed
the Aksai Chin region. In 1971, India helped the Eastern Pakistanis fight for independence, this new
region became Bangladesh.

Kashmir: Today

 60% Muslim
 2/3 of Kashmiris want to be independent
 Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir, called Azad Jammu and Kashmir (Green region)
 Jammu and Kashmir, controlled by India (Yellow region)
 Aksai Chin, controlled by China

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India’s Jammu and Kashmir: Arguments and Incentives

Why India will never back down control over Jammu and Kasmir?

(1) There is a strong Hindu Nationalist Incentive not to cave into the Muslims: Indian states
are divided linguistically and along borders of historical regions that long predate Hindu
nationalism or the modern idea of India. Thus, It’s hard to unite in India without using
Hinduism, the reality of India as a federal union of states rather than a monolithic nation
has become apparent. Modi needs to use this to distract people from the crisis of
employment in India too.

(2) Jammu and Kashmir is home to the largest water reserves in North West, which they need
control over in order to pump water into NW states like Punjab (27,000,000) and Rajasthan
(75,000,000)

(3) The region is home to Amaranth Cave; one of the holiest Hindu cites. Pilgrims go every
year, and for the first time in India’s history, were turned back.

(4) India wants control over the Karakoram Pass, as sought-after trade route at the crux of the
old Silk Road and strategic military location (their Golan Heights). India is also afraid that
this would allow China and Pakistan to link their security forces near to their foreign border

(5) We know that these incentives massively outweigh financial costs, as the cost of their
actions to the economy of Jammu and Kashmir and the Indian economy is estimates to be
over $5 billion USD already.

What are the harms of remaining under India?

(1) Modi just repealed Article 370 which was a bill designed to give the region more autonomy
in the following ways:

i) It exempted the State from the complete applicability of the Constitution of

India. The State was conferred with the power to have its own Constitution.
ii) Central legislative powers over the State were limited, at the time of framing,
to the three subjects of defense, foreign affairs and communications.
iii) Other constitutional powers of the Central Government could be extended to
the State only with the concurrence of the State Government.
iv) The 'concurrence' was only provisional. It had to be ratified by the State's
Constituent Assembly.

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 v) The State Government's authority to give 'concurrence' lasted only until the
State Constituent Assembly was convened. Once the State Constituent
Assembly finalised the scheme of powers and dispersed, no further extension
of powers was possible.
vi) Article 370 could be abrogated or amended only upon the recommendation of
the State's Constituent Assembly.

(2) The repeal of Article 370 led to a cycle of violence and radicalization in the region, wherein
political discontent in Kashmir lead to an increase of radical Islamism and attacks on India
by radicalized Kashmiri guerrilla insurgencies (groups like Hizbul Mujahideen, Jammat-
ud-Dawa and Jaish-e-Muhammad). This sparked more police and military presence in
Kashmir, which was made worse by the fact that the AFSPA (their Armed Forces Act)
made it impossible to prosecute or investigate troops. That led to more mass rapes and
abuse, which radicalized more Kashmiris, which in turn created more cyclical violence.
(3) This led to communications blockades, resource embargos, and the banning of public
gatherings in Jammu and Kashmir.

(4) Unemployment is high, thousands of hotels are empty and as 400,000 skilled workers
people left, they can no longer produce anything (15% of their economy used to be apples,
but harvests are left unpicked)

(5) Since his 2014 election to the premiership, bigotry has been ennobled as a healthy form of
self-assertion. Lynchings of Muslims (breathlessly demonized as jihadists devoted to
seducing and converting Hindu women) by aggrieved Hindu mobs have become such a
common sport that dozens of videos of grisly murders circulate on WhatsApp groups run
by Hindu nationalists. Last summer, a minister in Modi’s cabinet garlanded eight men who
had been convicted of lynching a Muslim man. In this universe, Kashmir could never
remain autonomous, a place impervious to the desires of a majority happy to see its will
done by violence.

Why Pakistan will never back down control over Azad Jammu and Kashmir?

(1) Domestically, Imran Khan cannot afford to lose face, he differentiates himself form his
biggest political rival (Mian Sharif) by appearing tough on their sovereignty over Azad
Jammu and Kashmir.

(2) There is overwhelming domestic pressure in Pakistan (a nation of over 190 million Muslims)
not to allow what will effectively a Hindu triumph over Islam. This originates in 2002, when
as the chief minister of Gujarat; Modi turned a blind eye to the machete-wielding Hindus who
slaughtered over 1,000 Muslims, sparking outrage in Pakistan.

Why is Pakistan more likely to loose grip over Kashmir than India?

(1) However, although they’re likely to oppose the territory to becoming that of India, they have
publically supported a referendum to allow Kashmiris to decide for themselves. There are two
reasons why Pakistan takes this pathway:

(a) They know that the Indians will never allow a referendum (for the reasons I
explained earlier), so pretending to be in favour of one does not cost them anything
and allows them to seem like the darlings of the conflict.

(b) Should it ever occur that they have one, it will make the new state more amicable
towards Pakistan.

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(3) Pakistan is basically the USA’s little bitch, and are beholden in large part to their will on this
matter, because:

(a) After Pakistan allied itself with the US during the Cold War, a relationship of
political dependence between the two states was established in CENTO and
SEATO.
(b) A military dependence when fighting Al-Qaida was also established, the US
boosted Pakistan’s military resources $25B USD
(c) Pakistan’s Nuclear programme is under major scrutiny from the West, but as
of 2001, the US has sponsored them, an increased trust deficit could end that.
(d) The US are massive economic sponsors of Pakistan (Obama pledged $1.5B a
year for a decade, plus military aid)

Empirical Bullshit ™ The US roasted Pakistan for using their F-16s against India in Kashmir

(4) Having established that behind Imran Khans powerful façade cowers a nation with very little
bargaining power in relation to the US, why is it that the US would prefer India to take over
the region?

(a) The risk of radical Islamic insurgents (Hizbul Mujahideen, Jammat-ud-Dawa

and Jaish-e-Muhammad) taking control of the state (in which ISIS and Al
Qaeda already operate) is too high for the US to bear.

(b) In terms of resisting Chinese influence in the region, the US sees India as
being more fit than Pakistan to take up that role: its population and economy
will eclipse China’s by 2030, and they have more western allies.

(c) Pakistan is in $7 billion debt to China (three times their colossal debt to the
IMF), so the USA sees them as being vulnerable to debt-traps or China’s
influence once they take over Kashmir (a region China wants too)

(5) Pakistan is already loosing its grip over the region because their primary method of increasing
hold was to underhandedly fund groups like the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front and
other such radical Islamic groups. Since being put on the Financial Task Force’s grey list,
they know that if they continue funding them, they will loose access to IMF loans; their
economic lifeline.

What are the harms of remaining under Pakistan?

(1) Reliance on China (as above)

(2) Pakistan banned separatists, protests and even assassinates some independents
(3) They inherit their colossal economic debt

What are the benefits of independence?

(1) Flip all the harms listed from staying under India
(2) Flip all the harms listed from staying under Pakistan
(3) Access to resources
(4) No need to spend on silly things

What are the harms of independence?

(1) If one state (China, India or Pakistan) object to the existence of the new Kashmiri state, its
possible that larger powers wont trade with that state as a precaution not to antagonise.

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 (2) A state controlled by armed radicals, populated with young, unemployed, armed Muslim
men is likely to radicalise quickly.
(3) No skilled labour force

Immigration and Migrants

Is Migration a Fundamental Right?

Nozick and the “Arbitrary Borders” Argument

• Aside from the right to flee from persecution (on the basis of political ideology, gender, race or
sexuality) most right-based arguments for migration centre around the premise that borders are
arbitrary and thereby an illegitimate reason to restrict freedom of movement.
• There are three levels art which one may perceive this as a right;

(1) An absolute right to migrate: This right is endorsed by some absolutist

libertarians and anarchists, and also by some people of other political
philosophies.
(2) A presumptive right to migrate: Here, there is a strong presumption in favour
of letting people migrate that can be overridden only in the presence of clear
evidence of harm or danger.
(3) A prior in favour of the right to migrate, or, the right to migrate as a useful rule
of thumb: Here, the right to migrate is not treated as a “right” in a moral sense
but is rather considered a useful rule of thumb for some other end. For instance,
a utilitarian may favour a right to migrate as a useful rule of thumb but deny it
in a particular case if the costs exceeded the benefits even by a very small
amount.

• This libertarian principle says that the right of free mobility is a natural right and cannot
legitimately be restricted unless there is strong evidence that the exercise of this right would
violate other rights. A common formulation of this is that there is no morally relevant distinction
between migration that occurs within national boundaries and migration that occurs across such
boundaries.
• According to Nozick the state has no right to do anything other than enforce the rights which
individuals already enjoy in the state of nature. Citizenship gives rise to no distinctive claim.
The state is obliged to protect the rights of citizens and noncitizens equally because it enjoys a
de facto monopoly over the enforcement of rights within its territory. Individuals have the right

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 to enter into voluntary exchanges with other individuals. They possess this right as individuals,
not as citizens. The state may not interfere with such exchanges so long as they do not violate
someone else’s rights.
• Note what this implies for immigration. Suppose a farmer from the United States wanted to
hire workers from Mexico. The government would have no right to prohibit him from doing
this. To prevent the Mexicans from coming would violate the rights of both the American
farmer and the Mexican workers to engage in voluntary transactions. Of course, American
workers might be disadvantaged by this competition with foreign workers. But Nozick
explicitly denies that anyone has a right to be protected against competitive disadvantage. (To
count that sort of thing as a harm would undermine the foundations of individual property
rights.)
• Point is, national borders represent, among other things, the borders enclosing populations
that consent to be ruled by particular governments. You can’t just draw them anywhere. You
have to draw them where people consent to have them drawn.

Europe: Immigration Phenomenon

Political upheaval in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia is reshaping European migration trends.
Immigration rates respond to the conflicts, instabilities and oppressions of the world as people pursue
better living conditions for themselves and future generations:

 2011 thousands of Tunisians arriving in Italian island of Lampedusa (onset of Arab Spring)
 Syrians fleeing the nearly five-year war
 Afghans escaping ongoing war with Taliban
 Eritreans fleeing forced labour
 Libyans fleeing the post-Gaddafi era
 Deteriorating security and grinding poverty in Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia and Sudan

European Migration Patterns and Overview

• As European countries grapple with the backlash to immigration, it’s become clear that there’s
a growing cognitive dissonance between the global elite and ordinary voters.
• Immigration has major benefits for both migrants and the host countries, but it’s important to
remember that not everybody gains from the phenomenon.
• Like free trade and finance, migration creates winners and losers. If Europe’s political elite
doesn’t come up with ways to compensate low-skilled native workers who feel threatened or
displaced by migrants, the anti-immigration wave will continue to surge.
• This being said – it’s very wrong to think of Immigration as a zero-sum-game.
• The gains are substantial for host countries too. Unskilled immigrants do the jobs that native
workers do not want, and those with skills tend to fill the gaps in technical, specialized and
managerial positions. They increase overall productivity and enrich the intellectual and
scientific output of the country. Societies that absorb people from different religious, ethnic,
linguistic and cultural backgrounds are also technologically more advanced. It is no coincidence
that Silicon Valley is a social melting pot.
• Migration is a great tool to fight global poverty. Young migrants — skilled or unskilled — from
poor countries earn higher wages than they would back home, allowing them to send
remittances to their countries of origin. If they choose to go back, they take with them the skills,
networks and know-how they acquired in the West.
• There was a huge brain-drain in Africa in the early 2000s, but now many skilled and
professional works are returning to capitalise on emerging economies back home – a positive
outcome.

Asylum Seekers (Fleeing Conflict)

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  International protection under the 1951 Refugee Convention on the Status of Refugees (non-
refoulment: should not be returned to a country where they face serious threats to life or
freedom)

Economic Migrant: Primary motivation for leaving home country is for economic gain

Basically, all refugees are migrants but not all migrants are refugees. Europe is seeing a mixed-
migration phenomenon in which all groups of migrants travel together. In a reality where there are often
overlaps between the strands of migration anyway, inconsistent methods with which asylum
applications are processed across the EU’s member states exacerbates the confusion in providing the
correct entitled services.

EU Member States Hit the Hardest

 Greece and Italy due to proximity to the Mediterranean Basin but migrants then press on to
richer and more generous EU countries in the north and west
 Trend shifted in 2013 after the tightening of border under Operation Aspida which included the
introduction of the barbed wire fence at the Greek-Turkish border
 The Central Mediterranean passage connection between Libya and Italy has become the most
trafficked route for people seeking refuge in Europe
 Death toll along this route in rising (EU has tripled the budget for Frontex, the European border
and coast guard agency)
 In Italy, migrants face fines and deportation under Bossi-Fini immigration law (migrants must
secure work contracts before entering the country)
 Meaning illegal migration is punishable by fine or jail

Hungary

 Migrants travelling from Turkey and Greece through Macedonia and Serbia have put this nation
under immense strain
 Barbed wire fence
 46% of polled Hungarians believed that no asylum seeker should be allowed to enter Hungary
at all
 Stranded and barred, migrants have transformed Budapest’s Keleti station into a makeshift
refugee camp
 Government has allowed police to operate detention centres and making illegal crossings
punishable by jail time
 Gov has also deployed armed troops to the border

The Dublin Regulation: Stipulates that asylum seekers must remain the first European country they
entered and that country is solely responsible for application examination. Travelling to other European
countries means deportations back to EU country originally entered.

Conditions migrants face in Europe

 Migrant detention centres in France, Greece and Italy have all seen charges of abuse and neglect
 Many groups contend that some of these centres violate Article 3 of the European Convention
of Human Rights, prohibiting inhumane/degrading treatment
 Fact is, entry point states are also the ones hit hardest by the economic crisis
 European Commission approved a 2.4-billion-euro emergency aid package (split between
Greece and Italy to subsidise them for the next 6 years)
 However, many critics believe the funds fall short for the magnitude of the migration
phenomenon

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  In contrast, migrants that enter richer north and west EU countries find better centres and
generous settlement policies but these countries are harder to reach
 These countries often find themselves catering for migrants who have had the assistance of
smugglers

EU’s Response

 Countries like France and Denmark have cited security concerns as justification for their
migrant intake reluctance
 European countries have difficulty in integrating minorities into the social mainstream
 Slovakia announcing only accept Christian refugees from Syria
 Selecting migrants based off religion violates EU’s non-discrimination laws but these countries
have defended their stance with the pressure they face from their constituencies
 Contrast to Germany and Sweden which are very generous
 Germany: take 500,000 asylum seekers a year for several years
 Stockholm previously announced that it would offer permanent residency to all Syrian
applicants in 2013
 Some experts say being generous makes economic sense given Europe’s declining birth rates
and ageing populations
 Migrants could boost economies as workers, taxpayers and consumers
 However, citizens view migrants as economic competitors not contributors
 Paradox like me saying “We have 50% youth unemployment in our country, but we need more
migrants” (very hard to sell and form consensus)

The Schengen Zone

 The people who evade their first country of arrival have put a strain on the Schengen Zone, a
visa free zone which covers 26-member states and is a clear violation of the Dublin Regulation
(mentioned above)
 Germany has suspended the Dublin Regulation for Syrian refugees
 However, Germany reinstated border controls along its border with Austria in September 2015,
after receiving an estimated forty thousand migrants over one weekend
 The reinstatement of borders and increased control along them is considered to be the greatest
blow to the Schengen aim in its twenty-year existence

Solutions proposed by the EU

EU ministers agreed to resettle 120,000 migrants—a small fraction of those seeking asylum in Europe—
from Greece and Italy across twenty-three-member states
 Provide aid to Middle Eastern countries which have borne the primary responsibility of
resettling migrants

 Immigration in the wider European political context:

 Presence in Italy’s government of the far-right under Matteo Salvini, which campaigned on a
pledge to send 500,000 undocumented migrants home, is making itself felt
 In Germany which welcomed more than 1 million migrants in 2015 under Angela Merkel’s
open-door policy, the right wing Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party has kept immigration
firmly at the top of the political agenda
 After a series of electoral setbacks, the chancellor has said she will not stand again

Anti-immigration in Europe

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Majorities in all seven polled countries were opposed to accepting more migrants: Germany (72%),
Denmark (65%), Finland (64%), Sweden (60%), United Kingdom (58%), France (58%) and Norway
(52%)

 Fear of losing their sense of belonging to their own nation, as represented by distinctive
traditions, culture, language and politics
 National identity can be an important factor for social peace in cases where there are intra-
national divides
 European nationalists see unassimilated immigrants as threatening their historic cultures and a
violation of their rights of a land for their own peoples
 Responsive to populist rhetoric
 Fear of Migrant Isolation
 Migrants isolating themselves and forming their own communities without the signs of
assimilation into the mainstream community
 Formation of ethnic enclaves
 Might not then feel the need to learn native language which undermines national unity
 Social cohesion and sense of belonging that migrants face in these enclaves could decrease
tolerance between them and the mainstream: The visual of seeing large groups of unfamiliar
people threatens some

 Fear of Competition
 Competition for employment
 Higher burdens that some may impose on social welfare systems, health systems, housing and
public schools

 Fear of Negative Environmental Impacts

 Strain on resources and the environment
 Fear of overpopulation
 Some people think there is a certain size of land needed to provide for a population
 Immigrants, in this logic, such as a new born child, reduce the per capita size of land of the
native country
 Some are concerned about urban sprawl and congestion
 Concerned over a state's scarce resources, dwindling water reserves, energy

Fear of Immigrant Crime (Addressed Later)

Developing Migration Policies to Avert Voters’ Backlash (Looking at America, Sweden, Gulf States)

• One of the principle factors fuelling the panic against immigration in the rest of Europe is the
perception that the authorities have lost control. There are often no repatriation agreements that
would allow European governments to send back economic migrants. Those denied asylum
will sometimes stay illegally without the possibility of holding down a formal job. This forces
them to beg or embrace criminal activities.
• Borders would need to be better controlled, repatriation agreements further developed and
better implemented, and inspections against hiring of irregular workers would have to be more
intrusive and widespread.
• There are structural problems - International law categorises migrants either as refugees, who
are entitled to sanctuary, or as economic migrants, who have no right to go anywhere that does
not want them. Yet the distinctions are blurry. Poor countries next to war zones receive huge
influxes, while rich countries try to shirk their obligations. And since rich countries admit
virtually no economic migrants from poor countries unless they have exceptional skills or
family ties, many of them try their luck by posing as refugees. It does not help that states have

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 different rules on who is a refugee. Or that they struggle to send home those who are denied
asylum, not least because many of their countries refuse to take them back.
• The first step is to recognise the causes of the backlash against newcomers. Several stand out:
the belief that governments have lost control of their borders; the fear that migrants drain
already-strained welfare systems; the perception that migrants are undercutting local workers;
and the fear of being swamped by alien cultures.
• We need to encourage them to work, while limiting the welfare benefits that they can receive.
In America, where the safety net is skimpy, labour rules are flexible and entry-level jobs
plentiful, even migrants who dropped out of high school are net contributors to the public
finances. Sweden, by contrast has a policy that seems designed to stir resentment, showering
refugees with benefits while making it hard for them to work.
• A sensible approach would be to allow migrants to get public education and health care
immediately but limit their access to welfare benefits for several years. This may seem
discriminatory, but migrants will still be better off than if they had stayed at home. An extreme
illustration can be seen in the oil-rich Gulf, where migrants are ruthlessly excluded from the
opulent welfare that citizens enjoy. The Gulf is not a model. Migrant workers receive too little
protection against coercion and abuse. But because they so obviously pay their way, the native-
born are happy to admit them in vast numbers. Elements of that logic are worth considering in
the West.
• Third, ensure that the gains from migration are more explicitly shared between migrants and
the native-born in the host country. One way is to tie public spending, particularly on visible
services such as schools or hospitals, more directly to the number of migrants in a region.
Another, more radical idea might be to tax migrants themselves, either by charging for entry
or, more plausibly, by applying a surtax on their income for a period after arrival. The proceeds
could be spent on public infrastructure, or simply divided among citizens. The more
immigrants, the bigger the dividend.
• Fully 95% of new jobs in Sweden require at least a secondary education; one-third of recent
refugees, most of them women, have less than nine years’ schooling. High wage settlements,
agreed between unions and employers, make it hard for unproductive workers to find jobs.

Migration and Productivity (Selling Citizenships?)

• This mess feeds disaffection in the West, and it is a waste. The act of moving from a poor
country to a rich one makes workers dramatically more productive
• The snag is that the biggest benefits of moving accrue to the migrants themselves, while the
power to admit them rests with voters in rich countries. Fair enough: democratic accountability
is vested largely in national governments.
• America has more foreign-born residents in total than any other country (43m). But as a share
of the population, at 13%, it has fewer than Australia (28%) or Canada (22%). America’s
current level is about what it was in the 19th century, but much higher than its nadir of 5% in
1970. It has not changed much in the past decade.
• Migrants in the UAE obviously pay their way. They fill 99% of private-sector jobs, from
designing skyscrapers to scraping dirty saucepans. Emirati citizens prefer to work for the state
which, flush with petrodollars, pays fat wages for light work.
• Flexible labour market makes it easy for migrants to find entry-level jobs, and its meagre
welfare state means they have to. The unemployment rate for immigrants is 4% (in Aus/USA)
compared with 16% in Sweden, where benefits are fatter, and unions have negotiated industry-
wide pay scales that price unskilled migrants out of jobs
• Migrants have accounted for half the growth in the working-age population of advanced
economies between 1990 and 2015.
• People focus on the short-term impacts and not the impact of immigration on the long-term
prosperity of receiving economies, as measured by GDP per capita. This impact can go through
two channels. First, as migrants are mostly of working age, migration increases the share of
working-age population. If migrants are integrated in the labour market and are employed

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 productively, this can boost GDP per capita. Second (and much less discussed), migration can
also affect labour productivity. On the one hand, immigration can lower labour productivity, at
least initially, as the entry of new labour reduces the available physical capital per worker, or
if migrants are less educated on average than natives. On the other hand, the microeconomic
literature suggests that migrants can increase productivity by increasing the diversity of skills
and ideas, fostering skill complementarity and specialisation, and encouraging the upgrading
of natives’ skills.
• We find that migrants help increase per capita income levels in host advanced economies, and
this effect is both statistically and economically significant. Our estimates suggest that a one
percentage point increase in the share of migrants in the adult population (the average annual
increase is 0.2 percentage point) can raise GDP per capita by up to 2% over 5 years. Moreover,
this effect comes mainly through an increase in labour productivity and, to a lesser extent,
through the more standard channel of an increase in the ratio of working-age to total population.
• Gary Becker, an economist, suggested auctioning them to the highest bidder. The money could
then be used for popular causes such as shoring up public pensions or health care, or simply
divided equally among citizens. Suppose that America accepted enough migrants to increase
its population by a third, and each migrant paid $6,000 a year for the privilege. A native-born
household of four would earn about $8,000 a year from such an arrangement.
• Since the median income is about $50,000, that would give them a hefty stake in more open
borders. The migrants themselves would make similar absolute gains, even after paying the
fees, and much more in percentage terms.
• The idea of selling passports repels some people. Citizenship is a sacred bond, they argue, and
should be granted only to foreigners who prove themselves worthy. Why should the rich be
allowed to jump the queue? Especially since some of the queue-jumpers are crooks or tax-
dodgers, who want a new home in which to hide or launder their loot.
• There are legitimate reasons for wanting a second passport. Travelling businessfolk from poor
or Muslim countries face endless visa hassles unless they have one. Others seek an extra
passport as insurance against instability or persecution. More than a third of rich Chinese would
like a foreign bolthole (which may mean flouting China’s ban on dual citizenship). Countries
meeting this demand gain a straightforward benefit: easy money to spend on public services.
For hurricane-hit Caribbean states, passport-flogging has been a lifeline.
• Too often, their programmes open a back door to dirty money; think of the ill-gotten Russian
gains that have been laundered through Cyprus, one of the EU’s most enthusiastic hawkers of
passports.

Migration and Crime

• Male refugees are committing fewer crimes as they move out of shelters, where fights break
out. It also helps that the share of women among the migrants is rising. The biggest factor in
reducing violence is if the number of women goes up, young husbands suddenly care about
their family.
• It needs to be understood as a demographic problem - in 2014, German men between the ages
of 14 and 30 made up 9% of the population and were responsible for half of all the country's
violent crimes. When it comes to the new arrivals, men aged 16 to 30 made up 27% of all
asylum-seekers who came in 2015, hence the “increase” in crime is actually proportionate and
has little to do with race.
• In Italy, few attempts have been made to measure the criminal impact of immigration, but
overall crime fell by 25% between 2007 and 2016. Sweden has seen a recent increase in violent
crime, including a spate of attacks with shotguns and hand grenades. In mid-June, four men
were shot dead in Malmo over a period of four days. But the violence is mainly between
criminal gangs in specific neighbourhoods which right-wing politicians are using for their own
narratives.

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 • Another example here was when the deputy leader of the far-right party Alternative for
Germany (AfD) said there had been "447 killings and murders" by illegal migrants in Germany
last year.
• The German interior ministry says that in fact last year 27 illegal migrants either committed or
attempted to commit murder or manslaughter. The 447 figure refers to killings or attempted
killings by all asylum seekers and refugees, most of whom are in Germany legally. Overall
crime in Germany has fallen to the lowest level since 1992, but there has been an increase in
migrant crime.

Macquarie Open 2016 Round 3

THBT Permanent Residents Should Be Given the Right to Vote

Panel, the inevitable jingoism which will ensue from the message that Australian Citizenships are
worthless, that they can be traded for labour rather than being tied to greater ideological metanarratives
of assimilation and community will lead to stricter immigration laws and more nationalism; an
opportunity cost that necessitates the deprivation of the rights of all prospective incoming migrants to
access the kinds of benefits that the affirmative team talk about.

Two arguments:

(1) Responding to their claims about voting, why the right to vote ought to not extend to all
Permanent Residents.
(2) Why this increases nationalism and restricts immigration.

These people are not owed the right to vote without passing through traditional avenues for four reasons:

(1) These avenues have an 88% pass rate, demonstrating that, residents who actually want to vote
are not locked out of this opportunity as affirmative say. But, things like having to show
documents to a citizenship officer, and organise an appointment to take a citizenship test carries
principle weight requisite for citizenship by:

(a) Demonstrating that these people have an intent to stay in Australia and understand
its values, which by the affirmative team’s own metric, is important in deciding
whether or not they ought to have the right to vote, for example, we do not allow
convicted murderers in prison to vote.

(b) Showing that these people express a desire to participate in the civic architecture
of our state. The right to vote is one of reciprocity, and in offering you
representation, the state demands that you respect its authority, assuming the role
of an active citizen – which cannot be determined if the default is that all residents
get citizenship because it is no longer opt-in, or an indicator of desire.

(2) Given the very high pass-rate, the residents who actually matter in this debate, are those apply
to become citizens under the status quo but are afforded citizenship by default in the word of
the affirmative team. It’s unclear that we owe them the vote given that they are most likely to
have stronger ties to other nations and don’t have a long-term state in or FOR Australia. We
already don’t allow people with dual-citizenships to be politicians (so there would be very few
people to represent them), and certainly don’t owe the sacrosanct right to vote to people who
cannot even be bothered taking a citizenship test.

(3) If the reason you have a right to vote is because you are owed reciprocity by the state for things
like working and contributing to the Australian economy, we already achieve this reciprocal
obligation through avenues such as access to billions of dollars in public infrastructure, the

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 benefit of a stable government, the protections of the laws of the state from violence or theft,
and even the right to be a beneficiary of Medicare.

(4) Voting is an ineffective mechanism of representation, so the affirmative team don’t prove their
burden. Elections are only every three years, and a very small population of very spread-out
voters will not change government policy. So, these vote-derived benefits do not eventuate, but
you know what will change government policy; If a very large population of angry voters see
migrants being given the perceived power to affect their lives.

My second argument is that this increases nationalism and reduces total migration into Australia for
three reasons:

(1) When you make it the default that all residents become citizens, the logical next step for
nationalist politicians who feel that they have lost control of their constituencies and the value
of citizenship is to restrict the ease with which people can become residents in the first place,
because you squander all the political capital for these initiatives into citizenship. This mass-
influx of voters who are previewed by conservative constituencies as un-Australian outsiders
with different values is the tipping point for it becoming electorally gainful to market the
following policies:

i. Stricter visa laws

ii. Reducing intake of skilled migrants
iii. Increasing the period of time it takes to become a resident
iv. Reducing subclass 462 visas for workers

(2) Even if they are technically citizens, they are likely to be seen in a different light by others,
seen as undeserving by virtue of the ease with which they gained the right to vote. This can be
the tipping point for the mass of voters who feel threatened by their newfound civic and political
rather than merely social presence to begin to support measures to reduce the number of people
for whom residence is an option at all, increasing hate crimes and racism.

(3) Empirically, when migrants were afforded more civic rights in Italy, they strengthened
“Operation Aspida” reducing their total immigration intake by over 25% because of political
pressures. In progressive Scandinavia, as more migrants were given voting rights, laws for visa
immigration have been strengthened and migrant-control funds like Frontex tripled.

The impact of this is massive, as under the status quo, conservatives in power support things like
allowing skilled migrants in on the basis that they are hugely economically beneficial but do not get the
right to vote, when these changes, we lose out on migration and the reliance we have on it. This is also
a principled harm because denying a greater number of people the right to migrate and sell their labour
is unjust.

So, even if a right to vote exists, this is a trade-off between marginally giving some more rights to
existing residents, and totally denying prospective migrants to come into the country at all and gain
access to the right to migrate, therefore we have a bigger scale.

My extension is that this forces political parties to create jingoistic and visceral campaigns against these
individuals for three reasons:

(1) It’s unclear that, given their vote is unlikely to sway entire constituencies, introducing
them into the overt political sphere is a good thing. This is because when you create a
political issue out of them, your force an onus of opposition to them voting upon
conservative parties. For example, in Sweden when they were given the right to vote,
the main conservative party created visceral campaigns against migrants in order to
gain political ground. This is terrible for these residents, who prior to being given the

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 vote, existed in an apolitical realm where there was not an incentive to racially vilify
them for political gain because they were not a voting issue.

(2) This is the path of least resistance and of most efficacy for politicians because migrants
are an especially vulnerable group who are easy to leverage for political gain. For
example, people are particularly susceptible to tropes such as “your money is going to
outsiders” or “those immigrants are deciding your future”, so not only is this politically
gainful, but giving them the right to vote actually fuels this rhetoric under their side
where political opponents can no longer say “no, you are wrong, these people
contribute to our economy but they don’t control your future so you should not kick
them out”

(3) This means that there is likely to be political pressure to cut back on other types of
benefits afforded to permanent residents, such as access to Medicare, access to public
defendants, or any form of public infrastructure. The impact of this is terrible because
of how much more important these things are to migrants than the amorphous right to
vote which rarely even amounts to positive change for full citizens.

Religion in Debating
Belief vs. Alief

Why is Religious Belief Different?

• The distinction between “belief” and “alief” distinguishes the uniqueness of religion, people
who “believe” things are able to change their belief based on experience, evidence or a change
in circumstances. People who “alieve” in God or religion, on the other hand, are less able to
change their positions as they are innate in their spiritual experiences – which operate parallel
to science or “evidence”.
• It’s also very difficult to one’s change religion and is inextricably linked to the metaphysical
concept of the eternity of the afterlife, an anchor of belief that logic is often unable to contend
with.
• This same anchor can push people to act irrationally, and be unwilling to compromise
• Another conflicting view is that trusting in God, even going so far as to pray to him doesn’t
necessarily mean you believe he is real.
• Maybe putting your life in the hands of a higher power is enough to feel the ease of someone
watching over you taking the stress off of your mistakes.
• Believing not everything is in your control and attempting to make the best outcomes in life
purely through prayer, even if praying to nothing, can help people to feel less constrained, but at
the same time not necessarily “alieveing” in God.

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On Islam

Rules for Interpreting the Quran, what is the Quran?

• Unlike the Bible or the Talmud, the Quran is said to be the direct transcription of the word of
God (Allah), as written down by the Prophet Mohammed in his first revelation (in 610 A.D)
• This makes interpreting the Quran different (and probably more controversial) than interpreting
other religious texts that are merely compendiums of accounts from fallible humans, rather than
the direct, unfiltered word of Allah.
• After the Prophet’s death, Muslim scholars immediately recognized the need to establish rules
for interpreting the Quran in order to preserve its meaning and protect it from being
misinterpreted;

The Context of the Quran:
An interpretation must not contradict any other relevant verses and
must be interpreted in light of the rest of the Quran. If there are two
competing interpretations, that which is most consistent with other
verses in the Quran is most correct, regardless of semantic structures
or the specific context of the passage. Bottom line – the is the holy
word of Allah, so it’s impossible that it contradicts itself, therefore an
interpretation must be wrong if it suggests a contradiction (bit circular,
but that’s the rule)

Interpretation of the Prophet:
All Muslim’s interpretation of the Quran is fallible apart from that of
Mohammed, so just because one leader, Imam or Mufti says
something, that does not always mandate its acceptance. The rule of
thumb is that if the interpretation of a Quranic verse contradicts the
Prophet’s life, then that interpretation is incorrect, and the verse has a
more specific meaning.

The Companions: Some people, the Companions of the Prophet who form the Sahabah,
were the Islamic equivalent of the 12 disciples, and have their own
interpretations that are considered to be more important.

Correct Interpretations:
Generally, when the above criteria are ignored or not met, the
interpretation is not valid. If the interpretation is based simply on
personal opinion, whim, or desire without taking the above criteria into
consideration. Sincerity and open mindedness are essential
components of properly interpreting any text, but by itself sincerity is
not enough. One must have considered the overall context of the verse
and when it was revealed, the Quran’s overall message, the teachings
and life of the Prophet, the understanding of the earliest Muslim
generations, as well as the grammatical, syntactical and etymological
nuances of the Arabic language. It’s very difficult to expect a change
to be made by preachers if there is no textual evidence to support it.

• The reason why these four rules (or guidelines) are important, is that they collectively
demarcate the ideological “wiggle-room” that Islam has, which is important when discussing
the constraints to which leaders are beholden, and the extent to which they are willing to
compromise.
• Notice that unlike Christian preachers who are able to use complex hermeneutics, semantic
structures and arguments like the “Q-Source” to discredit parts of the Bible that do not align
with their narratives, Imams have comparatively less freedom as they are directly “meddling”
with the concrete word of Allah.

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 • This being said, the immensity and size of religious texts, Bible, Torah and Quran alike, means
that it’s very easy to find contradicting or conflicting positions on the same issue.
• The Quran has 6,200 verses meaning that it’s possible for the Imam to change his position on
an issue by focusing more on some verses than others without being accused of distorting the
word of Allah by not adhering to the “rules of interpretation”.
• Evidence of this are the “11 contradictions of the Quran”, forcing Imams to use the
prioritization of some verses to reconcile scriptural contradictions on issues ranging from
whether the body or soul enters the afterlife, female genital mutilation and weather Allah needs
man or Man needs Allah.
• The two best examples for a debate would be the issues of whether or not to persecute or forgive
unbelievers, and the issue of unbelieving parents. On the former, look at these two verses;

(1) "Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden
which has been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the
religion of Truth." (9:29)
(2) "Tell those who believe, to forgive those who do not hope for the Days of Allah; It
is for Him to recompense (for good or evil) each people according to what they
have earned" (45:14)

• Notice that these two passages are largely contradictory, and that that which of the two we
decide to listen to determines an incredibly important part of Islam in today’s society – the
treatment of non-believers.

Power Structures and Resources

• Islam is a very structured and hierarchical religion, more so than Hinduism, meaning that
structural change often has to occur top-down rather than bottom-up in the way that it can in
Christianity.
• The Caliph is usually the political leader of all Muslims. His primary responsibility is
preserving the faith and administering the affairs of state. He has complete autocratic license
and is free to structure his administration in whatever way he feels is best.
• Along with the Caliph are the community of scholars of Shariah. The Caliph is obligated to
consult them in all important affairs to ensure he acts within the confines of Islamic legal
principles.
• Ayatollah is a specific or the highest rank in the Shia clergy system, they can issue a “fatwa”.
• Similarly, the title of “Grand Mufti” is attributed to the highest religious leader in a Sunni
community.
• Practicing Muslims, as part of adhering to the 5 pillars of Islam, are required to donate a Zakat
of 2.5% of their wealth, usually to their local Mosque which then redistributes it to charitable
causes, or by their own volition. Mosques have a lot of land and resources,
• Roughly 22% of the world’s population is Muslim. Islamic finance, including zakat, was
estimated at almost $2tn in 2015 and is expected to surpass $3tn by 2020.
• Between $200B and $1tn is spent in the form of Zakat across the Muslim world annually.

Sunni vs. Shi’a

• Tensions between Sunni and Shi’a Muslims are on the rise and are arguably more disruptive
than tensions between Islam as a whole and Christianity. Saudi Arabia, an 85% Sunni-majority
government was responsible for the controversial execution of Shi’a author Sheikh al-Nmir in
2016 escalated these tensions and further aggravated the Shi’a-majority nation of Iran.
• The major division between Shi’a and Sunni Muslims is that they disagree on who the rightful
caliph was following the death of the Prophet in 632 AD.
• The Sunnis eventually supported his successor, Abu Bakr, whereas the Shi’a believed that the
rightful caliph was Ali, Mohammed’s cousin and son-in-law.

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 • Because of the different paths the two sects took, Sunnis emphasize God’s power in the material
world, sometimes including the public and political realm, while Shiites value in martyrdom
and sacrifice.
• More than 85 percent of the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims are Sunni. Mostly in Turkey, Pakistan,
India, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Indonesia. Iran, Iraq and Bahrain are largely Shiite.
• The Saudi royal family, which practices a conservative strand of Sunni Islam known as
Wahhabism, controls Islam’s holiest shrines, Mecca and Medina. Karbala.
• Kufa and Najaf in Iraq are revered shrines for the Shiites.
• The once-in-a-lifetime hajj to Mecca is integral to an Islamic spiritual identity, and is one of
the 5 Pillars of Islam, but the increasing absence of Shi’a from participating in the hajj due to
fear of persecution is widening the gap between the sects and gives more power to narratives
that Shi’as are not “real Muslims”.
• Iran is now making it very difficult (trying to ban) its citizens from even being allowed to
partake in the Hajj in September.
• The Shi’a themselves have most likely suffered the most from extremist terrorism, Hamas
(Palestinian), Isis/Daesh, Fatah (Palestinian) and Boko Haram are all extremist Sunni terror
groups, their only possible Shi’a equivalent is Hezbollah (Lebanon/Syria).
• Isis has been accused of launching a genocide on Shi’a Muslims in Syria and Iraq.

Uighur Muslims in China

• The Uighurs, a mostly-Muslim ethnic minority in Xinjiang, western China, are living in one of
the most heavily-policed and oppressive states in the world.
• Aggressive social-credit systems, mass video surveillance, surveillance applications on their
phones, arbitrary incarceration and “reeducation camps” that resemble concentration camps are
becoming commonplace in Xinjiang.
• An estimated 2 million of them are locked in internment camps where people are physically
and psychologically abused. Non-government schools were shut down and it became illegal to
not watch state television. Devout Muslims were forced to drink alcohol, smoke and eat pork.
• China says they encourage Islamic extremism in Central Asia but says that reports of the camps
existence are “completely untrue”.
• China reportedly started banning the unregulated sale of Qurans in the region.
• China has accused militant Uighurs of being terrorists and inciting violence across the country
since at least the early 2000s, as many Uighur separatists left China for places like Afghanistan
and Syria to become fighters.
• Most of the above is basic knowledge, but what’s more interesting are the political incentives
behind the crackdown which are (unsurprisingly) very closely linked to the Belt and Road
Initiative. This is because of the geographic location of Xinjiang, which is the most important
and crucial province in the BIR due to the fact that is the opening of the trade-route between
China and the Middle-East/Europe in which china wants to exert as much control as possible
to secure their position.
• Further evidence of this is the fact that the man in charge of the treatment of Uighurs is Chen
Quanguo, a Communist Party secretary who previously designed the program of intensive
surveillance in Tibet.
• He’s considered to be somewhat of an expert in ethnic crackdowns and used similar tactics in
Tibet, flooding the nation with ethnic-Chinese individuals and flushing out any opposition by
stealth. This isn’t really about islamophobia, although it certainly exists in the religion, but for
China this is far more political in the same way it was in Tibet (way better notes on China’s
incentives in my other matter file.

Sufi (Spiritual) Islam

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 • Sufism is (tentatively and at the risk of over-simplification) the Protestant equivalent of Islam.
It emphasizes the direct connection between man and Allah, leaving behind most structural
elements of organized religion that is otherwise inherent to Shi’as or Sunni’s faith.
• Its modern-day adherents cherish tolerance and pluralism, qualities that in many religions
unsettle extremists.
• It is becoming more popular in places without significant religious infrastructure, especially
having grown in Pakistan, India and South-East Asia.
• In 2017, there was an attack on a Sufi mosque that killed 305 people in Sunni-Majority Egypt.
• A crucial part of MBS’s “Vision 2030” is to restore this kind of “moderate Islam” to Saudi
Arabia. (Better analysis on Vision 2030 and how religions change further below)

Wahhabism and South East Asia

What is Wahhabism?

• Puritanical form of Islam prevalent in Saudi Arabia

• Started 300 years ago, by Imam Muhammad al-Wahab
• The House of Saud adopted it after the Ottomans left the Levant, using it to unify disparate
tribes under one religion
• It involved the purging of Saints (the Companions of the Prophet who make up the Sahabah),
as al-Wahab believed they used Greek philosophy to interpret the Qu’ran, and were apostates

Exporting Wahhabism (In General)

• As of the 1930s, the Saudis began spending billions on Mosques, education centres, and the
Institute for Study of Islam and Arabic (LIDA) across the Islamic (Sunni) world, but also in
France, Belgium, Canada and the USA.
• They were also guilty of funding ISIS, Al Qaeda, the Haqqani Network (SE Asia) and
Temaah Islamiyah (SE Asia)

Saudi Investment in SE Asia (Reasons)

• Looking for reciprocal investment (Vision 2030: See Saudi Arabia Section)
• Maintaining existing tenders
• Propping up the Saudi Aramco IPO to secure investment
Spending on Islam in SE Asia from the Saudis

• Behind the veneer of religious liberalisation, the Saudis have been externalising the
propagation of Salafism in South East Asia (Malaysia and Indonesia)
• They way that they assert their religious authority in the region:

(1) Funding the Institute for Study of Islam and Arabic (LIDA) who espouse
Salafi fundamentalism
(2) Allowing the University of Madinah (in Saudi Arabia) to set curriculums in
local Islamic universities
(3) Placing and funding “Attaché Preachers” and Muftis in local Mosques
(4) Building mosques
(5) Using economic leverage to threaten to remove other funding and much-
needed investment ($7B investment in Petronas Oil was believed to be
contingent on allowing more LIDA presence in Malaysia)
(6) Implicitly threatening to cut Hajj quotas or stop increasing them for
Malaysia and Indonesia, this is very difficult to decline as there is already a
20-year wait.
(7) Offering scholarships to come and study in Saudi Arabia

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 (8) Funding and educating terrorists in the region; Haqqani Network and
Temaah Islamiyah in particular
(9) Bribing officials, in the case of Mahathir Mohammed’s predecessor Najib
Razak (Malaysia’s PM) the Saudis (linked to the 1MDB scandal) were
believed to have given Razak $680m to his personal account to grease the
wheels for their influence.

• This is especially bad on the ground for a few reasons

(1) This is massively crowding out local customs and religions because
Salafism does not allow for religious pluralism. For example, in South
East Asia, the most popular form of Islam is a kind of Islam called
“Nusantra Islam” which is a mix of Sufism, local customs of the
archipelago, and Ashari practices.
(2) Terror groups are on the rise, for example, the Jakarta Bombers were
educated at LIDA, then went to Saudi Arabia on scholarships and
returned radicalised

• In spite of the leverage that the Saudis have, this has prompted pushback:

▪ Outrage at the “Arabisation of Malaysia” led Mahathir Muhammed to shut

down the “King Salman Centre for International Peace” in Malaysia
▪ Nahdlatul Ulama, the largest Islamic organisation in the world and now a
political organisation with 40 million members (in Indonesia) has been
promoting anti-Salafism, and moderate Nusantra Islam, pushing back against
the Saudis. They have increased their funding of 44 universities to minimise
the need to rely on LIDA funding

Liberalism and Progressivism within Islam

• Classical and Progressive Islam are not necessarily at odds with one another, nor is progressive
Islam an attempt to “westernize” the faith, Progressive Islam is not about reforming or altering
the Quran itself, but rather reforming our interpretations of it, and getting rid of the extra
baggage of organized religion.
• Progressive Muslims believe that the current Muslim community, by and large, has adopted
bad theology due to a lack of self-study and introspection, replacing it with blindly following
the opinions of scholars and the cultural norms prevalent in “Islamic societies” by automatically
equating them with Islam.
• It’s wrong to simplify “Progressive Islam” and reduce it do “Muslims who are feminist” or
don’t wear Burqas, it goes far beyond figures like Linda Sarsour and Ilhan Omar. The
distinction is actually in the way they approach their religious texts;
• Progressive Muslims advocate the use of “Ijtihad” (Independent reasoning) and oppose
“Taqlid” (Blind following/imitation), especially in matters of faith due to the power dynamics.
• To this end, the biggest threat to the reformation and liberalisation of Islam is not just
Islamophobia (which pushes people further into organised religion and more insular
communities) but also the fact that many Islamic leaders and Imams denounce the practice of
Ijtihad.

On Christianity

Power Structures, Political Power and Resources

• The Catholic Church is very hierarchical, at the top is the Pope, but papal infallibility is no
longer mainstream, particularly in wake of Pope Francis’ liberalization of the Catholic Church.

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 • The pope is considered to speak infallibly, under certain conditions concerning doctrine and
morals. But he is not infallible when it comes to personal judgment such as whom he chooses
to get advice from.
• The Pope controls his Cardinals, they elect the Pope from among themselves, and are
themselves elected by the “government” of the Catholic Church.
• Archbishops control regions of Churches and ensure that bishops follow rules set by the
Cardinals.
• Bishops are responsible for most administrative affairs in the Church and in local communities,
oversee their priests.
• Priests are responsible for most teachings and organizing parishes, and confessions.
• The Church has access to a lot of resources and capital, estimates are almost impossible to
quantify, but the US Catholic Church alone spent approximately $200 billion last year, and the
Vatican Church has an “emergency fund” with approximately $15 billion in it.
• The actual number is in fact much larger than this when taking into account assets, land owned,
donations, and other countries in which the Church operates.
• The Church has over $1B in assets in Melbourne.
• Funny tidbit: The movement to “liquidate the Catholic Church” or “occupy the Vatican” has
been estimated to raise between $600 billion and $2 trillion USD - the total cost per year to end
extreme poverty worldwide in 20 years, would be about $175 billion. Less than 10% of this
could fully eradicate malaria and leave enough behind to give $2,000 each to every person in
the bottom half of the wealth distribution in Africa. (I’m not suggesting this is smart, but a cool
intuition-pump if the “occupy the Vatican” topic comes up!)

Sexual Abuse

• While priests in many countries are mandated both by the church and civil law to report sexual
abuse to church commissions and legal authorities, there has been a culture of denial and
secrecy that prevented allegations from being fully investigated.
• A 1962 Vatican document instructed bishops to observe the strictest secrecy in sexual abuse
cases and to address sexual abuse, or “solicitation,” as an internal church matter, not as an
offense that should be reported to local authorities.
• Despite establishing a commission to look into the problem and address a backlog of
cases, Pope Francis has still not established any protocol for handling sex abuse allegations for
the Catholic Church as a whole.
• Pope has set guidelines for removing bishops who have been “negligent” in addressing cases
of abuse.
• Many victims committed suicide and were too ashamed to come out, often being hand-picked
and groomed by their Priests, choosing children they knew would not resist.
• Diocesan real-estate transactions can also be conducted quickly and quietly when paying off
victims of abuse or financing legal action “under the table”.
• The Church has immense resources and moral capital over its congregation, access to almost-
infinite funds to suppress or pay off victims
• The Church also had the clerical power to shift priests around from parish to parish at the height
of the epidemic, changing past records of priest’s terms to effectively rewrite history and erase
their tenures form existence, shifting them to another Church where they often continued to
abuse.
• George Pell, the third most senior Cardinal in the Catholic Church, was recently convicted on
5 counts of molestation.
• A 1,400-page document compiled over two years, the report implicated 300 priests in the sex
abuse of over 1,000 minors across six of the state’s eight dioceses in Washington alone, this
was the beginning of the opening of the scandal to the public eye.

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 • The extent of the problem should really have been made public in the early 90s, when Priests
in Oregon and Austria came to the fore but were not public enough for victims to find one
another.
• Media is really important here – victims are usually ashamed and rarely come forward unless
there are others, and there often lacks a critical mass of victims to form concrete convictions
otherwise.
• After the famous article was published by the Washington Globe in 2002, thousands of victims
came forward and testified.
• In close-knit religious communities, its especially difficult to come forward against a local
Priest who may be seen as an integral part of the community.
• They also had spiritual power over their young victims, allowing them to exploit the desire
these children had to connect with God.

Sub-Divisions of Christianity

• There are different groups within Christianity, but their tensions are significantly less violent
and incendiary than in Islam. (For example, Protestants, Mormons, Anglicans, Orthodox
Christianity, Seventh Day Adventists, Quakers or the Amish)
• The Mormons (Church of the Latter Day Saints) Mormons are strongly focused on
traditional family life and values.
• They oppose abortion, homosexuality, unmarried sexual acts, pornography, gambling, tobacco,
consuming alcohol, tea, coffee, and the use of drugs. There is also a serious history of systemic
racism in the Mormon Church, they banned any African-Americans from preaching until 1978.
• Quakers are a more radical denomination of Protestants in America, but despite their small
numbers, they are hugely disproportionately represented in politics and social spheres. Richard
Nixon, Herbert Hoover, Hillary Clinton and Obama (whose kids also go to Quaker schools) are
Quakers.

On Hinduism

Overview of Hinduism and the Uniqueness of Henotheism

• Roughly 900 million Hindus, 95% live in India, oldest major religion.
• Henotheistic, all recognizing “Brahman” but reaching him through thousands of other Gods
(some say up to 33 million).
• This henotheism means that Hindus are typically very open (more so than monotheists), as
Hinduism does not deny the existence of any other Gods, it merely elevated the one – Brahman
above all others.
• One fundamental principle of the religion is the idea that people’s actions and thoughts directly
determine their current life and future lives. This is similar to the “anchor” I mentioned earlier.
• Lesser punishments or focus on heresy that Christianity and Islam are another reason why
Hindus are broadly less prone to sectarian violence and fundamentalism (there are of course
exceptions such as the Sri-Lankan Civil War between the Sinhalese and the Tamils)

Hindu Nationalism (and Narendra Modi)

• 95% of the world’s Hindus live in India, and the faith is thus an integral part of national identity
(and increasingly so, also campaigns and elections in India), this percentage is actually over
twice more than the percentage of the world’s Jews living in Israel (44%)
• When India and East-Pakistan (now Bangladesh, a nation with over 180 million Muslims)
separated in 1947, the Partition meant that 20 million Hindus were refugees who moved to
India, laying the foundations for Hindu nationalism in India.

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 • This tension is largely responsible for recent hostilities this week between India and Pakistan,
and the crisis in Kashmir that resulted in two planes being shot down – Russia and Chine
intervened to deescalate the situation.
• One group, called the Sangh Parivar, the Sangh wanted something on the model of a Western
blood-and-soil nationality, with especially Indian characteristics, with which to stand against
their foreign rulers, both British and the Islamic dynasties that preceded them.
• Because of its association with Hindu nationalism, the Bharatiya Janata Party (the major party)
has a hard time winning votes from Muslims, who make up 14% of India’s population.
• An appeal to Hindu identity is increasingly becoming an integral part of democratic campaigns
in India, a nation where hundreds of millions of poor people have little more than their faith to
define them and give structure to their lives.
• For example, earlier this year, the Kumbh Mela festival on the Ganges (the biggest ever human
gathering in history, with over 120 million over 3 months, and up to 30 million people in a
single day) was the epicentre of many political campaigns from Modi and the BJP who deny
having “co-opted” the festival.
• It’s hard to unite in India without using Hinduism, the reality of India as a federal union of
states rather than a monolithic nation has become apparent.
• Indian states are divided linguistically and along borders of historical regions that long predate
Hindu nationalism or the modern idea of India.
• In 2014, Hindu nationalism essentially tied together disparate allies and agendas in a "Make
India Great Again" moment.
• Muslims and Christians were vilified as non-Hindu "others," and attacked verbally and
physically after the elections. But Hindu nationalists have always faced a fundamental obstacle:
caste.

The Caste System

• Brahmins and other upper castes who desire a Hindu nation are often reluctant to share power
or even meals with lower castes. Indeed, talk of caste is itself taboo in upper-caste
households.
• Modi said at the beginning of his campaign that “high caste” Congress leaders were scared of
taking on a rival from “a backward caste”.
• This makes him the prime minister drawn from the “other backward classes” which Modi is
from, called the “OBC castes”. He is not the only politician to see electoral advantage in
bringing up the subject: caste still matters enormously to most Indians.
• However, even under Modi, Dalits (the “untouchables”) still suffer greatly. However, since the
constitution banned discrimination against untouchables 70 years ago, and with quotas for state
schools, jobs and elected offices giving Dalits a leg up, gaps in education, income and health
have steadily shrunk.
• Dalits and OBC castes remain the primary victims of violent hate crimes in India, especially
rape which often goes unreported.

On Judaism

Overview of Judaism

• There are fewer than 20 million Jews, 44% of whom live in Israel (extensive notes on
Israel/Palestine and Israeli ethno-nationalism in other matter file)
• They worship in Synagogues and read from the Talmud and Torah (mostly)
• Unlike Imams and Priests, the role of a Rabbi is more centred around education of the young
than being seen as a spiritual leader.

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 • They are seen more as counsellors and role models in the community, with an especially
important role in schools and mediating Torah study, “Rabbi” actually means “teacher” in
Hebrew.

Jewish Religious Movements and “Types of Jews”

Zionism vs. Israeli Ethno-Nationalism

• Israel and the Jewish diaspora are in strong and loyal alignment. Diaspora Jews, broadly
speaking, love and cherish Israel. They support it against its enemies, real and perceived, they
back its government and they resent its critics.
• Netanyahu was heard telling one of the most senior Rabbis in Israel, Yitzhak Keddouri, that
“The leftists have forgotten what it means to be Jewish”, showing a worrying link between the
nationalist state and religious leaders.
• Most diaspora Jews broadly opposed Israel but their position shifted sharply after the six-day
war in 1967. The collective experience of fear, and then relief and jubilation, produced an
outpouring of solidarity with the beleaguered Jewish state.

Anti-Zionism vs. Anti-Semitism and Left-Wing Politics

• Israelis, for all their problems, are the 14th-happiest people in the world, happier than the British
or the French, according to a UN global happiness report. In the diaspora, Jewish life is freer,
more prosperous and more unthreatened than ever (however, recent increases in anti-Semitic
attacks in eastern Europe, Germany and France appear to be on the rise).
• In America, Senator Joseph Lieberman, ran for vice-president in 2000. With Al Gore as
candidate for president, he nearly made it. His Jewish faith was no drawback, he says; rather,
it appealed to many Christian voters who take their own religion seriously.
• For the Israeli right, an undifferentiated axis of evil that dictates most foreign and internal policy
extends from the Iranians to the Palestinians and on to anti-Semitic thugs on European streets
(especially in Hungary where a survey revealed that over 65% of people agreed with racist
Jewish stereotypes.)
• However, Israel does offer opportunities and affords right to Jews that non-Jews are not, for
example collaborating with “Birthright Israel” to offer free 10-day trips to any Jew in the world,
or the “law of return” which allows any Jew, no matter where they live to gain Israeli
citizenship.
• This is where the (tenuous) distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism begins, for
example, we believe ion the right for a state to have the right to self-determination (i.e. when
Scotland votes to leave the EU, all people who live in Scotland have a right to vote).
• However, the right to self-determination did not also extend to all the Scottish diaspora who
live outside of Scotland or may never have actually lived there at all.

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 • Zionism is a type of ethnic nationalism, not civic nationalism.
• To oppose Zionism but not other forms of ethnic nationalism would indeed be anti-Semitic.
But to oppose Zionism because one opposes ethnic nationalism is a legitimate view.
• This kind of anti-Zionism is very different from that which calls for the “destruction of the state
of Israel”, usually (a not very veiled) code for the destruction of Jews. The latter is a form of
anti-Zionism that refuses to acknowledge the presence of more than 6 million Jews in
Israel/Palestine, whose rights, needs and aspirations are as central as those of Palestinians to
any discussion of the region’s future.
• Anti-Semitism continues to mutate to survive, and many try to say that its newest incarnation,
left-wing anti-Semitism, is a new phenomenon.
• This is not entirely true (though of course the right had a strikingly obvious history of Jew-
hating) but most proto-Marxists and even Marx himself also singled out the Jews, Marx’s “On
the Jewish Question” is one of the most horrifying pieces of literature ever written, second only
to perhaps Mein Kampf and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (which was written by an
unidentified Russian Communist).
• Today, the UK’s Labour Party had serious problems with anti-Semitism, which in the last
month have been responsible for the loss of almost a dozen ministers who left the party.
• Corbyn in particular has been pictured at funerals of PLO and Hamas terrorists, and found to
be part of a now-disbanded private Facebook group littered with anti-Semitic language and
tropes.
• A left-wing group called “Momentum” is pushing for change within the party.

Is Spirituality Replacing Religion?

What is “Spiritual but not religious”?

• The rise of spiritualism in the West (i.e. things as simple as horoscopes, wellness culture, yoga,
the mainstream adaptations of meditation) has largely adapted parts of Eastern religions such
as Buddhism and Hinduism to shift the focus of these forms of spirituality from the existence
of a God to the exploration of the self.
• This points to another interesting phenomenon, which is that as yoga-going millennial
westerners find Western Christianity too artificial, restrictive or organised and turn to watered-
down aspects of Eastern spirituality, China is on track to becoming the world’s most Christian
nation (by number) in the next 15 years.
• Christian congregations in particular have skyrocketed since churches began reopening when
Chairman Mao's death in 1976.

Growth of “Spirituality” in the West

• A study found that at almost 20% of people polled, “spiritual but not religious” is America’s
largest growing faith group.
• The study found that many “spiritual but not religious” Americans maintain a connection to
some sort of organized faith tradition, even if they do not practice it regularly.
• Few religiously unaffiliated people ranked as spiritual but not religious, suggesting that most
spiritual-but-not-religious people maintain links with a more formal religious identity, so
perhaps the movement is not strong enough on its own.

How Do Religions Change?

Mechanisms of Religious Leaders

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 • Religions change slowly, but they do change – previously, Animal sacrifice was integral to
Hinduism and artistic representation of the Prophet were a part of Islamic culture, today neither
of these thigs are true and Catholic churches are marrying LGBT partners.
• Radios, loudspeakers and telephones were forbidden for Muslims 100 years ago - one story
relates how a Saudi king instructed a cleric to recite the Koran down the phone to another
scholar to prove the invention was not corrupting the faith.
• There were figurative miniatures of the Prophet Muhammad in both Ottoman and Persian art
• Going to college has long been assumed to liberalize students’ religious beliefs. Youth are very
important in this liberalisation process (especially in Saudi Arabia for example), and our
generation are now those with the most access to these opportunities, regardless of faith.
• This being said, the expectation that Islam or Christianity will reproduce their own 21st century
Martin Luthers in unlikely, not in small part due to the fragmentation of religious authority,
change needs to happen from the bottom up, not in terms of the faithful, but generationally.
• Most religious reform occurs from leaders though, who often have different incentives to their
congregations (perhaps more concerned by maintaining a strict adherence to a doctrine)
• Religious texts are also colossal, the Bible has 31,000 verses and the Quran has 6,200, meaning
that its very easy to find conflicting views on central issues which allow for leaders to focus on
specific parts over others to slowly change teachings (specific example given above under the
Islam section)

King Salman’s Vision 2030

• Vision “2030” is Mohammed Bin Salman’s plan to socially liberalise and diversify the Saudi
economy to prepare it for a more interoperable future (better notes on this above in the Saudi
Arabia section).
• Since catapulting to the power of Western influence, MBS has pushed forth changes that could
usher in a new era for one of the United States' most important allies and swing the kingdom
away from decades of ultraconservative dogma and restrictions.
• He's introduced musical concerts and movies again and is seen as the force behind the king's
decision to grant women the right to drive.
• This shows that religions, with the support of important leaders, can and do change – even in
very theocratic states.
• Integral to this change was the support of Saudi Youth
• He has clipped the wings of the fanatical religious police. He is slowly dismantling gender
segregation and the cloistering of women, and promoting mixed entertainment, lifting ludicrous
bans on concerts and cinema.

EUDC 2019 Round 4

THBT it is in the interest of dominant organized religions for their leaders to declare more progressive
interpretations of traditional dogma. E.g. on dietary and pilgrimage requirements, the acceptability of
contraception, SSM.

Most Likely OG Framing is:

i) Religions are rapidly losing clout and popularity as the demands of a

cosmopolitan society conflict with the dogmatic rigidity of religion, forcing
people to opt out of religion.
ii) The biggest incentive of an organized religion is increasing the number of
adherents, the only way to keep these people on board (especially progressives

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 of LGBT individuals who still have spiritual ties) is to promote liberalized
interpretations of text

This type of case has two contingencies for the opposition to break down in order to win:

(1) Proving the nature of these small acts of liberalization as a tipping point that:

i) Is the tipping point for people either opting in, or choosing not to opt out of a
religion where they otherwise would, and;
ii) Is not a tipping point for existing adherents to lose respect for the authority of
their leaders.

(2) Proving that the number of adherents is the main concern of a religion

OO has to undo the framing of OG by unravelling both the above contingencies with this meta structure:

(1) The number of adherents is not the main concern of a religion, its authority/purity
(2) We win massively on authority/purity
(3) Even if you care about magnitude, here is why we get as many if not more than them
(4) Even if they get significantly more adherents, independent weighing for why impacts of
purity/authority outweigh impacts of magnitude
(5) Extension about extremism

(1) The number of adherents is not the main concern of a religion:

(a) We know this prima facie as if it were the main goal religions would be
aggressively proselytizing in Africa instead of expending resources in the west
to build new churches, religions such as Judaism would not require converting
adherents to participate in long and extensive classes before becoming Jews,
and religions would happily fall in line with all progressive values all the time.

(b) This suggests that organized religions have another priority; the conservation
of their values, doctrinal purity, and the “quality” or level of devotion of
adherents, not merely their number, as the degree to which people hold their
religion close to them, the sacrifices and donations they are prepared to maker,
and thus the control that they allow religion to exercise over their lives is where
religions derive their power.

(2) Even if it were, these small acts of liberalization are not the tipping points for people
opting in/not opting out:

(a) Many of these doctrinal requirements are not adopted by all anyway, meaning
that the SQ allows a degree of flexibility for individuals who desire it (e.g.
despite it being the mandate of every Muslim, less than 50% of them partake
in the Hajj, and most Christians don’t eat fish on Fridays)

(b) Even if it were, there exist much more powerful forces pushing these weaker
adherents out which exist independent of dogma, i.e the rapid secularization of
society, people having less time or an emphasis on science instead of religion
in society.

We win massively on purity:

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 (1) The important framing for this debate is that religions are not just businesses; the
burden to which they submit themselves in preaching is to uphold the sacrosanct
divinity of the word of their God;

(a) The value of spreading (and crucially, enforcing) the word of God exists in and
of itself to these religions. These are religious values that have existed for
thousands of years, do not underestimate what the preserving the sanctity of
Cows (i.e not eating Beef) means to Hindus or not defacing one’s skin and
undermining the purity of humanity through tattoos means for Jews, this can
literally be the difference between Heaven and Hell, between being
reincarnated as an insect or a human in these religions and for these reasons
alone, they have value to organized religions.

(b) The structure of organized religions is merely an apparatus to facilitate the

capacity of individuals to form these bonds and be held accountable to these
laws; its function is to be involved in every facet of the life of its believer which
it achieves through these rules, when you need to shop for dinner at a Kosher
butcher ever week you are constantly reminded of you faith as a part of your
identity, when the first thing you do when your child is born is to register him
for a session with a Mohel for their circumcision or register their purification
rites with a Rabbi, your faith once more runs through the veins of the most
important events in life.

(c) The stringency of unequivocal truth with which religious leaders preach these
laws is what gives them their weight and compels people to follow them;

i. They often possess clarity (e.g. 10 Commandments) which

makes them appealing because it is often difficult to weigh
moral obligations in our minds, and we have no yard stick with
which to compare our competing obligations.
ii. This is crucial, in that the infallible truth of these doctrines
means that they often become the overriding metric for
religious individuals when acting because they are comforted
by the divine security of these laws, affording organized
religion more power and influence.

(2) This purity is often the great equalizer between all adherents in a ways that cannot be
achieved when people are given free reign to interpret religion. Rich or poor, by all
attending the same mass, following the same laws and being bound by the shared
experiences and struggles of being a part of this community you are drawn together
which is crucial to the institution of organized religion whose survival necessities
solidarity.

By undermining the relationship between devoted adherents and their religious leaders, this policy
undermines the authority of organized religions; we win authority

(1) This undermines the authority of religious leaders in the minds of adherents

(a) The most devoted adherents are likely to interpret this abdication of religious
leader’s obligation to preach the word of God (especially true of Islam where
unlike Judaism or Christianity, the Quran is the direct and unfiltered word of
Allah). This sends the message to devoted adherents that they are no longer the
priority of that religion, this process comes at a cost and is not zero sum;

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 i. “Encouraging” liberal reforms of dietary requirements means
actively telling Muslim or Jewish adherents that it is okay to
eat pork – for these devoted adherents, this is perceived as the
religious leaders to whom they look up as a direct
encouragement of sin
ii. This is not just perceived as deviating from scripture, but as
adopting elements of other religions (i.e eating Pork is selling
out the will of Allah to succumb to the West) which further
undermines the authority of leaders that is the most crucial
tenet of organsied religion.

(b) Leaders and preachers denying the unequivocal truth of these texts, a least
publically and outspokenly rather than tacitly or discretely through cultural
norms, gives adherents reason to question anything that their leaders tell them
because you instill within them the belief that convenience can override
doctrine. This is the first step to unraveling all of the benefits of doctrinal purity
that I outline earlier.

(c) Even if it is true that some people still ignore or occasionally reject these rules
(e.g. a Muslim who drinks occasionally), the permissibility mechanism of the
preachers removes the accountability and the emotion of guilt on their behalf
that justifies future relapse.

(2) This undermines religious community and the place of religion in one’s identity

(a) These practices (such as a pilgrimage to the Hajj or eating a certain type of
food) place religion at the forefront of one’s identity.

(b) This undermines communities, because these practices become much less of a
struggle when many people in a community participate which reduce
thresholds of how demining it is (i.e the economy of scale exists for each
suburb to have a Kosher Butcher, or access to travel to the Hajj is increased
across the globe). This accentuates the harms to communities that I outline in
my first argument.

The impact of no longer being in the forefront of one’s mind and identity is far more destructive for a
religion than having fewer adherents;

i. Reducing the imperative to pay a Zakat can mean millions less for your religion, and
if you believe that numbers is the most important metric, less money to throw at Africa
to proselytize people.
ii. When you choose where to allocate your time and money, and religion is no longer at
the forefront of your life, that imperative to give to your church compared to another
actor is lessened.
iii. Your leaders lose control and the authority which came with the fiat of truth, and you
push away the strongest adherents of your religion in order to gain followers who either
never come, will not offer you as many resources or respect dogmatic purity, the
outcome here is that they are likely to splinter off, which is my third argument.

This prevents radicalization and splintering religious movements

When devout adherents construct their entire faith and life around a text being the sacrosanct word of
God it unlikely that they suddenly abandon these views just because of the views of a religious leader
(c.f all my analysis about the depravity of encouraging sin, “selling out” etc.), instead they seek to close
the chasm between scripture and doctrine in one of two ways which undermines organized religion:

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 (1) They turn to these texts themselves and away from leaders and a quasi-Lutheran model
of religion is reinstated for devout adherents that were literally designed to subvert the
authority of religious leaders. In Islam, this looks like turning to Ijtihad (the practice of
independent reasoning alone with your Quran) over Taqlid (listening to your leaders)

(2) If you do choose to follow a leader, you are forced to rally behind those outside of the
mainstream who support the more fundamentalist approach to religion from
beforehand, directly pitting leaders against one another and splintering religions.

However, the impact of both of the above outcomes (apart from undermining the structure of organized
religion) is that it promotes radicalism. Because when you abstract your religion from leaders, an Imam
or a Priest does not filter your interpretation of a text and you are more likely to take it extremely
literally and become fundamentalist.

Rights and Philosophy

Natural Rights (Nightwatchman State)

Libertarian Conceptions of Natural Rights and the Night-Watchman State

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• Individuals possess certain moral rights – to self-ownership and ownership of property – that
exist separate and apart from any decision by a government to recognize and uphold them.
Protection of these rights is the only legitimate use to which authorized force can be put.
• When authorities use force to protect rights, they are merely acting as agents of individuals to
secure their right of self-defence; when authorities use force for any other purpose, they are
violating rights and acting illegitimately. This line of thinking leads to the radical conclusion
that only a minimal “night watchman state” or full-on anarcho-capitalism can satisfy the
requirements of justice.
• On one side of these debates are those people who believe that rights come from God and/or
nature. Because inalienable rights are natural rights, we are all born with them. Nobody -
government or otherwise - has to provide us with anything for us to have those rights. We need
government though, to ensure our security in these rights which would be vulnerable to attack
from others in a “state of nature.” We are born with the capacity and the right to believe, to
speak, to develop and exercise our consciences.
• Government should provide us with security in our equal natural rights through just laws and
consistent enforcement of them. Equal rights make for inequality because people with different
capacities exercise them differently. Government makes possible the various inequalities that
justice requires. Therefore, those who perform better are compensated better.
• On the other side of the debate are progressive liberals who believe that natural and inalienable
rights are not enough for everyone to reach their full potential. They believe that rights include
a basic standard of living and the means to thrive on a level playing field. They believe it would
be possible for government to provide these things, and that it should have the power to try.

Community Rights vs Individual Rights

• An example of a commonly asserted group right is the right of a nation or a people to be self-
determining.
• We might try to interpret a collective right of self-determination as merely an aggregation of
the individual rights of self-determination possessed by those who make up the relevant nation
or people. But an individual's right of self-determination is normally understood as the right of
a person to determine his or her own life rather than a right over the lives of others. Thus, the
right of a group to determine the character and destiny of its collective life cannot be merely a
summing together of individual rights of self-determination. We may certainly appeal to
individual rights of self-determination, and to the values that underlie them, in making the case
for a collective right of self-determination, but that does not imply that the collective right
would be no more than the set of individual rights to which we appeal.
• Other rights that are now frequently asserted as group rights include the right of a cultural group
that its culture should be respected and perhaps publicly supported; the right of a linguistic
group that its language should be usable and provided for in the public domain; and the right
of a religious group that it should be free to engage in collective expressions of its faith and that
its sacred sites and symbols should not be desecrated. In each of these cases, the right, insofar
as it is a group right, is a right held by the relevant group qua group, and the duties generated
by the right are duties owed to the group as a whole rather to its members severally.

The “It Factor”

• In some cases, if 99% of the population deems a certain activity morally repugnant (even if
there’s no objective reason why), for example consensual protected incest, then it may be okay
to remove the right of individuals to partake in such an activity as the state has an obligation to
maintain the moral fabric of a society.

Free Speech

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Limiting Free Speech and the Harm Principle

• It’s worth noting that a multitude of mechanisms already exist to limit free speech that you can
use in a debate to “extend the precedent set by X”

(1) Regulating commercial expression (advertising regulations)

(2) Requiring academic material to be approved before it may be published.
(3) Being unable to share issues of national security.
(4) Attaching criminal/civil liability to publications of opinions or information.
(5) Imposes censorship or provides for classification of entertainment content, or
(6) Limitations and punishment of hate speech.
(7) Libel laws restrict lies, character assassinations and reputational shredding.
(8) Prohibitions on speech that may incite crime, violence or mass panic, provided
the prohibition is reasonable, is effective to protect public order, and restricts
freedom of expression no more than is necessary to protect public order.
(9) Regulating the format or manner of any form of expression (for example
requiring prior approval for public protest or places restrictions on the uses of
places in which protest activity may take place.)

• So, it’s pretty clear that the idea that freedom of speech is so sacrosanct in our society is not
too accurate.
• John Stuart Mill argues that the fullest liberty of expression is required to push our arguments
to their logical limits, rather than the limits of social embarrassment. Such liberty of expression
is necessary, he suggests, for the dignity of persons. If liberty of expression is stifled, the price
paid is “a sort of intellectual pacification” that sacrifices “the entire moral courage of the human
mind
• Liberals are usually willing to contemplate limiting speech once it can be demonstrated that it
does invade the rights of others.
• Some argue that the boundaries of free speech cannot be set in stone by philosophical
principles. It is the world of politics that decides what we can and cannot say guided, but not
hidebound, by the world of abstract philosophy.

Pornography and the Harm Principle

• There are other instances when the harm principle has been invoked but where it is more
difficult to demonstrate that rights have been violated. Perhaps the most obvious example is the
debate over pornography that influences social attitudes toward sexual relationships.
• It is also difficult to demonstrate that pornography results in harm to women as a whole. Very
few people would deny that violence against women is abhorrent and an all too common feature
of our society, but how much of this is caused by pornography?
• Pornography might not dispose most men to rape; it might make it more likely for those men
who are already so inclined.
• If pornography causes a small percentage of men to act violently, we still need an argument for
why the liberty of all consumers of pornography (men and women) has to be curtailed because
of the violent actions of a few. We have overwhelming evidence that consuming alcohol causes
a lot of violence (against women and men) but this does not mean that alcohol should be
prohibited.
• Would prohibition limit the harm and if so, by how much? Would censorship cause problems
greater than the harm it is meant to negate? Can the harmful effects be prevented by measures
other than prohibition?

Section 18C and Andrew Bolt

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 • Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 states that “It is unlawful for a person to do
an act, otherwise than in private, If: (a) the act is reasonably likely in all the circumstances to
offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or group of people, and (b) the act is done
because of race, colour or national or ethnic origin”. The most prominent person prosecuted
under the Act is Andrew Bolt, a conservative political commentator, who was found guilty of
racially vilifying nine aboriginal persons in newspaper articles in 2011. He suggested that the
nine people had identified as aboriginal, despite having fair skin, for their own professional
advantage. The case prompted the Tony Abbott led Liberal government into a failed attempt to
change the legislation.
• It should be noted that Section 18C is qualified by Section 18D (often ignored in the backlash
against the Bolt decision). 18D says that;
“…section 18C does not render unlawful anything said or done reasonably and in good faith: (a) in
the performance, exhibition or distribution of an artistic work; or (b) in the course of any statement,
publication, discussion or debate made or held for any genuine academic, artistic or scientific purpose
or any other genuine purpose in the public interest; or (c) in the making or publishing: (i) a fair and
accurate report of any event or matter of public interest; or (ii) a fair comment on any matter of public
interest if the comment is an expression of a genuine belief held by the person making the comment…”

• It is clear that these qualifications remove some of the teeth from Section 18C. As long as the
statements are made artistically and/or in good faith, for example, they are immune from
prosecution. The conclusion of the judge in the Bolt case was that none of the Section 18D
exemptions applied in his case. Even with these qualifications in place, however, it seems that
the Racial Discrimination Act would still be ruled out by Mill's harm principle which seems to
allow people to offend, insult, and humiliate (although perhaps not intimidate) regardless of the
motivation of the speaker.
• With this caveat, the only thing 18C can really stop is stuff like incitement to genocide.

Positive Duties

Doing vs. Allowing Harm

• If there is no difference, there should be no moral objection to active euthanasia in

circumstances where passive euthanasia is permissible; and there should be no objection to
bombing innocent civilians were doing so will minimize the overall number of deaths in war.
There should, however, be an objection, indeed, an outcry, at our failure to prevent the deaths
of millions of children in the third world from malnutrition, dehydration, and measles.
• It tends to be easier to avoid killing than to avoid letting die, but this is only a tendency.
Sometimes saving is easier than not killing. It is easy to throw a life preserver, and it may be
difficult to refrain from killing someone who is threatening one or who has treated one
appallingly. There are even cases where it is physically difficult to avoid killing; as for example,
where one has to hold tight to a tree to prevent one’s (light) vehicle whose brakes have failed
from running into a pedestrian.

Mass Surveillance and the “Nothing to Hide” Argument

• A common rights trade-off in debates is that of privacy and security, especially given recent
state-sponsored mass cyber and facial recognition surveillance initiatives in China and the UK
in particular.

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 • Much of the justification for these programs is that these measures are necessary to deter acts
of terrorism and that that need justifies a violation of citizen’s security.
• One issue with this is that there’s an imbalance in the likelihood of both outcomes; for example,
an act of unnecessary cyber surveillance is 100% likely to violate one’s rights (i.e since they
make the concession that it’s a privacy-security trade-off, they admit that these acts of
surveillance are in violation of at least some rights). However, the likelihood of an act of terror
is significantly lower than the likelihood that these measures result in a rights violation – so it
may be unjustified.
• If that did not matter, presumably it would be okay for the police to forcibly enter every citizen’s
home and conduct explosive searches, because that may – in theory – prevent a terror threat.
• Usually, governments conduct targeted surveillance, when they monitor a person or group for
specific, legitimate reasons. For this, they’ll need to get permission from a judge, for example
to monitor the internet use of someone they suspect of criminal activities. If surveillance is
indiscriminate, our communications are being monitored without any reasonable suspicion that
we might be doing something dodgy. Governments are treating us all like criminal suspects,
and every detail of our personal lives as suspicious. And there are few laws to control what
they’re doing.
• You may not think you care about your privacy, but the chances are you probably do. Every
day we do things in our homes that we wouldn’t do in public. It’s not because we have
something to hide, but just that there are parts of our lives we’d rather keep private.
• In a nutshell, the best response to “I’ve got nothing to hide” will always be: “If I have done
nothing wrong, why is my privacy being violated?”
• It’s useful in debates to think of privacy as a positive right, that is to say that it is not about
having a right to hide information, but a right to protect it.
• Also consider the way that the surveillance is misapplies to fuck off minorities (i.e. seeing
which women access abortion pill websites in Ireland or who is gay in Saudi)
• Think about why privacy may be unimportant: we already give data away, government already
violates (i.e. breathalysing), what if you don’t know about the infractions, usually this does not
take from the most important parts of your privacy etc.

Electoral Mechanisms and Political Philosophy

Voting Ethics and Electoral Structures

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Should we all have Equal Voting Rights?

• Democracy is the rule of the people. But one fundamental question is just who constitutes “the
people”. This is no small problem. Before one can judge that a democracy is fair, or adequately
responds to citizens’ interests, one needs to know who “counts” and who does not.
• One might be inclined to say that everyone living under a particular government’s jurisdiction
is part of the demos and is thus entitled to a vote. However, in fact, most democracies exclude
children and teenagers, felons, the mentally infirm, and non-citizens living in a government’s
territory from being able to vote, but at the same time allow their citizens living in foreign
countries to vote
• Anyone who is affected by a political decision-making process should have some say over that
process. However, this principle suffers from multiple problems. It may be incoherent or
useless, as we might not know or be able to know who is affected by a decision until after the
decision is made
• Sometimes political decisions made in one country have a significant effect on citizens of
another country; sometimes, political decisions made in one country have little or no effect on
some of the citizens of that country. So, a lot of the time the “anyone affected” policy would
exclude citizens and include non-citizens.
• Millions of foreign-born legal permanent residents living in Australia can’t vote; this is
despite living, working, paying taxes and using public services like schools and Medicare.
• Today, there are at least over 40 countries that have approved some form of foreign resident
voting rights. The majority of cases where non-citizens can vote are in local elections. Many
European countries, including the Nordic states, allow each other’s citizens to vote in
municipal elections.
• Critics argue that immigrants need to demonstrate significant ‘patriotic effort’ in order to be
given the privilege to vote, which is why voting is exclusive to citizens. Intuitively, this is a fair
claim.
• However, the very fact that these are newly minted permanent residents demonstrates their
commitment to Australia. After all, they’ve left their homeland and, in many cases, their
families to start afresh. It is not foreign residents’ fault that a cumbersome bureaucracy has
established a prolonged barrier to citizenship.
• In some cases many permanent residents have made more of a commitment to Australia than
Australian-born citizens.
• There are numerous instances where Australian citizens living abroad, despite not living in
the country for potentially years on end, are still eligible to vote. But permanent residents
can live in Australia for years on end but still be ineligible to vote.
• In many countries, ethnic minorities are less likely to vote than ethnic majorities. More highly
educated people are more likely to vote than less highly educated people. Married people are
more likely to vote than non-married people. Political partisans are more likely to vote than
true independents.

Challenges to “One Man – One Vote” and Epistocracies

• The idea of “One person, one vote” is supposedly grounded on a commitment to egalitarianism.
• In many decisions, many citizens have little to nothing at stake, while other citizens have a
great deal at stake. Thus, one alternative proposal is that citizens’ votes should be weighted by
how much they have a stake in the decision. This preserves equality not by giving everyone an
equal chance of being decisive in every decision, but by giving everyone’s interests equal
weight. Otherwise, in a system of one person, one vote, issues that are deeply important to the
few might continually lose out to issues of only minor interest to the many.
• proportional voting enhances citizens’ autonomy, by giving them greater control over those
issues in which they have greater stakes, while few would regard it as significant loss of
autonomy were they to have reduced control over issues that do not concern them.

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 • However, even if this proposal seems plausible in theory, it is unclear how a democracy might
reliably instantiate this in practice. Before allowing a vote, a democratic polity would need to
determine to what extent different citizens have a stake in the decision, and then somehow
weight their votes accordingly. In real life, special-interests groups and others would likely try
to use vote weighting for their own ends. Citizens might regard unequal voting rights as
evidence of corruption or electoral manipulation
• Arguments for epistocracy (weighting votes in proportion to intelligence) generally center on
concerns about democratic incompetence. Epistocrats hold that democracy imbues citizens with
the right to vote in a promiscuous way.
• Some dispute whether epistocracy would in fact perform better than democracy, even in
principle. Epistocracy generally attempts to generate better political outcomes by in some way
raising the average reliability of political decision-makers.
• It could also be said that cognitive diversity in a group may contribute more tot eh group making
a “smart” or universally beneficial decision than a homogenous group of intellectuals.
• It is possible that having a large number of diverse but unreliable decision-makers in a
collective decision will outperform having a smaller number of less diverse but more reliable
decision-makers. – This is a mathematical truth, called “wisdom of the crowds” and can be
proven in most cases. Statistician Francis Galton discovered that the average guess (1,197lb)
was extremely close to the actual weight (1,198lb) of the ox.
• One worry about certain forms of epistocracy, such as a system in which voters must earn the
right to vote by passing an examination, is that such systems might make decisions that are
biased toward members of certain demographic groups. After all, political knowledge is not
evenly dispersed among all demographic groups. On average, in the United States, on measures
of basic political knowledge, white people know more than black people, people in the
Northeast know more than people in the South, men know more than women, middle-aged
people know more than the young or old, and high-income people know more than the poor –
this is unfair.
• Public reason liberals hold that distribution of coercive political power is legitimate and
authoritative only if all reasonable people subject to that power have strong enough grounds to
endorse a justification for that power.
• By definition, epistocracy imbues some citizens with greater power than others on the grounds
that these citizens have greater social scientific knowledge. However, the objection goes,
reasonable people could disagree about just what counts as expertise and just who the experts
are. If reasonable people disagree about what counts as expertise and who the experts are, then
epistocracy distributes political power on terms not all reasonable people have conclusive
grounds to endorse. Epistocracy thus distributes political power on terms not all reasonable
people have conclusive grounds to endorse.

First-Past-The-Post, Preferential and Proportional Voting Systems

• An underlying feature of FPTP is that in an FPTP election votes are cast for different individual
candidates. The purpose of the election is to elect a person to represent the constituency (local
area). This is not directly a vote for a political party. However candidates are usually also
representatives of their political parties. In the election there is only one winner. For
convenience it is said that the Party of the MP wins the constituency, but this is only indirectly
the case because technically it is the individual who wins. A weakness of such an electoral
system is that it cannot be certain whether such a vote is an expression of support for the
candidate or their party.
• The overall election result is taken as the sum of the results (expressed as constituencies or
'seats' won by each party) of all the individual constituency contests. This way of counting the
result does not necessarily reflect the actual balance of votes cast but nevertheless determines
which party or parties will form the Government. This counting method, in effect, ignores all
the votes cast for losing candidates – this is specifically an issue in minority seats.

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 • This also makes it more likely for certain parties not to bother to run candidates in certain “safe”
seats, meaning that people don’t have a right to cast their vote to represent themselves.
• This reduces voter efficacy, especially for political and ethnic minorities in safer constituencies.
• Preferential voting however, is a system of voting that allows a citizen to individually number
and rank all candidates for both houses of parliament according to their preferences. It means
a citizen's vote can still be counted, even if their first choice of candidate is eliminated due to a
lack of votes.
• In a proportional system, if n% of the electorate support a particular political party, then
roughly n% of seats will be won by that party. The essence of such systems is that all votes
contribute to the result - not just a plurality, or a bare majority.
• The use of multiple-member districts enables a greater variety of candidates to be elected. The
more representatives per district and the lower the minimum threshold of votes required for
election, the more minor parties can gain representation. It has been argued that in emerging
democracies, inclusion of minorities in the legislature can be essential for social stability and
to consolidate the democratic process.
• The election of smaller parties gives rise to one of the principal objections to PR systems, that
they almost always result in coalition governments.
• Supporters of PR see coalitions as an advantage, forcing compromise between parties to form
a coalition at the centre of the political spectrum, and so leading to continuity and stability.
Opponents counter that with many policies compromise is not possible (for example funding a
new stealth bomber, or leaving the EU). Neither can many policies be easily positioned on the
left-right spectrum (for example, the environment).
• So policies are horse-traded during coalition formation, with the consequence that voters have
no way of knowing which policies will be pursued by the government they elect; voters have
less influence on governments. Coalitions don’t always form at the centre, small parties can
have influence, supplying a coalition with a majority only on condition that a policy or policies
favoured by few voters is/are adopted. Most importantly, the ability of voters to vote a party in
disfavour out of power is curtailed.

Sustaining Accountability in Voting and Democracies

• Our democracies are equipped with many mechanisms to keep leaders accountable, such as
election cycles, the media, frequent polling results and the separation of legislative, executive
and judiciary powers.

The Ethics of Vote-Buying

• Many citizens of modern democracies believe that vote buying, trading and selling are
immoral.
• The poor are more likely to sell their votes than are the wealthy, leading to political outcomes
favouring the wealthy. This is especially true because of the fact that the poor have far lower
perceptions of their voter-efficacy (the power of their vote to wield influence on their lives)
• Votes belong to the community as a whole and should not be alienable by individual voters.
• Suppose I pay a person to vote in a good way. For instance, suppose I pay indifferent people to
vote on behalf of women's rights, or for the Correct Theory of Justice, whatever that might be.

The Expressivist Ethics of Voting

• There is a duty to vote because there is a duty to protect oneself, a duty to help others, or to
produce good government
• Citizens have a duty to vote to avoid complicity with injustice and contribute to the architecture
of civic virtue.

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 • Citizens count as partial authors of the law, even when the citizens do not vote or participate in
government. Citizens who refuse to vote are thus complicit in allowing their representatives to
commit injustice. Perhaps failure to resist injustice counts as kind of sponsorship. (This theory
thus implies that citizens do not merely have a duty to vote rather than abstain, but specifically
have a duty to vote for candidates and policies that will reduce injustice.)
• One must explain why a duty to exercise civic virtue specifically implies a duty to vote, rather
than a duty just to perform one of thousands of possible acts of civic virtue. Or, if a citizen has
a duty to be an agent who helps promote other citizens’ wellbeing, it seems volunteering,
making art, or working at a productive job that adds to the social surplus could discharge this
duty. If a citizen has a duty to avoid complicity in injustice, it seems that rather than voting, she
could engage in civil disobedience; write letters to newspaper editors, pamphlets, or political
theory books, donate money; engage in conscientious abstention; protest; assassinate criminal
political leaders; or do any number of other activities. It's unclear why voting is special or
required.

“The Myth of the Rational Voter”

Bryan Caplan’s “Myth of the Rational Voter”

• Bryan Caplan theorises four reasons why voters sometimes vote against their interests and pick
bad policies, he calls these the “4 biases”.

(1) The “Make-Work Bias” - The tendency to underestimate the economic

benefits from conserving labour and to equate economic growth with job
creation. However, that is not necessarily true, since real economic growth
is a product of increases in the productivity of labor. Dislocation and
unemployment can be caused by productivity gains making certain jobs no
longer necessary. All things being equal, economic rationality would require
that these people make use of their talents elsewhere. Caplan makes special
emphasis of the movement away from farming over the past 200 years, from
nearly 95% of Americans as farmers in 1800 to just 3% in 1999, as an
illustrative example. As an economy industrializes, increased labor
productivity in agriculture means less labor is needed to produce a given
quantity of agricultural goods, freeing up labour (a scarce resource) to be
employed in the production of manufactured goods and services.
(2) The “Anti-Foreign Bias” - Caplan refers to the anti-foreign bias as a
"tendency to underestimate the economic benefits of interaction with
foreigners." People systematically see their country of origin as in
competition with other nations and so oppose free trade with them.
Foreigners are seen as the "enemy" even if the two governments are at a
lasting peace. The principles of comparative advantage allow two countries
to benefit a great deal from trade. The degree of benefit is rarely equalized,
but it is always positive for both parties. Caplan notes how the anti-foreign
bias can be rooted in pseudo-racist attitudes. For Americans, trading with
Japan and Mexico is more controversial than trading with Canada and
England, the latter of which mostly speaks our language and looks like white
Americans.
(3) The “Pessimistic” Bias - Caplan refers to the pessimistic bias as a "tendency
to overestimate the severity of economic problems and underestimate the
(recent) past, present, and future performance of the economy." The public
generally perceives economic conditions as declining. Caplan alleges that
there is often little or no evidence to back up such perceptions.
(4) The “Anti-Market” Bias Caplan refers to the anti-market bias as a "tendency
to underestimate the benefits of the market mechanism." In Caplan's view,

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 the populace tends to view themselves as victims of the market, rather than
participants of it. Corporations, even small-scale suppliers, are seen as
greedy monopolists that prey on the consumer. Caplan argues that all trade
is a two-way street. Cheating people is bad for business and the existence of
multiple firms offering similar products demonstrates there is competition,
not monopoly power. This is especially true of actors without significant
signaling effects on markets (i.e. lower SES individuals).

Racial/Gendered/Identity Politics

• Identity politics describes when people adopt political positions based on their ethnicity, race,
sexuality or religion rather than on broader policies. Though it started on the left, it has been
more potent on the right: it fuelled Donald Trump’s election and Britain’s vote to leave the
European Union.
• Over the past decade, the main axis of politics in Europe and North America has been shifting.
During most of the 20th century, the main divisions were based on economic issues surrounding
how much the state should intervene to promote equality, versus how much freedom to permit
to individuals and the private sector. Today politics increasingly centres around assertions of
identity. There has been a widespread populist revolt against globalization, based partly on its
unequal economic consequences, but also on the threats to traditional national identities arising
from high levels of migration.
• Some cultural groups can themselves violate individual rights, as when a Muslim family in the
West forces their daughter to marry someone she doesn't want to or doesn't let her work. In
such cases, the group right improperly (in my opinion) undermines the individual right. Liberal
democracies have no choice but to take the side of individuals over groups if they are to remain
true to their principles.
• Contemporary liberal democracies that have become de facto multicultural must develop
creedal, as opposed to blood-based national identities if they are to survive as democracies.

Populism and Populist Movements

• Five characteristics of right-wing populists (from WSDC 2017 Grand Final)

(1) They are nativists and often scapegoat ethnic immigrants and minorities
(2) They are hostile towards elites and their institutions (media, courts etc.)
(3) They are excessively authoritarian in their approaches to law and order
(4) They disregard political correctness and truth
(5) They have a desire to appeal to a broad coalition of disaffected voters,
spaning the socio-political divide and often with different pollical desirers,
they often have a shallow policy agenda that is designed to appeal to as
many people as possible.

• Donald Trump, the populist American president-elect, wants to deport undocumented

immigrants. Podemos, the populist Spanish party, wants to give immigrants voting rights. Geert
Wilders, the populist Dutch politician, wants to eliminate hate-speech laws. Jaroslaw
Kaczynski, the populist Polish politician, pushed for a law making it illegal to use the phrase
“Polish death camps”. Evo Morales, Bolivia’s populist president, has expanded indigenous
farmers’ rights to grow coca. Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippines’ populist president, has ordered
his police to execute suspected drug dealers. Populists may be militarists, pacifists, admirers of
Che Guevara or of Ayn Rand; they may be tree-hugging pipeline opponents or drill-baby-drill
climate-change deniers.
• Typically, populist leaders are either nostalgic (Trumps slogan is literally “Make America Great
Again”) or utopic (for example, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez or leaders in Latin America)

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 • Exclusive populism focuses on shutting out stigmatised groups (refugees, Roma), and is more
common in Europe. Inclusive populism demands that politics be opened up to stigmatised
groups (the poor, minorities), and is more common in Latin America.
• Populism is a democratic phenomenon. Mobilised through available democratic freedoms, it’s
a public protest by millions of people who feel annoyed, powerless, no longer “held” in the
arms of society.
• Many citizens feel betrayed by mainstream political forces. To a great extent, this can be
explained by the growing influence of unelected bodies.
• Although elected leaders can take important decisions, their room for manoeuvre is increasingly
limited by unelected institutions, which in theory are autonomous and contribute to the
provision of public goods.
• Ruling elites in the Western world have recently identified a convenient scapegoat explaining
all their failures: they offer simple solutions to complicated problems (“build a wall” “tax the
rich” “leave the EU” “jail the gangs”).
• Populists manipulate the confused and uninformed electorate. They make it difficult for the
elite to govern in a rational and effective manner because it’s very difficult to challenge them
without playing into their narrative (CNN challenges Trump, gets called “Fake News” and is
ineffective).
• Populism tends to flow on to foreign policy which is especially problematic in highly integrated
economic systems (like the EU).

Extremism and Extremist Parties

Should You have a “Right” to Vote for an Extremist Party?

• My right of free association arguably includes the right to join the Ku Klux Klan, while my
right of free speech arguably includes the right to advocate an unjust war. Still, it would be
morally wrong for me to do either of these things, though doing so is within my rights. Thus,
just as someone can, without contradiction, say, “You have the right to join the KKK or
advocate genocide, but you should not,” so a person can, without contradiction, say, “You have
the right to vote for that candidate, but you should not.”
• The point that Singapore makes in the WSDC 2017 Grand final is that Extremist political
parties should exist, not because they have the right opinions, but because they have the right
to have their opinions. It is not positive that we have citizens committed to the spreading of
xenophobia, but nonetheless they should not be banned or taken away their rights to speak their
mind, because it would deprive us all of the fundamental rights that we should be offered in our
democratic state. Even if their vote is a reaction out of fear, it may still be justified.
• They change permission mechanisms because racist or extremist views are being legitimized
whether in rallies, in votes or in political discourse.

Majority Rule – Minority Rights: Essential Principles

Should You have a “Right” to Vote for an Extremist Party?

• A majority of 50 percent plus one decides an issue or question. This ensures that when decisions
are made more people are in favour than against. When decisions are made by slim majorities,
the outcome may seem unfair to the “near-majority” that was on the other side, but that principle
of majority rule is essential both in ensuring that decisions can be made and that minorities
could not prevent the majority from deciding an issue or an election. Otherwise, a minority
holding economic, social, and political power would use its power to dominate the majority of
the citizens, thus instituting the antithesis of democracy: minority rule.
• Thus, while it is clear that democracy must guarantee the expression of the popular will through
majority rule, it is equally clear that it must guarantee that the majority will not abuse its power
to violate the basic and inalienable rights of the minority. For one, a defining characteristic of

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 democracy is the people's right to change the majority (and the policies of government) through
elections.
• The minority, therefore, must have the right to seek to become the majority and possess all the
rights necessary to compete fairly in elections (speech, assembly, association, petition) since
otherwise there would be perpetual rule and the majority would become a dictatorship.

Economic Power vs Political Power (Lobbyists etc.)

Economic/Political Influence in Democracies

• The wealthy used their economic power to fund politicians and bend the legislative agenda in
their interest; the decline of manufacturing industry and trade unions in the west weakened the
economic power of workers. The wealthy are more likely to vote and far more likely to have
their voice heard.
• Political scientist, Larry Bartels compared the voting patterns of US senators with the view of
their voters, by income. He found that the views of those in the upper third of the income
distribution received 50% more weight than those in the middle third. The view of those in the
bottom third received no weight at all. Senators did not meet these people socially, or at fund-
raisers.
• The potential feedback process is clear. The rich back politicians, allowing the latter to pass
policies that favour the wealthy, giving them more money for political funding. The poorest
voters are appeased (really just pacified) with nods to cultural issues.
• The rise of populism will not redress the balance; Donald Trump's cabinet, packed with
billionaires, is pushing for a tax-cutting package that will mainly help the rich. The main
economic impact of Brexit so far has been a squeeze on real wages thanks to a fall in the Pound.

Lobbyists and Economic/Political Power

• The difference between political power and any other kind of social “power,” between a
government and any private organization, is the fact that a government holds a legal monopoly
on the use of physical force.
• What is economic power? It is the power to produce and to trade what one has produced. In a
free economy, where no man or group of men can use physical coercion against anyone,
economic power can be achieved only by voluntary means: by the voluntary choice and
agreement of all those who participate in the process of production and trade. In a free market,
all prices, wages, and profits are determined—not by the arbitrary whim of the rich or of the
poor, not by anyone’s “greed” or by anyone’s need—but by the law of supply and demand. The
mechanism of a free market reflects and sums up all the economic choices and decisions made
by all the participants. Men trade their goods or services by mutual consent to mutual
advantage, according to their own independent, uncoerced judgment. A man can grow rich only
if he is able to offer better values—better products or services, at a lower price—than others
are able to offer.
• Wealth, in a free market, is achieved by a free, general, “democratic” vote—by the sales and
the purchases of every individual who takes part in the economic life of the country. Whenever
you buy one product rather than another, you are voting for the success of some manufacturer.
And, in this type of voting, every man votes only on those matters which he is qualified to
judge: on his own preferences, interests, and needs. No one has the power to decide for others
or to substitute his judgment for theirs; no one has the power to appoint himself “the voice of
the public” and to leave the public voiceless and disfranchised.
• When corporations first became politically engaged in the 1970s, their approach to lobbying
was largely reactive. They were trying to stop the continued advancement of the regulatory
state. They were fighting a proposed consumer protection agency, trying to stop labour law
reform, and responding to a general sense that the values of free enterprise had been forgotten

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 and government regulation was going to destroy the economy. They also lobbied as a
community.
• To make the sell, lobbyists had to go against the long-entrenched notion in corporate
boardrooms that politics was a necessary evil to be avoided if possible. To get corporations to
invest fully in politics, lobbyists had to convince companies that Washington could be a profit
centre. They had to convince them that lobbying was not just about keeping the government far
away, it could also be about drawing government close.
• They develop a comfort and a confidence in being politically engaged. And once a company
pays some fixed start-up costs, the marginal costs of additional political activity decline.
Lobbyists find new issues, companies get drawn into new battles, and new coalitions and
networks emerge. Managers see value in political engagement they did not see before.
Lobbying is sticky.
• As companies devoted more resources to their own lobbying efforts, they are increasing sought
out their own narrow interests. As corporate lobbying investments have expanded, they have
become more particularistic and more proactive. They have also become more pervasive,
driven by the growing competitiveness of the process to become more aggressive.
• They also benefit from an information asymmetry that allows them to highlight information,
issues, and advocacy strategies that can collectively make the strongest case for continued and
expanded political engagement. Growing lobbying industry siphons talent from the public
sector.
• In America, corporations now spend about $2.6 billion a year on reported lobbying
expenditures—more than the $2 billion we spend to fund the House ($1.18 billion) and Senate
($860 million). Labour unions and public-interest groups spend 34 times less than businesses
on lobbying. Of the 100 organizations that spend the most on lobbying, 95 represent business.

For More: See USA Politics Section

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 Foundational Economics
Motions

This House believes that women should pay less income tax than men.

This House would abolish income tax in favour of consumption taxes.

This House believes that it is immoral for a country to be a tax haven.

This House would tax religious institutions.

This House believes that the Left should promote a hard-left agenda, including the nationalisation of
major industry, very high tax rates on wealthy, and expansion of the welfare states.

This House would remove all sin taxes.

This House would temporarily and significantly relax minimum labour standards in times of
unusually high unemployment, including workplace health and safety standards, minimum wage,
working hours restrictions etc.

This House would allow members of the armed forces to form labour unions.

This House believes that states should focus on negotiating bilateral trade agreements over large,
regional agreements such as the TPP and RCEP.

This House would make membership of Trade Unions compulsory.

This House would never arm or finance rebel groups as a tactic of war.

This House believes that the Trump administration should abandon its widespread use of tariffs as a
tool to boost the US economy.

This House believes that Bo Seo would be justified in pursuing complete Marxist revolution.

This House believes that states should seek to prioritise reducing income inequality over GDP growth.

Trade

 Trade deficits mean that consumers buy too much foreign goods and too few domestic products.
According to Keynesian theory, trade deficits are harmful. Countries that import more than they
export weaken their economies. As the trade deficit increases, unemployment or poverty
increases and GDP growth slows down.

 A tariff is a tax on imports or exports between sovereign states. It is a form of regulation of

foreign trade and a policy that taxes foreign products to encourage or period domestic industry.
The tariff is historically used to protect infant industries and to allow import substitution
industrialisation.

 Free trade is a trade policy that does not restrict imports or exports; it can also be understood
as the free market idea applied to international trade. The main argument in favour of free trade

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 is that the positive effects (the fall in the prices of imported products) outweigh the negative
effects (the fall in the wages of workers affected by imports).

 However, free trade facilitates offshoring, trade deficits and thus leads to the destruction of
activities with increasing returns and to wage losses. Indeed, workers are displaced from high-
paying sectors to lower-paying sectors. The United States trade deficit has eliminated millions
of jobs in the US manufacturing sector.

 Many populist politicians, including POTUS Donald Trump, have elevated to significant power
through the manipulation of public contempt towards free trade and globalisation in general.

 The effectiveness of free markets is predicated on the assumption that free markets determine
prices and that there are no market failures. However, this is untrue. Many of the problems
associated with free trade are caused by market failures including information asymmetries and
non-competitive markets. For example, many infant industries in China are heavily subsidised
by the government in spite of the numerous free trade agreements China engages in.

Important trade agreements.

 The Trans-Pacific Partnership is a defunct proposed trade agreement between Australia, Brunei,
Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, and the
United States signed in 2016. After the United States withdrew its signature, the agreement
could not enter into force. The remaining nations negotiated a new trade agreement called
Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.

 Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership is a proposed free trade agreement between

the ten-member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) (Brunei,
Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand,
Vietnam) and the six Asia-Pacific states with which ASEAN has existing free trade agreements

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 (Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand).

 Protectionism is the economic policy of restricting imports from other countries through
methods such as tariffs on imported goods, import quotas, and a variety of other government
regulations. Proponents claim that protectionist policies shield the producers, businesses, and
workers of the import-competing sector in the country from foreign competitors. However, they
also reduce trade and adversely affect consumers in general, and harm the producers and
workers in export sectors, both in the country implementing protectionist policies, and in the
countries protected against.

Labour

 A trade union is an association of workers created for the purpose of securing improvement in
pay, benefits, working conditions or social and political status through collective bargaining
and working conditions through the increased bargaining power wielded by creation of a
monopoly of the workers. The union, bargains on the behalf of union members and negotiates
contracts.

 Craft unionism is the organisation of a particular section of skilled workers. General unionism
refers to the organisation of a cross-section of workers from various trades. Industrial unionism
refers to the organisation of all workers within a particular industry. The Australian Council of
Trade Unions is the largest peak body representing workers in Australia. It is a national trade
union centre of 46 affiliated unions and nine trades and labour councils.

In the Anglo-Saxon System of labour market regulation, the government's legislative role is
limited, which allows for more issues to be decided between employers and employees and any
union or employers' associations which might represent these parties in the decision-making
process. However, in these countries, collective agreements are not widespread; only a few
businesses and a few sectors of the economy have a strong tradition of finding collective
solutions in labour relations.

 The United States takes a similar laissez-faire approach, setting some minimum standards but
leaving most workers' wages and benefits to collective bargaining and market forces.

 Labour power is a key concept used by Karl Marx in his critique of capitalist political economy.
Marx distinguished between the capacities to do work, labour power, from the physical act of
working, labour.

 Under capitalism, according to Marx, labour-power becomes a commodity – it is sold and

bought on the market. A worker tries to sell his or her labour-power to an employer, in exchange
for a wage or salary. If successful (the only alternative being unemployment), this exchange
involves submitting to the authority of the capitalist for a specific period of time.

 According to Marx, capitalists are able to purchase labour power from the workers, who can
only bring their own labour power in the market. Once capitalists are able to pay the worker
less than the value produced by their labour, surplus labour forms and this results in the
capitalists' profits. This is what Marx meant by ‘surplus value’, which he saw as ‘an exact
expression for the degree of exploitation of labour-power by capital, or of the laborer by the
capitalist’. This profit is used to pay for overhead and personal consumption by the capitalist
but was most importantly used to accelerate growth and thus promote a greater system of
exploitation.

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Finance

 Finance is a field that is concerned with the allocation of assets and liabilities over time under
conditions of risk or uncertainty.

 A bond is an instrument of indebtedness of the bond issuer to the holders. Typically, the holders
of the bond are compensated with interest by the bond issuer. This incentivises money lending
because bondholders can earn a return on their capital. This is the ultimate pursuit of capitalism.

 The stock of a corporation is all of the shares into which ownership of the corporation is divided.
A single share of the stock represents fractional ownership of the corporation in proportion to
the total number of shares. This typically entitles the stockholder to that fraction of the
company's earnings, proceeds from liquidation of assets, and voting power.

 Corporations issue stock to secure funding. Investors are incentivised to purchase this stock
because they obtain an economic interest in that corporation through doing so.

 The banking sector internationally is oligopolistic. In many countries, several banks dominate
the entire sector. Banking in Australia is dominated by four major banks: Commonwealth Bank
of Australia, Westpac Banking Corporation, Australia and New Zealand Banking Group, and
National Australia Bank. Consequently, the banking sector has significant political capital and
economic power.

Capitalism

 Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production
and their operation for profit. Characteristics central to capitalism include private property,
capital accumulation, wage labour, voluntary exchange, a price system, and competitive
markets.

 Critics of capitalism associate the economic system with social inequality; unfair distribution
of wealth and power; materialism; repression of workers and trade unionists; social alienation;
economic inequality; unemployment; and economic instability.

 Many socialists considered capitalism to be irrational in that production and the direction of the
economy are unplanned, creating many inconsistencies and internal contradictions. Marxian
economist Richard D. Wolff postulates that capitalist economies prioritise profits and capital
accumulation over the social needs of communities and capitalist enterprises rarely include the
workers in the basic decisions of the enterprise. Capitalism and capitalist governments have
also been criticised as oligarchic in nature due to the inevitable inequality characteristic of
economic progress.

Socialism

 A socialist economic system is characterised by social ownership and operation of the means
of production.

 Some critics of socialism argue that income sharing reduces individual incentives to work and
therefore incomes should be individualized as much as possible. Critics of socialism have
argued that in any society where everyone holds equal wealth there can be no material incentive
to work because one does not receive rewards for a work well done. They further argue that

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 incentives increase productivity for all people and that the loss of those effects would lead to
stagnation.
 For such structural reasons, purely socialist economies have generally failed to achieve either
substantial wealth equality or substantial economic growth.

 However, through the addition of a market mechanism, socialism can become more effective.
The socialist market economy is the economic system and model of economic development
employed in the People's Republic of China. The system is based on the predominance of public
ownership and state-owned enterprises within a market economy. The consequence of this is
that public ownership of key enterprises is retained while capitalist incentives also exist.

 Modern Money Theory is a theory that describes currency as a public monopoly for a
government. Modern Money Theory stipulates that unemployment is the evidence that a
currency monopolist is restricting the supply of the financial assets needed to pay taxes and
satisfy savings desires. Many economically leftist politicians, including Alexandria Ocasio-
Cortez, justify large spending programmes with Modern Money Theory.

IS-LM Models

What is the Investment-Savings-Liquidity-Money Model?

• Effectively a way to work out all the different factors that impact on interest rates
• One view says that the interest rate is determined by the supply of and demand for savings –
the “loanable funds” approach.
• The other says that the interest rate is determined by the trade-off between bonds, which pay
interest, and money, which doesn’t, but which you can use for transactions easily and therefore
has special value due to its liquidity – the “liquidity preference” approach.
• Loanable funds don’t determine the interest rate per se; it determines a set of possible
combinations of the interest rate and GDP, with lower rates corresponding to higher GDP
• So higher GDP will mean that the interest rate needed to match supply and demand for money
must rise. This means that like loanable funds, liquidity preference doesn’t determine the
interest rate per se; it defines a set of possible combinations of the interest rate and GDP – the
LM curve.
• The points on the IS-LM curve represent where interest rates and spending are equal.
• Dependent on investment and savings being interest-elastic, sometimes it’s not.

Budgetary Cycle

• Step 1: The executive presents the draft budget with supporting budgetary reporting.
• Step 2: The legislature reviews and amends the budget and enacts it into law.
• Step 3: The executive collects revenue and spends it in accordance with the budget.
• Step 4: The budget is audited, and review is seen by the legislature, the executive acts.

Market Structures

What is “Perfect Competition”?

• Criteria of perfect competition include the following;

(1) All firms sell a homogenous product (i.e agriculture)

(2) They’re all price-takers (can’t manipulate aggregate
supply to change the market-price of the product).
(3) Market share has no influence on price.

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 (4) Buyers have complete information.
(5) Labour is perfectly mobile.
(6) Firms can enter and exit the market with no cost.

• The sellers are small firms, instead of large corporations capable of controlling prices through
supply adjustments. They sell products with minimal differences in capabilities, features, and
pricing. This ensures that buyers cannot distinguish between products based on physical
attributes, such as size or colour, or intangible values, such as branding. A large population of
both buyers and sellers ensures that supply and demand remain constant in this market. As such,
buyers can easily substitute products made by one firm for another.

What is “Monopolistic Competition”?

• Monopolistic competition characterizes an industry in which many firms offer products or

services that are similar, but not perfect substitutes. Barriers to entry and exit in a monopolistic
competitive industry are low, and the decisions of any one firm do not directly affect those of
its competitors.
• All firms in monopolistic competition have the same, relatively low degree of market power;
they are all price makers. In the long run, demand is highly elastic, meaning that it is sensitive
to price changes. In the short run, economic profit is positive, but it approaches zero in the long
run. Firms in monopolistic competition tend to advertise heavily.
• Monopolistic competition tends to lead to heavy marketing, because different firms need to
distinguish broadly similar products. One company might opt to lower the price of their
cleaning product, sacrificing a higher profit margin in exchange (ideally) for higher sales.
• Monopolistic competition tends to lead to heavy marketing, because different firms need to
distinguish broadly similar products. One company might opt to lower the price of their
cleaning product, sacrificing a higher profit margin in exchange (ideally) for higher sales.
• Due to the range of similar offerings, demand is highly elastic in monopolistic competition. In
other words, demand is very responsive to price changes. If your favourite multipurpose surface
cleaner suddenly costs 20% more, you probably won't hesitate to switch to an alternative, and
your countertops probably won't know the difference.
• Examples of monopolistic competition include taxi services, dry cleaners or coffee shops.

Disadvantages of Perfect Competition

• The first one is the absence of innovation. The prospect of greater market share and setting
themselves apart from competition is an incentive for firms to innovate and make better
products. But no firm possesses a dominant market share in perfect competition. Profit margins
are also fixed by demand and supply. Firms cannot get ahead by charging a premium for their
product and services. For example, it would be impossible for a company like Apple Inc. to
exist in a perfectly competitive market because its phones are pricier.
• Also, the absence of economies of scale. Limited profit margins mean that companies will have
less cash to invest for expanding their production capabilities. Expansion of production
capabilities potentially brings down costs for consumers and ups profit margins for the firm.
(SEE NEXT SECTION ON “GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION IN ACTIONS AND MARKETS” FOR MORE)

What is an “Oligopoly”?

• Oligopoly is a market structure with a small number of firms, none of which can keep the others
from having significant influence.
• There is no precise upper limit to the number of firms in an oligopoly, but the number must be
low enough that the actions of one firm significantly influence the others.

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 • Firms in an oligopoly set prices, whether collectively (in a cartel) or under the leadership of
one firm, rather than taking prices from the market.
• The firms need to see the benefits of collaboration over costs of economic war, then agree to
not compete and instead allocate the benefits of collaboration. They must avoid cheating, which
would lead to economic war. Such wars can be waged through prices, or through attacks on
territories or customer lists.
• Governments have responded to oligopolies with laws against price fixing and collusion. Yet,
if a cartel can price fix if they operate beyond the reach of governments – OPEC is one
example.
• Because price wars are easy to start and destructive to the participants, oligopolies tend to prefer
the use of nonprice methods such as product differentiation, branding and marketing to increase
market share.
• The conditions that enable oligopolies to exist include high entry costs in capital expenditures,
legal privilege (license to use wireless spectrum or land for railroads), and a platform that gains
value with more customers (social media).
• Examples include airline industries, mass media, auto industries and data providers.
• Pharmaceuticals are a big oligopoly because of the capital required to enter the market.

Game Theory and The Nash Equilibrium

Game Theory Example

1. If both confess, they will each receive a 5-year prison sentence.

2. If prisoner 1 confesses but prisoner 2 does not, prisoner 1 will get 3 years and prisoner 2 will
get 9 years.
3. If prisoner 2 confesses but prisoner 1 does not, prisoner 1 will get 10 years and prisoner 2 will
get 2 years.
4. If neither confesses, each will serve 2 years in prison.

The most favourable strategy is to not confess. But, neither is aware of the other's strategy and without
certainty that one will not confess, both will confess and receive a 5-year prison sentence.

What is Game Theory?

• Game theory is a branch of praxeology that explores the social interactions and calculus among
actors in competition in a market.
• Game theory turned attention away from steady-state equilibrium toward the market process.
• In business, game theory is beneficial for modelling competing behaviours between economic
agents. Businesses often have several strategic choices that affect their ability to realize
economic gain. For example, businesses may face dilemmas such as whether to retire existing
products or develop new ones, lower prices relative to the competition, or employ new
marketing strategies. Economists often use game theory to understand oligopoly firm
behaviour. It helps to predict likely outcomes when firms engage in certain behaviours, such
as price-fixing and collusion.

Looking at the Nash Equilibrium

• In the Nash Equilibrium, each player's strategy is optimal when considering the decisions of
other players. Every player wins because everyone gets the outcome they desire. To quickly
test if the Nash equilibrium exists, reveal each player's strategy to the other players. If no one
changes his strategy, then the Nash Equilibrium is proven.
• For example, imagine a game between Tom and Sam. In this simple game, both players can
choose strategy A, to receive $1, or strategy B, to lose $1. Logically, both players choose

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 strategy A and receive a payoff of $1. If you revealed Sam's strategy to Tom and vice versa,
you see that no player deviates from the original choice. Knowing the other player's move
means little and doesn't change either player's behaviour. The outcome A, A represents a Nash
Equilibrium.
• The Nash equilibrium helps economists understand how decisions that are good for the
individual can be terrible for the group. This tragedy of the commons explains why we overfish
the seas, and why we emit too much carbon into the atmosphere. Everyone would be better off
if only we could agree to show some restraint. But given what everyone else is doing, fishing
or gas-guzzling makes individual sense. As well as explaining doom and gloom, it also helps
policymakers come up with solutions to tricky problems.
• In 2000 the British government used their help to design a special auction that sold off its 3G
mobile-telecoms operating licences for a cool £22.5 billion ($35.4 billion). Their trick was to
treat the auction as a game and tweak the rules so that the best strategy for bidders was to make
bullish bids (the winning bidders were less than pleased with the outcome).

Arbitrage

• Arbitrage is effectively capitalising on momentary differences in the prices of assets in deferent

markets, to buy and sell simultaneously in those different markets. An example of this is when
China goes into a struggling economy, gives them access to unserviceable lines of credit and
takes resources or public infrastructure as collateral at a much lower price. Common in forex
trading.

Micro-Loans and Microfinance

• Micro-loans in developing economies (especially in India and Africa) allow poor people who
need to be able to smooth consumption flows or finance larger expenditures, but they generally
lack access to banks and other formal facilities. Traditional financial institutions generally shy
away from this market, either because they are unaware of it or because they deem it
unprofitable.
• For small-scale micro crediting, some of the traditional tools of finance, such as credit history
checks and requirements for collateral, have to be discarded.
• Poor households and individuals, for their part, have difficulty proving their creditworthiness
because they lack clearly defined property titles and other assets acceptable as collateral. Their
only alternatives are to seek loans from informal moneylenders or to draw on savings, options
that are costly and risky.
• Micro financing alone cannot fundamentally transform African economies held back by many
structural constraints. Yet providing a whole range of financial services to the poor — including
credit for small and micro-enterprises, savings facilities, insurance, pensions, and payment and
transfer facilities — is clearly desirable
• African governments, in cooperation with external development partners, could therefore play
a fundamental role in consolidating and sustaining the microfinance sector by providing
appropriate policies and regulatory and legal frameworks. They can also protect the poor and
build confidence by establishing refinancing institutions and deposit insurance schemes.
• In India, microfinance has specifically empowered women but has been called “vote-
pandering”
• It has caused a micro-finance suicide epidemic in India, resulting in over 200 suicides per year.

Sharing Economy

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What is the Sharing Economy and its Benefits/Criticisms?

• The sharing economy is an economic model often defined as a peer-to-peer (P2P) based activity
of acquiring, providing or sharing access to goods and services that are facilitated by a
community based on-line platform.
• Think Uber, Lyft, Crowd funding, Airbnb, EBay, Knowledge Sharing, peer-to-peer lending,
Freelancing etc.
• Sharing economies allow individuals and groups to make money from underused assets. In this
way, physical assets are shared as services. Take for instance car-sharing services like Lyft and
Uber. According to data provided by the Brookings Institute, private vehicles go unused for
95% of their lifetime. The same report detailed Airbnb’s cost advantage over the hotel space as
homeowners make use of spare bedrooms. Airbnb rates were reported to be between 30-60%
cheaper than hotel rates around the world.
• Co-working Platforms - Companies that provide shared open workspaces for freelancers,
entrepreneurs, and work-from-home employees in major metropolitan areas.
• Spurred primarily with the growth of Uber and Airbnb, it is expected that the sharing economy
will grow from $14 billion in 2014 to a forecasted $335 billion by 2025.
• Criticism of the sharing economy often involves regulatory uncertainty. Businesses offering
rental services are often regulated by federal, state or local authorities; unlicensed individuals
offering rental services may not be following these regulations or paying the associated costs,
giving them an "unfair" advantage that enables them to charge lower prices.
• There is also a fear that the greater amount of information shared on an online platform can
create racial and/or gender bias among users. Airbnb had to face racial discrimination
complaints from African-American and Latino would-be renters. As more data is presented and
the sharing economy evolves, companies within this economy will need to combat bias in both
their users and algorithms.

What is its impact on the Labour Market?

• The taxi provider Uber has attracted the most attention, after losing several court cases
including in the British Employment Tribunal. It classified the company as an employer and
not just a provider of a technological solution linking customers with drivers, as Uber itself
claims.
• Airbnb, which first only dealt with flats, has expanded their business to offer courses where
you can learn how to sail or how to cook. This is when labour also becomes an element
• Women are more than 50% of supply and demand at Airbnb, they have created collaborative
enterprises such as fashion's Rent the Runway, and more women than men post projects on
crowd funding site
• The collaborative economy lets businesses circumvent their social obligations by transferring
all of the risks - such as legal actions - onto outside agents
• This unprecedented externalization of risks eliminates the responsibility and protection that
businesses usually provide to their employees. In this regard, it’s interesting to point out that
Uber has lost several cases (one recent one in London) brought against them by drivers who
claimed they were entitled to benefits.

Sharing Economy and Competition/Government

(SEE SECTION ON “GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION IN ACTIONS AND MARKETS” FOR MORE INFORMATION)

WUDC 2016 Grand Final: Opening Government

THBT The World's Poor Would be Justified in Pursuing Complete Marxist Revolution.

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Prime Minister: Madame Chair, the global poor all around the world, and no matter what country in
which they live, currently live in a system of dictatorship. They live under a dictatorship known as no
alternatives, shackled by capital that’s been unjustly acquired, constrained by landed gentry that have
no incentives but to pursue their own interests, and chained by the fact that they can’t do anything but
to look at the question of their own subsistence. They’re unable to reach out for the right to liberty and
to self-determination that we think inheres in the human condition.

How are we going to define a Marxist revolution in this debate? We say that in all its forms, it shares
the feature of wanting to break down the system of private property. That’s what a Marxist revolution
means.

It can take place in one of (2) ways.

(1) It can happen through internal systems that exist presently, that is to
say you vote in Marxist governments who support things like mass
redistribution and the abolishment of private property
(2) It can exist externally in the instance of forcibly bringing down
governments that for far too long have tread on these people’s rights.

The first thing that I’m going to note just on account out of the model is just a picture of what we think
this world looks like. That is to say that we accept that this attempt at revolution won’t succeed in all
instances that in many instances it will just lead to the rise of Marxist parties, but in the world in which
we do succeed, we encourage you to use your imagination. That is to say, just notice how chronocentric
our vision of civilization is. That is, a system of private property emerged out of the enlightenment that
is the last 300 years of human existence. Prior to that, people lived in sharing economies where they
defined themselves as something greater than their labour and their productive force. That’s the kind of
world that we support.

Two things then that I’m going to begin this speech on. First, private property constitutes a fundamental
assault in human dignity in (3) key respects.

(1) It is found, and it is acquired unjustly. In the vast majority of instances,

the reason why wealthy countries are wealthy is through processes like
colonialism, through slavery, through patriarchy. It represents plunder
when you refuse to give any representation or resources to whom or
from whom you took money. But even if it wasn’t in those direct
instances of theft. In many instances it was negligence, that’s to say it
was the creation of vastly constrictive intellectual property rates that
means that individuals don’t in the poor have proper access to things
like medication. It’s refusal to tax properly. We think that negligence
is morally culpable. The fact that it is unjustly acquired in and of itself
gives the poor a claim to that property and to an institution that is being
harmful.

(2) It enables the poor in terms of a principle, is that it allows them to get
redress in opposition to centuries of disenfranchisement. That is to say,
theft and negligence represent the stripping of the individual right to
assert themselves. We’re going to give you systematic reasons why
you don’t get reforms on their side but notice that this as a principled
argument is independent from a consideration of practices. That’s to
say compensation, or giving more money, is unlike categorically, what
these people require in principle, which is a redress from the fact that
they’ve been taken out of the system of moral equality by theft and
negligence.

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 (3) Let’s take them at their best. That is, let’s wipe the slate clean and
accept that everybody has access to resources. Why then is property
still oppressive and why does it represent an assault on human dignity?

i) Competition and the premises on which it

is based is artificial. That is to say, trade
on morally insignificant or arbitrary
factors. The fact of scarcity, which allows
many corporations to succeed.
ii) The fact that I was born with certain
talents or certain skills that other
individuals weren’t, those are morally
arbitrary from the consideration of
dessert and we don’t think that’s just
grounds.

The second thing is a question of activist. So, capital is to decide what begets it, so you can decide as
the head of a corporation, who you hire and what kind of skills you have. Principally, private property
assaults dignity. In this second leads to good outcomes. Notice what on the other side, the reason they
need to defend the status quo, is that they don’t get the leavers of the structural reforms that you require.
There are three reasons for this.

(1) The democratic system.

i) That through processes of gerrymandering

which are almost irrevocable in many parts of
the world, the poor are systematically
disenfranchised.
ii) They don’t control hegemonic media that
controls the narrative of what good policy is.
Their usually kept apart by racist rhetoric that
accentuates other ascriptive descriptions,
preventing them from coming forward.
iii) The fact of historical disenfranchisement,
furthermore means they are less likely to turn
out the vote in a way that other people are.
(2) You don’t get structural reform because it’s internationally
imbalanced on the consideration of nations. The Bretton Woods
institutions built by the West. The institution of human rights, which
favours civil and political rights over socioeconomic human rights. We
say that those things mean that the alternative they need to defend is
continued and systematic inaction.

What do you get under our side? One, the success cases. These are the ones, in which the revolution
works.

POI: Despite this rhetoric the last two decades have seen almost a million people lifted out of poverty
in Asia because private companies have an incentive to unlock an unskilled and uneducated workforce
they otherwise wouldn’t?

Answer: Uh, we refuse that premise. The reason why we were able to get socioeconomic rights in
countries like China, is through massive systems of redistribution and bringing up the poor from the
public. So, if you want to claim, literally the communist country for your side. That is to say, the people

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who’ve put together the single biggest program of economic and social rights. Yeah, ok I think enough
said.

So, let’s say the world in which they succeed. We think those communities will succeed for three
reasons.

(dddd) First, it encompasses the vast majority of the global population. And
given, that capitalists dependent on labour to get any return on it, we think
that’s beneficial.
(eeee) Second, the location of resources in many parts of the developing
world means that they have access to those things.
(ffff) The third thing to say is that you get cross pollination and you get
global solidarity across racial lines where currently, capital has the incentive
to get them divided. Those deal with the best-case scenario for their side where
you get complete revolution. Fanele will also talk about how you get structural
reforms along the way that are beneficial.

What we need from an opposition is a comprehensive account of property, why it’s just, and why it
doesn’t, as it has continually done throughout history, assault human dignity.

THO Unions

Two are three reasons why Unions are Bad™:

(1) Unions drastically reduce the efficiency of markets

(2) Unions are bad for the work force

First argument, the monopolies created my unions destroy competition and productivity for three
reasons

(1) If the union members won’t work, the law makes it extremely difficult for anyone
else to step in and do their jobs. As a result, union workers have little competition, so
they can demand higher wages and do less work.

(2) By causing wage increases above the market rate, unions increase the costs for firms,
causing them to raise their prices, leading to a general increase in the price level. If
unions succeed in wage hikes, and employers raise the prices they charge consumers
to maintain their own profit margins, and the supply of money remains the same, then
something else has to "give." Either the prices of goods and services in non-union
sectors have to fall and offset the union sector hikes, or people's cash balances need to
fall, in terms of their purchasing power.

(3) Unions also hamper recovery from economic recessions and depressions, because:

(a) They reduce profitability and thus deter the investment

required for recovery. American states with greater rates
of unionization took longer to recover from the 1982 and
1991 recessions. The unionization that was encouraged
under the policies of Franklin D. Roosevelt during the
Great Depression actually contributed to reducing the
speed of recovery during the period.
(b) By reducing the competitive advantage of some sectors, it
becomes impossible to export goods at a competitive
price.

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 (4) A consequence of unions' zeal to guard their special interests is that some unions have
actively lobbied for racist and anti-immigration policies. An example is the creation
of the notorious Asiatic Exclusion League, which was composed of various unions.

Secondly, unions are bad for workers for three reasons.

(1) Being Fired and Undue Emphasis on Seniority: By threatening to stop work if
companies don’t pay employees more, unions force companies to layoff some workers.
That hurts some union workers. Unions don't just pit workers against employers. They
pit a select group of workers against consumers, stockholders, and other workers.
Unions don't even make agreements that are in the interest of all their own workers,
just those in the majority, usually just older workers with more seniority. So the people
you fire are are the non-union members (i.e the ones who cant afford the extortionate
fees of CFMEU but expect to be the beneficiaries of that action).
(2) Unions also protect seniority, not the most productive workers. When layoffs occur, it
is the most recently hired workers who are laid off first. Recently, there have been cases
of teachers’ unions holding lotteries (teachers unions) to see who gets laid off.
(3) You must recognize that the only way in which any group of workers through union
organization can increase the amount of its pay is to make sure that there are fewer jobs
available. There is no way in which a union can simultaneously increase the number of
jobs and the pay. The law of demand in economics is inescapable, you can not get out
of it. Raise the price of anything and fewer people will buy it. In addition, unions can
also cause slower job growth (3 to 4%) for unionized workplaces as opposed to non-
unionized workplaces.
(4) By raising the price of labor, the wage rate, above the equilibrium price, unemployment
rises. This is because it is no longer worthwhile for businesses to employ those laborers
whose work is worth less than the minimum wage rate set by the unions.
(5) Unions reduce salaries because:

(a) Suppose demands for higher wages or benefits means 20 per-cent of

unionized workers would be fired. That isn't such a hard decision for
a union. Twenty percent of its members will oppose the agreement,
but they won't be union members for long. Most of the remaining 80
percent are likely to support the agreement. Even if in short term,
unionized workers enjoy higher wages. In the long run, however,
investment will move away from areas of low profitability.

(b) To the extent that the profits of unionized firms are lower, investment
expenditures will flow into the nonunion sector and away from the
unionized firms. The growth of both productivity and employment
will tend to lag in the unionized sector. The larger the wage premium
of unionized firms, the greater the incentive to shift production to
nonunion operations. Empirical evidence shows that industries with
the largest union wage premiums were precisely the industries with
the largest declines in the employment of unionized workers.

(6) Here, trade unionism is more useful to capitalists than to workers, and as a kind of
"safety-valve" that helps to keep working-class discontent within reformist channels
and prevent it from evolving into revolutionary action. The Construction, Forestry,
Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) is working with management at the Australian
Paper Mill in Maryvale, Victoria to impose a sellout deal on more than 900 production
workers, including huge cuts to wages and conditions. After more than 18 months of
backroom negotiations for a new agreement, the Union announced in November it
would call on workers to accept an outright wage cut of 5 percent. The CFMEU and

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 the company are using the threat of an imminent plant closure to bludgeon workers into
accepting the deal.

Macroeconomic Policy

Interest Rates, Quantitative Easing & Currency

What are Interest Rates and Who Sets them?

• Interest rates are regulated by the RBA (Reserve Bank of Australia)

• The ultimate aim of changing interest rates is to;

(1) Stabilise prices

(2) Stabilise inflation
(3) Secure the economy and encourage spending or job creation

• They should typically mirror inflation and employment rates, (i.e if inflation is rising too
quickly, the RBA may choose to increase the interest rate, and if inflation is negative or too
low, they may choose to lower the interest rates to stimulate more spending).

Low Interest Rates: Effects, Risks and Benefits

• Lower interest rates make it cheaper to borrow. This tends to encourage spending and
investment. This leads to higher aggregate demand (AD) and economic growth. This increase
in AD may also cause inflationary pressures. Low interest rates should normally;

(1) Reduce incentives to save, a lower return makes it better to spend money
than save it or hold it in an account.
(2) Cheaper borrowing costs, greater finance for spending and investment.
(3) Rise in asset prices, as it is easier to finance them and forces people to
look elsewhere for a yield.
(4) Depreciation in exchange rate due to a lowering of relative value.

• These impacts may not always be felt for all groups of society;

(1) They’re good for new borrowers and mortgage holders, as they may spend
more.
(2) They’re bad for savers and retirees who life of interest rates, when they
fall, they have less income.
(3) If a country has high levels of savers, it’s very bad, but Australia has very
high rates of mortgage debt so it’s usually stimulative to reduce interest
rates.
(4) It may not go from the RBA to consumers, for example after the 2008
crunch, interest rates fell to near-zero, but banks still reduced the
availability of mortgages even if people wanted to spend more and lend.

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 (5) It may not always stimulate the economy, if interest rates are cut, people
may not always want to borrow more. If confidence is low, a cut in interest
rates may not encourage more spending. After 2008, we saw an increase
in the savings ratio (despite interest rate cut) this was because confidence
fell in the great recession.
(6) It is also possible that, lowering interest rates further will not reduce the
savings rate and increase consumer spending, as this move would be
perceived by the public opinion as a sign of ongoing deterioration of
economic conditions.

Interest Rates and Currency Value

• Generally, higher interest rates increase the value of a country's currency. Higher interest rates
tend to attract foreign investment, increasing the demand for and value of the home country's
currency. Conversely, lower interest rates tend to be unattractive for foreign investment and
decrease the currency's relative value.
• If a country can achieve a successful balance of increased interest rates without an
accompanying increase in inflation, its currency's value and exchange rate rise.
• Another important factor is a country's level of debt. High levels of debt, while manageable for
shorter time periods, eventually lead to higher inflation rates and may ultimately trigger an
official devaluation of a country's currency.
• The recent history of the U.S. clearly illustrates the critical importance of a country's overall
perceived political and economic stability in relation to its currency valuations. As U.S.
government and consumer debt has risen, the Federal Reserve has moved to maintain interest
rates near zero in an attempt to stimulate the U.S. economy. The Fed has since moved to
incrementally raise interest rates to 1.50% (as of February 2018) in response to a recovering
economy, but rates are still very low compared to pre-financial crisis levels.
• Also, the U.S. dollar is still perceived as a safe haven in an economically uncertain world (so
is Gold, the Swiss Franc and the Japanese Yen). This factor, even more so than interest rates,
inflation or other considerations, is important to maintain the relative value of the U.S. dollar.

Massive Global Liquidity Risk Due to Low Rates!

• Growing international trade increased the integration of the global financial system since the
financial crisis. A feature of the financial integration is that most funds flows are from ‘financial
center’ economies, including US, Eurozone, UK and Japan, to the rest of the world.
International banks in these big economies intermediate much of global credit. Thus, their
monetary policy has large impacts on international credit and funding conditions.
• With the current low interest rate, there is no more room for these countries to boost global
liquidity. That is, the next downturn will likely compound on itself due to the adverse impacts
on global borrowers of developed world liquidity. The era of quantitative easing may be over.

High Interest Rates: Effects, Risks and Benefits

• The effect of higher interest rates does not affect each consumer equally. Those consumers with
large mortgages (often first-time buyers in the 20s and 30s) will be disproportionately affected
by rising interest rates. For example, reducing inflation may require interest rates to rise to a
level that causes real hardship to those with large mortgages. However, those with savings may
actually be better off. This makes monetary policy less effective as a macroeconomic tool.

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 • Higher interest rates in a country increase the value of that country's currency relative to nations
offering lower interest rates. Higher interest rates should;

(1) Increase the cost of borrowing and thereby reduce investment and
spending (usually to lower inflation)
(2) They’re bad for savers and retirees who life of interest rates, when they
fall, they have less income.
(3) Encourage spending rather than saving
(4) Interest rates affect consumer and business confidence. A rise in interest
rates discourages investment; it makes firms and consumers less willing
to take out risky investments and purchases.
(5) Therefore, higher interest rates will tend to reduce consumer spending and
investment. This will lead to a fall in Aggregate Demand (AD) which can
increase unemployment but improve the current account.

Macroeconomic Policy and Liquidity Traps

What is a Liquidity Trap?

• The liquidity trap is the situation in which the current interest rates are low and savings rates
are high, rendering monetary policy ineffective. In a liquidity trap, consumers choose to avoid
bonds and keep their funds in savings because of the prevailing belief that interest rates will
soon rise.
• It means that no matter how low you place interest rates, you still struggle to encourage
spending and increase inflation (this is the problem in Germany and Japan)
• The unintended consequence of many central banks pushing negative interest rate policy is
conjuring deflationary headwinds, stronger currencies, and slower growth — the exact opposite
of what struggling economies need. But when monetary policy is the only game in town,
negative rates are likely to beget even more negative rates, creating a perverse cycle with
important implications for investors and making it impossible to lower interest rates further in
a recession.
• This is especially a problem in “responsible” countries like Japan where people look into the
future, whereas in Zimbabwe, it works better (in theory)

The Money Multiplier

What is a Reserve Requirement?

• The amount that the RBA declares banks must retain from deposits, for example, if I put $100
in the bank, and the RBA sets a 20% reserve rate, the bank is free to loan the other $80.

What is the “Money Multiplier” Effect?

• The multiplier effect refers to the capacity of deposits to generate more funds in fractional
reserve banking systems in which only a fraction of bank deposits is backed by actual cash on
hand and are available for withdrawal. This is done to expand the economy by freeing up capital
that can be loaned out to other parties.
• This means that when I give the bank $100 at a reserve requirement of $20, they can loan the
other $80, keep $16 and loan the other $64, they can eventually create $500 worth of deposits
from the original $100 without actually adding any new money into the system.

Impacts of Low and High Reserve Requirements

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 • The higher the reserve requirement, the tighter the money supply, which results in a lower
multiplier effect for every dollar deposited. This may make financial institutions less inclined
to lend, as their options to do so are limited based on the size of the reserve.
• In contrast, the lower the reserve requirement, the larger the money supply, which means
more money is being created for every dollar deposited, and financial institutions may be
more inclined to take additional risks with the larger pool of available funds

Public Wealth Management

How Could Government Ventures Reform Public Wealth Management?

• Proponents of sovereign-wealth funds like to say that returns from publicly owned assets could
in theory displace taxes. In countries that have not struck oil, however, the chance of politicians
building up savings rather than running up debt seems remote. Yet states may not need to save
in order to enable at least some tax-free spending. Most already have plenty of assets. The
problem is that they do not sweat them hard enough
• Public wealth falls into four categories;

(2) Land and natural resources (oil)

(3) Property and infrastructure (roads)
(4) Public firms (state-owned airlines)
(5) Financial assets (pension funds)

• Increasing the return on public assets by a mere 2% would enable governments worldwide to
double the amount they spend on basic public infrastructure. This is a huge and untapped
capacity for return.
• What would it take to make that happen? The yields for society from some assets, such as
national parks, are non-monetary. Turning schools and hospitals into cash-cows seems
implausible. Yet there are plenty of examples of inefficient government use, in particular of
land.
• A recent review found that 166 of the roughly 230 trusts making up England’s National Health
Service report owning land they do not need.
• Improving the profitability of public firms—think of post offices and the like—could raise
another 1% of GDP, the IMF says. Middling government-run firms produce average returns of
1.9%, but better ones manage 4.3%—which is still only half the level of companies in the
private sector. Some state-owned firms do much better. SNCF, France’s public-sector railway,
earned a return on capital of 7.9% in 2017.
• Anyone sceptical of privatisation can point to some disastrous deals, like Chicago’s leasing in
2008 of its parking meters to a consortium at a price that, according to a later report by the
city’s inspector-general, was almost $1bn too low. In 2014 a British parliamentary committee
found that Royal Mail, the state-owned postal service, had been sold off too cheaply the year
before. Its shares rose by 38% on the first day of trading.

Global Financial Crisis (2008-2009)

Very Brief Summary of the GFC

• The global financial crisis (GFC) or global economic crisis is commonly believed to have begun
sometime in early to mid 2007 with a credit crunch, when a loss of confidence by US investors
in the value of sub-prime mortgages caused a liquidity crisis. This, in turn, resulted in the US
Federal Reserve injecting a large amount of capital into financial markets. By September 2008,
the crisis had worsened as stock markets around the globe crashed and became highly volatile.
Consumer confidence hit rock bottom as many investors tightened their belts in fear of what
could lie ahead.

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 • Governments around the world struggled to rescue giant financial institutions as the fallout
from the housing and stock market collapse worsened. Many financial institutions continued to
face serious liquidity issues. The Australian government announced the first of its stimulus
packages aimed to jump-start the slowing economy.
• The U.S. government proposed a $700 billion rescue plan, which subsequently failed to pass
because some members of US Congress objected to the use of such a massive amount of
taxpayer money being spent to bail out Wall Street investment bankers (who were believed by
some to be one of the causes of the global financial crisis).
• By September and October of 2008, people began investing heavily in gold, bonds and US
dollar or Euro currency, as these were seen as safer alternatives to the ailing housing and stock
markets.
• In January of 2009, newly elected US President Barack Obama proposed federal spending of
around $800 billion in an attempt to improve the state of the financial crisis. The Australian
Government also proposed another stimulus package, pledging to give cash handouts to tax
payers, and spend more money on longer-term infrastructure projects.
• In October 2008, the Rudd Government announced that it would guarantee bank deposits. With
the economy facing a recession, an economic stimulus package worth $10.4 billion was
announced. This included payments to seniors, carers and families. The payments were made
in December 2008, just in time for Christmas spending, and retailers predominantly reported
strong sales. The first homebuyer’s grant was doubled to $14,000 for existing homes, and
tripled to $21,000 for new homes.
• The automotive industry was also given a helping hand, as consumer demand succumbed to the
effects of the slowing economy.
• A second, even larger economic stimulus package was announced by the Australian
Government in February 2009, with $47 billion allocated to help boost the economy.
• The long and short of it (what a good pun from me there) was that quantitative easing and an
insulated economy managed to help Australia survive the GFC.

Was the GFC the fault of the Government?

• Many people still attribute the financial crisis of 2008 to “greed,” Wall Street, and free-
market capitalism, even though the real cause –which has yet to be acknowledged, let alone
curbed or removed – was government intervention in markets. This included the Federal
Reserve’s disruptive manipulation of interest rates, plus massive subsidies and regulations in
housing, banking, and mortgages.
• For years government policy promoted reckless financial practices ( a “moral hazard”) and then
made things worse by bailing out the worst miscreants.
• This forced many providers to lower their ratings standards to meet their affordable targets,
hugely increasing price competition in the banking sector (an oligopoly) but eventually just
encouraging competition as to who would accept the lowest rated borrowers (Moody’s was
complicit in this financial travesty)
• Virtually every aspect of the meltdown can be traced to federal policies, many of which were
designed to boost home mortgages.
• The goals and the lower standards were bad enough on their own, but their impact was
magnified because of other government policies. These policies ensured that risky mortgages
would be spread throughout the financial system and magnify any liquidity problems that
mortgage defaults may cause.
• Start with a completely arbitrary goal of increasing home ownership when most qualified
homebuyers already own homes. Add to the mix government-sanctioned, if not imposed, lower
credit standards along with abundant financing.
• For good measure, throw in government-imposed capital requirements that all but beg
companies to hold the Mortgage-Backed Securities tied to these lower quality mortgages.
• One doesn’t need a Ph.D. in economics to predict this combination of policies will lead to
higher consumer debt, higher home prices, and an unstable financial system.

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 • See my earlier notes on the current global liquidity risk created by post-GFC low-interest rates
to understand why we’re not prepared for another GFC.

European Sovereign Debt Crisis (2009-Present)

Quick Summary of the European Sovereign Debt Crisis

• The European sovereign debt crisis is a period when several European countries
experienced the collapse of financial institutions; high government debt and rapidly rising
bond yield spreads in government securities.
• The European sovereign debt crisis started in 2008 with the collapse of Iceland's banking
system and spread primarily to Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain in 2009.
• The European sovereign debt crisis was ultimately controlled by the financial
guarantees of European countries, who feared the collapse of the euro and financial contagion,
and by the International Monetary Fund. Rating agencies downgraded several Eurozone
countries' debt. For example, Greece's debt was, at one point, moved to junk status. As part of
the loan agreements, countries receiving bailout funds were required to meet austerity
measures designed to slow down the growth of public-sector debt.
• A combination of market volatility triggered by Brexit, questionable politicians and a poorly
managed financial system worsened the situation for Italian banks in mid-2016. A staggering
17-precent of Italian loans, approximately $400 billion-worth, were “junk” status, and the
banks needed a significant bailout.
• A full collapse of the Italian banks is arguably a bigger risk to the European economy than a
Greek, Spanish or Portuguese collapse because Italy's economy is much larger. Italy has
repeatedly asked for help from the EU, but the EU recently introduced "bail-in" rules that
prohibit countries from bailing out financial institutions with taxpayer money without investors
taking the first loss. Germany has been clear that the EU wont bend rules for Italy.

Case: Bail Outs vs Bail Ins

What Is A Bail-Out?

Bailouts occur when outside investors, such as a government, rescue a borrower by injecting money to
help make debt payments. For example, U.S. taxpayers provided capital to many major U.S. banks
during the 2008 economic crisis in order to help them meet their debt payments and remain in business,
as opposed to being liquidated to creditors. This helped save the companies from bankruptcy, with
taxpayers assuming the risks associated with their inability to repay the loans.

The benefits of Bailouts can be split in twain:

Firstly, they reduce the risk of defaults and future recessions in through (4) avenues:

(1) They facilitate toxic-asset relief, (2) things to say here:

(a) By stripping toxic assets from the behemoths of financial world, (Bear
Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Merrill Lynch, AIG),
these organisations can be prevented from toppling. And crucially, those
assets or Credit Default Swaps can be dissolved or recapitalised rather than
being repackaged and sold on to a predatory hedge fund (vulture investors)

(b) Often, bailouts are the only way to detoxify subordinated mortgaged-backed
securities because they restore liquidity to a market

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Empirical Bullshit ™ In 2009, financial assets did significantly recover in value or collect more than
expected (real estate markets improved, liquidity returned to the market)

(2) They temper the risk of debt contagion, wherein uncertainty about one financial institution’s
ability to serve its contractual obligation creates uncertainty about other financial institutions
ability. In such a manner, markets for short-term funding in securities markets may dry up
for the financial system as a whole, and the ability to sell assets to obtain liquidity is lost.
Bailouts reduce this risk in (5) ways;

(a) They maintain liquidity and prevent insolvency: its nearly impossible to raise
$700B in capital from the private sector whereas that kind of money from the
public sector represents a huge injection of liquidity. The credit crisis has
been a crisis of liquidity. In simple terms, banks have hoarded their cash, and
borrowers have not been able to access money. Any loans they have got have
been expensive. Increasing liquidity allows banks to lend to each other, and
in turn lend to consumers.

(b) They prevent the ballooning of overnight rates because banks can trust that
their creditors can led to them, reducing dry-ups. In the aftermath of Lehman
Brothers collapsing, TARP massively slashed TED spreads (that is, the
spread between interest rates on 3-Month US Treasury Bills and interbank
LIBOR rates) in such a way that facilitated interbank liquidity and contained
contagion.

(c) They prevent bankruns by Quelling fears that that a bank’s insolvency could
lead to direct losses as well as the locking in of depositors’ and other
creditors’ claims as soon as rumours about a bank’s demise appear.

(d) They don’t encourage fire-selling of bank debts in the way that alternatives
such as bail-ins or allowing banks to default on their debts would.

(e) Weighing: In absentia of injections of liquidity from the public sector, higher
interest rates could hurt equities and end up costing more over the long-term
than a one-time recapitalization by making future capital much more
expensive.

(3) They maintain consumer confidence (or more charitably, they reduce it the least compared
with alternatives like bail-ins, allowing institutions to die, or total default) for all the reasons
above.

(4) They consume political capital in two positive ways:

(a) Increased scrutiny and public outrage at such massive spending can actually
be leveraged in a positive way; namely, in the fact that this created a much
stronger impetus to formalise agreements that there would be no further bail-
outs, thus mitigating moral hazard.

Empirical Bullshit ™
Former Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd and former Massachusetts Rep.
Barney Frank — the co-authors of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, a law
aimed at making banks safer in order to protect consumers and the
economy — told Marketplace that legislators wouldn’t agree to save
failing financial institutions with taxpayer money like they did back in
2008.

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Empirical Bullshit ™ In the EU, the consumption of political capital in the way of bailing
out banks with ECB money made way for a guarantee form the ECB
that nations will be forced to opt-for bail-ins rather than bail-outs.

(b) Reduction of regulatory capture, as the thought that all taxpayers have a stake
in the regulation of the private sector increased movements to better regulate.
These benefits are unique to bail-ins as (1) they hit governments and the
taxpayers to whom they are electorally bound enough to force them to push
for reform in a way that you can’t get if you allow banks to default or only
hit rich minorities who have funds over depositor insurance thresholds which
raises less capital anyway, (2) bail-outs rarely selectively liquidate
subordinated rather than senior debt like other solutions, so you are forced to
get structural reform across all securities, (3) when super rich investors or
funds are the ones who push for reform (as occurs after a bail-in), those
reforms only benefit investors of that scale, and the fact that they’re driven
by them also does nothing to reduce regulatory capture.

Empirical Bullshit ™ Moody’s (USA Ratings Agency) was reorganised and tightened.

Empirical Bullshit ™ Countercyclical capital buffers were introduced worldwide.

Empirical Bullshit ™ The G20 have since championed international reform efforts
progressed through the Financial Stability Board (FSB) and its
member standard-setting bodies, including the Basel Committee on
Banking Supervision (BCBS), the International Organization of
Securities Commissions (IOSCO) and others.
Secondly, they can actually be good for taxpayers in the long run in three ways:

(1) The Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) turned a profit of $15B alone by charging
interest on loans to SIFIs.

(2) The government wasn't simply lending money to these companies. It was investing in
them by taking ownership stakes. In most cases, the government was essentially buying
shares of stock much like ordinary investors do in their trading accounts.

Empirical Bullshit ™ For the most part, the government was later able to sell those shares of
stock for a large profit in the years that followed. In fact, the
government took a loss on only two of its 25 largest bailouts.

Empirical Bullshit ™ Together, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac received nearly $190 billion
in bailout funds. However, the government has now netted more than
$68 billion in profit from the investment.

(3) Bailing out banks reduces shadow banking, which costs governments billions in tax.

The drawbacks of Bailouts can be split in two:

Firstly, they are extremely costly to taxpayers, three things to talk about here:

(1) Bail-outs are by nature expensive, the TARP Programme cost over $700B, and while a
profit of $15 billion sounds enormous, it only amounts to a nominal annualized return of
0.6%. Even Treasury Bills (maturing after three years or longer) would have been a better
investment, so this is hardly impressive. And they will pay for it through higher taxes or
higher inflation – both of which are likely to prolong the global consumer downturn. The
US state borrowing is estimated to hit an eye-watering $11.3 trillion.

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 (2) This cost hurts the poor the most, as public services are the first areas to be cut, especially
in countries who don’t have the backing of massive fiats with which they can issue bonds.

Empirical Bullshit ™ US Government cut food stamps and unemployment benefits first

(3) It can put Central Banks being at the behest of large financial institutions by turning that
relationship of dependency on its head rather than externalising the dependency onto
depositors in a way that guarantees change into the future.

Empirical Bullshit ™
To guarantee their soundness, all major banks are required to keep a
certain amount of reserve cash at the Fed. Before the bailout, that
money didn’t earn interest, for the logical reason that banks shouldn’t
get paid to stay solvent. But in 2006 – arguing that banks were losing
profits on cash parked at the Fed – regulators agreed to make small
interest payments on the money. The move wasn’t set to go into effect
until 2011, but when the crash hit, a section was written into TARP
that launched the interest payments in October 2008.

(4) Bail-outs massively increase sovereign indebtedness, two things to say here:

(d) Treasuries start selling off T-Bills (3-month bonds) to pay for bailouts.

(e) There is not a huge demand for US Treasury Bills on the international money
markets and one of the few parties willing to buy such a vast amount of Treasury
ForBills
More is likely
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Chinese
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Quick Facts
(technically India,and
but Logic on China/USA
its rhetorically sound).Debt Holdings

• Many worry that China’s ownership of over $1 trillion in American debt affords the Chinese
economic leverage over the United States. This apprehension, however, stems from a
misunderstanding of sovereign debt and of how states derive power from their economic relations.
The purchasing of sovereign debt by foreign countries is a normal transaction that helps maintain
openness in the global economy. Consequently, China’s stake in America’s debt has more of a
binding than dividing effect on bilateral relations between the two countries.
• Even if China wished to “call in” its loans, the use of credit as a coercive measure is complicated and
often heavily constrained. A creditor can only dictate terms for the debtor country if that debtor has
no other options. In the case of the United States, American debt is a widely-held and extremely
desirable asset in the global economy. Whatever debt China does sell is simply purchased by other
countries. For instance, in August 2015 China reduced its holdings of U.S. Treasuries by
approximately $180 billion. Despite the scale, this selloff did not significantly affect the US
Economy thereby limiting the impact that such an action may have on U.S. decision-making. China
needs to maintain significant reserves of U.S. debt to manage the exchange rate of the renminbi. Were
China to suddenly unload its reserve holdings, its currency’s exchange rate would rise, making
Chinese exports more expensive in foreign markets. As such, China’s holdings of American debt do
not provide China with undue economic influence over the United States.

Secondly, bail-outs increase the risk of future recessions in two ways:

(1) Moral Hazard

(e) Bail-outs can undermine market discipline. When bank stakeholders expect to
be bailed out, they do not penalize banks for taking on excessive risk by
charging higher interest rates on their liabilities. By weakening market

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 discipline, the expectation of bail-outs can also lead to higher leverage,
possibly magnifying dangerous leverage cycles. This can further increase risk
taking because of a stronger risk-shifting motive: due to limited liability, the
bank neglects the losses associated with its default, so that it finds it optimal to
exercise less monitoring the more leveraged it is.

(f) Bail-outs can generate moral hazard by providing transfers to bank

shareholders and managers. For example, this can happen if bail-outs prevent
the ousting of bank management or preserve equity values. Then, by providing
some compensation even in the case of large losses, bail-outs promote risk
taking.

(g) Moral hazard also weakens the incentives of shareholders, creditors, and
depositors to discipline banks. Less monitoring and under-pricing of risk may,
in turn, result in riskier portfolios and higher leverage.

(2) Offsets Debt rather than recapitalising or defaulting them

(b) Banks refinanced their initial TARP investments by borrowing from other
federal government programs undercuts the Treasury Department’s claim that
the government has made money from TARP.

(c) But 48 percent of the banks that have repaid the CPP used money they’d gotten
from other federal programs, according to the GAO report. Those programs
include the Community Development Capital Initiative — another TARP
program — and the Small Business Lending Fund, a program designed to
encourage lending to small businesses. Both of those programs have more
favourable borrowing terms
Weighing/Impacting forWin
Risk to the banks
Moralthan the original CPP.
Hazard

You don’t need risk appetite to increase significantly to incur tremendous losses.

Epic Empirical Bullshit ™

True story, its May 2010, you’re Goldman Sachs. A year after a 12-digit bail out-from the federal
reserve, your risk appetite (lets be charitable) has increased from wanting to buy Canadian 10-Year
Treasury Bills with a yield of 1.8% to Greek Bills of the same denomination which at the time had a
yield of 3.8%. 18 months later, that risk appetite of only 2% more resulted in buying bonds that were
300% more likely to default completely, with a yield of 38% in November 2012.

In short, very small increases in exposure or risk can spell disaster for a financial institution.

What Is A Bail-In?

A bail-in occurs when the borrower's creditors are forced to bear some of the burden by having a portion
of their debt written off. For example, bondholders in Cyprus banks and depositors with more than
100,000 euros in their accounts were forced to write-off a portion of their holdings. This approach
eliminates some of the risk for taxpayers by forcing other creditors to share in the pain and suffering.
Essentially, bail-in constitutes a radical rethinking of who bears the ultimate costs of the operation of
fractional reserve banking (fancy name for money multiplier). Some examples:

Greece 2011: Resolution of Proton Bank via a bridge bank; pre-BRRD

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Greece 2015: Precautionary recapitalization of National Bank of Greece and Piraeus Bank;
resolution not triggered but subordinated debt and senior bonds converted to
equity; BRRD regime

Cyprus 2013: Resolution and restructuring of Laiki and Bank of Cyprus, as well as Laiki's
insured deposits, emergency liquidity assistance, and enough assets to meet
regulatory requirements transferred to the Bank of Cyprus. And uninsured
deposits and other assets left in a run-off unit, and BOC recapitalized with
participation of creditors including uninsured depositors to attain regulatory
limits; an unexpected bail- in following ad hoc adoption of a resolution law
inspired by the BRRD (which was then still under negotiation so a pre-BRRD
experience)

Spain 2012: Spanish bank rescue plan with subordinated liability exercises and public
recapitalization; preference shares and subordinated debt affected by haircuts
and conversion; pre-BRRD.

Italy 2015: Liquidation of Banca Romagna Coop; burden sharing of equity and junior
debt (later paid in full by cooperative bank’s voluntary fund); under national
insolvency law; pre-BRRD

American Pensions: American pension funds that invest in bail-in-able bonds are also have some
creditors with over USD $250,000 dip into their pockets.

Bail-In have a few benefits:

Firstly, (flip above reasons) they’re less harmful to taxpayers

Secondly, (flip above reasons) they recapitalise rather than shift debt, instead “wiping the slate clean”

Thirdly, they reduce the risk of future recessions in (3) ways:

(1) (Flip Moral Hazard mechanisms from above)

(2) Bail-ins are based on the penalty principal, namely, that the costs of bank failures are
shifted to where they best belong: bank shareholders and creditors. Namely, bail-in
replaces the public subsidy with private penalty or with private insurance forcing banks
to internalise the cost of risk.
(3) Reduces contagion by keeping safe debt afloat and detoxifying subordinated debt.
Political influences on who will be bailed in or out seem to have been a factor in the
recent recapitalisation of the third largest Italian Bank, Banco Monte dei Paschi di
Siena as well. Institutional junior bondholders (holders of subordinated rather than
senior debt, which was not secured and less likely to be paid back in terms of how its
prioritised) had to accept a write-down of their claims on the bank while retail investors
holding the same bonds did not have to take a loss. This makes the entire system more
stable, and reduces contagion.

Bail-In also have the following drawbacks:

Firstly, look at the exclusive benefits of Bail-Outs above and flip these above mechs (detailed earlier):

 Future Crises (As in Bail-Out Section)

(a) Insolvency and Liquidity

(b) LIBOR Rates
(c) Consumer Confidence

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 (d) Fire-Selling of Bank Debt
(e) Weighing Interest Rates

Additional Reasons: The fear that a bank’s insolvency could lead to direct losses as well as the
locking in of depositors’ and other creditors’ claims for years could easily
trigger bank runs as soon as rumours about a bank’s demise appear.

Where the ceiling of guaranteed deposits is set low, a significant number of

large depositors might migrate to other schemes such as money market funds
or even investment funds that offer higher interest rates, as in the example of
contemporary Chinese shadow banks. It is unlikely that weakening liquidity
of the regulated banking sector and increasing its funding costs to solvency
levels and lower the funding costs of the unregulated shadow banking sector
is a measure to strengthen financial stability. On the contrary, lack of Lender
of Last Resort type of liquidity support in the unregulated sector could make
bank-type runs inevitable, increasing the possibility of spillovers to regulated
sectors and generalised panic. This increases capital flight.

The skyrocketing of overnight rates, lack of confidence in average creditors

and bank runs reduce the likelihood of people to hold and buy bank debt that
reduces scrutiny, since unlike equity investors, bondholders have no upside
and would spurn issuers that take reckless risks. The risk, of course, is that
the bond markets will react negatively. Bail-ins popularity could increase
risks for bondholders and therefore increase the yield that they demand to
lend money to these institutions. This increases contagion.

WEIGHING: These higher interest rates could hurt equities and end up costing more over
the long-term than a one-time recapitalization by making future capital much
more expensive.

Epic Empirical Bullshit ™ On Bail-Ins and Contagion

Bail-ins beget bail-ins. Ironically, they’re so unreliable and contagious that it was because
of bank-runs resulting from Bail-Ins and capital controls imposed on Alpha Bank, Elliniki
Trapeza and Piraeus Bank (Greece’s biggest banks) that caused the need for the famous
Bail-ins of Cypriot banks who were big holders of Greek debt.
 Political Capital and Regulation (Mechs From Bail-Out Section to use)

(a) “Skin in the game” taxpayers, voting => Regulation

(b) Reduces regulatory capture

Additional Reasons:

(1) The bail-in of uninsured depositors can result in unpredictable switches in ownership in the
resolved institution. The new owners may not want to own a bank and may also not be fit
and proper to do so. This is the first unintended consequence of the new bank resolution
framework. This was in addition to the political pressures on the central bank aimed at
reducing the bail-in percentage. If heeded, these pressures would have resulted in an under-
capitalised bank, with unimaginable consequences.

Epic Empirical Bullshit ™
In the case of Cyprus, the ten largest new shareholders turned out to
be politically exposed Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs (one of them,
who eventually became the bank’s vice president, was described by
Reuters news agency6 as a close ally of the Russian president). In
addition, the ten largest shareholders were represented by the top five

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 Cypriot law firms; all were politically connected (one of which was
belonging to the family of the then newly elected Cypriot president).

(2) This reduces macroprudential regulation.

Finally, they’re extremely litigatious in a way that benefits the richest:

(1) Bail-in regimes that extend beyond bail-in-able debt would be seen as encroaching on rights of
property, which remain entrenched in countries’ constitutions and international treaties. Legal
claims will be raised both by shareholders who will see their stakes wiped out and creditors
who will see the value of their claims reduced or diminished and it is unlikely that the ‘no
creditor worse off’ (than in liquidation) principle, which both the DFA and the BRRD have
adopted, as a creditor safeguard under the bail-in process, will deter the expected stream of
litigation. In fact, the principle could make litigation even more likely.

(2) Therefore, where the result of government action is that bailed-in creditors receive a
demonstrably lower return than they would have done had the bank proceeded to disorderly
liquidation, they should be compensated

(3) Moreover, a significant proportion of the costs of bank resolution could involve settling
conflicts of interest among creditors. This is particularly likely to be so in so far as bail-ins will
concentrate ownership among ‘vulture’ hedge funds, whose metier is the use of legal means to
extract large rents. Shifting the burden of meeting the costs of recapitalisation from a small
charge (on average) imposed on the generality of tax- payers to a major one imposed on a small
group of creditors, easily capable of acting in unison, is almost bound to multiply the legal costs
of such an exercise manifold.

(4) This is easily explainable. In the case of taxpayer-funded bailouts, everyone’s tax liabilities go
up a little (and the relative burden has, in a sense, been democratically re- viewed and decided);
in the case of creditor bail-in, a few will lose a lot, and will, therefore, have stronger incentives
to protest and litigate.

Government Intervention in Markets

Intervention in Markets

Government Intervention and Competition/Emerging Markets

• Governments play a vital role in market formation for products by imposing regulation and
price controls. They can control entry and exit of firms into a market by setting up rules to
function in the market. For example, the pharmaceutical industry has to contend with a roster
of rules pertaining to research, production, and sale of drugs. In turn, these rules require big
capital investments in the form of employees, such as lawyers and quality assurance personnel,
and infrastructure, such as machinery to manufacture medicines.
• The cumulative costs add up and make it extremely expensive for companies to bring a drug to
the market.

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 • In comparison, the technology industry functions with relatively less oversight as compared to
its pharma counterpart. Thus, entrepreneurs in this industry can start firms with less to zero
capital, making it easy for individuals to start a company in the industry.
• Such controls do not exist in a perfectly competitive market. The entry and exit of firms in such
a market is unregulated and this frees them up to spend on labour and capital assets without
restrictions and adjust their output in relation to market demands.
• A more debating-related example of this is that crony-capitalist policies like demanding that
taxi drivers pay upwards of $250,000 for their medallions when Uber drivers can then undercut
them, providing a better service and having more efficient access to the market.
• Governments typically intervene in markets to correct a market failure, for example when a
price mechanism leads to inefficient allocation of resources or a deadweight loss of economic
or social welfare
• This often happens in the case of negative externalities and positive externalities (like carbon-
credit schemes)

Sin Taxes

• Many governments use “sin taxes” to dissuade people from smoking and drinking alcohol.
• Vices are attractive targets for selective taxation because sinners are not very sensitive to
increases in the prices of the sinful goods and services they buy. They reduce their purchases,
of course, but not by much. Taxing sin thus is a tax revenue-generating engine.
• Policymakers are right to think that sin taxes lead to lower consumption. The exact estimates
vary from study to study, but economists have found that in general, a 1% increase in the price
of tobacco or alcohol in America leads to a 0.5% decline in sales. In practical terms, this means
that sales of tobacco and alcohol are more responsive overall to price changes than say, sales
of many common household goods, such as coffee. Similarly, while it is still too early to
determine whether these taxes will have any effect on obesity, studies have shown that they
have at the very least reduced sales in Mexico, and the cities of Berkeley and Philadelphia.
• In any prohibition/sin tax debate, its useful to consider the degree to which the good is price-
elastic and SPECIFICALLY why this is the case for that exact item, how do people depend on
it, why do they use it, are there alternatives, what is the price-point, what kind of people use it,
is it addictive?
• Such taxes may "nudge" consumption in the desired downward direction, but bad habits are
hard to break.
• Far from being income-neutral, such taxes are regressive because their burden falls most
heavily on people with the fewest options—the poor. Low-income households who continue to
purchase goods that are sin-taxed will have even less money left over to spend on other items.
• But if there is a problem with sin taxes, it is not that they are ineffective. Rather, it is that they
are inefficient. Sin taxes are blunt policy instruments. People who only have the occasional
drink are not taking on any great health risks, yet they are taxed no differently than serious
alcoholics. A similar logic applies for sugar taxes. Tobacco presents a slightly different
problem. Nicotine is highly addictive, meaning that there are relatively few people who smoke
cigarettes only occasionally.
• It is easiest to justify taxes on particular goods when they present what economists call
“negative externalities”. When a driver buys fuel for his car, both he and the petrol station
benefit. Yet cars emit carbon dioxide in their wake, which suggests that it would be only fair
for drivers to pay taxes to offset the environmental damage they cause.
• Some policymakers argue that people who engage in unhealthy habits also impose negative
externalities, since they tend to present taxpayers with bigger medical bills.
• Sin taxes raise revenue by transferring money from those who continue to buy the taxed items
straight to the coffers of the public treasury. Taxing sin might be reasonable if the revenue from
these taxes was used to address the underlying negative consequences of consumption. In the
real world, however, money generated by the tobacco settlement financed general spending
and not smoking cessation programs or treating smoking-related diseases.

170
 • In practice, however, these costs tend to be overstated. While obese people probably do present
net costs to governments, smokers tend to die earlier, meaning that they probably save
governments money since they draw less from state pensions. Policymakers should still
consider implementing sin taxes if they intend to intervene to change individuals’ behaviour.
But they should be aware that the bulk of the damage that smokers, drinkers and the obese do
is to themselves, and not to others.
• The best way to evaluate the efficiency of a taxation mechanism on a de-merit good is first to
look at the extent to which demands is price-elastic fort that given good. If a good has no
substitutable alternatives for its consumers, a higher GST rate may be ineffective, if it has safer,
healthier or “better” alternatives, its likely that the increase in price will be a sufficient “nudge”
to the market and people will select the cheaper substitute (i.e diet coke instead of normal coke).

Drug Prohibition

• The inherently destructive effects of drug laws, results from the combination of two aspects of
drug prohibition that need to be distinguished. The first is the coercive nature of the means
being used. The second is the type of conduct being coerced. Only by understanding the kind
of conduct that is the subject of drug laws and how it differs from other kinds of conduct
regulated by law can we begin to see why legal coercion is an inappropriate means in which to
pursue our objectives.
• Drug laws reflect the decision of some persons that other persons who wish to consume certain
substances should not be permitted to act on their preferences. Nor should anyone be permitted
to satisfy the desires of drug consumers by making and selling the prohibited drug. For the
purposes of this discussion, the most important characteristic of the legal approach to drug use
is that these consumptive and commercial activities are being regulated by force.
• Much of the harms associated with drug use is caused not by intoxicating drugs, but by the fact
that such drugs are illegal.
• The most obvious harm to drug users caused by drug laws is the legal and physical jeopardy in
which they are placed. Imprisonment must generally be considered a harm to the person
imprisoned or it would hardly be an effective deterrent.
• But what about those who are not discouraged and who engage in such conduct anyway? Does
the practice of punishing these persons make life better or worse for them? The answer is clear.
As harmful as using drugs may be to someone, being imprisoned often makes matters much
worse.
• Normally when considering matters of legality, we are not concerned about whether a law
punishes a lawbreaker and makes him worse off.
• Illegalization makes the prices of drugs rise. By increasing scarcity, all else being equal, the
confiscation and destruction of drugs causes the price of the prohibited good to rise. And by
increasing the risk to those who manufacture and sell, drug laws raise the cost of production
and distribution, necessitating higher prices that reflect a “risk premium.” Like the threat of
punishment, higher prices may very well discourage some from using drugs who would
otherwise do so. This is, in fact, a principal rationale for interdiction policies. But higher prices
take their toll on those who are not deterred, and these adverse effects are rarely emphasized in
discussions of drug laws.
• Higher prices require higher income by users. If users cannot earn enough by legal means to
pay higher prices, then they may be induced to engage in illegal conduct—theft, burglary,
robbery—in which they would not otherwise engage.
• Because the legal sale of drugs is prohibited, people who still wish to use drugs are forced to
do business with the kind of people who are willing to make and sell drugs in spite of the risk
of punishment. Such transactions must deliberately be conducted away from the police. This
puts drug users in great danger of physical harm.
• Users are forced to rely upon criminals to regulate the quality and strength of the drugs they
buy. No matter how carefully they measure their dosages, a potent supply may result in an
overdose.

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 • Prohibition automatically makes drug users into “criminals.” While this point would seem too
obvious to merit discussion, the effects of criminalization can be subtle and hidden.
Criminalized drug users may not be able to obtain legitimate employment. This increases still
further the likelihood that the artificially high prices of illicit drugs will lead drug users to
engage in criminal conduct to obtain income. It is difficult to overestimate the harm caused by
forcing drug users into a life of crime. Once this threshold is crossed, there is often no return.
Such a choice would not be nearly so compelling, nor as necessary, if these substances were
legal and cheaper.

The Role of the Government in Banning Dangerous/Taboo Activities

Mechanics of a Ban

• A “ban” usually translates to fewer consumers with a larger potential harms per consumer
• Regulation means more consumers but less potential harm per consumer
• Typically, the calculus of legislators is to consider individual and societal harms that arise form
the consumption of these goods or participation in these activities (more mechanistic failures
and benefits is dealt with in my notes on prohibition, sin taxes and intervention in markets
hereabove)

On the Issue of Consent

• One issue of debate is that if parties are able to consent to an activity, provided that activity
does not harm anyone outside the sphere of consent, they should be allowed to participate in it
even if it causes them harm.
• One example of this may be smoking or not wearing a seatbelt, more extreme examples include
consensual (protected) incest or sadomasochism.
• If someone consents to an activity they trade off a degree of safety for pleasure, they make that
calculation; the state does not make it for them. If I want to go skydiving, and understand the
risks then I should be able to make that decision.
• Sometimes these choices don’t only affect me though, for example, the normalization of
pornography and prostitution changes the way that society views sex in ways that could be
perceived as perverse, so people who have never engaged in these activities are affected by
those who have. Hence, affecting those outside the sphere of consent.
• Let’s say there are four factors that may vitiate consent or the ability to consent to an activity
at all;

1. Asymmetry of Knowledge – Does one party have more information than

another, could one party be withholding information, and is it easily
researchable (for example drug use in contrast to sadomasochism.)
2. Asymmetry of Power – Does one party have more power over another,
is one particularly susceptible to coercion and manipulation, can they be
pressured?
3. Opt-Out – Is the ability to opt out of the activity easily accessible?
4. Probability and Seriousness of Harm – Depending on the level of
physical, financial or emotional harm different levels of consent need to
be established.

With an Understanding of Consent, when is it right for the State to Intervene?

• Factor 1: Is there consent, and has it been vitiated? For example, have the 4 criteria I mentioned
above been satisfied. It can be said that people, not the state, are in the best position to make
value judgments that determine what makes them happy and what’s best for them (with
established consent). Banning something when consent is established implies that the state is

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 telling you what sort of behaviour is acceptable or beneficial for you and making certain value
judgments that they may not be in a position to make.
• Factor 2: Does the activity result in harm? John Stuart Mill postulates that the purpose of an
intervention should be to (1) defend public order, (2) protect the vulnerable, (3) prevent direct
harm. This preserves the rights to life and safety.
• Factor 3: The activity is contrary to public morality. This can be a useful “even if” argument to
use in a debate on a “ban/regulate” motion. Even if there’s no harm and there is consent, if its
contrary to public morality, we should prevent its legalization. This is to maintain a society’s
faith in the legal system and the role of the government in their community. When the laws of
a community reflect the will of the population, that’s going to reinforce trust in government
and the respect of the legal system.
• This fosters voluntary compliance of the law, apart from fear of prosecution; the reason that
people still follow the law is that they respect it, and that it supports their model of morality.
The point at which the laws of the state don’t reflect the consensus of the community they are
intended to govern, is the point at which the social contract between these communities and the
state is vitiated to the point at which they take the law into their own hands.
• A vigilante is going to be a far worse actor in determining the extent of the punishment upon
these individuals. They don’t have the tools of the legal system to assess sentences,
punishments etc. This results in more proportionate punishments.

Demonetisation

Taxation and Social Policy

Nudge Theory (For Public Policy)

• Public policy, the system of laws, regulatory measures, and courses of action that governments
make in response to political and public issues, is one way to help society limit both the extent
to which individuals make suboptimal choices, and the social consequences those suboptimal
choices produce.
• So, you exercise softer measures to “nudge” consumers and decision makers in society.
• An example of nudging is that when letters sent to non-payers of car taxes include a picture of
the offender’s vehicle, people were 50% more likely to respond and pay the tax. This way, the
choice architects not only catch the individual’s attention, but they are also able to sustain it
long enough to have them ac
• Nudging can be most useful in healthcare

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 • Nudges that use manipulative techniques to alter behaviour are unethical, because they deprive
the individual of the right to choose on his or her own, and thus to learn from one’s own choices.
• This can be most effective in countries like India where nudging is used to promote issues such
as personal hygiene and educating women, nudging is more effective than direct incentives or
fines in large populations due to its ability to more efficiently reach bigger groups of people.

Social Policy

Motions

 THW allow city and local governments to be held civilly responsible for deaths that can be
ascribed to homelessness.
 THW create specific zones where community members can legally participate in nonviolent,
illicit behaviour (e.g. sex work, drug use).
 THW replace existing welfare systems with a universal basic income.

Homelessness

• 105,000 (rounded) homeless people in Australia in 2011.

• Disproportionately males (56%) and Northern Territory inhabitants (730/10,000 are homeless)

Common reasons for homelessness:

 Domestic and family violence,

 Intergenerational poverty,
 Economic and social exclusion,
 Severe and persistent mental illness and psychological distress

Exiting Prison

 The chronic shortage of affordable and available rental housing,

 Severe overcrowding/housing crisis

Intergenerational Poverty

 Often blamed for the ‘poverty cycle’ intergenerational poverty refers to the tendency of children
from poorer backgrounds to have limited access to healthcare, education and workplace
opportunity therefore decreasing their chance of future financial prosperity.

 This is most prominent in the developed world in countries like America where government
support is limited specifically in the context of healthcare (no universal coverage) and education
(often inadequate in poorer neighbourhoods and regions).

 Often homelessness is perpetuated by factors such as drug and alcohol addiction which means
that saving can be difficult. Organisations such as Healthdirect and Lifeline offer free help and
rehabilitation.

Impacts on Society

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  Big strain on public health, law enforcement and criminal justice.
 Public health:
 Those who are homeless experience increased physical and mental illness.

Prevention of Homelessness

• Financial counselling and literacy,

• Support and rehabilitation for addictions at early stages.
• Financial support during rough patches from government.

Welfare (Welfare Reforms, Welfare States, Welfare as a Right)

On the Welfare State and the State of Welfare

• In the mythologies of both left and right, the welfare state is a work of socialism. Yet the
intellectual tradition it owes most to is liberalism. The architect of its British version, William
Beveridge, did not want to use the power of the state for its own sake. The point was to give
people the security to pursue the lives they chose. And liberal reformers believed that by
insuring people against some risks of creative destruction, welfare states would bolster
democratic support for free markets.
• As countries become richer, they tend to spend higher shares of national income on public
services and benefits. Spending on “social protection”, such as pensions, unemployment
insurance and assistance for the hard-up, has risen from an average of about 5% of GDP in rich
countries in 1960 to 20% today. Include spending on health and education and those shares
roughly double. For some, the sheer scale of these welfare states is reason enough for reform.
• Much of the welfare debate is to what extent the state owes its citizens, and whether or not its
obligation extends beyond merely their basic subsistence. It should seek to allow individuals to
make their own choices, whether through support for parents to return to work as in
Scandinavia, personal budgets for disabled people to select their own provision as in England,
or Singapore-style learning accounts so that the jobless can acquire new skills.
• Any welfare reform entails trade-offs between the cost of a scheme and its effects on poverty
and incentives to work. No scheme is perfect. But a good basis is the negative income tax,
which subsidises workers below an earnings threshold, while taxing those above it. Negative
income tax can be combined with a minimum income for everyone. It is a relatively simple,
efficient way of targeting poverty while maintaining incentives to work, so long as the tax rate
is not too high.
• To mitigate rising intergenerational inequality, it would make sense to cut the cushiest benefits
for the elderly and steadily raise retirement ages.
• As liberals such as Beveridge realised, the best way to secure support for free markets is to give
more people a stake in them. The welfare state must be seen as more than providing shoes and
soup for the poor, and security in old age. In a democratic society it is also crucial to the case
for capitalism.
• They saw it not as industrialised charity, but as a complement to free-market capitalism.
• “New liberals” such as John Stuart Mill and Leonard Hobhouse, argued that freedom meant
ensuring that people had the health, education and security to lead the life they wanted. Some
of these ideas underpinned early state-pension schemes and unemployment insurance in New
Zealand, Australia and, in the first decade of the 20th century, Britain.
• Perhaps the most common charge against mature welfare states is that they have created a
culture of dependency. So, policymakers have made programmes more “conditional”, forcing
recipients to look for work, for example. To help them, many countries expanded “active
labour-market policies” such as retraining.
• If the shrinking welfare state is a myth, so is the notion that it is mainly about redistribution
from rich to poor.

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 • Another misunderstanding is about how welfare spending relates to economic growth. As
countries become wealthier, public spending increases as a share of GDP.

Immigration and the Welfare State

• Across Europe, “welfare chauvinism” is on the rise. This supports a generous welfare state for
poorer, native-born people—but not immigrants. Populists argue that, if migrants from poor
countries immigrate freely to rich ones, they will bankrupt the welfare state.
• Others argue that liberal migration policies depend on curbing access to it: build a wall around
the welfare state, not the country. Polls suggest that few native-born Europeans want to deprive
new arrivals of instant access to health care and schools for their children. But some restrictions
on cash benefits, like those already in place in America and Denmark, may be necessary.
• Experimental evidence suggests that there is a tension between diversity and generosity. Studies
have found, for example, that Swedes are more reluctant to give to Bulgarians than to Dutch
migrants. Another study published in 2017 using survey data from 114 European regions found
a correlation between areas with higher shares of migrants and a lack of support for a generous
welfare state.

Welfare vs. Charity, which is Better?

• Who gets welfare is determined by well-defined written down rules, and while sometimes these
rules are written to exclude some population group, doing this is tricky and easy to spot when
it happens. When someone is giving charity, they can exclude any group they dislike. They
can give charity only to people with the same colour of skin, religion, dialect. And since giving
charity is voluntary and private, it’s hard to spot and difficult to change. The mechanism for
collecting the money for welfare is already in place and highly efficient.
• And while sometimes the recipients have to jump through some hoops to qualify, these hurdles
are relatively small. In comparison charity organizations have to spend a substantial share of
their money on acquiring additional funds. And potential recipients have to invest a large
amount of their time to point out their plight to potential donors. Just think about the time
beggars spend sitting around on the street such that they can collect some money and what that
time could be spend on otherwise.
• About 75% of the tax dollars that are targeted to welfare programs actually go to the middle-
class administrators rather than the needy. In contrast, private programs give about 75% of
donated dollars to the poor. Thus, the poor get more when charitable giving is private.
However, this is not fairly distributed between different sub-strata of race and
ethnicity/religion.
• Majority religions often get most of the income, exacerbating the impacts of poverty for
minorities and further marginalising them.
• Administrative and other operating costs in private charities absorb, on average, only one-
third or less of each dollar donated, leaving the other two-thirds (or more) to be delivered to
recipients.

The Nordic Model

• Welfare states have always differed from country to country. But from the 1970s, approaches
diverged further. There are three varieties of “welfare capitalism”. First were the “social
democratic” versions in Scandinavia, with high public spending, strong trade unions, universal
benefits and support for women to stay in the workplace. Second, “conservative” welfare states,
such as Germany’s, were built around the traditional family and had a strong contributory
principle. Finally, Anglo-American welfare states put greater emphasis on guaranteed
minimums than universal benefits.
• Nordic countries are extraordinarily ethnically and culturally homogenous, the only one that is
not is Sweden and that’s why they’re actually slowly becoming more conservative and having

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 trouble promoting assimilation. People are less likely to buy onto a quasi-socialist economy
when they feel like they’re paying for outsiders and not themselves (racist and sad but true)
• USA pays their defence budgets
• Taxes in these countries are extraordinarily high and that’s why they’re slowly growing in debt
and having to deregulate their economies
• Norway is even embracing Uber and Airbnb
• Nordic countries partially privatise healthcare and retirement funds

Nozick vs Rawls and Distributive Justice

• Distributive justice is the economic, political, and social framework that each society has, its
laws, institutions, policies, etc., that result in different distributions of benefits and burdens
across members of the society.
• Luck egalitarianism is a family of egalitarian theories of distributive justice that aim to
counteract the distributive effects of luck and is one framework through which to look at
distributive obligations.
• According to Nozick, there are three things to consider when looking at whether or not
distributive justice is in fact justified;

(5) How things not previously possessed by anyone may be acquired.

(6) How possession may be transferred from one person to another
(7) What must be done to rectify injustices arising from violating (1) or (2)

• On (1), he says you can acquire anything not previously acquired, provided it is done so legally
(justly) and to a degree that does not disadvantage anyone else to an unreasonable extent. He
also says you have a universal right to that which you create with your own labour, but that it
is never just to own all of something necessary to life or have a monopoly on it.
• What Rawls and other luck egalitarians say is that (2) cannot be justly transferred if not on the
basis of intelligence, merit, moral duty or some other non-luck-based metric. Nozick advances
an objection against all of them: part of ownership is the liberty to give things to other people.
• According to Nozick, taxation is equivalent to forced labour. Taking a proportion of earnings
is like making a person work a proportion of his working time for another's purposes. It is unjust
to force a person to work for another's benefit.
• But it’s worth noting that in most liberal democracies, wealth is not a zero-sum game – Bill
Gates may be 5,000,000 times richer than the average American, but that does not make the
average American 5,000,000 times worse off than Bill Gates, in fact they’re probably better off
for his contributions to their economy and employment.
• This is because people don’t really get rich by stealing from the poor – they’re poor and there’s
nothing to steal, if you really want to get rich by stealing from people, it’d be much more
efficient to just steal from other rich people – instead, they exploit the labour of the poor.
• The real way the uber-wealthy (and indeed the well-off) become wealthy is by engaging in
mutually beneficial transactions that maximise satisfaction on both ends – this sense, capitalism
is forced altruism (I have to produce what you want, I have to satisfy your desires to make a
living)
• That’s all very nice and well, but Rawls reminds Nozick that some people are incapable of
engaging in these transactions due to factors they cannot control (wealth, education, physical
disabilities) which require redress through redistribution
• Nozick says that if you make money without breaking rules (i.e. by engaging in these mutually
beneficial transactions) then there’s no excuse for that money to be taken from you, don’t kid
yourself, your stealing from me because you want what i have and you’re dressing it up as
justice.
• In USA, the bottom 50% hold <3% of national wealth, it seems unlikely that that proportion of
the population could be so undeserving, so unproductive, so noncontributory to the greater good
– pointing out the real existence of inequality.

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 • We might believe that there’s a rump of the population who don’t want to work, don’t want to
contribute, but there’s reason to believe that that’s a minority, at least not 50%.
• The basic principles we work off to decide how much is okay to redistribute is “to advantage
the disadvantaged”, practically, this looks like “How much can we take from Bill Gates before
he really cares, and makes decisions about his future that lead to worse outcomes for everybody
else?”
• Don’t forget that the most proportionally/marginally advantaged by economic growth are the
poor – when a low-income earner jumps from a $15 per hour salary to $25 per hour, that $10
means a lot more to them than Bill Gates.

Inheritance Tax

Overview of Inheritance Taxes and their Effectiveness/Efficiency

• Such levies pit two vital liberal principles against each other. One is that governments should
leave people to dispose of their wealth as they see fit. The other is that permanent, hereditary
elite makes a society unhealthy and unfair. How to choose between them?
• Some people argue for a punitive inheritance tax. They start with the negative argument that
dead people no longer enjoy the general freedom to disburse their wealth as they wish—as the
dead have no rights. How could they, when they are not affected one way or the other by what
happens in the world?
• That does not ring true. The logic would be to abrogate even the most modest of wills. But
inheritances are deeply personal and the biggest single gift that many give to causes they believe
in and loved ones they may have cherished. Many (living) people would feel wronged if they
could not provide for their children. If anything, as the expression of their last wishes, bequests
carry more weight than their passing fancies do.
• The reason governments like the tax is that estates don’t have very powerful protectors and
defenders. If the government tried to seize estates from the living, the owners would certainly
resist. But after death, ownership tends to be dispersed and, in many cases, unresolved. So,
estates are a relatively easy target for the tax collectors.
• The positive argument for steep inheritance taxes is that they promote fairness and equality.
Heirs have rarely done anything to deserve the money that comes their way. Liberals, from
John Stuart Mill to Theodore Roosevelt, thought that needed correcting. Roosevelt, who warned
that letting huge fortunes pass across generations was “of great and genuine detriment to the
community at large”, would doubtless be aghast at the situation today. Annual flows of
inheritance in France have tripled as a proportion of GDP since the 1950s. Half of Europe’s
billionaires have inherited their wealth, and their number seems to be rising.
• Data from Britain suggest that people tend not to lose their parents before they reach the age of
50. In rich countries the advantages that wealthy parents pass to their offspring begin with the
sorting mechanism of marriage, in which elites increasingly pair up with elites.
• As this sum is received at the age of 50, (i.e. at a time when most families have children passing
through university and high school), it can be said that this is the best time to spend this money
on education/health expenditure.
• Even if the link between inheritance-tax rates and inequality were clear, wealth can pay for a
good tax lawyer. In the century since Roosevelt, Sweden and other high-taxers discovered that
if governments impose a steep enough duty, the rich will find ways to avoid it. The trusts they
create as a result can last even longer than the three generations it takes for family fortunes to
grow.
• Principally, and at a very basic level, inheritance tax, like any other, is a duty paid by the
percipient of an income, in this case, the inheritor is a lucky winner of a sperm lottery. If you
work for your father’s business and he pays you a salary, you pay tax on that salary.
• Yet every tax is an intrusion by the state. If avoiding double taxation were a requirement of
good policy, then governments would need to abolish sales taxes, which are paid out of taxed

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 income. The risks that heirs will be forced to sell homes and firms can be mitigated by allowing
them to pay the duties gradually, from cash flow rather than by fire sales.

Impacts on Other Taxes and the Labour Force

• People who are against tax in general ought to be less hostile to inheritance taxes than other
sorts. However, disliked as they are, they are some of the least distorting.
• Unlike income taxes, they do not destroy the incentive to work—whereas research suggests
that a single person who inherits an amount above $150,000 is four times more likely to leave
the labour force than one who inherits less than $25,000.
• An inheritance received by a family reduces the probability that both spouses will continue to
work and increases the probability that both will retire.
• Unlike capital-gains taxes, heavier estate taxes do not seem to dissuade saving or investment.
Unlike sales taxes, they are progressive. To the extent that a higher inheritance tax can fund
cuts to all other taxes, the system can be more efficient.
• The right approach is to strike a balance between the two extremes. The precise rate will vary
from country to country. But three design principles stand out. First, target the wealthy; that
means taxing inheritors rather than estates and setting a meaningful exemption threshold.
Second, keep it simple. Close loopholes for those who are caught in the net by setting a flat rate
and by giving people a lifetime allowance for bequests; set the rate high enough to raise
significant sums, but not so high that it attracts massive avoidance. Third, with the fiscal
headroom generated by higher inheritance tax, reduce other taxes, lightening the load for most
people.
• Easy access to unearned wealth destroys the incentive to work and innovate - hence the wiser
among the super-wealthy are generally careful to limit the money they leave to their children.

Minimum Wage

Some Points to Consider on Minimum Wage Increases

• The obvious market equilibrium argument is that increasing the price of labour decreases the
demand for those workers at any set price, but if you establish that the current equilibrium price
of labour is actually off (due to employers having disproportionate power over workers), then
you can call a minimum wage a correctional measure rather than a handout.
• In most developed economies, in terms of magnitude, they find that a 1% increase in wages
leads to a 0.3% to 1% decrease in the employment rate depending on whether wages increase
citywide or in only one industry.
• The authors find that most of the negative employment effects that result from wage increases
(which are cost increases) are due to more firms closing rather than firms laying off workers.
Since more firm closings and fewer openings take longer to show up in the data than less hiring
and more firing, it makes sense that the long-term effects of wage increases on employment are
larger than short term effects.
• These results don’t necessarily mean minimum wage increases are bad policy. They do,
however, support the notion that higher minimum wages have a cost, namely fewer
employment opportunities for lower-skill workers.
• This is because employers are sometimes likely, for example, to cut down from 10 people
working for $7 per hour to perhaps 6 people working for $15 per hour, either giving those 6
people a greater workload each to maintain the same industrial or production capacity, or
simply cut down on production at all.
• Small businesses may also face increasing wages across the board. Minimum wage increases
often bring unskilled or lower-level employee wages closer to the pay for individuals with
technical or expert abilities. Business owners may need to consider raising these individual’s
wages to compensate for minimum wage increases. Higher-paid employees may also feel

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 slighted by the government’s ability to increase the minimum wage and leave other wage levels
to free market standards.
• Significant minimum wage increases can drive companies into dangers financial situations.
Retail stores, fast food restaurants, hotels and similar industries often rely on minimum wage
individuals for completing several business tasks. Governments that continually increase
minimum wage require businesses in these industries to pay more money for the same amount
of employee service. If companies are unable to increase prices or reduce expenses, they may
face liquidation or bankruptcy as a result from the wage increase.
• It’s worth noting that the main argument for the minimum wage is that it creates better living
standards, what actually creates better living standards is increased economic productivity that
fuels economic growth, which in turn universally improves living standards. If we force
employers to pay a $20 minimum wage, we have to ask ourselves where that additional $5
comes from, employers don’t print it in the basement, it comes off their bottom line and off
their capacity to produce goods and provide services, thereby reducing productivity. This is
effectively trickle-up economics.
• Economics is not a function of someone making $14 per hour versus $15 per hour; it is a
function of innovation and the capacity of market structures not to suffocate emerging firms –
which a minimum wage does.
• It can be said that by banning any earnings under a certain amount, the minimum wage
encourages the informal economy (thus, people are paid in cash for low-skilled labour)
• The unskilled and uneducated 17-year-old is not going to have is salary increased form $10 per
hour to $20 per hour, because in their mind, the employer is going to say that if they’re forced
to pay the extra $10, they want someone smarter, better educated and more qualified. Instead
his income drops from $10 to $0.
• Think about the ability of workers to collectivise (i.e. South Africa)
• Paradoxically, some of the biggest advocates for minimum wage hikes are big retail firms
(recently Amazon and Costco) who want it so that they can cannibalise their local competition,
as paying an extra $5 an hour means little to Amazon’s bottom line as they have huge
production capacity and incredibly optimised efficiency of their labour forces, whereas the local
grocer or hardware store does not and cannot afford it. They can absorb these costs as they have
economies of scale.

Progressive Taxes

• A progressive tax is a tax that imposes a lower tax rate on low-income earners compared to
those with a higher income.
• The rationale is that people with a lower income will usually spend a greater percentage of their
income to maintain their standard of living.
• The opposite of a progressive tax, a regressive tax, takes a larger percentage of income from
low-wage earners than from high-wage earners. A sales tax is an example of a regressive tax
because if two individuals buy the same amount of goods or services, the sales tax constitutes
a higher percentage of the lower-earning individual's wages and a lower percentage of the
higher-earning individual's wages.
• In Australia, our progressive tax rate reduces our Gini coefficient by about 30%, meaning it
does significantly reduce income inequality.
• As the old poor move up the economic ladder, new poor, in the form of young workers and
immigrants, enter the labour force. This continual process is not adequately reflected in static
snapshots of the economy.
• There are considerable negative economic consequences to a highly progressive tax code.
Excessive marginal tax rates, the rate levied on the next dollar earned, discourage work.
• People on the very upper end of the taxation scale also have tremendous ability to choose the
type and time of their income to minimise their tax rate, for example tax on dividends is a much
lower 15% than the upper marginal rate of nearly 50%.
• They can also use structures like franking credits to reduce their effective tax rates.

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 • A person whose wealth increases enough to finally be able to afford to put food on the table
every day, or take a needed medicine, gets more marginal value from the next dollar earned
than does a Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg. It is thus the poor who are most harmed by
economically destructive progressive taxation – the very people for whom concern over income
inequality is meant to benefit.

Capital Flight

• Capital flight is a large-scale exodus of financial assets and capital from a nation due to events
such as political or economic instability, currency devaluation or the imposition of capital
controls or extreme tax rates.
• Capital flight may be legal (an example in a debate may be that of Apple’s use of Transfer
pricing in Ireland), as is the case when foreign investors repatriate capital back to their home
country, or illegal, which occurs in economies with capital controls that restrict the transfer of
assets out of the country.
• Capital flight can impose a severe burden on poorer nations since the lack of capital
impedes economic growth and may lead to lower living standards. Paradoxically, the most open
economies are the least vulnerable to capital flight, since transparency and openness improve
investors’ confidence in the long-term prospects for such economies.
• Capital flight can also occur in smaller nations beset by political turmoil or economic problems.
Argentina, for instance, has endured capital flight for years due to a high inflation rate and a
sliding domestic currency
• An example: a lack of trade liberalisation in China => loss of almost $4 trillion to CF.

Indigenous Affairs and Race

Indigenous Affairs

Nationals 2018 – That all art or media based on any Australian Aboriginal culture should have to be
approved by a national council of Elders

Nationals 2018 – That we should grant full self-government to First Nations people who live in
geographically separate areas

Nationals 2018 – That we should create a House of Parliament to be purely comprised of First Nations
people

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Nationals 2016 – That we should grant the Northern Territory to Indigenous people as an independent
nation

Important Events and Movements

Stolen Generation

 From 1905 until the 1970s, between 1/10 and 1/3 Australian Indigenous children were forcibly
taken from their communities
 The policy began with the Government removing children, especially those of mixed descent,
from their communities and placing them in Government institutions such as the Kahlin
Compound and The Bungalow in the NT
 The justification for these removals was that Indigenous people of mixed descent needed to be
assimilated to prevent them from outnumbering white settlers
 Laws such as the Northern Territory Aboriginals Act (1906) provided judicial backing for these
actions, by naming a white ‘Chief Protector’ as the guardian of every Indigenous child up to
the age of 18
• Chief Protectors such as Dr Cecil Cook forced Indigenous children to remain in
dire Government compounds and homes rather than allowing them to move to
church-missionaries
▪ This was so that the state’s vision of biological assimilation could be
upheld and was harmful because church-run missionaries were
comparatively better at offering education and protection for Indigenous
children
 Government institutions subjected Indigenous children to hard labour, yet paid minimal wages and
exposed them to cold and overcrowded living conditions
• Victims of these programs have also documented being subjected to psychological,
physical and sexual abuse, and feeling a sense of shame about their Indigenous
heritage
• The programs also disrupted Indigenous oral culture, leading to the loss of
significant cultural knowledge
 Following the ‘New Deal’ policy of 1939, the emphasis of these assimilation programs shifted from
biological assimilation to educational assimilation
 Through the 1960s, Indigenous children began to be placed into foster-care homes rather than
Government institutions or church-run missionaries
 With the Community Welfare Act of 1983, the preferred placement for Indigenous children in need
must be an Indigenous family
 In 1997, the Bringing Them Home report recommended that victims of the Stolen Generation be
given financial reparations
• Victoria is the only state which has not instituted some sort of a compensation
scheme for victims
• Bill Shorten has promised to give surviving victims $75,000 in financial
reparations as part of a $10 million National Healing Fund
• His promise was released on the 10-year anniversary of Kevin Rudd’s famous sorry
speech, delivered to Parliament in 2008
Referenda

 In 1967, over 90% of Australians (and over 80% of constituents in each state) voted in favour of
amending two sections of the constitution
• The first change allowed the Federal Government to make laws pertaining to Indigenous
Australians, an action which had not been allowed before then

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 ▪ However, it was only after the creation of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy and
the election of Gough Whitlam (both in 1972) that an impetus to institute
changes from the top-down came into effect
▪ Since then, this power has been positively used for actions such as outlawing
segregation and racial discrimination policies (Whitlam, 1970s) and granting
increased land rights to Indigenous Australians (Fraser, 1980s + Keating,
1990s)
▪ But this power has also been used to justify actions such as the NT intervention
under John Howard in 2007
 This is because, in response to the Hindmarsh Island bridge controversy in the 1990s, the High
Court ruled that the constitutional amendment of 1967 enables the Federal Government to act both
for the benefit and detriment of Indigenous Australians
• The second change brought about by the referendum was including Indigenous Australians in
population counts
▪ It could be argued that this helps to efficiently allocate resources which are
needed by Indigenous Australians, but, contrary to popular belief, it was not
the 1967 referendum which granted Indigenous Australians the right to vote
o Before then, the right to vote varied across state to state and in
states like WA often depended upon being willing to give up
Indigeneity
o Even now, however, fewer than 50% of Indigenous Australians
are enrolled to vote, and those who do vote are three times
more likely than other voters to vote informally
 In 2010, an expert panel proposed a referendum which would bring about a vote on constitutional
changes designed to, among other things:
1) Limit the Federal Government’s power to actions which are beneficial for Indigenous
Australians
2) Establish the right to discriminate in favour of Indigenous Australians
3) Acknowledge Indigenous languages as part of Australia’s national heritage
o The Government has not yet reached a consensus with Indigenous leaders as to how a
constitutional change can be construed in a way which is both palatable for the public
and meaningful for Indigenous people and communities
o The Uluru Statement from the Heart, published in 2017, outlined a vision for ‘a First
Nations Voice [to be] enshrined in the Constitution’ and for a commission promoting
truth-telling and reconciliation to be established
o However, both major parties largely rejected these proposals, with Scott
Morrison claiming that it would constitute ‘a third chamber’ in Parliament

1992 – Mabo decision

2007 – NT intervention

Existing Problems

Access to Opportunities and Services

 Indigenous Australians are more than seven times as likely as non-Indigenous Australians to
live in social housing and three times more likely to live in overcrowded dwellings
 Beyond Blue surveys found that 1 in 10 employers actively agreed that they would not hire an
Indigenous Australian for a job
 Only 14% of Indigenous Australians have a post-school qualification
 In comparison, 85% of Maori people have a post-school qualification

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Criminal Justice

 The rate of Indigenous over-representation in prison is 10 times greater than the rate for African-
Americans in the USA

Geography

 Indigenous Australians in remote and very remote areas are statistically more disenfranchised than
Indigenous Australians in urban areas
• 1.4 times more likely to be unemployed
• 2.5 times as likely to live in social housing
 But, those in remote and very remote areas are also more likely to report a high engagement with
Indigenous culture
• 55% of Indigenous Australians in remote/very remote areas speak an Indigenous
language compared to 8% in non-remote areas
• 79% identify with a clan, tribe or language group compared to 58% of non-remote
based Indigenous Australians

Solutions to Combat these Problems

 Quotas

• Seven seats in the New Zealand Parliament are exclusively reserved for Maori voters
• Self-autonomy

 Case Study: In November 2015, the Wampis people in Peru were granted a very significant degree
of self-autonomy
• Amongst other benefits, this has enables them to prevent corporations from
extracting natural resources like oil and gold and committing large scale
deforestation
• Though the Wampis people have power over how their resources are used, they
still, on the whole, consider themselves Peruvian
• This could be a precedent to follow when modelling a self-autonomy movement
for Indigenous Australians

Feminism, LGBT and Gender

Feminist/Gender Motions

• THW subsidise the production and distribution of feminist pornography.

• THBT the creation of feminist icons and their cults of personality are good for the feminist
movement.

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 • THBT the feminist movement should actively promote norms of stable monogamous
relationships.
• This House believes that feminist movement should oppose military interventions that claim to
further women's rights
• This House believes that the world would be a better place if women from privileged
backgrounds turned down any benefits arising from affirmative action programs.
• This house regrets the rise of choice feminism
• THBT the feminist movement should campaign to deconstruct masculinity rather than mobilize
masculinity to serve feminist goals
• TH regrets campaigns by feminists to shut down female empowerment events exclusively for
cis women, like Michfest.
• THBT western social justice groups (feminist advocacy groups, LGBT advocacy groups)
should have a local agenda, as opposed to a global agenda.
• THBT the feminist movement should campaign for the equal sexualization of men in the media
as opposed to campaigning against the sexualization of women.

Common Feminist Clashes and Arguments

1. Liberal Feminism vs. Radical Feminism (esp. in regret/norm debates)

2. The Overton Window (esp. regarding RadFem)
3. Natural Growth vs. Affirmative Action
4. Purity of Message vs. Volume
5. Feminist Leaders (Local vs. Global, Man vs. Woman, Celebrity vs. “Normal”)

Brief History of Feminism

First Wave Feminism (19th to Early 20th Century)

Goals: Emancipation of women and advocacy for their social and economic rights.
The suffragists led the fight for the right to vote (for landed, white women) at
the end of the 19th century. The suffragettes, however, joined soon thereafter
and were more “militant” or “radical” by 20th century standards, also fighting
for the right to vote. Other first wave feminists fought for the right to education
and sex-positive movements advocated to better access to contraception and
marital rights. Women were confined to their households and didn’t retain any
control there as well. Unmarried women were seen as the property of their
fathers, and married women the property of their husbands. They didn’t have
the ability to file for divorce or be granted custody of their children. First-wave
feminists fought for rights that men were being given for qualities that women
already had, they were cautious not too ask for “too much”, the movement was
very much about equality, not as much “rising up” or seeking reparations for
past injustice.

Leaders: Mary Wollstonecraft – Wrote a letter heavily criticizing the Declaration of

Rights of Man and the Citizen, “The Vindication of the Rights of Women”
bestowing women with fewer rights than men. She summarises most of first
wave feminism saying that “I do not wish them [women] to have power over
men; but over themselves.” About asserting equality less than dominance or
ascension. Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

John Stuart Mill: Wrote “On the Subjugation of Women” which argued that “the sheer fact of
birth” should not dictate the rights of an individual, this was important as he
was already a very well respected philosopher, discussed the ways in which
marriage was akin to slavery for women in England, campaigning for their

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 legal and social rights. JSM in particular targeted the courts for their relaxed
approaches to domestic violence and handling of intra-marital rape.

E. Cady Stanton: Originally an abolitionist, then became a feminist as well, one of very new
first-wave feminists to fight for the rights of black women. Elizabeth Cady
Stanton held the famous Seneca Falls Convention in 1848. At this meeting, the
attendees drew up its “Declaration of Sentiments” and took the lead in
proposing that women be granted the right to vote.

Emmeline Pankhurst: At a time when the suffragists were very gentile, and embracing of their
femininity and not wanting to shock anyone or “bring down the masculine
order”, Pankhurst injected the waning suffragist movement with the sense of
urgency and energy it needed to survive through the turn of the century.
Suffragists believed in peaceful, constitutional campaign methods. In the
early 20th century, after the suffragists failed to make significant progress, a
new generation of activists emerged. They became known as the suffragettes,
and they were willing to take direct, militant action for the cause. Pankhurst
set up the Women’s Social and Political Union (suffragettes), Pankhurst went
to prison for interrupting a political campaign and yelling “what about
women?” When she was released, thousands of women rallied behind, she
became a feminist icon. They were met with aggressive police, punched the
marchers, twisted arms, and pulled on women's breasts; they smashed windows
of shops on Oxford street, ruined cricket pitches and destroyed property (but
were very careful not to hurt people). Women were arrested for their crimes
but went to jail and conducted hunger strikes until women achieved political
reform (guards raped and force-fed them).

Achievements: Achieved the right to vote (1918-1920), divorce and custody rights, first female
MP (Nancy Astor) and contributed to the abolition of slavery.

Criticism (1) Failed to include black women or advocate for universal suffrage.

Criticism (2) Relied on a male dominated perspective and was insufficiently intersectional.

Second Wave Feminism (1960s to 1973): Further equal pay rights

Third Wave Feminism (1980s to 2010s): Pay Gap, destruction of gender binary

Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminism (1990s to 2010s): Germaine Greer, Janice Raymond, Mary Daly.
 TERFs have a number of hurtful euphemisms for transgender people. For a while, they used
"MTT" and "FTT" (Male/Female to Trans) as substitutes for "MTF" and "FTM" respectively.
They have referred to trans women as "SCAMs" (surgically and chemically altered males) and
compared them to Buffalo Bill from The Silence of the Lambs.
 Nowadays, TERFs use "TIM" and "TIF" (Trans-identified male/female. They claim to prefer
the terms because they emphasize that being trans isn't real; some also like them because they
sound like nicknames for Timothy and Tiffany.
 On the surface, sentences like "Men shouldn't be in women-only spaces" and "Men shouldn't
appropriate lesbianism" sound progressive and reasonable, but TERFs use "men" as a dog-
whistle for trans women. When TERFs are upset at a trans women, they may accuse her of
"hating women," as if TERFs speak for every cis woman in the observable universe. In short,
TERFs tend to view trans women as invasive men and use feminism as an excuse to be
transphobic. They even call trans activists "TRAs," a subtle comparison to MRAs.

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Organs of Sexism

 Patriarchy
 Capitalism
 Governments and Legislature
 Division of Labour
 Religion

Wage Gap

• The “Wage Gap”, often attributed to being between a 15% and 25% difference in the salaries
of men and women, is a controversial issue – the following infographic from The Economist
highlights the paradox of the “Gender Pay Gap” – that the actual pay gap reduces from the
hyper-publicized 28% to a less problematic (but still unfortunately existing) 0.8% in the UK.
• IMPORTANT – Just because the wage gap can be mitigated, BUT that does not mean that the
earnings gap is not a serious issue, it’s still 28% as a result of patriarchy and pressures on
women.

• Unfortunately, much of the “Wage Gap” debate focuses on the figures at the top for two
reasons;

(1) By shifting the focus of the wage gap debate to the bigger,
more shocking figures at the top of the infographic, we allow
people to completely disregard the entire debate about the pay
gap by dismissing it as either untrue, or misleading for the fact
that it does not take into consideration the other metrics shown
above.

(2) This means that debates and discussions about the gender pay
gap usually stop at the number itself, rather than a detailed
discussion about why it is that societal pressures mean that
women either make or are pushed into making choices that
end up being responsible for a net disparity of near to 30%.

• Most census data only consider those men and women who actually worked, full-time, in one
given year. But women are generally less likely to work full-time consistently throughout their

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 careers. They scale back hours, or take time out of the labour force entirely, to raise children or
to serve as caretakers for family members.
• Women grow up knowing that one day they will have to make a choice between family and
career, while men do not. This fuels one proposed solution (which is mainly implemented in the
Nordic States and Germany) in which men are encouraged to take state-paid (or in extreme
propositions, mandated) paternal leave to set men and women on more equal footing in society.
• In Sweden, new families are entitled to 16 months of paid leave, and each parent is mandated
to take at least 3 of those months, leaving the other 10 to split between them.
• It may not be that effective though, in 2012, men took only 24% of parental leave. Since
Swedish men still earn more on average than women and only 40% of Swedish women work
full-time compared with 75% of men, policy is meant to encourage men to stay home longer
and potentially allow women to work more.

Framing Feminism and Feminist Leaders

Framing the Feminist Movement’s Success?

• The following can be good ways to either paint the movement as a success or a peripheral
failure, either of which can be super important in framing, here are 3 options for a framing
intro;

Framing (I): The success of a minority movement, that is to say the reversal of 500
years of marginalization, exclusion, and victimization, will never be
measured at the top. It ought to be measured instead by averages. That
is to say, that in a world where we had a black president, more black
men get locked up now proportionally than they have before. In a
world in which we have the most discussion of female sexuality in
popular literature and in popular culture and music, the wage gap
between the two sexes has been stagnating and refusing to move.
Framing (II): Hawksbee style: Feminism is peripheral, it has little influence over
many issues outside the narrow scope of its focus, it is beholden to its
public support for its legitimacy and relevance.
Framing (III): Flip framing (I): The feminist movement has been a huge success, we
have more discussion than ever, more female CEOs than ever, more
maternity/paternity leave reforms than ever, more movements for
women in STEM than ever before etc.

Are Feminist Icons and Cults of Personality Good for the Feminist Movement?

• These kinds of debates usually come down to “quality” vs “quantity” or “how good is the
message” vs “how accessible and prolific is the message from a celebrity not a normal person”.
• I need to stop fucking around at first-speaker, be pre-emptive, show why (on the neg) you don’t
have to buy into this trade off (i.e. why you get quantity and quality) and why the comparative
the affirmative absolutely has to defend is one where they only get quantity, a few common-
sense reasons why ACCESS to the movement is restricted when it’s in the hands of icons:

(1) There are very high barriers of entry when it comes to the kind of
feminism in pop culture that they’re talking about. You require a
certain social capital, belonging to a western world, speaking
English, you need to be able to pay for things like concert tickets
or own books and CDs and those kinds of things in a way that
going to an occupy Wall Street movement for instance, which
requires no funding does not. There are barriers of entry that exist

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 by geography, by cost of association that do not exist when the
feminist movement is more grass-roots.
(2) You alienate people because you are not sufficiently
intersectional. That’s to say when Patricia Arket gave her Golden
Globe acceptance speech and said, “now the blacks have wage
equality so it’s time that women do too” that puts off African
American people from engaging with that kind of movement. The
people who are likely to ally with you are now disposed to stand
against you.
(3) You oppose the heterogeneous existence of ideas. Feminism
internally is incredibly diverse and when you have one particular
conception of feminism (i.e. that of Taylor Swift or Beyoncé),
people who disagree with you are going to be put off. So, when it
comes to the quantity of access, how much movement that we get,
we always favour movements like Occupy Wall Street, the
Suffragette movement, which literally, had movements in every
single country in the world, that is to say people fighting for
suffragettes. This is because structurally, there don’t exist the
same barriers, that means you get better access without these
icons.

• After establishing that these leaders are inherently exclusionary, you can use some fancy
rhetoric to say stuff like “The intrinsic feature of iconography is individualism. And
individualism itself is patriarchy and an extension of the very worst things that keep women
down.”
• But what if the affirmative base their case on figures like Mallala and Rosa Parks rather than
Taylor Swift and Beyoncé? Two step response;

Step 1: Mitigate Show that Rosa/Mallala have less clout, are rarer and also
pigeonhole the feminist movement to being linked to things
that are completely arbitrary from women’s rights (i.e. racial
debates or religion) which lock people out (like I established
above.)

Step 2: We Still Win (Even If) Why do we still win? Because it is intrinsic in the nature of
iconography that it is individual, that it is hierarchical, and that
it is top down. It is premised on the success of individuals.
That’s problematic for (2) distinct reasons;

(1) It defines feminist success in the language of

individualism. That’s to say that success is to have money,
success is to have like an attractive husband, it’s to have
it all, it’s to be able to lean in. That’s pernicious because;

i) The first, is that the problems that women

face i.e. the problems that feminists ought
to be combating, are social problems
(rape culture, the perceptions that suggest
women are incompetent and deserve
lower wages). There is a problem in the
status quo, when many of the people who
bop along to Taylor Swift, don’t
understand why we need to equalize
maternity and paternity leave. Support
for that particular policy is going down

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 among feminists, and the reason for that
is they fail to see the social nature of the
problems that women have when these
icons paint them in a certain light.
ii) The second problem is that it emboldens
opposition against them. So, what’s the
number one thing that conservatives say
against feminists. That you only care
about yourselves and your
families. Rather than thinking about
society. We neutralize that line of attack
when we reframe feminism in terms of a
social movement in the same way as
Occupy Wall Street.

• It additionally frames feminism as perfection and paints women as flawless. The problem with
that is that it is harmful to individual well-being when the majority of instances can’t attain that
level of perfection either because they just don’t have singing talents or literary talents that
many of these people do.
• Also, when you have two opposing or complimentary voices, we tend to favour or lionise the
louder more popular one (i.e. when grass-roots feminist movements hold popular “slut-walks”
which loose popularity when Beyoncé comes out and says that she is okay with the word “slut”.

Affirmative Action

• Affirmative action is a flawed system, but it creates a fairer playing field for minorities and
helps foster a meritocracy. However, race-based affirmative action is perhaps too
homogenising, and many make the case for affirmative action policies that are more focused
on class than race, a policy which is less polarising and more equitable and successful in
achieving social mobility.
• Many Australians or Americans are of two minds on the issue of affirmative action in university
admissions.
• On the one hand, they recognise that the United States (and Australia) have an egregious history
of racial discrimination that needs to be addressed (towards African Americans and Aboriginals
respectively).
• They also believe that all students learn more, and society benefits, when universities bring
together people of diverse backgrounds.
• On the other hand, many are uncomfortable with the idea that the racial box an applicant checks
has a large impact on his or her chances of admission. They worry that racial preferences
stigmatise beneficiaries, breed resentment, and encourage everyone, including whites, to
identify by race. And many others, among them, former President Barack Obama, think it’s
unfair when a wealthy African American or Latino applicant receives a preference over a low-
income white or Asian student.
• Fortunately, an attractive third path is available: giving a leg up to economically disadvantaged
students of all races, a disproportionate share of whom are people of colour. Dr Martin Luther
King Jr. wrestled with the question of what steps should be taken to remedy America’s history
in his 1964 book, “Why We Can’t Wait”. His elegant solution: rather than arguing for or against
a Bill of Rights for the “Negro” (as he put it), he advocated A Bill of Rights for the
Disadvantaged of all races.
• A 2016 Gallup poll found that while 63% of Americans oppose colleges using race as a factor
in admissions, 61% favour consideration of family economic circumstances.
• The notion that the poor of all races have a special claim is a fundamental tenet of most of the
world's great religions. This is consistent with social science research which finds that today,

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 being economically disadvantaged in America poses seven times as large an obstacle to high
student achievement as does race.
• The use of income alone as a measure of socioeconomic status is not optimal because it fails
fully to reflect the ways in which structural racism can shape that status. Because of racial
discrimination in the housing market, for example, black people are much more likely to live
in neighbourhoods with concentrated poverty and have low levels of wealth than do white
people of the same income.
• One place to begin in admissions to university (and most jobs and institutions) is to start by
taking down structures that arbitrarily advantage wealthier people, such as increasing one’s
odds of acceptance if their parents are donors or went to a certain university.
• Affirmative action policies for people in very public positions are often very successful though,
after Condoleezza Rice was appointed as Secretary of State as a result of affirmative action
policies, 30,000 more African Americans applied for government positions – this was before
the election of Barack Obama.

THW Create Special Economic Zones in Cities Where all Economic Activities (Except the Purchase of
Goods and Services are Carried Out by Women)

(1) Force Opposing Government to defend the comparative of delayed reform, and in many
instances no reform for women’s economic rights. Show why they need to defend other
measures that are migratory at reducing the gender imbalance.
(2) “Reform in 20 years through a slow trajectory of change” vs. “we have an obligation to act
now.”
(3) This liberates women (from patriarchy, gives them economic and political autonomy)
(4) This is economically beneficial to the state.

Epic Framing (Bo Seo):
Make no mistake in this debate, we live in a segregated state.
Unlike apartheid South Africa, the majority of the world has
men and women living together, eating together, and walking
on the same sidewalks, but when the workday begins at 9 AM,
they go to different levels for different jobs, for different pay.
We say that the arc of justice is bending too slowly. Virginia
Woolf said that in order for women to prosper we need to give
them a room of their own. F* the room. We’ll give them cities.

LGBT + and Gender

Gender and LGBT

 LBGT Suicide rates dropped from 30% to 3% after the legalisation of Gay Marriage in USA
 Media Depictions
▪ Coming of Age (Love, Simon)
▪ Coming Out (Call Me By Your Name)
 Assimilationism
▪ The idea that say relationships are just straight relationships but with two
men/two women.
▪ Straight until proven gay
▪ Making fun of kids and saying “is she your girlfriend”
▪ Being in a hospital and having to pick a gender
 Liberationist
▪ Like LGBT equivalent of RadFem
▪ “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it”

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 ▪ Accept and embrace
 Queer Spaces
▪ Grindr/Mardi Gras/Bars/Plays/
▪ Only place you can be a majority in a world where you are constantly reminded
that you’re a minority
▪ Holding hands, propositioning, asking someone out without fear of rejection
▪ Permission mechanism of allies (using reclaimed terminology)
▪ Safety in numbers
▪ Freedom of expression which you can’t do in workplace or family
 Being Gay is Random
▪ This is good for the movement because you have Gay people spread across all
walks of life so rich people able to fund movement
o CEO of BP and HSBC Antonio Somones
o Apple CEO Tim Cook
o CEO of Gawker Media Martine Rothblatt
o CEO of Lloyds London Inga Beale
o CEO of Grinder Joel Simkhai
 Corporatisation and Commoditisation
▪ Arguments for Corporate Funding
o The money normalises the movement
o Perhaps the only way
o If there were no corporate influences on Mardi Gras or
Manchester Pride, they’re forced to ticket the events, which
makes it more expensive and locks people out.
o Pride Networks in companies, for example Barnes, for their
employees (LGBT recruitment event to push for quotas)
o Gets police on your side
▪ Arguments Against
o The rich people (from above) would still fund
o They don’t actually normalise anything because companies
only join in when there is minimal risk and maximal return
(I.e. when its already in the mainstream)
• Nobody joined in the 1969s when Martha P.
Johnson risked her life in the Stonewall Riots.
• No companies are jumping on trans
movements either, because too much of a risk
o What’s the point of having Allies marching? They’re already
allies and probably voted for SSM already.
o Allowing Lockhead Martin to have a float at Mardi Gras when
their guns are sued to kill Gay people legitimises them
(permission mechanism)
• Better example is ANZ making it hard for
Same Sex couples to be guarantors on each
other’s mortgages but having banners at
Mardi Gras.
o Queerbaiting takes from other queer actors, allows them to
control the movement and pink-wash themselves.
 People about to come out are the most important stakeholder
▪ Most likely to commit suicide
▪ No family (unlike being black, not hereditary)
 Examples of People
▪ Laverne Cox (Orange is the New Black)
▪ Chaz Bono (Artistic Advocate)
▪ Alexis Arquette

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 ▪ Wachowski (Sisters who wrote the Matrix)
▪ Tom Daley (Diver)

Caster Semenya Case and Sports Testosterone (From Brian Wong and Ben’s Article)

SUMMARY OF THE CENTRE OF ARBITRATION FOR SPORT (CAS) RULING

Any athlete looking to compete in the 400, 800, 1,500 and the mile at the elite level must comply
with the new testosterone limit. That already includes more athletes than just Semenya. Rio 800-
meter silver medallist Francine Niyonsaba, for example, has said publicly that she has high levels
of natural testosterone. And transgender women, who under previous policies only had to lower
their testosterone levels to 10 nmol/L, will also be impacted by the ruling; they'll have a higher
barrier to participation at the elite level.

The Caster Semenya case is more than merely an instance of a sporting dispute over the boundaries of
fairness and unfairness (or indeed, a question about what the value of competitive sports is if

i) Advantages do often result from natural/in-born biological features and

ii) The purpose of the game itself is to reward those who may well possess such 'advantages'
- whether they be artificially or biologically engineered. It does make one ponder as to why
we'd have sports at all if there exists an infinity of potential biological factors that could
entail advantage/disadvantage, the game itself rewards output excellence and not input
excellence (e.g. hard work or effort), and yet we'd simultaneously like to be
maximally/optimally fair. Clearly in practice sports involves a balance between fairness
and output excellence, and the notion of what constitutes fair/unfair becomes a subjective
line-drawing exercise.
Thus, the Semenya case is much more than merely a quibble over what is or isn't fair in sports. It's about
the sexed policing of a gender, an implicit assumption that testosterone is a product that solely males
are entitled to benefit from or utilise, as well as the view that when a woman possesses some 'biological
feature' that causes her to 'deviate' from the ideal type of a female body, she must be ostracised -
especially as a woman of colour.
 At the very least, just as there is scientific evidence in favour of there being a significant causal
relationship, there is also as much scientific evidence against the relationship. More jarring,
perhaps, is the fact that other 'advantaging' features are neither considered a reasonable part of
the scope of prohibition nor deemed problematic despite the sterner causal relations between
them and output excellence.
 More importantly, perhaps, are the policy implications of this ruling - this is a ruling that makes
life incredibly difficult for individuals with intersex characteristics, or for those who should not
be forced to subjugate their identities in order to pursue a career in sports.
This may mean that other competing athletes have a right to complain about lessened chances in
accessing success, but to the extent that we recognise that sports is not purely a luck egalitarian exercise
(that rewards the choices and actions of individuals who voluntarily opt into and make decisions that
lead to their disadvantage/advantage), it appears that we should weigh this consideration as less potent
than the various other internal or external concerns raised above.

Criminal Justice and War

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Principles of Just War

• It’s the 7 principles of just war are as follows;

(1) A just was can only be waged as a last resort and at the exhaustion of all non-
violent measures.
(2) A war is only just if it is waged by a legitimate authority, deemed by its society
and outsiders to be legitimate also.
(3) A just war can only be fought to redress a wrong suffered. For example, self-
defence against an armed attack is always considered to be a just cause
(although the justice of the cause is not sufficient--see point #4). Further, a just
war can only be fought with "right" intentions: the only permissible objective
of a just war is to redress the injury.
(4) A war can only be just if it is fought with a reasonable chance of success.
Deaths and injury incurred in a hopeless cause are not morally justifiable.
(5) The ultimate goal of a just war is to re-establish peace. More specifically, the
peace established after the war must be preferable to the peace that would have
prevailed if the war had not been fought.
(6) The violence used in the war must be proportional to the injury suffered. States
are prohibited from using force not necessary to attain the limited objective of
addressing the injury suffered.
(7) The weapons used in war must discriminate between combatants and non-
combatants. Civilians are never permissible targets of war, and every effort
must be taken to avoid killing civilians. The deaths of civilians are justified
only if they are unavoidable victims of a deliberate attack on a military target.

• There are some challenges to just war theory that suggest that because of the fact that the
decision to wage war is governed by realism and relative strength, not ethics.
• Most say that in the 21st century, with the advent of chemical weaponry, nuclear bombs, and
the exertion of other forms of power (economic through trade wars or diplomatic sanctions)
just war theory is outdated.
• In terms of terrorism – terrorists themselves certainly don’t satisfy criteria (2), they are
inherently disinterested in morality, so following any ethical theory of war handicaps those
whom terrorists attack – a different approach is necessary.

The Justice System and the “Rehabilitation vs Punishment” Debate

• Under the status quo, why do we actually punish people? Its attributed to trying to fulfil the
following criteria;

(3) Punishment and Retribution (of criminals)

(4) Protection (of society from further acts)
(5) Deterrence (of similar acts)
(6) Rehabilitation (of the criminal)

• However, the harder you punish a criminal, the harder it may be to rehabilitate them, the more
you isolate them from society, the more you brutalise or dehumanise them, the harder it is to
successfully introduce them into society.
• In his book “Crime and Punishment” Dostoyevsky calls prisons “Universities of Crime”
• The vast majority of crimes of acquisition can be attributed to failures of the state to provide
people with basic necessities (food, housing, money, education, healthcare), hence in the USA
we see the over-criminalisation of African-Americans, a nation where 88% of crimes are crimes
of acquisition anyway.

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 • One argument against the “state failed you so they have no right to punish, only to rehabilitate
you” is that presumably, the state has failed millions of poor or underprivileged
people/minorities in some capacity, but we don’t see them all raping or stealing – if you’re one
of those who did (whether failed by the state or not) you still made an active decision to commit
an act that 99.9% of people in your situation would not decide to commit.
• On the matter of police, aside from making arrests and deterring by presence, they also police
by consent – i.e. people are broadly happy to have police around because they trust them and
there is a mutually beneficial relationship between them.

Abolishing Short-Term Sentences

• Many short-term sentences are given for non-violent offences (theft, drugs, small petty crimes
etc.) many of these types of crimes are also very circumstantial (i.e. a wealthy and well-
educated teenage boy is unlikely to rob a petrol station whereas a disadvantaged minority is
more likely to offend out of financial necessity of at least in part, reasons they cannot control)
• For sentences less than 24 months, its commonly held that the impacts of being in prison, the
carry-on effects on employment opportunities, being surrounded by other criminals, being
unable to use this time productively, outweigh the retribution for these crimes.
• In a debate, be specific about why these exact crimes are different – and why that means that
these kinds of punishments are wrong for these offenders.
• Many of these crimes are committed by men aged 15-24, a crucial time when you should be in
school, university or trying to enter the workforce, and hence this might actually be the worst
possible time to intervene and put them in jail – preventing this development.
• Nothing has been proven to go further in reducing recidivism than education, particularly
college education. 97.5% of college graduates who leave prison never go back.
• Clemency, a broad term which can mean either a sentence reduction or a pardon, is a way to
correct wrongs in the criminal justice system. These could be errors in individual cases or
systemic injustices, such as excessively harsh sentencing doled out under previous laws. It’s
also a way to bring more compassion and efficiency into the justice system, by identifying
people who have demonstrated they are rehabilitated and for whom incarceration no longer
serves any purpose.

Do We “Owe” More to Victims or Future Victims?

(1) The prospect of the future harm matters more than reciprocity

(2) In many cases, the victim is another women/shopkeeper/same kind of person that they want to
compensate through reciprocity
 Unclear why we should prioritise mitigating a harm to someone who has already been
harmed, versus preventing a potential harm to someone who has not yet been harmed.

(3) The illusion of reciprocity is merely a means of mitigation of something bad, but we’d still
rather than that bad thing had not happened, harm to future victim is far better when the best
you can do for present victim is partially mitigate whereas the best you can do for the future
victim is prevent all together.
 Reciprocity is only a means of mitigating, does not even out the scale (example).

(4) Some of these criminals can’t consent to their crimes. Why do you assume that agency and free
will matters, to the extent that there is some doubt in the debate, we should prioritize the metric
that everyone agrees on – Harm.

DAV State Final 2019 (What a fucking meme that this is in the matter file)

This house supports hacking and release of documents as a legitimate form of protest.

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There are five arguments in this case:

(1) This privileges powerful technocrats at the expense of the vulnerable

(2) This form of protest is horrifically endangering of civilians
(3) This will increase government crackdowns on privacy
(4) Independent of these corollary harms, the hacking and release of this information as a form of
protest is actively harming in enabling hackers to fulfil their aims.
(5) Not only are they ineffective, but also, they damage effective avenues of protest.

Firstly, we reject that this is about empowering civilians against impenetrable actors, but rather
privileging powerful technocrats at the expense of the vulnerable for three reasons:

(1) Governments and big companies are the ones who are most able to sustain these attacks as they
have access to cutting-edge resources such as supercomputer-powered neural networks and
encryption, meaning two things:

(a) Citizens on the outside of an organisation like the NSA have no chance of being
able to hack into it. Edward Snowden himself said that “hacking the NSA is
essentially impossible; you have to be on the inside”

(b) In the unlikely event that you successfully hack an un-hackable encryption, it’s
exponentially harder to do again, as they patch up these holes and stunt hackers
momentum.

(2) For every one out of thousand hacks that are successful against big groups, there are far more
which destroy institutions that cannot afford to defend themselves. When hacker group
CyberVore hacked an anonymous journalism website in Russia who were speaking out against
Putin, releasing the names of journalists, over 50 people were arrested and some were allegedly
killed by the Kremlin. These are the cases which matter most, because:

(a) They constitute the vast majority of successful hacktivism because

they cannot defend themselves
(b) They are an easy target and do not require many resources to hack.
For example, progressive blogger Raif Badawi was a victim of a
politically motivated hack and was sentenced to 1,000 lashes and
prison in Saudi Arabia as a result of a leak.

(3) Favouring well-endowed institutions forces smaller social activists down one of two paths:

1. They vastly decrease their services out of fear of being hacked. Like when planned
parenthood was hacked by a pro-life activism group who released the names and
addresses of 12,000 women who had abortions in Alabama; as a result, the website
stopped selling abortion pills, denying women the only avenue they had and
causing them to be harassed at their homes.
2. What happened to a group of progressive writers in Poland speaking out against
the PSL; they withdraw from the online sphere completely because of fear of their
names or documents being released.

This is terrible because even if you successfully hack a billion-dollar oil company, they’ll still be drilling
oil the next day, but this can change whether or not woman have access to abortion pills, or people have
access to unrestricted journalism; where this debate matters most.

Secondly, even if this is about big institutions, this form of protest endangers civilians on a horrific
scale for three reasons:

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 (1) Most information is kept confidential so as to protect civilians on the ground. This looks like
Wikileaks in 2011 posting data that revealed information about the location of troops and
resources in Iraq, endangering troops.

(2) These hackers are not in a position to make sound decisions about what information is critical,
since they are not held responsible for endangering civilians, whereas companies are
accountable to users, and governments to treaties, intragovernmental inquires, and voters. Thus,
groups like Wikileaks tend to release extraneous documents that threaten the lives of thousands
of diplomats, soldiers and aid workers.

(3) These groups exist on the left, like Anonymous, and the alt-right like LuzRaft who hacked the
Swedish state, releasing confidential information about crime rates among immigrants, causing
hate crimes to increase 5-fold and 3 people to die. This is harmful, because the whim of a moral
judgment made by one person ought not arbitrarily endanger people. Just because Julian
Assange decides that he does not consider the war in Afghanistan to be moral doesn’t empower
him to release the names of 7 innocent Afghani interpreters, who were all killed in the 72hrs
following his publication.

Third argument, these hacks increase government crackdowns on privacy for three reasons:

(1) Governments benefit from increased control over individuals’ private information to censor
opponents or uphold an image of maintaining the stability. This policy of gives the government
an excuse to crackdown on individual privacy, since they can argue that if domestic hackers
can find information, so can spies, terrorists and others. This is exactly what happened when
opposition leader Alexi Navalni hacked Putin.

(2) The problem is that this crackdown is likely to be disproportionate because it plays into people’s
fears and a negativity bias in which we conceive of the worst possible scenario and justify the
government’s measures, hence why after 9/11, Americans chose the security side of the security
vs. privacy debate.

(3) Like Trump in 2016 or Britannica collecting Brexit information illegally; you diminish
individual agency online, even if the Government only uses this crackdown on privacy to
advance their own interests, this fosters a society in which individuals cannot fully express
themselves in online settings without fear of Government reprisal.

Fourthly, there are three characteristics of successful activism that hacktivism cannot achieve.

(1) They the have mobilized mass support since this is what makes the Government most
threatened; if a million kids are missing school or 5% of the population is protesting the
Vietnam War this affects both the image and popularity of the Government, compelling
them to make changes. This is untrue of hacktivism because they operate as small units
without seeking to mobilize the population.

(2) The agents of the protest tend to be sympathetic figures. Being able to see the faces of
protestors or hear their stories is what makes the public care about issues, elevating them
above-detached concerns. But, even when they have public involvement, hacktivists are
painted by the media (often controlled by Government) in the least sympathetic terms
because:

(a) They’re seen as nerds exposing the Government for the sake of it.

(b) The fact that they act anonymously enables the Government to
paint them in the worst possible light; anonymous perpetrators

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 look like cowardly hooligans, not heroes. This looks like the way that
Republicans and right-wing media label the Ukraine whistle-blower
as a hyper-partisan, without knowing who he is.

(3) They have the capacity to sustain their protests over time rather than fizzling after a one-
off. Even when leaders are imprisoned (e.g. Nelson Mandela) there are other individuals
who have the means and willingness to take over the protests. Conversely, even if
hacktivists have the support of the public and media, they struggle to sustain protests
because:

(a) Governments have more resources and power than hacktivists

meaning that they can shut down these groups – or force the leaders
of these groups to retreat into Ecuadorian embassies.

(b) At the point that one group is stunted, it is often very difficult for a
second hacktivist group to take over the mantle. Often, each group has
its own specialized apparatus, or is literally unable to communicate
by virtue of being so encrypted, and so you can’t just transfer the
resources from say Wikileaks to Anonymous.

Fifthly, not only are hacktivists in themselves ineffective (mitigating the arguments of side affirmative)
but in most cases they actively damage the more effective means of protest for three reasons:

(1) When there are multiple methods of protesting, those trying to preserve the status quo target
the least sympathetic form of protest and taint the entire movement with this image. Think,
about the way that animal rights protests fail because of extremists who commit crimes on
ranchers or the way that groups like Extinction Rebellion harm the broader climate
movement that employs less extreme methods. A similar process happens here – tech geeks
who sit on their phones trying to undermine the Government are presented as the face of
the protest movement, and this undermines other more effective forms of protest –
especially when THEY are the reason your troops died or your private information was
among that leaked.

(2) Media and public attention shifts from the issues that the protests are seeking to address to
the methods of the protestors themselves. Court cases with newspaper companies over the
release of the Pentagon Papers diverted attention from the movements’ aim of ending the
Vietnam War.

(3) Many hacktivists destroy chances of legal change or actual justice, as the illegal evidence
they retrieve is instantly made inadmissible in court. In the interim, people can delete these
files from there servers making it impossible to ever subpoena them legally after a cyber
attack: this is why it was impossible to prosecute Hillary Clinton’s actions in Benghazi
after her emails were released illegally and she had nothing to subpoena.

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 Culture
Cultural Appropriation vs Celebration

• The threat here is quite overt. Offence is inherently subjective; university bureaucrats should
not punish one student simply because her clothes hurt the feelings of another. Beyond the
threat of punishment lies the threat of social stigma—that students, fearful of being accused,
will censor themselves or feel themselves censored.
• Had the Met Gala opted for an Islamic theme (say, “Arabian Nights: Magic and Islam”),
accusations of appropriation would have surely followed. This year Jared Leto, an actor,
dressed as Jesus; had he dressed as Muhammad, even if in a plain and historically accurate
thobe and turban, he would provoke all manner of disgust and denunciation. So why does there
appear to be a double standard when it comes to “cultural appropriation”.
• That is because cultural appropriation is less about cultural disrespect or intolerance—for which
much clearer terminology already exists—than about reinforcing the oppressor-oppressed
binary through which social-justice advocates see the world. Because Christians and whites are
groups deemed to have power, all manner of borrowing or parody is intolerable. And the inverse
gets a free pass: nobody is upset when Asians wear European clothes, for instance.
• The remedy for the selective application of the “cultural appropriation” label is not its
expansion as this would ruin in all manner of innocuous social interactions, but its retirement.
The phrase stigmatises the beneficial cultural exchanges that happen in art, music, dance,
cooking and language. The very idea is self-defeating. To declare black culture off-limits to
non-blacks, for example, is to segregate it.
• The term also fundamentally misunderstands the process by which all cultures form and
progress: through creolisation and intermixing.

Marriage in Society

How Marriage is Changing Poorer Societies?

• In a global context, most changes are taking place in poor and middle-income countries. Child
marriage, once rife, is ebbing. So is cousin marriage, with its attendant risk of genetic defects,
though it is still fairly common in the Middle East and parts of Asia. Relations between
husbands and wives have become more equal (though not equal enough). As women earn more
and the stigma of divorce fades, more men are finding that they cannot treat their wives as
servants (or, worse, punchbags), because women can credibly threaten to walk away.
• In some regions change has been astoundingly quick. In India the share of women marrying by
the age of 18 has dropped from 47% to 27% in a single decade. “Love marriages” remain
disreputable in India and arranged marriages the norm. But, as in many traditional societies,
young people have more say. Some can veto the mates their families suggest; others choose
their own, subject to a parental veto. Across the world, popular culture is raising expectations
of what a good marriage is like, and dating websites are giving singletons vastly more options.

How Marriage is Changing Wealthier Societies?

• In the West marriage is in excellent shape, but only among the well-off. Elite couples delay
tying the knot to allow time to get established in a career, but they still tie it before having
children. Working-class people, by contrast, are dramatically less likely to put a ring before a
cradle than in previous generations.

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 • Among the college-educated in America, only 12% of births are to unmarried mothers; among
those who dropped out of high school, the rate is 70%, up from 43% in the early 1980s. Similar
trends can be seen across the wealthy world: the average out-of-wedlock birth rate for OECD
countries is 40%.
• Affluent parents intensively nurture their children for success; the offspring of less fortunate
homes fall far behind before they ever set foot in a school. The marriage gap makes rich
countries more unequal, and retards social mobility.
• In Japan, highly educated women were less likely to marry than others. Now they are more
likely to (and less likely to divorce).
• In rich countries, the institution of marriage increasingly confers advantages on people who
already have many. Affluent, highly educated men and women marry late and after careful
consideration. Their marriages are highly successful—on average, almost certainly the happiest
and most fulfilling that the world has ever seen. Among this privileged group, divorce is
increasingly rare. The marrying classes of the West are building unions as resilient as the dutiful
ones found in poorer countries.

Movies and Minority Roles

 Big Names Attract More Audiences. It's more about the risk-premium of making big-budget
films that many people watch, the fixed costs are so high so how much risk a movie studio can
take is quite low

(a) Combine this with streaming and;

(b) Free publicity

i. So many movies die because of poor marketing and big actors/actresses are
tried and tested.

ii. You also know its low risk for a diva moment on set which can derail
production and fuck your sequel which franchising is a big part of
profitability.
 Pipeline Incentives

(a) The selection pool of minorities is low

i. Acting is often fed-in by pipelines from acting schools or programs (Julliard

for drama, second city or SNL for comedy)

ii. Minorities can't take on the high-risk of acting (no immigrant parent is
allowing their child to pursue an acting degree with its low-transferable skills
+ lack of chance for employment)

(b) The selectors are often biased

i. Most minority films are made by minority producers/directors

1. E.g. Mo'nique Angela Hicks, Crazy Rich Asians Kevin Kwan/John
Chu
ii. White studios see minorities as high risk
1. Small Segment of the Population
2. Hard International Appeal
a. E.g. China only allows ten films in and doesn't like black people
(c) Resume stacking

i. Most actors show their acting chops through being extras etc.

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 1. This is regulated wage wise by the Screen Actors Guild (actors union)
2. You need white extras more often than minority extras

 Lobbying Power and Decision-Making

(a) Actors decide portrayal and small things about stories

i. E.g. Amandla Stenberg amplified darker skin minorities for Black Panther
ii. Their depiction gets to the truer essence of being that minority because actors
get executive last say in how a line is said etc.

(b) Actors negotiate for more minorities in technical roles e.g. Camera people etc.

i. Inclusion riders are clauses in contracts to negotiate quotas for more minorities
backstage
 Small Films

(a) Breakout films need white people

i. Breakout films utilize existing social standards of what is seen as beautiful

(Timothee Chalamet) and who is seen as a good actor/empathetic (Gary
Oldman)
1. These movies need great reviews and to enter the white media sphere
of twitter and bougie magazines to get cultural clout as legitimate
2. Furthermore, Oscar-bait which is voted on by an old white male
academy is further amplified by its voting pattern and voting system
(rank choice Vox has a good video about this)
(b) Weighing

i. You can murder with this argument by weighing subversive depictions over
subversive casting
ii. This transcends the strategy of weighing wide-spread distribution and
respectability
1. Small films if forced into only casting minorities waste their finite
artistic political capital against the studio which they could use to get
more editorial freedom over depiction
2. Furthermore, financial cost of spreading a wide web to find a trans
actor when a cis actress is at hand means you're trading off with
marketing, wages, distribution etc.
a. E.g. Hillary Swank in Boys Don't Cry (Oscar winner about FTM
trans boy)

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 Mechanisms I Keep Forgetting To Use

Why can’t you consent to things that change you? (Ashish Malaysia WUDC 2015 R7)

Things like drugs or moral enhancement pills:

i. You can’t contest, because even if you have a choice at the point of making the first
decision, it damages your ability to make every legitimate choice in the future after that
point.
ii. The reason this is different from, for example, exercising which changes the chemical
composition of your cells, is that when you decide to drink alcohol for example, you make
that decision based on a pre-existing moral metric that is constant throughout your life.
Once you take this, that metric changes, so the entire way in which you chose to make that
decision changes.
iii. The moral analogy is therefore, “do we value the decisions of someone who is drunk”, no
because their free will has been subjugated by a chemical in their mind.
iv. Usually, there are biological or consequential indicators of overdoses, but moral harms
cannot be assessed by objective ontological measurements, you need a metric – but when
that metric its impossible to ever think that your actions are bad, because you changed the
metric to redefine what is good!
v. You never get any meaningful moral examination, for example, lots of utilitarians stop
becoming utilitarians when they think that giving all their money away is an unreasonable
burden. You can never get meaningful re-examination of life experiences if you’re only
ever set a on path of taking these drugs forever.
vi. Weighing: We sacrifice the free will of someone who takes a drug for the free will of
someone’s free will at all later points in time.

Why the Government is Inefficient vs. Corporations (Stuart Australs 2018)

Companies have an incentive to compete with each other for who can best fulfil government contracts

Climate Change Democracy Trade-offs and Instrumentalising Future Generations (HWS GF 2014)

Why Rehabilitation > Retribution (MDG)

Why Drug Development Requires Lots of $$$ (MDG)

Rights Trade-offs (Shengwu)

Sunk Cost Fallacy and Path Dependency

Articulating Internalisation (Media, Advertising etc.)

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Risk Appraisal and Loss Aversion Bias

(a) Loss Aversion Bias

(b) Risk Aversion Bias
(c) Moral Hazard Bias
(d) The “I’m Special” Bias

Experience Biases

(e) Experience Bias

(f) Egoism Bias
(g) Moral Lisensing
(h) Projection bias
(i) Confirmation Bias
(j) Dunning Krueger Effect
(k) Omission Bias
(l) Status Quo Bias
(m) Nostalgia Bias

Emotional Biases

(a) Emotion Bias

(b) Identifiable Victim Bias

Comprehension Biases

(a) Comprehension Bias

(b) Bandwagon/groupthink Bias

Temporal Proximity Biases

(a) Availability Bias (Empathy for those today crouds out abstact entitives ike
future generations)
(b) Likelihood Bias

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