Tournament: Glenbrooks | Round: 1 | Opponent: NA | Judge: NA
Framing
The standard is maximizing expected wellbeing
First, pleasure and pain are intrinsically valuable. People consistently regard pleasure and pain as good reasons for action, despite the fact that pleasure doesn’t seem to be instrumentally valuable for anything.
Moen 16 Ole Martin Moen, Research Fellow in Philosophy at University of Oslo “An Argument for Hedonism” Journal of Value Inquiry (Springer), 50 (2) 2016: 267–281 SJDI
Let us start by observing, empirically, that a widely shared judgment about intrinsic value and disvalue is that pleasure is intrinsically valuable and pain is intrinsically disvaluable. On virtually any proposed list of intrinsic values and disvalues (we will look at some of them below), pleasure is included among the intrinsic values and pain among the intrinsic disvalues. This inclusion makes intuitive sense, moreover, for there is something undeniably good about the way pleasure feels and something undeniably bad about the way pain feels, and neither the goodness of pleasure nor the badness of pain seems to be exhausted by the further effects that these experiences might have. “Pleasure” and “pain” are here understood inclusively, as encompassing anything hedonically positive and anything hedonically negative.2 The special value statuses of pleasure and pain are manifested in how we treat these experiences in our everyday reasoning about values. If you tell me that you are heading for the convenience store, I might ask: “What for?” This is a reasonable question, for when you go to the convenience store you usually do so, not merely for the sake of going to the convenience store, but for the sake of achieving something further that you deem to be valuable. You might answer, for example: “To buy soda.” This answer makes sense, for soda is a nice thing and you can get it at the convenience store. I might further inquire, however: “What is buying the soda good for?” This further question can also be a reasonable one, for it need not be obvious why you want the soda. You might answer: “Well, I want it for the pleasure of drinking it.” If I then proceed by asking “But what is the pleasure of drinking the soda good for?” the discussion is likely to reach an awkward end. The reason is that the pleasure is not good for anything further; it is simply that for which going to the convenience store and buying the soda is good.3 As Aristotle observes: “We never ask a man what his end is in being pleased, because we assume that pleasure is choice worthy in itself.”4 Presumably, a similar story can be told in the case of pains, for if someone says “This is painful!” we never respond by asking: “And why is that a problem?” We take for granted that if something is painful, we have a sufficient explanation of why it is bad. If we are onto something in our everyday reasoning about values, it seems that pleasure and pain are both places where we reach the end of the line in matters of value.
Moreover, only pleasure and pain are intrinsically valuable. All other values can be explained with reference to pleasure; Occam’s razor requires us to treat these as instrumentally valuable.
Moen 16 Ole Martin Moen, Research Fellow in Philosophy at University of Oslo “An Argument for Hedonism” Journal of Value Inquiry (Springer), 50 (2) 2016: 267–281 SJDI
I think several things should be said in response to Moore’s challenge to hedonists. First, I do not think the burden of proof lies on hedonists to explain why the additional values are not intrinsic values. If someone claims that X is intrinsically valuable, this is a substantive, positive claim, and it lies on him or her to explain why we should believe that X is in fact intrinsically valuable. Possibly, this could be done through thought experiments analogous to those employed in the previous section. Second, there is something peculiar about the list of additional intrinsic values that counts in hedonism’s favor: the listed values have a strong tendency to be well explained as things that help promote pleasure and avert pain. To go through Frankena’s list, life and consciousness are necessary presuppositions for pleasure; activity, health, and strength bring about pleasure; and happiness, beatitude, and contentment are regarded by Frankena himself as “pleasures and satisfactions.” The same is arguably true of beauty, harmony, and “proportion in objects contemplated,” and also of affection, friendship, harmony, and proportion in life, experiences of achievement, adventure and novelty, self-expression, good reputation, honor and esteem. Other things on Frankena’s list, such as understanding, wisdom, freedom, peace, and security, although they are perhaps not themselves pleasurable, are important means to achieve a happy life, and as such, they are things that hedonists would value highly. Morally good dispositions and virtues, cooperation, and just distribution of goods and evils, moreover, are things that, on a collective level, contribute a happy society, and thus the traits that would be promoted and cultivated if this were something sought after. To a very large extent, the intrinsic values suggested by pluralists tend to be hedonic instrumental values. Indeed, pluralists’ suggested intrinsic values all point toward pleasure, for while the other values are reasonably explainable as a means toward pleasure, pleasure itself is not reasonably explainable as a means toward the other values. Some have noticed this. Moore himself, for example, writes that though his pluralistic theory of intrinsic value is opposed to hedonism, its application would, in practice, look very much like hedonism’s: “Hedonists,” he writes “do, in general, recommend a course of conduct which is very similar to that which I should recommend.”24 Ross writes that “it is quite certain that by promoting virtue and knowledge we shall inevitably produce much more pleasant consciousness. These are, by general agreement, among the surest sources of happiness for their possessors.”25 Roger Crisp observes that “those goods cited by non-hedonists are goods we often, indeed usually, enjoy.”26 What Moore and Ross do not seem to notice is that their observations give rise to two reasons to reject pluralism and endorse hedonism. The first reason is that if the suggested non-hedonic intrinsic values are potentially explainable by appeal to just pleasure and pain (which, following my argument in the previous chapter, we should accept as intrinsically valuable and disvaluable), then—by appeal to Occam’s razor—we have at least a pro tanto reason to resist the introduction of any further intrinsic values and disvalues. It is ontologically more costly to posit a plurality of intrinsic values and disvalues, so in case all values admit of explanation by reference to a single intrinsic value and a single intrinsic disvalue, we have reason to reject more complicated accounts. The fact that suggested non-hedonic intrinsic values tend to be hedonistic instrumental values does not, however, count in favor of hedonism solely in virtue of being most elegantly explained by hedonism; it also does so in virtue of creating an explanatory challenge for pluralists. The challenge can be phrased as the following question: If the non-hedonic values suggested by pluralists are truly intrinsic values in their own right, then why do they tend to point toward pleasure and away from pain?27
Moral uncertainty means preventing extinction should be our highest priority.
Bostrom 12 Nick Bostrom. Faculty of Philosophy and Oxford Martin School University of Oxford. “Existential Risk Prevention as Global Priority.” Global Policy (2012)
These reflections on moral uncertainty suggest an alternative, complementary way of looking at existential risk; they also suggest a new way of thinking about the ideal of sustainability. Let me elaborate.¶ Our present understanding of axiology might well be confused. We may not now know — at least not in concrete detail — what outcomes would count as a big win for humanity; we might not even yet be able to imagine the best ends of our journey. If we are indeed profoundly uncertain about our ultimate aims, then we should recognize that there is a great option value in preserving — and ideally improving — our ability to recognize value and to steer the future accordingly. Ensuring that there will be a future version of humanity with great powers and a propensity to use them wisely is plausibly the best way available to us to increase the probability that the future will contain a lot of value. To do this, we must prevent any existential catastrophe.
Vax Mandate DA
1NC-Shell
Mandates boost overall vaccination rates – skeptics eventually get vaxxed
Jones 9/29 (Ja'han Jones is The ReidOut Blog writer. He's a futurist and multimedia producer focused on culture and politics. His previous projects include "Black Hair Defined" and the "Black Obituary Project.") “Turns out, COVID vaccine mandates work. Good thing more are on the way.” MSNBC. September 29, 2021. AW
As it turns out, many people who previously refused the Covid-19 vaccines are discovering that they will have to pay a great deal if they want to remain unvaccinated.
I don’t hate to say, “I told you so,” so I’ll say it: I told you so.
The Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in August effectively paved the way for vaccination requirements across the U.S. Turns out those mandates boosted the overall vaccination rate among some groups of workers, including teachers and health care professionals.
The number of vaccination mandates is growing. Given the choice between joblessness and getting a potentially lifesaving vaccine shot, many people are choosing the latter — even if begrudgingly.
After a vaccination mandate went into effect for health care workers in New York on Monday, the state reported that 92 percent of all its hospital and nursing home employees have gotten at least one shot — that’s a roughly 10 percentage-point increase among both groups.
And never fret, America’s private industry workers. If you clock in for a nongovernmental entity, it’s highly likely that your job imposes a vaccination mandate, as well. The mandates are taking hold beyond the world of health.
After United Airlines instituted a vaccination deadline of this Monday for its employees, CEO Scott Kirby said this week that 98.5 percent of its roughly 67,000 employees have been vaccinated.
Some states — including Maine, Rhode Island and Washington — will require vaccinations for health care workers beginning next month. Others — like Oregon and Colorado — will implement mandates for health care professionals later next month.
On Monday, a federal judge ruled that the New York City school district — the country’s largest — can require its employees to get vaccinated. On Wednesday, the San Diego Unified School District — California’s second-largest school district — announced a requirement that all eligible students and staff be vaccinated by December.
On Sept. 9, President Joe Biden said the government will require that all federal employees and contractors be vaccinated and that all private employers with 100 or more employees must require either vaccinations or weekly testing.
Covid-19 mandates are legal and ethical – but current labor laws are the only barrier preventing widespread strikes
Millhiser 7/30 (Ian Millhiser is a senior correspondent at Vox, where he focuses on the Supreme Court, the Constitution, and the decline of liberal democracy in the United States. Before joining Vox, Ian was a columnist at ThinkProgress. Among other things, he clerked for Judge Eric L. Clay of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and served as a Teach for America corps member in the Mississippi Delta. He received a B.A. in philosophy from Kenyon College and a J.D., magna cum laude, from Duke University, where he served as senior note editor on the Duke Law Journal and was elected to the Order of the Coif. He is the author of Injustices: The Supreme Court's History of Comforting the Comfortable and Afflicting the Afflicted.) “Yes, Covid-19 Mandates are Legal” Vox. July 30, 2021. AW
In 1902, the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, faced a smallpox outbreak. In response, the local health board ordered the city’s residents over the age of 21 to be vaccinated against this disease. Violators faced a $5 fine.
After a local pastor was fined for violating this vaccine mandate, he appealed his case all the way to the Supreme Court. The Court told him to pound sand in Jacobson v. Massachusetts (1905).
“The liberty secured by the Constitution of the United States to every person within its jurisdiction does not import an absolute right in each person to be, at all times and in all circumstances, wholly freed from restraint,” Justice John Marshall Harlan wrote for the Court. He added that “there are manifold restraints to which every person is necessarily subject for the common good.”
Under Jacobson, state and local governments — though not necessarily the federal government — may mandate vaccines for nearly all of their residents.
That decision has obvious relevance today. We now have multiple vaccines against Covid-19 that are both safe and shockingly effective, and they are available for free for all Americans. Yet the pandemic continues to rage in the United States because a large minority of Americans have yet to get a shot. While some people may face legitimate obstacles, others are just obstinate. Policymakers and other leaders, in other words, may need to take a page from Cambridge’s early 20th-century health board.
Some already are. Many of the first mandates are from employers: The state of New York, for example, recently announced that all of its employees will have to either get vaccinated or submit to weekly coronavirus testing, and President Joe Biden plans to impose similar requirements on federal employees.
Many private employers also require vaccines — Google, for example, will insist that its employees be vaccinated in order to enter the company’s offices. More than 600 colleges and universities require at least some of their students, faculty, and staff to be vaccinated.
These sorts of mandates will undoubtedly trigger lawsuits from vaccine resisters. In some cases, individuals with religious objections to vaccines or people with disabilities that preclude them from being vaccinated will have strong legal claims — much like schoolchildren who can already seek exemptions from schools’ vaccination requirements if they have religious objections.
But, assuming that the courts follow existing law — and assuming that Republican state governments do not enact new laws prohibiting employers from disciplining workers who refuse to be vaccinated — most challenges to employer-imposed vaccination requirements should fail.
Under Jacobson, moreover, states should be free to order everyone within their borders to be vaccinated against Covid-19, although it’s far from clear whether the federal government could do the same.
Of course, there is no guarantee that the Roberts Court, which is eager to impose limits on public health officials and not especially bothered about overruling precedents, will follow Jacobson if a state does enact a vaccine mandate. But there is good reason to believe that it will. Even Justice Neil Gorsuch, one of the most conservative members of the current Court, recently described Jacobson as a “modest” decision that “didn’t seek to depart from normal legal rules during a pandemic.”
The bottom line, in other words, is that, under existing law, numerous institutions within the United States may require their employees — and, in some cases, their citizens — to be vaccinated against Covid-19.
Your boss probably can require you to get vaccinated
Employment relationships in the United States are typically “at-will,” meaning that an employee can be fired at any time and for any reason, even if that reason is completely arbitrary. If you have an at-will relationship with your employer, your boss can fire you because they don’t like your haircut. Or because they don’t like what you had for breakfast last Tuesday.
Or, for that matter, because you refuse to get a Covid-19 vaccine.
The general rule, in other words, is that your employer can fire you for any reason unless some outside legal force — a federal or state law, or maybe an individual or collective bargaining contract between you and your employer — intervenes to give you additional job security. And there is no federal law prohibiting employers from requiring nearly all of their employees to get vaccinated.
Vaccine mandates guarantee strikes – that kills the work force
Koenig 11/4 (David Koenig of the Associated Press contributed to this report and is a contributor to K5 News) “Vaccine mandate rules affecting 84 million Americans finalized” K5 News. November 4, 2021 AW
WASHINGTON — Tens of millions of Americans who work at companies with 100 or more employees will need to be vaccinated against COVID-19 by Jan. 4 or get tested for the virus weekly under government rules that took effect Thursday.
The new requirements are the Biden administration’s boldest move yet to persuade reluctant Americans to finally get a vaccine that has been widely available for months -- or potentially face financial consequences. If successful, administration officials believe it will go a long way toward ending a pandemic that has killed more than 750,000 Americans.
First previewed by President Joe Biden in September, the requirements will apply to about 84 million workers at medium and large businesses, although it is not clear how many of those employees are unvaccinated.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulations will force the companies to require that unvaccinated workers test negative for COVID-19 at least once a week and wear a mask while in the workplace.
OSHA left open the possibility of expanding the requirement to smaller businesses. It asked for public comment on whether employers with fewer than 100 employees could handle vaccination or testing programs.
Tougher rules will apply to another 17 million people who work in nursing homes, hospitals and other facilities that receive money from Medicare and Medicaid. Those workers will not have an option for testing — they will need to be vaccinated.
Workers will be able to ask for exemptions on medical or religious grounds.
The requirements will not apply to people who work at home or outdoors.
Biden framed the issue as a simple choice between getting more people vaccinated or prolonging the pandemic.
“While I would have much preferred that requirements not become necessary, too many people remain unvaccinated for us to get out of this pandemic for good,” he said Thursday in a statement.
Biden said his encouragement for businesses to impose mandates and his own previous requirements for the military and federal contractors have helped reduce the number of unvaccinated Americans over 12 from 100 million in late July to about 60 million now.
Those measures, he said, have not led to mass firings or worker shortages, adding that vaccines have been required before to fight other diseases.
OSHA said companies that fail to comply with the regulations could face penalties of nearly $14,000 per violation.
The agency will face enforcement challenges. Even counting help from states, OSHA has only 1,850 inspectors to oversee 130 million workers at 8 million workplaces. An administration official said the agency will respond to whistleblower complaints and make limited spot checks.
The release of the rules followed weeks of regulatory review and meetings with business groups, labor unions and others.
OSHA drafted the rules under emergency authority meant to protect workers from an imminent health hazard. The agency estimated that the vaccine mandate will save more than 6,500 worker lives and prevent more than 250,000 hospitalizations over the next six months.
The rules set up potential legal battles along partisan lines between states and the federal government. Several states and Republican governors threatened to sue, contending that the administration lacks the power to make such sweeping mandates under emergency authority.
OSHA's parent agency, the Labor Department, says it is on sound legal footing. The department's top legal official, Seema Nanda, said OSHA rules preempt conflicting state laws or orders, including those that bar employers from requiring vaccinations, testing or face masks.
Senate Republicans immediately launched a petition to force a vote to overturn the vaccine mandate, but with Democrats controlling the chamber, the effort is nearly certain to fail.
The rules will require workers to receive either two doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines or one dose of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine by Jan. 4 or be tested weekly. Employees who test positive must be removed from the workplace.
Companies won't be required to provide or pay for tests for unvaccinated workers, but they must give paid time off for employees to get the shots and sick leave to recover from side effects that prevent them from working. The requirements for masks and paid time off for shots take effect Dec. 5.
Employers covered by the requirements must verify their workers’ vaccination status by checking documents such as CDC vaccination cards or records from doctors or pharmacies.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued a separate rule requiring vaccination for workers in 76,000 health facilities and home health care providers that get funding from the government health programs. A senior administration official said that several large private health care organizations imposed their own mandates and achieved high vaccination rates — 96 or higher — without widespread resignations.
A previously announced requirement for federal contractors to make sure workers are vaccinated was scheduled to take effect Dec. 8, but on Thursday the administration delayed that measure until Jan. 4 to match the requirements on other large employers and health care providers. Already more than a dozen states have sued to block the mandate on contractors.
For weeks, Biden has encouraged businesses not to wait for OSHA to act. He has touted businesses that announced their own vaccine requirements and urged other companies to follow their lead.
Administration officials say those efforts are paying off, with about 70 of the nation's adults now fully vaccinated.
Walmart, the nation’s largest private employer, said in late July it was requiring all workers at its headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, and managers who travel within the United States to be vaccinated by Oct. 4. The retailer stopped short of requiring shots for frontline workers, however.
United Airlines required 67,000 U.S. employees to get vaccinated or face termination. Only a couple hundred refused to do so, although about 2,000 are seeking exemptions.
In August, Tyson Foods told its 120,000 U.S. workers that they must be vaccinated by Nov. 1. On Thursday, the company said more than 96 of its workforce was vaccinated, including 60,500 people who got their shots after the August announcement.
However, some companies have expressed fear that some vaccine-hesitant workers might quit, leaving their workforces even thinner in an already-tight labor market.
Several corporate groups, including the Business Roundtable, endorsed the mandate. However, retail groups worried the requirement could disrupt their operations during the critical Christmas shopping period. Retailers and others also said it could worsen supply chain disruptions.
The National Retail Federation suggested the new rules are not needed because the rolling average number of new daily cases in the U.S. has fallen by more than half since September.
“Nevertheless, the Biden administration has chosen to declare an ‘emergency’ and impose burdensome new requirements on retailers during the crucial holiday shopping season,” said David French, a senior vice president for the trade group.
The number of new infections in the U.S. is still falling from a summer surge caused by the highly contagious delta variant, but the rate of decline has slowed in recent weeks. The 7-day moving average is down 6 from two weeks ago, at more than 76,000 new cases and 1,200 deaths per day.
The earlier mandate on federal contractors led to demonstrations by opponents, including workers at a NASA rocket engine test site in Mississippi. Some said they are immune because they contracted COVID-19. Others said vaccines violated their religious beliefs and constitutional rights.
“No one should be forced to take a medical treatment just to keep their job,” said Nyla Trumbach, an engineer at the site. “There’s years and years of experience and skill out here, and I just want anyone who’s watching to see what we stand to lose here if these people don’t keep their jobs.”
Declining workforce decimates the economy
Isidore 8/20 (Chris Isidore is a senior writer for CNN Business, where he covers the auto industry, airlines, labor and all other manner of breaking financial news. Over the last 30 years, he has covered most major US bankruptcies, including GM, Chrysler, Lehman Brothers, most US airlines and Sears, as well as the city of Detroit.) “Vaccine mandates at work meet their toughest opponent: America’s labor shortage” August 20, 2021. AW
At Kevin Smith's home health care agency in Massachusetts, only 52 of his 400 staff members have been vaccinated. He'd like to order them all to get the shot, but he says he can't risk a mass exodus.
It's a legitimate fear. The labor market is very tight, with a record number of job openings and not enough job candidates. And among unvaccinated workers asked what they would do if their employer instituted a mandate, 50 said they'd leave their job, according to a June survey by health policy think tank KFF.
"It puts you at risk of alienating the staff, if not losing them to a competitor," said Smith, who has run the family-owned Best of Care since 2013. "No one can afford to do that. That is why any employer in our industry is so reluctant to impose a mandate."
The meeting of the labor market challenge and public health crisis puts employers in a tough spot: The worker shortage means employer mandates are not likely to be the answer to raising the nation's vaccination rate. But a higher inoculation rate is exactly what experts say we need to end the pandemic.
Difficulty finding workers
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has given guidance to employers that they have the right to impose a vaccine mandate as long as there are exceptions for employees with health conditions that pose a risk or legitimate religious objections.
Yet "employers in a labor shortage environment don't want to create any barrier for employment, let alone any cause for people to go elsewhere," said Julia Pollak, chief economist for job site Ziprecruiter.
It's not clear how many employers are taking that step. A June survey from the Society of Human Resource Management showed 29 of workers say their employers are requiring vaccines. A Gartner survey from the end of July found only 9 doing so.
Even among hospitals, most employers don't have vaccine mandates: The American Hospital Association said only 2,100 hospitals, about a third of the nation's total, require vaccines. And many are in places where state laws or executive orders mandate them.
Brian Kropp, chief of research at consulting firm Gartner's HR practice, says he believes that figure will remain a minority -— even as household-name companies have begun implementing mandates in response to the Delta variant surge of Covid cases.
They're most common at major tech companies such as Google (GOOG) and Facebook (FB), or Wall Street banks such as Goldman Sachs (GS) and Morgan Stanley (MS). But there's a critical difference here: These employers offer high-paying jobs, benefits and other advantages that inspire workers to stick around.
For the many small businesses and other employers who depend on hourly workers to fill most positions, there's greater fear about losing vaccine-hesitant employees and not being able to find vaccinated workers to replace them.
"If you run a restaurant or a store and you have employees who are vaccine-hesitant, they are going to quit and go to the store or restaurant next door," said Kropp. "It's a whole lot easier for people to switch jobs, particularly in today's labor market."
Even some employers with stable workforces are reluctant to impose a vaccine mandate. While United Airlines (UAL) recent ordered all US employees to be vaccinated, rivals American (AAL), Delta (DAL) and Southwest (LUV) have yet to do so.
'Divisive' moral arguments and partial rules
Further complicating matters is opposition to mandates, even from employees who have gotten vaccinated themselves. The KFF survey in June found that even among those who are vaccinated, 42 said they don't want it mandated by their employer, while only 43 want a vaccine required.
"In general we find that vaccine mandates are very divisive," said Liz Hamel, vice president and director of public opinion and survey research at KFF. "There's a sense that getting a vaccine is personal choice."
Attitudes may be changing with the recent surge in cases, however: Recent polls conducted by Axios/Ipos and Gallup found a slight majority of Americans favoring employer vaccine mandates. That compares to KFF's June survey that found only 28 wanted an employer mandate and 61 opposed the idea.
Seven states — Arizona, Arkansas, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota and Tennessee — have passed laws banning vaccine mandates for at least some employers, according to the National Academy for State Health Policy. Similar legislation has been introduced in 39 other states, all but Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada and West Virginia.
Another complex issue is differing rules for white-collar vs. blue-collar employees. Major employers including Walmart (WMT) and UPS (UPS) are requiring vaccines for corporate office staff, but not for those on the front lines, working in stores or driving trucks.
Neither company would comment on whether the labor crunch for hourly workers is the driving force of the different rules.
"Those office environments are very different than our operating facilities, which have been safely staffed in-person since the beginning and throughout the pandemic," said a statement from UPS.
Some employers are following the lead of President Joe Biden's order for federal workers, giving them the choice of vaccination or the more stringent testing and masking, said Amber Clayton, director of SHRM's HR Knowledge Center.
"That's probably what we'll see more of than full vaccine mandates," she said.
A plea to government leaders
Smith, the CEO of the home health care agency in Massachusetts, wants more than just a model from the government: He would prefer a mandate at the state or federal level to require everyone in his industry to get vaccinated. It would level the playing field among all employers in the sector, he explained, and would help protect the health of his employees and clients.
"From a pure safety standpoint, it would make me feel better if it were required," he said. "And it would take the pressure off me."
Smith's wish is hardly unique, Kropp said.
Many other employers are worried unvaccinated workers could spread the virus even to inoculated coworkers and cause high absenteeism. And some workers, especially those with young children at home or other vulnerable family members, won't want to return to the office unless they know everyone else is vaccinated, he said.
"What almost every employer wants is either the governors or some other government body to say vaccines are required," Kropp said. "Then they get what they want, and they don't get any of the blame or frustration."
Economic decline causes global nuclear war
Tønnesson 15 (Stein, Research Professor, Peace Research Institute Oslo; Leader of East Asia Peace program, Uppsala University) “Deterrence, interdependence and Sino–US peace,” International Area Studies Review, Vol. 18, No. 3, p. 297-311, 2015 SJDI
Several recent works on China and Sino–US relations have made substantial contributions to the current understanding of how and under what circumstances a combination of nuclear deterrence and economic interdependence may reduce the risk of war between major powers. At least four conclusions can be drawn from the review above: first, those who say that interdependence may both inhibit and drive conflict are right. Interdependence raises the cost of conflict for all sides but asymmetrical or unbalanced dependencies and negative trade expectations may generate tensions leading to trade wars among inter-dependent states that in turn increase the risk of military conflict (Copeland, 2015: 1, 14, 437; Roach, 2014). The risk may increase if one of the interdependent countries is governed by an inward-looking socio-economic coalition (Solingen, 2015); second, the risk of war between China and the US should not just be analysed bilaterally but include their allies and partners. Third party countries could drag China or the US into confrontation; third, in this context it is of some comfort that the three main economic powers in Northeast Asia (China, Japan and South Korea) are all deeply integrated economically through production networks within a global system of trade and finance (Ravenhill, 2014; Yoshimatsu, 2014: 576); and fourth, decisions for war and peace are taken by very few people, who act on the basis of their future expectations. International relations theory must be supplemented by foreign policy analysis in order to assess the value attributed by national decision-makers to economic development and their assessments of risks and opportunities. If leaders on either side of the Atlantic begin to seriously fear or anticipate their own nation’s decline then they may blame this on external dependence, appeal to anti-foreign sentiments, contemplate the use of force to gain respect or credibility, adopt protectionist policies, and ultimately refuse to be deterred by either nuclear arms or prospects of socioeconomic calamities. Such a dangerous shift could happen abruptly, i.e. under the instigation of actions by a third party – or against a third party.
Yet as long as there is both nuclear deterrence and interdependence, the tensions in East Asia are unlikely to escalate to war. As Chan (2013) says, all states in the region are aware that they cannot count on support from either China or the US if they make provocative moves. The greatest risk is not that a territorial dispute leads to war under present circumstances but that changes in the world economy alter those circumstances in ways that render inter-state peace more precarious. If China and the US fail to rebalance their financial and trading relations (Roach, 2014) then a trade war could result, interrupting transnational production networks, provoking social distress, and exacerbating nationalist emotions. This could have unforeseen consequences in the field of security, with nuclear deterrence remaining the only factor to protect the world from Armageddon, and unreliably so. Deterrence could lose its credibility: one of the two great powers might gamble that the other yield in a cyber-war or conventional limited war, or third party countries might engage in conflict with each other, with a view to obliging Washington or Beijing to intervene.
Nuclear war causes extinction – famine and climate change
Starr 15 (Steven, Director of the University of Missouri’s Clinical Laboratory Science Program and a senior scientist at the Physicians for Social Responsibility) “Nuclear War, Nuclear Winter, and Human Extinction,” Federation of American Scientists, 10/14/2015 DD
While it is impossible to precisely predict all the human impacts that would result from a nuclear winter, it is relatively simple to predict those which would be most profound. That is, a nuclear winter would cause most humans and large animals to die from nuclear famine in a mass extinction event similar to the one that wiped out the dinosaurs.
Following the detonation (in conflict) of US and/or Russian launch-ready strategic nuclear weapons, nuclear firestorms would burn simultaneously over a total land surface area of many thousands or tens of thousands of square miles. These mass fires, many of which would rage over large cities and industrial areas, would release many tens of millions of tons of black carbon soot and smoke (up to 180 million tons, according to peer-reviewed studies), which would rise rapidly above cloud level and into the stratosphere. For an explanation of the calculation of smoke emissions, see Atmospheric effects and societal consequences of regional scale nuclear conflicts.
The scientists who completed the most recent peer-reviewed studies on nuclear winter discovered that the sunlight would heat the smoke, producing a self-lofting effect that would not only aid the rise of the smoke into the stratosphere (above cloud level, where it could not be rained out), but act to keep the smoke in the stratosphere for 10 years or more. The longevity of the smoke layer would act to greatly increase the severity of its effects upon the biosphere.
Once in the stratosphere, the smoke (predicted to be produced by a range of strategic nuclear wars) would rapidly engulf the Earth and form a dense stratospheric smoke layer. The smoke from a war fought with strategic nuclear weapons would quickly prevent up to 70 of sunlight from reaching the surface of the Northern Hemisphere and 35 of sunlight from reaching the surface of the Southern Hemisphere. Such an enormous loss of warming sunlight would produce Ice Age weather conditions on Earth in a matter of weeks. For a period of 1-3 years following the war, temperatures would fall below freezing every day in the central agricultural zones of North America and Eurasia. For an explanation of nuclear winter, see Nuclear winter revisited with a modern climate model and current nuclear arsenals: Still catastrophic consequences.
Nuclear winter would cause average global surface temperatures to become colder than they were at the height of the last Ice Age. Such extreme cold would eliminate growing seasons for many years, probably for a decade or longer. Can you imagine a winter that lasts for ten years?
The results of such a scenario are obvious. Temperatures would be much too cold to grow food, and they would remain this way long enough to cause most humans and animals to starve to death.
Global nuclear famine would ensue in a setting in which the infrastructure of the combatant nations has been totally destroyed, resulting in massive amounts of chemical and radioactive toxins being released into the biosphere. We don’t need a sophisticated study to tell us that no food and Ice Age temperatures for a decade would kill most people and animals on the planet. Would the few remaining survivors be able to survive in a radioactive, toxic environment?
1NC – Heg Impact
CP: A just government, except for the United States, should recognize the unconditional right for workers to strike except for industrial workers. (whole rez)
1NC
CP: The United States should recognize an unconditional right of workers to strike except for industrial workers. (us spec edition)
1NC
Industrial workforce shortages are happening now— Covid and inability to compete.
Scull and Stone 8/28 (John, an associate in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, office of Jackson Lewis P.C. His practice focuses on representing employers in workplace law matters, including preventive advice and counseling.) (James, a principal of the Cleveland, Ohio, office of Jackson Lewis P.C. From the opening of the office in 2006 until early 2020, Jim served as office managing principal in Cleveland. At that time, he stepped down to focus on his busy practice and increased task force activities within practice groups and serving as co-leader of the firm’s Manufacturing industry group.) “Manufacturing Labor Shortage: Cultivating Skilled Labor By Engaging Local Communities,” JDSupra, 8/28/21. https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/manufacturing-labor-shortage-1463687/ RR
The worker shortage in manufacturing has been exacerbated by the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, which erased over a decade of job gains in the manufacturing sector, eliminating more than 1.4 million positions, according to a report by Deloitte and the Manufacturing Institute (MI). To counter the trend, manufacturers should consider working with local schools and youth programs to develop a sustainable pipeline of talent.
While approximately 820,000 of the jobs lost in the COVID-19 pandemic have since been backfilled, nearly 500,000 positions remain open and manufacturing employers have had difficulty filling these roles. According to the MI report, manufacturing employers say it is currently 36 percent harder to find talent than it was in 2018, even though the unemployment rate today is much higher. This manufacturing employment shortage is likely to intensify as the number of unfilled manufacturing positions in the United States is expected to grow to approximately 2.1 million by 2030 — damaging the U.S. economy by up to $1 trillion.
While the pandemic certainly played a large role in damaging the U.S. manufacturing sector’s employment numbers, the worker shortage is nothing new. There are approximately five million fewer Americans employed in the manufacturing sector today than 20 years ago. Employers hope to reverse this trend and are under pressure to do so quickly as the median age of an American working in manufacturing is 44 years old, and older workers are retiring faster than they are being replaced.
A strong industrial workforce is key to US military primacy
Bloomberg Editorial Board 4/7 (Members of the editorial board will write and edit in other capacities within Bloomberg Opinion. Because our columnists have always spoken for themselves, they will continue as before — though columnists will still refrain from endorsing candidates, a policy we have had in place since we started in 2011.) “America’s Depleted Industrial Base Is a National Security Crisis,” Bloomberg, 4/7/21. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-04-07/america-s-depleted-industrial-base-is-a-national-security-crisis RR
President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s farewell address is most famous for its warning against the “unwarranted influence” of the military-industrial complex. But Eisenhower also stressed the defense industry’s importance to the country’s security: After all, it helped the U.S. maintain superiority over its rivals, forestall great-power conflict and win the Cold War.
Six decades on, America’s military remains the most advanced in the world — but the industrial base supporting it has deteriorated. Industry consolidation, domestic manufacturing decline and dysfunctional federal budgeting have combined to reduce competition throughout the defense supply chain, eroding military readiness and potentially jeopardizing national security.