A UBI would be beneficial to said country
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
After 1 vote and with 3 points ahead, the winner is...
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 3
- Time for argument
- Three days
- Max argument characters
- 7,500
- Voting period
- One week
- Point system
- Multiple criterions
- Voting system
- Open
To keep things relative, let's use America as an example, with a $1000 payout to every adult (like Yang's plan).
We should mainly focus on how a UBI would impact the country in various factors, like the economic, political, and social sectors.
Talking about the realism of implementing a UBI is off-topic, unless specified otherwise.
I'm actually looking forward to this debate. Good luck!
- More money is being used and circulated
- 12% growth in the economy by 2025
- More economic activity means than more jobs will be born [2]
- An estimated 4.7 million jobs are to be created [3]
- Increased bargaining power for workers
- "More pay more say" - Thought provoking quote from Squid
- A UBI almost guarantees everyone will be above the poverty line
- Families can have more support (a topic for round two)
I sadly only have 1 argument from each side, but I'll do what I can.
Both sides points---
Pro proposes that UBI will have amazing results economically. He states that giving consumers more money will help businesses and the economy as a result. He also states that America's poor need this money to get by, while also proposing that American jobs are at risk and this will presumably help the American workers who are no longer employed. The last key point brought up is UBI's success in Alaska.
Con replies to Pro's economic points by stating the fiscal irresponsibility of implementing UBI. Con proved that the US would need about 1.9 trillion dollars in tax revenue to pay for UBI. He comes to the conclusion that an implementation of UBI would be practically impossible without severe repercussions. Con then attempts to debunk the statement that giving money to consumers will help the consumer, the bushiness, and the economy. He says that as a result of inflation the consumer will merely have to deal with higher prices. Another point Con proposes is that people can abuse the system and not work. This would presumably have repercussions on the economy that Con stated relied on human labour as of now. Con then addresses Pro's point on Alaska. Con states that implementing something in a sparse state isn't the same as implementing nationwide.
My take---
Alaska----Slight win for Pro
Pro stated that UBI worked in Alaska, Con stated that Pro's own source conceded that implementing UBI nationwide would bring on far greater challenges. As a result, this point carries very little weight in favour of Pro.
Economy/Inflation/jobs/Exploitability----Con
Pro proposed that giving money to consumers will help businesses, lower poverty, and much more.
Con was able to prove that inflation would mitigate the impact UBI would have on poverty, Pro never responds. The poverty point has lost a lot of weight.
UBI will, when accounting for potential savings cost 1.9 trillion dollars. This goes untouched.
UBI is highly exploitable, he gave the example of individuals pooling their,oney together to avoid work, this goes untouched by Pro.
Pro stated that UBI would help workers who may lose their job, which was established to be fairly probable. Con’s exploitation point mitigates this seeing how labour may be lost to strategic individuals, but it appears that UBI could be a useful safety net for those who opt to continue working and lose their jobs.
At the end of the day for this point I saw that UBI would have a very small impact on poverty and may be a decent social safety net. But the point still stands that some labour will be lost, and UBI is a shaky system being easily exploited. This on top of the 1.9 trillion dollar tax burden which would presumably be deficit spending seeing how Pro never stated how he was to pay for this massive expense.
There are too many points that sway against UBI economically, Con established how shaky the system was, and how it would be a huge tax burden. Pro was only really able to prove that it could help workers who lose their jobs, but the inflation point mitigates this too much as I’m not convinced that it would greatly improve their purchasing power(because of Con’s inflation point). So I have a dominant victory for Con economically. The Alaska point was debunked sufficiently, Pro’s own source was turned on him to prove that UBI working in Alaska≠UBI working nationwide. After weighing their arguments, Con wins.
Implying pre-fiat cant generate benefits and harms. If you look at benefits and harms in a strictly utilitarian sense then yes, since util is necessarily post fiat. But there are definitely good ways of generating pre-fiat offense
Yeah, the example I've given fails to generate offense, hence why I dismiss it as rubbish when I see it. Pure Pre-Fiat might be another name for it, to signify the lack of anything else (such as benefits and harms, which arguments should focus on).
That's not really mean what I mean by internal premise, at least not in the way you're articulating it. Take my capitalism example with UBIs. If you're advocating for UBIs, it rests on the presumption that as a society we want more cap. If cap is actually a bad thing, why would we want something that brings more cap? In short, I may not have been clear in my explanation. The internal premise you're targeting needs to be one that is a negative premise to hold i.e. cap is good when you argue that it's really bad. That's how kritiks generate offense.
The internal premise being challenged is that it could happen at all.
I wouldn't call it a standard rebuttal, because it basically ignores all the contentions.
Your argument wouldn't be a kritik, though. No internal premises are being challenged, and no alternative is presented. It'd be a standard rebuttal.
As for the example, outside of it just being a bad argument, I'm not sure there's a technical name for it.
Solvency Kritik would be a decent name for it, but I'm thinking of going with something about depression.
I do believe in legit attacks on arguments for solvency issues, but some are unwarranted. Like many arguments, there's a fine line to walk.
>>His argument doesn't lead to the world he wants to make, so it's pointless to go down that path. Sound right?
Very similar, but not quite. More like /That world will never happen anyway, so we shouldn't strive for it./ Easy examples: Women will never have the right to vote anyway, so this court shouldn't even listen to the arguments in favor of it.
I mean, it's certainly doable to run kritiks that have post-fiat impacts. I don't personally like them because they're boring, but they work.
As for your example, it seems more like an indict to the argument's solvency rather than a kriticism. His argument doesn't lead to the world he wants to make, so it's pointless to go down that path. Sound right?
My understanding of the terms is most are post-fiat, focusing on perceived damages from letting people get away with whatever. /What kind of world would we live in, if we allowed people to promote capitalism?/
When I refer to a pre-fiat kritik, I used an example that that world will never come about anyway, so we shouldn't even try. Granted, I'm open to better name suggestions.
Not sure what pre-fiat in this instance is supposed to mean since pretty much every k operates pre-fiat
Not quite what a pre-fiat kritik is. Kritiks in general are arguments that question certain premises and assumptions made in either your opponent's case or the resolution in general. For example, a kritikal argument I could make as Con would be to say that capitalism is #theworstthingever, and thus we should reject UBIs as an instance of promoting cap.
(Just now I did make passing mention of our country's high corporate tax rate, simply because there would've been a "hole" in the flow of the argument summary otherwise. Overall it was a fairly minor addition and I didn't link to a source so it was pretty much just me either making an opinionated assertion or pointing out something that's already general knowledge. In addition, adding that did not provide evidence to my earlier claim that a high/higher tax rate is bad for the economy, opting instead to merely say that there exists a high tax rate.)
Gotcha. Thanks!
Ah, shoot. Completely forgot about this.
Please don't forfeit, but try to like summarize your speech with no new information to make it fair.
Thanks for considering.
And really sorry!
I missed your previous question. A pre-fiat kritik is to basically side step the arguments by saying they would never happen. Like I say we should fix that bridge because of x y and z, and you answer with it'll never get fixed so all talk about how much better it would be if fixed is irrelevant.
If you both consent, my suggestion is to redo this debate with copy/pasted arguments from the current one (then have this one deleted). You could of course fix typos, and change the remaining number of rounds (could even make it a single round) and/or time to post arguments if you're inclined.
How should I proceed? Should I forfeit this round to make it fair?
I actually heard an anecdote from my PoliSci professor once claiming that in Mexico, at the beginning of each month people's food stamps (or whatever equivalent to such they get over there) come in, and on that same day the prices on corn tortillas, a dietary staple, go through the roof, because all the stores know they can get away with doing it since their customers just got a big fat check from the government.
Unfortunately I couldn't find anything on this online.
*There would be no stigma attached
Aaaand that was all I had room to post.
I'm so sorry. I literally forgot about the debate over the course of Thanksgiving weekend. I'll be sure to post an argument soon.
"pre-flat kritik"
What's that?
"Talking about the realism of implementing a UBI is off-topic"
That would be a pre-fiat Kritik, which are indeed off topic to these hypotheticals.
Yup, exactly!
Oh, btw expect my argument to be sometime around tmr afternoon...
While you did establish the rough parameters of this debate, some clarification is in order.
"Talking about the realism of implementing UBI" means, say, arguing that Congress would never pass UBI into effect. We'll be assuming here that it could be passed and implemented.
Obviously I will be debating you on whether UBI would have good or bad effects. Otherwise there'd be no point.
@DynamicSquid I'm about to accept this debate. If someone else has already called dibs, then I suppose you can debate them too. It wouldn't be plagiarism for you to use the same opening arguments both times.
I haven't debated in a while and forcing myself to exercise that intellectual muscle just a tad will be good for me.
If you can extend argument times to 1 week I will take this.
Okay thanks. Ill PM you with regards to this
By structure do you mean debate format?
Well, I'm not really a big fan of debate structure, so you can use whatever you wish.
What would the structure be?
Hmm… This might be interesting. I'm going to try to get a better understanding of the topic and maybe begin to formulate a case - after which I might accept.