TOURNAMENT R(2): Speedrace vs MisterChris

“By combining the recent country survey data of household consumption with latest figures on private consumption growth, Brookings Institution researchers Laurence Chandy and Geoffrey Gertz generated poverty estimates to the present day. They conclude that the world –even stubborn Sub-Saharan Africa–is in the midst of rapid poverty reduction; they credit economic growth and widespread development brought by globalization. “ [1]
Their study found that “between 2005 and 2010, the total number of poor people around the world fell by nearly half a billion, from over 1.3 billion in 2005 to under 900 million in 2010. Poverty reduction of this magnitude is unparalleled in history: never before have so many people been lifted out of poverty over such a brief period of time.” [2]

“The global poverty rate, which stood at 25 percent in 2005, is ticking downwards at one to two percentage points a year, lifting around 70 million people –the population of Turkey or Thailand –out of destitution annually.“ [1]

“The poor countries that display the greatest success today are those that are engaging with the global economy, allowing market prices to balance supply and demand and to allocate scarce resources, and pursuing sensible and strategic economic policies to spur investment, trade and job creation. It’s this potent combination that sets the current period apart from a history of insipid growth and intractable poverty.” [1]

“To gain knowledge about potential mediators in the globalization-poverty relationship we add a number of control variables to the baseline regression: The average level of education in the population over 15 years old, the share of the population residing in urban areas, and the government final consumption expenditure as a share of GDP and inflation… including all the above control variables in the same specification changes little except for small reductions in the size of the globalization coefficients suggesting that there is something else in the globalization process benefiting the poor.” [3]

“Income inequality is measured by the Kuznets ratio and the Gini coefficient. Globalisation and the poverty and income inequality measures are first analysed through linear regression. The results show that high levels of globalisation relate to low levels of poverty, suggesting that globalisation improves the situation of the poor in developing countries. The results also show that globalisation reduces income inequality. By having tested globalisation with different poverty and income inequality measures, we see that there are no differences when poverty is defined in relative or absolute terms. This shows that the argument often used, that poverty might be reduced by globalisation but income inequality worsens, has been proven wrong…When globalisation is related to income inequality the globalisation coefficient becomes insignificant, showing that income inequality is than explained by unobserved regional heterogeneity and no longer by globalisation.” [1]

“’Ravallion (2001, p. 1813) deals with the same issue but takes a prudent position, pointing to the need for “more micro, country-specific, research on the factors determining why some poor people are able to take up the opportunities afforded by an expanding economy (...) while others are not’. A similar conclusion is reached by the CEPR (2002, p. 67) report to the European Commission Group of Policy advisors, which stresses that ‘there is no strong evidence that globalization-related phenomena observed during the last two decades or so have contributed to increasing within-country inequality’.”[2]

“Of course, globalization has an impact on the environment, but it is a mixed one and generally far less scary than many people think. Most ecological problems are still local as opposed to global, and while cross-border integration can make the environment dirtier in some places, it can also help with cleaning it up.” [5]

“Climate change is by far the most difficult environmental externality of all to combat because of its (unusual) distance-insensitivity. Therefore, in order to tackle it we need more, rather than less, international cooperation.” [5]

“On the other hand, it is quite plausible that the proportion of the world's population living in extreme poverty has fallen over the past 20 years or so. For all the problems with Chinese and Indian income figures we know enough about trends in other variables––including life expectancy, heights, and other nonincome measures––to be confident that their poverty headcounts have indeed dropped dramatically over the past 20 years. If it is the case (as some experts claim) that household surveys are more likely to miss the rich than the poor, their results may overstate the proportion of the population in poverty. The magnitude of world population increase over the past 20 years is so large that the Bank's poverty numbers would have to be huge underestimates for the world poverty rate not to have fallen.” [4]

“Firstly, CON claims that PRO loses the debate if PRO cannot prove that economic globalization causes a decrease in absolute and relative poverty. This is false because this was not specified in the debate resolution. If it was, the resolution would read “On balance, economic globalization benefits worldwide absolute and relative poverty reduction.””

“consider a resolution saying X factor reduces the amount of fruit in the world. If PRO was to argue X factor reduces the amount of apples in the world, while not affecting the amount of other kinds of fruit, PRO would still be meeting their BoP because they have shown an overall decrease in fruit – the type does not matter. Similarly, when PRO shows a decrease in absolute poverty, PRO shows an overall decrease in poverty and therefore meets PRO’s BoP.”

“Beyond this, the definition of poverty was already agreed to, and relative poverty does not fit into that definition. Therefore, it is not PRO's BoP to prove that globalization decreases relative poverty. By trying to change the definition of poverty, CON is breaking the ruleset.”

“While giving a lot of evidence to back up his position, CON fails to give any real studies showing a strong correlation between globalization and inequality, instead relying on logical induction. A voter should always weigh scientific studies over logical induction as the former analyzes the data more closely than the latter.”

“PRO would like to remind the voter that this debate is about the world poverty, and therefore environmental arguments are outside of the scope of this debate”

“CON’s specific impact looks to the future, while the scope of this debate was defined to specifically be the present, and CON agreed with this.”

“Firstly, trash dumping is a non-unique argument because it is specifically motivated by “rapid population growth and urbanization,” two things that would continue to grow regardless of economic globalization.”

“While some effects can be attributed to globalization, the issue is not as bad as CON would want you to think. Beyond this, globalization is necessary in order to prevent further environmental destruction.”

“Climate change is by far the most difficult environmental externality of all to combat because of its (unusual) distance-insensitivity. Therefore, in order to tackle it we need more, rather than less, international cooperation.” [5]

Countries separating now would only make the issue worse. Therefore, if voters allow CON’s impact, it actually works for PRO by showing why globalization is even more necessary”

“PRO offers a counter-impact. According to a study, individual and area-level poverty killed 172,000 people in the U.S. in 2000 alone [6]. If that is what happened in America, imagine how many hundreds of thousands more deaths must have occurred in other countries. Having no economic globalization means allowing this number to grow higher. This clearly outweighs CON’s impact by far.”

“So even according to CON’s own source, it is “quite plausible” that poverty rates have dramatically dropped. “

“Furthermore, this claims that household surveys may overstate the proportion of the population that is in poverty. This is especially useful to PRO because the only World Bank data that PRO’s strongest source (the study done by Laurence Chandy and Geoffrey Gertz; source 2 in PRO’s round 1 speech)[1] uses is household surveys provided by the World Bank, meaning it is possible that the original numbers stated in PRO’s round 1 speech have understated the drop of poverty worldwide.“

“CON also presents a source allegedly saying the opposite of PRO’s main claim. This source does five things that CON has overlooked”

“Only looks at Africa when the debate’s scope is the entire world.”

“All this source has done is proved that population growth has outpaced globalization efforts in Africa – but even in that scenario, globalization is decreasing poverty, and PRO wins.”

“Even if this claim is true, PRO’s sources still show poverty decreasing around the world, and the scope of the debate is not just China.”

“Secondly, the source still says that globalization affected China and helped it, simply less so than internal Chinese efforts. This means that globalization did have a positive effect on China.”

PRO can not claim that because something is not specified within the resolution itself, it does not carry over to their BoP. Oftentimes, in order to prove one thing, it is implicitly required that other more specific things must be proven as well. For example, if I claim I am eradicating all terrorism, I am required to prove I am eradicating domestic and international terrorism since they terrorism is an umbrella term for the two. 

PRO’s response and metaphor ignores the fact that people in absolute poverty are also in relative poverty. This means that reducing absolute poverty does not mean that they leave the poverty umbrella. Ergo, a net reduction in absolute poverty does not translate into a net reduction in poverty in general.

CON did not change the definition of poverty in the least. The definition of terorrism is still “the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.” despite the obvious distinctions of domestic and international terrorism.

Similarly, the definition of poverty we agreed to was “"The state of being so financially poor that one's needs are not fully met." despite the clear and well-known distinction of relative and absolute poverty. As said above, poverty is functionally an umbrella term for many different things, this is why Wikipedia categorizes relative and absolute poverty under the same poverty entry. 

“ PRO tries to portray CON’s case as relying on logic and induction alone. PRO is only half-right. It is true CON’s case uses solid logic and induction, but CON’s case also contains plentiful statistics and studies accompanying every point therein which the voter can view at their leisure.”

“The fact that economic integration relates to poverty is rather clear cut. Increase in trade and foreign direct investments, a reduction in tariffs and other trade policies result in an increase of economic activities. These factors lead to higher GDP per capita, resulting in a decrease in poverty when the poor are also benefiting from the increase in GDP per capita. From this study it appears that from the economic integration the poor benefit too. Similar mechanisms apply for technological advancement.” [1]

“The construction of a reliable and independent database on poverty open to different approaches (as the UNU-WIDER database is for income distribution) should be one of the main goals on the poverty research agenda. This paper presents and uses a provisional framework for such a database.” [2]

“The static panel data estimation results imply that wage inequality increases with political globalization, smaller government, and more deregulation…the overall EFI and its subcomponent measuring the degree of economic freedom to international trade are found to be insignificant…Overall EFI and its subcomponents measuring the legal structure and degree of deregulation are associated with more earnings inequality in OECD countries.”

The real world facts are, whether due to globalization or not, inequality is soaring and is keeping poor people poor.

So even if the judge doesn’t buy the responses above, this negates any positive effect globalization might have.

Globalization-induced environmental arguments are absolutely within the scope of the debate because they directly affect the livelihoods of the impoverished. 
 
With death and disaster both economically and physically ravaging the poor, it is impossible to argue that globalization is a positive factor in poverty reduction. 

“On balance” implies that we are considering the overall effects of affirming or negating. That means that both the present and future should be weighed. And, as stated in CON’s observations, judges should prioritize long-term impacts because they cancel out short-term ones.
Lastly, CON never agreed to PRO’s interpretation (To be honest, CON overlooked it while writing their rebuttals). That said, CON immediately clashed with this interpretation in R1. 

“The key word in PRO’s source is “most.” Trash dumps are uniquely caused by globalization as demonstrated above.”

“The resolution refers specifically towards “economic globalization,” not international diplomacy due to increased diplomatic ties. “

“To combat climate change, a fundamental shift is needed. Globalization simply makes things worse.”

“The probability of this being true is extraordinarily low. Despite the possibility existing, the study in question still holds in its conclusion:”

“It is plausible, and important, that the proportion of the world's population living in extreme poverty has probably fallen over the past two decades or so, having been rising for decades before then. Beyond this we cannot be confident, because the World Bank's poverty numbers are subject to a large margin of error, are probably biased downward, and probably make the trend look rosier than it really is.”

PRO’s responses here completely miss the point of CON’s argument. CON is arguing that poverty numbers are oftentimes contested and unreliable, not that poverty is for sure going down. Indeed, the fact that the source cites the World Bank shows that with the same pool of numbers PRO is using one can identify a positive or negative trend depending on what one is looking for.

“Additionally, PRO does not seem to realize that poverty can either be measured as a percentage of the population, or as a total number. CON’s source identified a rise in the total number of those in poverty, while at the same time noting a decline in the percentage of the population in poverty. This is possible because of population growth.”

This is untrue. If the source is correct and the total number of Africans in poverty is increasing, it means that poverty is not being truly reduced.